Chapter 2: Peace at last
A scream interrupted the serene silence of the neighborhood. The neighbors didn't even turn their heads to the hideous sound as they had become desensitized to it. After all, it was the same person as always.
"Usagi! Please be careful! I spent months working on that, and you nearly destroyed it!" cried out Ami in anguish.
"I'm sorry! I didn't see it and. . . and . . . AAHHHHHHHH!!!" Usagi wanted to say more; but instead, she cried from the pain.
After Usagi finally calmed down, Ami decided that the best way for Usagi to remain mindful of what she was doing around her creation was to tell Usagi exactly what it was. She winced. This was not going to be easy, but she felt it was important to do. Plus, she just couldn't resist a chance to show off.
"Usagi? You see this metal thing right here?" asked Ami as she pointed to her creation that looked something like a UFO. It was much smaller, of course, than an actual spaceship. In fact it was only about a meter in diameter.
"Yeah," Usagi affirmed as she glared at it. After all, the thing was responsible for her pain. The little beeps it made as it dutifully worked on some great mystery wasn't helping her anger.
"Well, it's going to help us in future battles against our enemies! You see, it is a highly sophisticated robot. It has a huge multi-level neutral net that simulates the human brain better than any other neural net to date, allowing it to recognize natural languages. I've also built in state-of-the-art anti-gravity technology into it so that it can fly around. AND, it has technology to allow it to slip into the ethereal realm making it, in effect, invisible! It will be the perfect spy! In fact, I gave it the ability to send information it finds to my computer!" Ami said proudly. "Only problem is, it will need several years to become sentient because I don't know the correct settings for the weights in the neural net, so the machine will have to learn via trial and error," she hesitantly added, not wanting Usagi to think her creation was any less than perfect.
There, thought Ami, I think I did a good enough job explaining what it was. Probably even Kyo back at school would have understood that.
However, instead of getting the oooh's and ahhh's that Ami had been expecting, all she got was one big "HUH?" and a blank stare from Usagi. "Neural net? Don't you use those to catch fish or something?"
Ami just stood incredulously for a few seconds. No way! She couldn't figure out how someone couldn't understand what was to her extremely simple. She thought for a few seconds and tried again, "Well . . . what we have here is a robot that can become invisible and it can fly. In a few years, it will be as smart as us humans as well. It isn't smart right now because it is kind of like a baby; and it needs to learn for a while, first. And if it finds out anything when it is out spying, it will send it back to my computer."
"And if you fall on it, it will break. So be careful!" Ami added for emphasis.
Usagi seemed to get it this time although there was still an element of confusion on her face. "Ohhhhh! Why didn't you just say so the first time?" Ami promptly face-faulted.
As Ami got up, her eye caught the clock on the wall. She gasped. "Usagi, we will be late for the Senshi meeting if we don't hurry!" she said as she took off running.
Wow, thought Usagi as Ami streaked past her in a blur, she can sure move fast when she's motivated.
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"Glad you guys decided to make it," Rei said rather pointedly.
"It wasn't my fault! Ami forced me to listen to her talk about her new toy," Usagi shouted. Ami winced at Usagi calling her highly sophisticated robot a 'toy'.
"Always making excuses aren't you, Usagi? I'm getting tired of them!" Rei shouted back.
The two degenerated into a shouting match of "Am not's", "Am too's", and raspberries for a while. The rest of the senshi just sat there exasperated. They knew from experience that all they could do was wait for them to stop. They did, but it took them about 5 minutes. It was a good thing too, because everyone else in the room looked like they wanted to run out the nearest door.
"At any rate," Ami quickly interjected hoping to cut in before the fight resumed, "We came here to talk about the present situation." Ami asked.
"Hey, no enemies have appeared lately!" exclaimed Minako. "I'm really looking forward to being able to hang up my fuku and worry about normal things like boys again." She was all smiles. After all, the senshi hadn't gotten a real break in a long time.
The rest of the group murmured in agreement. Except for Rei. She seemed to be debating internally on an issue. She sighed as she decided that she had to speak up.
"I have been having a strange headache for the past couple of days. It is as if a terrible weight has been placed on my head. I asked the Great Fire, but I couldn't get any useful images from it. In fact, the only image I got was an odd picture of Mokoto and Ami hugging each other. The only odd thing is, Mokoto looked like she was about 4 or 5 years older than Ami. Also, Ami looked like she was the same age as she is now. I don't get what that has to do with anything; but since the Great Fire brought it to my attention, it must be important so I thought I would point it out."
Everyone in the group thought about this for a while but no one could come up with any good ideas for what it meant. Mokoto joked about it by saying that it must mean that she was more mature than the rest of the group. Ami thought that maybe an older Mokoto would come to the past for some reason. Perhaps even from Neo-Tokyo. No one else even had a clue.
Eventually the group of teenage girls got bored with the subject matter at hand. Convinced that all was right with the universe and that Rei's vision must not have been that serious, they decided to attend to more important matters at hand.
"FOOD!" Usagi screamed happily as Mokoto brought in soup for the entire group.
"There's a lot more of where that came from, plus I made a great surprise desert for later!" said Mokoto, extremely pleased with everyone's reaction to her cooking.
"Did you guys see that boy during History class? Man was he a major hunk! Really nice butt, too," Minako said dreamily.
"Don't you ever think of anything else other than boys, Minako? What about your studies? History happens to be a very interesting class, and I think that you should give it a chance." Of course, the voice belonged to Ami. Everyone else groaned at the comment.
"Oh come on, even you are looking at boys now, Ami," Minako said with a sly wink. "I saw the way you were looking at that guy who looked kind of like Urawa."
To this Ami's face went to a very deep shade of red, much to everyone else's amusement. Usagi couldn't help but join in the conversation at this point by saying things like, "Oh my God, does Ami actually like a boy? What is he like?" After all, these were the situations that Usagi practically lived for. Ami just kept on getting redder and redder, hoping that the earth would swallow her up.
DINGGGGGGGGGGGGG DONNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGG
Ami thanked everything that was holy for the sudden distraction. She took the opportunity to run to the door. "Hey guys, it is Hotaru, Haruka, and Michiru!"
"Um, hello," Hotaru said very timidly, to which everyone cried out "HOTARU!" Hotaru just blushed and looked down, suddenly interested in her shoes.
Haruka decided to step in at this point, "We just came by because we wanted to invite you all to Hotaru's birthday party. It will be on January 6, which is just a few days away. I hope you can make it. It will start right after school gets out. We'll have the party at our house of course."
No one except Usagi were surprised that Hotaru's birthday was upon them. They had, in fact, all picked out presents for Hotaru already. Usagi had somehow managed to let the fact slip through her head; but she figured she'd get Hotaru a present after the meeting. She nodded her head in affirmation with the rest of the group as if she knew what she was doing. I'll get her the best present to make up for my mistake, Usagi assured herself.
"Well, we didn't want to interrupt your meeting too much, so we'll go ahead and leave now," said Michiru. Everyone said their goodbyes; and with that, their visitors turned and left.
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Somewhere above the planet earth, hovered the spaceship. Utsuru had finally had the last burst of inspiration he needed. "Finally, I've got the perfect plan to take down the senshi. After that, of course, the rest of the world will be a breeze," laughed Utsuru. "This plan is so brilliant, I don't think anything could go wrong. I haven't missed even ONE detail this time. Kowasu will undoubtedly be pleased. Even Yoru might toss a kind word or two my way."
Utsuru laughed at his half-joke. Even though he figured out a long time ago that Yoru had some feelings for Kowasu, she was pretty much cold toward everyone else. Including him. At first, he thought she was just kissing up to Kowasu by calling Utsuru on every mistake he made; but that was really just the way she was. The ironic thing to him was that, even though Yoru liked Kowasu, Kowasu didn't seem to return any of her attention. Thus she had given up on the one person that she didn't treat like dirt. Of course, she wasn't stupid enough to treat Kowasu like dirt anyways; but that was beside the point.
He finished writing down his plan, and started off towards Kowasu's training center, where he was undoubtedly training Yoru. This plan was definitely going to be the ticket to getting back on good terms with Kowasu.
Back on planet Earth, Rei was having yet another one of her headaches.
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Well everyone, I hoped you guys liked chapter 2. It has somewhat of a slow pace and there isn't any action, but trust me, this chapter sets everything up for what is going to follow.
As usual, send flames, comments, opinions, viruses (no wait, don't do that) to smargarella@hotmail.com
A scream interrupted the serene silence of the neighborhood. The neighbors didn't even turn their heads to the hideous sound as they had become desensitized to it. After all, it was the same person as always.
"Usagi! Please be careful! I spent months working on that, and you nearly destroyed it!" cried out Ami in anguish.
"I'm sorry! I didn't see it and. . . and . . . AAHHHHHHHH!!!" Usagi wanted to say more; but instead, she cried from the pain.
After Usagi finally calmed down, Ami decided that the best way for Usagi to remain mindful of what she was doing around her creation was to tell Usagi exactly what it was. She winced. This was not going to be easy, but she felt it was important to do. Plus, she just couldn't resist a chance to show off.
"Usagi? You see this metal thing right here?" asked Ami as she pointed to her creation that looked something like a UFO. It was much smaller, of course, than an actual spaceship. In fact it was only about a meter in diameter.
"Yeah," Usagi affirmed as she glared at it. After all, the thing was responsible for her pain. The little beeps it made as it dutifully worked on some great mystery wasn't helping her anger.
"Well, it's going to help us in future battles against our enemies! You see, it is a highly sophisticated robot. It has a huge multi-level neutral net that simulates the human brain better than any other neural net to date, allowing it to recognize natural languages. I've also built in state-of-the-art anti-gravity technology into it so that it can fly around. AND, it has technology to allow it to slip into the ethereal realm making it, in effect, invisible! It will be the perfect spy! In fact, I gave it the ability to send information it finds to my computer!" Ami said proudly. "Only problem is, it will need several years to become sentient because I don't know the correct settings for the weights in the neural net, so the machine will have to learn via trial and error," she hesitantly added, not wanting Usagi to think her creation was any less than perfect.
There, thought Ami, I think I did a good enough job explaining what it was. Probably even Kyo back at school would have understood that.
However, instead of getting the oooh's and ahhh's that Ami had been expecting, all she got was one big "HUH?" and a blank stare from Usagi. "Neural net? Don't you use those to catch fish or something?"
Ami just stood incredulously for a few seconds. No way! She couldn't figure out how someone couldn't understand what was to her extremely simple. She thought for a few seconds and tried again, "Well . . . what we have here is a robot that can become invisible and it can fly. In a few years, it will be as smart as us humans as well. It isn't smart right now because it is kind of like a baby; and it needs to learn for a while, first. And if it finds out anything when it is out spying, it will send it back to my computer."
"And if you fall on it, it will break. So be careful!" Ami added for emphasis.
Usagi seemed to get it this time although there was still an element of confusion on her face. "Ohhhhh! Why didn't you just say so the first time?" Ami promptly face-faulted.
As Ami got up, her eye caught the clock on the wall. She gasped. "Usagi, we will be late for the Senshi meeting if we don't hurry!" she said as she took off running.
Wow, thought Usagi as Ami streaked past her in a blur, she can sure move fast when she's motivated.
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"Glad you guys decided to make it," Rei said rather pointedly.
"It wasn't my fault! Ami forced me to listen to her talk about her new toy," Usagi shouted. Ami winced at Usagi calling her highly sophisticated robot a 'toy'.
"Always making excuses aren't you, Usagi? I'm getting tired of them!" Rei shouted back.
The two degenerated into a shouting match of "Am not's", "Am too's", and raspberries for a while. The rest of the senshi just sat there exasperated. They knew from experience that all they could do was wait for them to stop. They did, but it took them about 5 minutes. It was a good thing too, because everyone else in the room looked like they wanted to run out the nearest door.
"At any rate," Ami quickly interjected hoping to cut in before the fight resumed, "We came here to talk about the present situation." Ami asked.
"Hey, no enemies have appeared lately!" exclaimed Minako. "I'm really looking forward to being able to hang up my fuku and worry about normal things like boys again." She was all smiles. After all, the senshi hadn't gotten a real break in a long time.
The rest of the group murmured in agreement. Except for Rei. She seemed to be debating internally on an issue. She sighed as she decided that she had to speak up.
"I have been having a strange headache for the past couple of days. It is as if a terrible weight has been placed on my head. I asked the Great Fire, but I couldn't get any useful images from it. In fact, the only image I got was an odd picture of Mokoto and Ami hugging each other. The only odd thing is, Mokoto looked like she was about 4 or 5 years older than Ami. Also, Ami looked like she was the same age as she is now. I don't get what that has to do with anything; but since the Great Fire brought it to my attention, it must be important so I thought I would point it out."
Everyone in the group thought about this for a while but no one could come up with any good ideas for what it meant. Mokoto joked about it by saying that it must mean that she was more mature than the rest of the group. Ami thought that maybe an older Mokoto would come to the past for some reason. Perhaps even from Neo-Tokyo. No one else even had a clue.
Eventually the group of teenage girls got bored with the subject matter at hand. Convinced that all was right with the universe and that Rei's vision must not have been that serious, they decided to attend to more important matters at hand.
"FOOD!" Usagi screamed happily as Mokoto brought in soup for the entire group.
"There's a lot more of where that came from, plus I made a great surprise desert for later!" said Mokoto, extremely pleased with everyone's reaction to her cooking.
"Did you guys see that boy during History class? Man was he a major hunk! Really nice butt, too," Minako said dreamily.
"Don't you ever think of anything else other than boys, Minako? What about your studies? History happens to be a very interesting class, and I think that you should give it a chance." Of course, the voice belonged to Ami. Everyone else groaned at the comment.
"Oh come on, even you are looking at boys now, Ami," Minako said with a sly wink. "I saw the way you were looking at that guy who looked kind of like Urawa."
To this Ami's face went to a very deep shade of red, much to everyone else's amusement. Usagi couldn't help but join in the conversation at this point by saying things like, "Oh my God, does Ami actually like a boy? What is he like?" After all, these were the situations that Usagi practically lived for. Ami just kept on getting redder and redder, hoping that the earth would swallow her up.
DINGGGGGGGGGGGGG DONNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGG
Ami thanked everything that was holy for the sudden distraction. She took the opportunity to run to the door. "Hey guys, it is Hotaru, Haruka, and Michiru!"
"Um, hello," Hotaru said very timidly, to which everyone cried out "HOTARU!" Hotaru just blushed and looked down, suddenly interested in her shoes.
Haruka decided to step in at this point, "We just came by because we wanted to invite you all to Hotaru's birthday party. It will be on January 6, which is just a few days away. I hope you can make it. It will start right after school gets out. We'll have the party at our house of course."
No one except Usagi were surprised that Hotaru's birthday was upon them. They had, in fact, all picked out presents for Hotaru already. Usagi had somehow managed to let the fact slip through her head; but she figured she'd get Hotaru a present after the meeting. She nodded her head in affirmation with the rest of the group as if she knew what she was doing. I'll get her the best present to make up for my mistake, Usagi assured herself.
"Well, we didn't want to interrupt your meeting too much, so we'll go ahead and leave now," said Michiru. Everyone said their goodbyes; and with that, their visitors turned and left.
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Somewhere above the planet earth, hovered the spaceship. Utsuru had finally had the last burst of inspiration he needed. "Finally, I've got the perfect plan to take down the senshi. After that, of course, the rest of the world will be a breeze," laughed Utsuru. "This plan is so brilliant, I don't think anything could go wrong. I haven't missed even ONE detail this time. Kowasu will undoubtedly be pleased. Even Yoru might toss a kind word or two my way."
Utsuru laughed at his half-joke. Even though he figured out a long time ago that Yoru had some feelings for Kowasu, she was pretty much cold toward everyone else. Including him. At first, he thought she was just kissing up to Kowasu by calling Utsuru on every mistake he made; but that was really just the way she was. The ironic thing to him was that, even though Yoru liked Kowasu, Kowasu didn't seem to return any of her attention. Thus she had given up on the one person that she didn't treat like dirt. Of course, she wasn't stupid enough to treat Kowasu like dirt anyways; but that was beside the point.
He finished writing down his plan, and started off towards Kowasu's training center, where he was undoubtedly training Yoru. This plan was definitely going to be the ticket to getting back on good terms with Kowasu.
Back on planet Earth, Rei was having yet another one of her headaches.
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Well everyone, I hoped you guys liked chapter 2. It has somewhat of a slow pace and there isn't any action, but trust me, this chapter sets everything up for what is going to follow.
As usual, send flames, comments, opinions, viruses (no wait, don't do that) to smargarella@hotmail.com