Story: Tainted Gestalt: New Morning

Decided to focus on Ataru here. Hope it meets your expectations.


Dawn broke over a new day, leading Ataru Moroboshi to sit up and stretch in his futon. He blinked in the still slightly dim light, scratched the side of his head, and spoke while stifling a yawn. “Man, what a freaky dream!” he said to nobody in particular. “Giant robots fighting giant monsters, magical girls fighting smaller monsters while in really small skirts, curses, mind control powers…”

He rolled out of bed, still not quite fully awake and went straight to the bathroom. “Shoulda realised it was a dream when the aliens showed up like that,” he said with a slight chuckle as he stripped down to fill a bucket with cold water, preparing to bathe in the traditional Japanese manner. “I mean, what kind of aliens just show up and say to beat us in a game or we conquer your world? Doesn’t make any - Huh? What happened to my voice? Why is it so high - Ack! Li’l Ataru! Where’d you go?!”

While his concern for his manhood rather obviously took a great deal of priority, another question did rather pop into his mind with minimal prompting: Namely, what the hell were these things on his chest? They almost sort of looked like - And now, Ataru was before the mirror staring at a kinda cute chick with messy, wet hair, a playfully mischievous smirk and tits that doubled as works of art. Goodness. He can easily imagine himself staring at those all day long, and, as he quite quickly learned, they were pretty sensitive as well. The possibilities opened up within his mind. Sneaking into girls changing rooms would be a cinch so long as he avoided hot water. The sex-changed pervert chuckled, scratched the side of his head with the pen he was holding, and -

Pen? Where did that come from? He didn’t have it a moment -

<i>Bright light surrounds everything as clothing fades away, replaced with a light too bright to stare upon. It transforms into a tight-fitting, gleaming white leotard, and then a series of decorations appear all around it to give it the vague appearance of a sailor fuku. White gloves. A tiara, a blue skirt, but the biggest change of all was not one that could be perceived with the eyes. Power. Strength of the sort that puts one above most mortals, without quite placing them among the gods either…

The power of justice. The power of righteousness. The power of the Moon.
</i>

Ataru Moroboshi was, at heart, a scoundrel and a pervert… But it is essential to differentiate him from other people that could be similar described. Sure. He was a selfish, skirt-chasing idiot the vast, vast majority of the time. But… Deep within, there was a little bit of decency within his typically wicked soul. A small part of him that was drawn to the surface in the face of such an awesome power that honestly made him feel… Humble. This was not an easy thing to accomplish, but still he felt it. Perhaps something from one of the others had leaked into him, or perhaps not. It was impossible to say. And all he had to do to take this power for himself was say a few simple words while holding onto this pen…

Ataru’s posture straightened out, causing a series of jiggles in interesting places that would normally have captured his entire attention. If this was all real, if last night’s stuff hadn’t been some freaky dream, then the aliens might not be fake either. Which meant… The tag race was real too.

And here he, or rather she, was standing there with a superpower.

<i>Wouldn’t work,</i> a sleepy voice inside his head said, a voice that most definitely did not belong to Ataru. <i>One superpowered person versus an alien armada equals massive amounts of collateral damage. The risk is absolutely not worth the reward.</i>

And then the voice fell silent with a stifled yawn and a sound somewhat like a head hitting a pillow, indicating it was one of the other seven reluctantly, briefly waking up to give a bit of advice. Right. Probably that far too serious for his own good stick in the mud with the gaze of obedience, which, come to think, might also be a good way to put an end to the hostilities. All she had to do was get the alien leader face to face, tell him to leave Earth alone, and while he was at it leave that hot chick in the bikini behind so they could get to know one another a bit better.

Trick was getting to him without overplaying her hand. And, come to think of it, she didn’t even know if it could be used to affect their alien minds. With a shrug and a noise that sounded like “hmph”, she turned around and dipped into the warm water, not really as surprised as she should be that she became a he once again. The pen also chose to vanish, which was a little bit weird but he could deal with that. What use had he of superhero powers anyway, if they couldn’t be used to stop an alien invasion?

So he found himself wishing that the others were awake right now. Shame how that worked out. Near as he could tell most of them had sort of connected in their own mornings, while he had connected in the afternoon after school. Meaning that he was ahead of most of them, who should probably wake up - What, early afternoonish? By which time he’d already be in the middle of the damned race. Just the first day of it. But still, the stress involved…

<i>Where am I?</i>

The thought had been so quiet, Ataru had nearly missed it. Looks like he had a little bit of company after all! That quiet kid, the one that was piloting the giant robot.

<i>Morning, Shinji!</i> he thought, extracting himself from the bath and honestly a little bit glad of the company. <i>You had a pretty rough time of it, huh?</i>

<i>I guess so. This is still so weird.</i>

<i>Tell me about it. Well. You saved your world. Guess it’s time for me to save mine, huh?</i>

Breakfast was solemn and silent, with his parents for once foregoing their usual complaints about “never should have had him” or about how much of a disgrace he was, or any of that usual nonsense. Though it seemed rather obvious to Ataru that Shinji seemed remarkably sympathetic. It took very little digging to find out why, and he actually felt really quite sorry for the kid. Man. And he thought he was unlucky…

It was rather remarkable the things you could learn about another person when parts of you were living in one another’s head. Okay, maybe ‘remarkable’ was the wrong word, but the point is taken, right? In this case the two boys had a few things in common. They had both found themselves under the burden of way, way too much responsibility, their fathers in particular were pretty disapproving of them, and though Shinji hid it pretty well, he did have a bit of a perverted soul underneath. While Ataru kept this aspect of himself wide open to the rest of the world, Shinji locked it away and kept it hidden from everyone. Besides which, he had other things on his mind than skirt chasing even before the giant robots and monsters made his life just a hint more stressful.

“Good morning, Shinji!” a completely stunning woman called. The name ‘Misato Katsuragi’ flitted past their minds at once. “You’ll be living with me from now on.”

<i>You… Lucky… Son of a bastard.</i>

<i>She’s just taking me in because she feels sorry for me.</i>

<i>Well then! Play up the sympathy card, and get her panties off!</i>

<i>B-But that’s - I mean- I would never - Uh -</i>

And there was the main reason for their fundamental differences. Kid had absolutely no confidence to speak of. He’d spent a portion of the day before piloting a giant robot, which he then used to murderkill a giant monster -  which had spent a large portion of the day stomping all over everything the military threw at it, which entailed everything except probably a kitchen sink store - and walked away from it relatively unscathed. It was hard to imagine any woman knowing he’d done that and not being a little bit moist at the sight. Then again: Ataru Moroboshi, giant pervert. Of course he’d have that impression.

<i>Well, you go move in with her,</i> Ataru thought as he strode outside the door in his running gear. “Time for me to go save the world!”

The streets were packed with people wishing him luck, which honestly was a rather new and fresh experience for him. It filled Ataru’s heart with something. Not confidence; he already had plenty of that. Not energy either, for he was just about impossible to keep down in that regard. It felt like… Hope. It felt like he was loved, wanted, and what was more he could feel a twinge of a smile playing on both his and Shinji’s lips as they shared the feeling between them.

<i>That’s the spirit!</i> he thought, and before long he could see his opponent. Standing on the line with her hands on her hips, peering over her shoulders, and, by the way, looking like she was the hottest thing around. The bikini helped that impression quite a lot.

The rules of the game were simple enough. Both competitors had to stand on their mark, and then they would play throughout the day. Dawn to dusk, and dawn was just about to start. Ataru was (weird dreams or not) quite well rested, and maybe could even rely on a couple of tricks they couldn’t know he’d have. Still. Best to test her out first. See what she can do before dropping the hammer. It might even prove unnecessary.

“Ready,” the announcer declared. “Set! Go!”

And Ataru was off like a rocket, with the faint sound of Shinji telepathically cheering him on, obviously as caught up in the action as everyone else around him. To his surprise the alien chick hadn’t budged an inch. Huh! Had she fallen for his manly charms, perhaps? Decided it wasn’t worth the effort? Better to give up and let him take her in his arms? Regardless of the reason he dove forward with arm outstretched, ready to take it on home and save his planet, quite literally right from the word go.

Then she moved. It was at the last possible moment, but she moved. Drifting up above him. Hovering in the air and staring down at him with hands behind her back and that same playful smile on her face. Reminded him of the expression in the mirror earlier on.

“You’re flying?!” he cried, and the alien giggled and began to levitate backwards away from him at high speed. “You didn’t say you could fly!”

“You didn’t ask!” she said, as if that was any excuse. Oh! It was <i>on</i> now! Unnoticed by everyone present, Ataru’s left eye began to flare up as a terrible power began to make its presence known…

1. Ataru is able to command Lum. What command does he give?
2. Ataru is unable to command Lum, because she’s not even remotely from this world. But people in the audience, that’s another matter.
3. Before Ataru could say anything, it rains. Lum is so shocked by this that she inadvertently lets him catch her.
4. It rains, and Ataru decides to transform.
5. Meanwhile, Shinji moves in with Misato. Cue hijinks.
6. Something else