When the flame started to shrink, Richard knew that he was in trouble, so he quickly dropped the useless weapon and began looking for an alternative one.

"Of course, there aren't any around," he muttered.

With no other option in mind, he figured it was time to use his non-offensive power to his advantage, so he focused and transformed into a vapor form. Perhaps there would be another opportunity to commandeer one of the men's arsenal at a later point or at least give them a new distraction of some kind.