Interesting things happen when you're not paying attention.

For instance, Duelo and Parfet had started dating openly. I mean, it was kind of inevitable, but I guess my talk about biology had sparked Duelo's interest enough to push that timetable forward.

Another thing: The replicators everyone used to make swimsuits had been re-purposed to make all sorts of odd holiday paraphernalia. It's still two weeks before Christmas, yet there's decorations going up all over the ship. Even the Special hanger for the Vanguards and Paksis Dreads is decorated. There's even ribbons stretched between my Vanguard and the wall.

"How did Hibiki just ignore all of this?" I mutter to myself.

"Hey!" Dita pokes my shoulder from behind. "You excited for Christmas?"

"Sure. It's been a while since I actually cared enough to celebrate."

She blinks at me. "You don't celebrate Christmas?"

"I do." I rest my hand on her shoulder. "My family just wasn't really that into it after my sister and I grew up."

"You have a sister?"

"Mmm." I affirm. "But yeah, we always exchanged gifts, ate a big meal together and hung out as a family all day, which is all that really matters."

"Wait, but I thought..." Dita's face contorts with effort of thought. "How do you have a sister?"

"...My mother gave birth to both me and her?"

"But wouldn't that require some sort of weird genetic manipulation? I thought you said that in the past, humans didn't need machines to procreate."

"Yeah..." Where's she going with this?

"Women don't get pregnant with boys, so obviously you have to do something special to make boys. I thought that there were special guys or something that could give birth to more boys."

"...If that was the case, I would have told you." I say. Don't think about MPreg. Please, please don't. DAMMIT. "No, in nature, women can get pregnant with either a boy or a girl. We're not ants with their ridiculous male to female ratio."

"Wow. So, I could have a boy?" Dita's got starry eyes for some reason.

"I actually don't know." I scratch the back of my head. "Seeing as there wasn't any male children born on Mejare, they might have modified your bodies... wait, that doesn't make sense." Dita looks at me in confusion as I start talking to myself. "They're planning on using you to fix themselves, and that would require you to be fully functional yourselves, not to mention that if they had the ability to modify humans genetically on that level none of this would have happened anyway." I tap my chin a few times. It's got quite a bit of stubble now, I should really shave it off. "So it means that the fetuses embryos must be modified... wait, no. Sperm carry the XY genes and the Eggs carry the XX, so splicing two eggs together should always result in a girl. That means that you should be able to conceive naturally and have either a boy or a girl." I blink and come back to reality. Not only is Dita looking at me, but so is Del.

"What are you talking about in public?" Del asks with an amused expression.

"John was telling me about making babies!"

"Yeah sorry, I'll try to be more discrete." I say.

Del's smirk turns into a full on predatory grin. "You really enjoy public spaces don't you? First we found you with Meia in the park, and now this."

"Haaaaahh. Can't you let that go already?" I groan.

"Yeah! He didn't do anything!" Dita comes to my defense.

"Oh! So you were watching?" Del rounds on Dita. "That's even better!"

"N-no! I wasn't!" Dita cries. "John, she's picking on me again!"

Normally, this situation would be amusing to me, but a variation on this conversation has been happening for the past two weeks. "Del, lay off."

She backs off a step, her grin not dropping. "Yes sir." She throws a mock salute.

"What are you even doing down here?" I ask the acid green woman.

Del pulls a small plastic slab about ten inches long from her pocket. "The captain must like you despite everything. These things are rare."

I accept the small thing and notice that it has a seam around the outer perimeter and a notch to slip a finger in and open it up. It's... "It's a netbook?"

"Netbook?" Del asks. "No, it's an information terminal. It accesses all the data stores on the ship."

...So, a laptop keyed into the Nirvana's systems. I have to stifle a grin. If they're still using anything like IP addresses, I can probably have some really interesting fun. "Er, this is great! Why are they so rare?"

"Eh, the captain didn't want too many people to be able to access the system. Like I said, she must really like you."

Dita scrutinizes my face. "You're not going after the captain too, are you?"

My eye starts twitching. "No, I'm not."

Del snickers. "Alright, well, I have to go back to actually working. You two can continue your deviant behavior once I'm gone."

Dita puffs her cheeks out, but doesn't say anything until the other girl leaves. "What's her deal?"

"I dunno." I look back at the small laptop, and note that the keyboard is at least standard QWERTY layout. I have a good idea of why Magno decided to trust me with this...

1 day ago:

Magno crosses her fingers. "You say that you're from another dimension."

I nod. We're in her office, only the two of us.

"And you say that we're from a TV show in your universe."

"Specifically, a anime like the stuff Dita watches."

Magno frowns. "That would explain a lot of your odd behavior, would it not. Tell me, do you have any proof of these claims?"

I sigh. "Well, I know that you have a picture in your desk of when you were a kid. You're holding a baby boy, who in the original show ends up being Hibiki, who was frozen and awoken on Tarak a few years ago. You also have a shelf hidden away where you keep a picture of all the deceased that died under your command."

"That's quite enough." She glances at me with steel in her eyes. "Why do you come to me with this information now, instead of back when you first boarded?"

"I didn't know everything then. Still don't." I shrug. "I just though acting the part of Hibiki would allow the course of events to remain unchanged. By now, everything is so off the rails it doesn't matter."

"Interesting." Magno crosses her hands in front of her face. "So you would truly know a lot about us that we would like to keep hidden."

"Yeah, I wasn't bluffing before."

"It seems I underestimated you. I felt you were an impressive liar and a bluffer, but this explanation just makes too much sense." She smiles slightly. "So, this other being, this fixer fellow. What does he think about you telling me this?"

"He'd be mad, I'm sure. He specifically old me not to... I think." I frown. "It's hard to remember. I recall him saying that I shouldn't tell anyone besides Meia, but not much beyond that. It's been too long."

"Yet you told me."

"Yeah, well, I figured that having you on my side is better than the alternative."

Magno sits back in her seat. "Getting back to the subject at hand, you want me to use this info to get home?"

"It's a backup. In case I die." I smile wanly. "Meia pointed out that in the remaining time until we get home, my chances of dying are around eighty percent, and that's not even counting the enemy Vandreads."

"You haven't told here all of this then."

I shake my head. "I'll probably tell her soon."

"Actually, about that. Are you willing to tell a few more people? I have an idea."

I shrug. "Why not? The Fixer's already gonna be mad at me."

And that's why I'm currently staring at a small laptop. Magno must be affording me a lot more now that she feels she can trust me.

That meeting we set up is tonight, but since I don't know exactly who's invited I can't exactly talk about it.

"Wow, I've always wanted to have one of those." Dita says. "Supposedly, you can monitor network traffic with those."

"It's got root access, got it." I respond absentmindedly. It doesn't have any recognizable ports like USB, CAT5 or HDMI. It does have some shiny gold plated contacts on the bottom of the laptop, presumably for charging... I wonder where the charger is is.

"Root access? No, this isn't a gardening tool." Dita says. "Quick! Turn it on! I want to see what it can do!"

I open the lid and press the unmarked buttons until the device lights up.

...Everything's in Japanese. Why am I not surprised?

"Huh. It looks like it needs to be calibrated to you."

"Calibrated? Dita, I can't read this."

"Really? But you speak Tarak, why can't you read it?"

"Where I come from, we speak Tarak and write Mejare."

She nods. "Fair enough." She presses few keys. "Want me to change the language for you then?"

"Yes please."

A few key presses later, and the text re-loads to something I can actually parse. It wants me to create an account, standard procedure. I start filling in text fields.

"I can't wait! I can find out all about the UFOs and aliens!"

"Mmhmm."

"What are you going to use it for?"

I pause in my typing. "Probably learning as much about everything as I can, so I can fix more things."

"Aw, you're no fun. I was sure you were going to get into everyone's computers and look at their porn."

"...I... I'm not going to do that."

She looks at me with a raised eyebrow.

"I'm not. That would be a violation of privacy."

"From what you said about before you came here, you used to do that all the time."

"No, I told them I was getting into their computers, and then I did, and I told them how to fix their security holes. That was me sneaking into their rooms, figuring out their passwords and looking at their stuff. This is like me owning a room where people write their secrets on the walls and then hope I choose not to read them."

Dita puts her lips out. "No fun."

"I like to pretend I'm a responsible adult during the day." I enter the last field into the machine and press enter.

It acts a lot like modern system from back home. There's a mouse analogue and a convenient file system, as well as a simple command line interface.

The most impressive part is the copious amount of documentation included on the drive for how to use the damn thing. I barely glance through a few pages before exiting the manual and looking at some of the installed things.

The first discovery is some sort of remote viewing software that allows me to connect to someone else's computer and take control if I wish. It doesn't even need a password to make the connection. I scroll through the list of available computers, Dita suddenly points to one. "Hey! that's mine!"

I click on it, and to my complete un-surprise, it has an alien set as the wallpaper. Dita takes the device from my lap and starts typing away. I watch over her shoulder as she opens some pictures and looks at them. "See? I knew you could just go ahead and look at anyone's pictures! I have these under a separate password on my computer, and it didn't ask for it."

"Er, Dita? That's bad. That means anything you put on there, I can access."

Her smile wavers, but doesn't disappear. "Okay, I don't mind. I trust you."

...Geh. "Alright. Can I have the laptop back?"

She hands it over, and looks up at the clock over the exit door. "Well, I need to go get something to eat. Are you coming?"

"Nah, I'm going to work on this a bit more."

"Remember to eat, okay?" She says.

I look up at her face, young and still so enthusiastic about everything. I do my best to smile up at her and say "Yeah, don't worry. I'll eat when I'm hungry."

With that, she turns and walks out the door.

I have to say, I'm getting better at basic social interactions. And isn't that sad, at my age.

I, Meia, walk into the briefing room to find a crowd already assembled. John sits in the center, conversing with Magno in a hushed whisper. Dita sits on the other side of him with Zan, and across from those two is Jura and BC. Del is leaning against the wall behind BC, and Duelo and Parfet are both whispering to each other- wait, no, Parfet is nibbling on his earlobe.

I look around at the assembled group. I had been summoned to a secret meeting by the captain, but this is the widest spread secret meeting I have ever attended. If not for Magno's presence, I would have assumed I was in the wrong place.

BC turns to me. "Ah, good. Almost everyone's arrived. We're just waiting on Bart."

"Bart? Even he's coming to this meeting?"

"Apparently." BC looks over at John. "John says that we all need to know what he's about to say."

"Did he have to invite half of the crew?" Jura complains. "It's getting stuffy in here already."

"He said he wanted Gascogne and Barnette to come as well, but they're busy." BC says.

Bart opens the door, peeks in and slides in as stealthily as he can manage. Everyone watches him as he slinks over to one of the unoccupied seats and slips into it. "What? You said this meeting was a secret, so I made sure to be stealthy!" He complains as everyone continues to stare.

BC shakes her head. "If you're acting weirdly, it'll just draw more attention."

"Ah, you're right." Bart's face drops. "Aw, I wanted to be a spy."

"Well, you're going to have to hold on to sensitive information." John says, and all eyes turn to him. "I have something that'll be news to most of you. It's... unpleasant. If you don't want to risk hearing it, now's the time to get out."

I glance around the room. He definitely has everyone's undivided attention now. Not a single person moves a muscle to leave.

"Alright." John take a deep breath. "You all know I'm really, really weird. Well, there's a good reason for it, and it's not the one I've been giving you. You see, I'm from another dimension, not just another planet."

Jura snorts audibly. "Oh, come on."

Magno speaks up. "Let him talk."

"I have proof." John shrugs. "Anyway, the main consequence of this is that I actually knew all of you before we got teleported here by the Paksis. Well, most of you." I note that he looks at both Zan and Del. He's obviously about to talk about how we're all just a cartoon in his universe, so I gather those two weren't in the show that much. "This is because, in my universe, your lives are the subject of a TV show."

Dead silence. I think everyone took a sharp breath and held it until John continued.

"In my universe, you guys are a story based around gender politics. You fight the harvesters, learn to get along with the opposite gender, and head home to hopefully curb the harvester's attempts to use you and your home planets for parts."

"That's absurd." Parfet says. "Multiple dimensional theory isn't sound."

John glances at her with a touch of disdain. "Your core, the Paksis, is also a dimension hopping thing. You better believe that multiple dimensions exist." He looks back towards the group at large. "Anyway, the upshot is that I know more than I should, and I know how it ended before I screwed everything up."

"You screwed it up?" Bart says. "How?"

"I'm not like the person I replaced, Hibiki. He was stupid, idealistic, and driven. I tend to overthink things and am absurdly practical. Aside from me, things have remained the same. That means that I knew roughly what was going to transpire, and what probably will transpire in the future assuming nothing too drastic changes, like say, a major course change or someone's death." John starts to fidget with his fingers on his shirt, worrying the edge of it.

"Wow." Del has let her arms drop to her sides and her smirk has disappeared. "That's... hard to believe."

"Yes, it is hard to believe." Duelo narrows his eyes. "What is this proof you mentioned earlier?"

"Well, I was kind of hoping I could use Gascogne for this." John rubs his head. "Well, I'm going to get the prediction out of the way as proof while I think of a good example."

"Prediction?" Dita says in a small voice.

"Yeah. In two weeks, on Christmas, we're going to come across a comet. That comet will have a harvester robot inside it." John blinks a few times. "Well, I just thought of a way to convince Bart."

Bart looks up skeptically.

"On the day of the merge, you hid inside that statue that was at the party. When Dita flew into the Ikazuchi, she took the head off of the statue at the neck, which almost killed you."

"...How did-"

"Because I watched it happen, multiple times." John interrupts. "I liked Vandread enough to watch it multiple times."

I pipe up. "So, how different is this now?"

John shakes his head. "I'm not sure. We seem to be going through these events in the same order, but the original Hibiki did things a lot differently. For example, he's a lot less friendly with the women due to being raised on Tarak."

Jura looks at John suspiciously. "Wait, are you saying that's how you knew I wouldn't like my Vandread combo when I was so desperate to try it out?"

"Yes. Oh, the floating platform never got deployed in the show, everyone stayed in orbit over that planet." John sniffs. "Hmm..."

Magno looks around the room. "Why don't you all ask him questions you think he shouldn't know, and if he knows the answer, you can be convinced. I, for one, am convinced as he correctly identified two of my belonging he could not personally have seen."

BC looks hard at John. "I suppose it's at the mines, then." She says cryptically.

John smirks and nods.

BC turns to us. "I'm convinced."

I figure I should speak up. "I believe him as well."

"You would." Del says. "You two are almost an item."

"No, he knows way too much about the future, and I asked him to verify things before today. He provided satisfactory evidence." I defend myself, though I can feel my cheeks heating up from her comment.

"Ah!" John says. "Duelo, Parfet. I have one for you. When the two ships first merged, Duelo was sent to engineering to help decipher the text that Pyoro was displaying." Duelo and Parfet both focus on John's face, which is looking relatively relaxed compared with the rest of the room. "You helped solve the overheating problem by mentioning detours to Parfet since there was a blockage of some sort." John tilts his head. "I seem to remember there was conversation about the Nirvana being a living being as well."

"Jeez." Bart says. "A TV show? Like a reality show?"

"Actually, It's similar to Dita's anime." John says. "Er, Dita? do you have the Strike witches Anime?"

Dita nods yes.

"Yeah, your show was made by them."

Quiet descends over the table for a minute.

"What about me?" Zan points to herself.

"Ah." John suddenly looks uncomfortable. "Not many characters actually got time in the spotlight, and I'm afraid that you're not... er..."

"Important enough?" She asks glumly.

"...Yeah. But hey! You're important to this version of me, so there's that."

Zan's face turns a deep shade of red.

Del frowns. "Same with me then?"

"Yeah." John confirms. "The reason I wanted to use Gascogne as the primary example is her episode hasn't happened yet, and I could point out something that would be almost irrefutable." He looks a bit frustrated. "What I wish is that I had brought the damned DVD set with me so I could rewatch it for inconsistencies and clues."

"Yes, that would be helpful." Magno says. "If nothing else, it would serve as an interesting retrospective."

Dita raises a hand timidly. "So, what can you tell about me?"

"Well, your dome got shut down." John says, then significantly softens his voice. "You were confused about all the panic, and decided to always smile and laugh, because that cheered everyone else up around you, which is why you have your current personality today."

"I never told anyone but the captain that." Dita looks floored.

John smiles sympathetically. "Yeah, I know."

As everyone else files out of the room, Dita and Meia stick around. I take the time to catch my breath. Answering their questions kind of took the wind out of me.

"John, you okay?" Meia asks.

I nod. "Yeah, just... that took more out of me then I was expecting."

"So..." Dita begins. She's looking a bit better now that there's not several sympathetic glances hitting her every three seconds. "We're in an anime?"

"Yup." I blow out my lips. "It's medium quality, but that's because I'm comparing it to stuff that came out much later."

"Was I prettier there in here?"

I give her an odd look. "Well, you look a lot better in real life, given you're not a drawing. Honestly, it's like having a cosplayer dressed up like you, but with your voice and mannerisms and your long hair isn't actually a wig."

"Huh." She tilts her head.

Meia sits down in the seat on the other side of me from Dita. "I thought you weren't going to tell anyone else."

I shrug. "I wasn't. I told Magno, and she wanted me to tell everyone who mattered to the plot. And I insisted Zan and Del got to sit in if they wanted to."

"We need to prepare for that comet harvester." Meia says. "We'll make a plan of attack and-"

"No need." I interrupt. "You and Hibiki took care of it no problem in the show, without any preparation. It's not strong, it just took the two of you by surprise."

"Oh. Well, that's good news."

Dita looks back up at me. "Did Hibiki like me?"

I smile at the red haired girl. "Eventually. it took him a lot longer to be comfortable around women that either of the two other guys. He was fiercely loyal though, and at the end, he was a pretty good guy."

"The end." Meia says to herself. "There's an end."

"Is it a good end?" Dita asks.

For the first time this evening, my smile is a true one. "Yeah. it's a good end."

Sleep doesn't come easily that night.

I don't know why. Nothing had really changed for me. if anything, i had just got a lot off my chest and it should be easier to sleep.

After the fourth round of getting up, rearranging the pillow and blanket, and settling back down, I finally noticed something was up. There's a box tucked into the corner of the room. Now, that in itself can't keep me up, but if I hadn't woken I wouldn't have found the box until later. I grab it and turn on the flashlight on my phone to read the box.

In my hands sits my set of Vandread DVDs. Not just something that looks like them, it has the corner ripped from when I brought it with me to my Aunt's house. I open the case to find all the disks are present. Flipping them over, they look like proper DVDs as well.

The only question remaining is, how did they get here?

So, I figured out something interesting.

Meia's birthday is in June, specifically June 10th. It happens almost at the end of the series when they're almost back at Mejare. If we say that none of the events of the series are out of order, and given that they mention that there's only 90 days left to travel at the start of season 2, we can conclude that Season 2 starts around march at the earliest. Which means between Christmas and March literally one important event happens: The final fight of season 1.

Not only this, but they say that the journey will take 270 days in episode 3 of season 1. Since the Jura's birthday is 8/31 and Dita's is 9/1, they have to have reached Mejare before then and also been teleported away from their home planets after these dates.

So, they were probably moved out in September or October and reach Mejare in July or August.

Which means I'm 2-3 months into my story, and I have three months of nothing to fill.

YAY.