RELATIVE CHOICES an Omake, so don't even vaguely take this seriously.
originally appeared in "Future Tense"
-----------------
Nabiki blinked. "They're rich, but they live in a place like THIS?!"
Kasumi and Akane clung to each other as lightning crackled and a cat howled somewhere nearby. Their eyes attempted to watch everything at once. Shadows seemed to move of their own accord.
"Now now, it isn't so bad." Soun shook his head. "They're just a little eccentric."
All three of the daughters noticed that the doorbell was a noose. All three of the daughters screamed when they saw the doorman.
"You rang?"
"Yes, Lurch, tell Mister Addams that I brought my daughters by to meet the future husband of one of them. And how *is* Puggsley?"
"Follow me," Lurch moaned.
------------------
"...and just think, one of you can marry Puggsley Addams and go live in that nice big house, with all the money, and I'm sure if you ask they'll put in a dojo." Soun finally stumbled to a halt. If any of his daughters were listening, it wasn't obvious.
Nabiki stared straight ahead. She had been pulled out of the carnivorous plant, but hadn't recovered from the experience. She occasionally twitched and shuddered. Soun was ashamed that one of his daughters was sufficiently far from her stoic samurai heritage that being nibbled on and viewing peristalsis from close up had rattled her that badly. As for the acid burns, why they hardly showed with her hair combed like that.
Kasumi had her little smile but her eyes were glazed over. She'd bravely offered to help out in the kitchen, only to learn that it was far from the safe haven that her own kitchen was. It had been a horrifying experience. Even worse had been being attacked by the entrees. Soun still wasn't sure what had happened in the kitchen, but he had noticed the way Kasumi had kept an eye on the silverware the entire time they were there. And when that one young girl had said how much she wanted to serve Kasumi specifically, his eldest daughter had turned quite pale.
Akane was still jumping at shadows and would likely have to be pried away from Kasumi at this point. Soun wasn't sure what it was, but going to play with Wednesday had apparently been an unsettling experience. Akane also kept feeling her neck for some odd reason.
"Well, here we go, this is the second place."
"It's clean," Kasumi noted, a tiny bit of hope in her voice.
"I don't see any gravestones," Nabiki observed, but wasn't willing to get her hopes up at this point. It had only been a day since visiting the Addams, after all.
"A big house." Akane calmed a little bit. No spiders visible either. This was a good sign.
"This is where the Chardins live, come on, let's get lunch here." Soun smiled at the signs of life coming back to his daughters.
--------
"No, no, no more!" Kasumi's eyes were wild. That look was mirrored in two other sets of eyes.
"Now now, this is the last one. This way each of my daughters will be engaged to marry, and everything will be set." Soun nodded solemnly. "It was quite difficult for me to track Genma down, but one of you marrying Ranma will ensure the Tendo legacy. In fact, this is the most important of the engagements since it is the oldest and involves the family property. He's not rich, but he's supposed to be a pretty good martial artist."
"So, whoever marries Ranma gets our house," mused Kasumi. Ranma was thirteen. That was way too young, but all things considered what was a little age difference?
"So, whoever marries Ranma gets the dojo," mused Akane. Same age. Gets the dojo. No little sisters with "play rooms" that had large spiky things and blades and a fondness for using various venomous creatures. Like that spider that had been nearly as big as Akane's head. Okay, he was still a *boy* but there was a difference between dumb and ignorant. He could grow up to be something like Doctor Tofu, you just had to get the caterpillar to the butterfly stage. And why had Wednesday wanted her to read that Necrono-whatsit book?
"Is he cute? Doesn't have an extendible mouth or three foot tongue? Hang around with undead or carnivorous plants? Live in a house with evil witches?"
"Yes, the house and dojo. I'm not sure. Definitely not on the last three. That's him," Soun pointed to a thirteen year old boy sparring with his father. "Now remember, you promised not to mention the engagement to him until he turns sixteen." Soun became aware that he was talking to thin air.
Genma stopped at Ranma's sudden vanishing.
"Mine!" Kasumi pulled at Ranma's right arm. She had been selfless long enough. Time to stand up for what was hers. Her kitchen. Her house. Not being served on a silver tray with plum sauce was also on that list.
"Mine!" Akane disagreed, pulling at Ranma's left arm. It was for the dojo, after all. Besides, Ranma was a martial artist, surely he had more in common with her than either Picolette or Puggsley.
"Mine!" Nabiki declared firmly, after all she could make herself rich and didn't need to marry into wealth. Ranma was into martial arts. Big deal, Nabiki could deal with martial arts. Iron corsets and oral surgery and forks being thrown by an old witch at one place, and the other place had plants that tried to eat you and food that crawled off the plate and a little sister that whispered how you'd look with a little plum sauce and 30 minutes at 350 degrees. As both arms were occupied, Nabiki tried to pull at Ranma's legs and succeeded accidently at tugging his pants off.
"Oops," said all three girls, staring at what was revealed. Fortunately he was wearing boxers that day. Unfortunately they'd slid a little from friction.
Genma gave a puzzled look to Soun, knowing that his old friend wouldn't violate their agreement to keep the engagement secret until the day they were to make it official.
Soun rubbed the back of his head. "Must be love at first sight, ha ha. heh."
Genma accepted that and looked back to where Ranma trying to pull his pants back on with three girls still latched onto him. They were arguing about who got Ranma. Damn, his son must be more manly than he had thought!
OMAKE OMAKE OMAKE OMAKE_ originally from "Genma Ascendent"
"What is this, another Bet fic?" Akane snorted as she looked through the script. "So what is it this time? Do I pull out a gun and shoot the pervert in the tub?"
"Well, if it's a Bet fic, at least I get to say something besides 'Oh my' and act like my brain was shut down from the cleaning fumes." Kasumi reached for another chocolate Pocky stick. "Because some writers base on the end of the manga instead of the beginning, the only thing left of Nabiki or my personalities is the most outstanding traits-turned-cariacture. You know what
would happen if the same thing were applied to you, Akane. The 'psycho-b*tch effect'."
"I'd get to be interested in a few things in addition to money, and it's nice to be able to stretch your role some. Just a moment, Akane. Ah, let's see." Nabiki adjusted her glasses. "WHAT IF Genma, after having been put through Hell by Happosai's training, had decided to become as unlike Happosai as he could?"
"Well, admittedly, THAT would be different," Shampoo shrugged and sat back as she looked over her script. "Oh hell, I show up only briefly, and that's as a 'damsel in distress'?"
"Better you than me," retorted Akane. "Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. I am *so* tired of all the stories where I get kidnapped by some magical prince or other. Why can't I be the one to be the knight come charging in to do the rescue?"
"Out of character," answered Ukyou, Nabiki, and Shampoo simultaneously.
"There was that once you saved him from Kodachi," Kasumi reminded Akane, frowning as she read her script. Maybe she ought to pencil in a few changes. She knew the author would be amenable if it came from her...
"Besides, that was your role in that 'Off Your Noodle' story, which was dropped because of initial response to the idea of Kaori Daikokuji winning that race." Kasumi stirred her coffee with her chocolate stick absently as she read through. "Oh my. Ukyou is Ranma's sister?"
"Gak!" Ukyou spit beer as she took in her own scene. "Oh, sorry, Akane. I never even wake up during the one scene I appear?! Excepting the montage scene? Phooey. That's worse than the Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne fusion!"
"He's rich, intelligent, not that great a fighter, built better, and going to college." Kasumi flipped through to the end. "And it's *not* a 'Kasumi gets Ranma' story? Pity, I'd at least get some good lines."
Everyone flicked back to the last page.
"That isn't necessarily a given, Kasumi. I got good lines and parts in 'Future Tense' and the 'Cat Scratch Fever' revision. Not that anyone noticed." Akane made a dismissing gesture. "At least in this one I get what I want - to be left alone!"
"I think it should be a 'Nabiki gets Ranma' story, after all, he's rich here and knows the value of money. Just imagine how well I could manage a newly wealthy nation's money." Nabiki smirked and regarded the group over the tops of her glasses. "After all, if I didn't maintain some interest in money, everyone would be screaming 'OOC' no matter what my motivational base was."
"I think it should be a 'Shampoo gets Ranma' story. See here, he's been accepted into the
Joketsuzoku." Shampoo pointed to a page. "Though I _do_ want to protest the continuing use of the term Amazon. 'Without breasts' indeed! What do they think *these* are?"
"What?" Ukyou looked up with a puzzled expression.
"The Greek phrase 'Amazon' references the practice of the nomad matriachal tribe that Homer wrote of as removing one of their breasts to be better archers," Kasumi said without looking up. "Not something the Joketsuzoku would normally consider."
"Why do I only get Ranma (not that I want him) when he's an arrogant egotistical jerk?"
Everyone else decided to ignore Akane's outburst, rather than get caught up in this argument again.
"I think it should be an 'Ukyou gets Ranma' story, after all maybe his sister could bunk with him at his new college!"
"At least it isn't like that 'Calvin & Hobbes' crossover," sighed Kasumi.
"I don't know, Genma falling into Spring of Drowned Bad Little Boy With Overactive Imagination seemed kind of fitting," Ukyou flipped around in the script. She had to have a spoken line SOMEWHERE! "And the idea of Ranma falling in Spring Of Anthropomorphic Somewhat Wise But Mainly Affectionate & Playful Tiger has *some* appeal."
"You didn't have Ranma going into Hobbes mode every time he got splashed," Kasumi rubbed her forehead. "I kept getting pounced on by an overly affectionate tiger begging for cookies."
"I kept getting pounced on by an overly affectionate tiger who thought I needed to loosen up and play more." Nabiki sighed and studied at a section of her script. She smiled a little, remembering the tickle wars in that story. Playing the part of the Ice Queen beginning to loosen up under the tiger's antics had been... refreshing.
Akane smirked. "Hey, after I beat the stuffings out of him, he *stopped* pouncing on me and trying to get all perverted. I came out ahead in that one."
"Well, I wouldn't have minded getting pounced on a few times," grumbled Ukyou. "It certainly would have been a change of pace."
Ranma-Hobbes pounced from his position in the shadows. The Tickle Wars were about to resume.
---------
OMAKE OMAKE OMAKE OMAKE OMAKE OMAKE OMAKE
originally from "Cat Scratch Fever"
Turning the other cheek, an omake by GreggSharp
---------------------------------
Akane is standing next to Ranma and giving her "cute" smile to the camera.
"Now, it's come to my attention that some of you don't accept that the violence
I commit upon Ranma is justified by his actions or particularly nice." Akane
smiles again at the camera, one eyebrow raised as if in inquiry. Her tone
suggests she's addressing children.
Ranma snorts. "Well, it's definitely uncute!"
Akane puts down the barstool she's just used to slam into Ranma's face and sits
down on it, smiling again at the camera. "As you can see, this is entirely
"Three Stooges" violence. No actual pain or harm done."
Ranma's down out of camera field but manages. "Yeah right!"
Akane tosses the mallet aside and smiles again, using a tone one would use to
explain something to a difficult preschooler. "Whether I use a mallet..."
"or a baseball bat..."
"or an archery set..."
"or a razor sharp katana..."
"urk! can someone call Doctor Tofu?"
"or even hundreds of thousands of volts, it doesn't hurt Ranma a bit because
it's all cartoon violence." Akane shrugs. "Besides he's got it coming for
calling P-chan a filthy pig."
[help] a tiny sign, smouldering slightly, appears at the bottom of the screen.
Akane stomps down on something out of sight a few times and the sign disappears.
Akane smiles again. "I hope this has made everything perfectly clear."
Akane leaves. A few moments of blank screen before a thoroughly beaten up, cut
up, arrows protruding from him, Ranma uses the barstool to crawl up into the
camera's view. He blinks a couple of times at the camera, then begins removing
arrows.
"Not real? Doesn't hurt? Doesn't matter? None of the bombs or blades or special
attacks or anything? After Jusendo and all? None of it?" Ranma stops and blinks
at the camera again. "Then why do I have something against hitting girls?"
Picking up a large mallet, Ranma (still bearing a few bruises and cuts) grins at
the camera. "Okay. Now who should I see first? Akane or Nabiki?"
After a few moments he nods and runs offcamera to the right. "Oh, Nabikiiiiii!
I've got something special for you today!"
"Well, give it here, Saotome."
"Okay. Since you asked for it."
"Oh, Akane! I've got something for you to express my affection!"
"Really Ranma?!"
"See folks, whether I use a mallet..."
"R-R-Ranma?"
"Or a mouko takabisha..."
"b-b-but you don't?!"
"or a kachuu tenshin amaguriken, it doesn't matter!"
"medic?"
=================
The Problems With Time Travel, an omake
by Metroanime (aka Gregg Sharp)
"Rei, are you all right?"
Rei held her head, trying to dislodge the sudden influx of visions which had overwhelmed it. "Oh."
Makoto frowned. "Heck, that's weird. I feel it too, like..."
"Like waking up from a bad dream or something truly terrible has just passed us by," Ami frowned. Whatever it was, it was certainly interrupting the study session.
"It was unpleasant," said Hotaru.
Everyone blinked.
"Why is Hotaru-chan here?" Usagi asked, then hastened to add a clarifier. "Not that you're not welcome."
Lots of puzzled expressions.
The door slid open and a boy none of them could recall seeing before stood there. "Venus? Jupiter? You're all here, you're alive? It worked? Thank..."
Everyone had gone from disturbed to puzzled to flabbergasted as this strange boy fell over and slammed into the low table they were surrounding. Ami added a side order of guilty relief as the boy missed her by a few inches.
Ami was up immediately and checking for a pulse. Finding none, and signs that the boy had been *crying* made this even more puzzling. "He's dead?"
"Okay, what the heck is going on?!" Minako was beyond flabbergasted. Usagi had gone into shock but she wasn't saying anything. "Why do we suddenly have a boy here who knows our Senshi identities and..." Minako ran out of steam abruptly. Dead? And why did the boy look sort of familiar?
Makoto looked at Ami trying to open the boy's clenched hand and used her own strength to force it open. The cause of death was immediately identified by everyone there.
"The Silver Millenium Crystal?!" Ami noted, then directing a questioning glance to Usagi.
Usagi fumbled for her brooch and checked, then showed everyone how the crystal at the center was missing.
"ARrrrgh!" Makoto said with considerable feeling. "Why? How? Someone tell me what the heck this means!"
"...and how we're going to deal with a dead body here." Rei pointed out helpfully. "How do we explain *this*?!"
"It's simple, time has been changed."
"WAAUGHHHH!"
As soon as everyone peeled themselves off the walls, Rei made a simple request. "Setsuna-san, can you just use the door like everyone else?"
Setsuna walked up to the boy and reached out to close his eyes. "Well, *now* you've earned my trust. Go gently, dutiful soldier."
"Whoaaa whoaa WHOA! Time-o out-o!" Minako held her hands up in a "T" formation. "What do you mean? Is this another menace from a Dark Kingdom, Black Moon, Chartreuse Wombat or something?"
"'Chartreuse Wombat'?" mouthed several of the sometimes Senshi.
"The sanctity of the timestream," began Setsuna.
"Stop!"
Everyone looked at Usagi. She rarely went into Princess mode, but it was showing now, the steel behind her usual fluff.
"Explain this, Setsuna." There was no hint of her usual ditziness. Rei bit back a comment as Usagi suddenly had that aura of authority around her.
Setsuna sighed and found a seat-cushion. "Fine. Can I at least get a cup of tea?"
---------
The tea had been hastily fixed, and now the body of the unknown boy had been laid off to the side where it wasn't sprawled inelegantly across the table. Besides, now they could close the door.
"It's simple enough," began Setsuna, "though where to begin?"
"This boy's from the future. Sailor Venus and Sailor Jupiter were... killed. This boy somehow got the Silver Crystal from Usagi and used his own life-force to bring them back." Ami said into the silence, putting together the clues.
"I died?!" Minako's hair went into wild cowlicks suddenly.
Makoto twitched a few times. She didn't like dying.
Setsuna looked unhappy but spoke as soon as Minako had stopped twitching. "I looked into the time loop as soon as I noticed something had changed. We all died."
"WaaaahhhH!"
Ami ignored Usagi's wail. "But what about Crystal Tokyo?"
"Created as a mockery," said Setsuna, her eyes closed as she remembered the horrible visions.
Many looks at the boy again, this time with a jumble of different emotions.
"Who's the boy?" Minako finally got out.
"Your boyfriend. Not trusted by myself, or Luna, or Artemis, and especially not by Haruka."
(sniffle) "I got a boyfriend and he's dead before I got to meet him?" Minako was ready to start a full blown crying jag at this.
"A new enemy occurred, someone who could mask themselves through time. I still wasn't able to see them clearly. Just that one after the other of our ranks fell. Sailor Mars was first, then Venus, then Jupiter, then Mercury, then Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Endymion, and Sailor Moon."
"You didn't die?" Rei asked the obvious question.
"Eventually," said Setsuna, shuddering slightly.
"How did we die?" Ami asked, thinking that if the menace were still out there they needed to develop a defense.
"The enemy is faster than we can get off attacks apparently. I couldn't see the enemy but I could see how the future versions of ourselves tried to fight it. After Sailor Mars was ripped in half, Sailor Moon went into shock and couldn't function. After that it apparently got in between your ranks and struck. It uses physical attacks backed by great strength and what was apparently a hard carapace or shell."
"How could you tell if you couldn't see it?" Minako asked in the silence following Setsuna's remark.
"Because when it punched through Sailor Jupiter's head, the remains sprayed out over quite a large area. Are you *sure* you want to know these details?"
Makoto slowly got up, excused herself, went outside and threw up.
"From what I further saw, this boy who had been told not to follow us, did so anyway. Minako was going to have to break up with him, since she'd already blown too many secrets during the Cherry Blossom Festival when she'd had entirely too much sake. He apparently didn't care. He snuck in, got past the Beast, and used the Crystal."
"So, he's..." Minako's gaze towards the dead boy was wistful. He wasn't cute. Still, just a boy who liked her enough to throw his life away for her? She finally gets a boyfriend and someone who understands her and he's dead before they finally meet?! What kami had she offended?!
"Not a member of the Royal Family. Not a member of the Silver Imperium. Just a normal everyday boy who saw the need to do something and did it even though he knew from one of Minako's stories that doing so would likely kill him."
Everyone spent a few moments looking towards the dead boy.
Ami tried to get images of exploding Makoto heads out of her mind. "Uhm, so..."
"Unfortunately, he wasn't that good at things and made some assumptions, so when he rebuilt the timestream there were a few changes." Setsuna frowned slightly. "Unfortunately, the Crystal does not come with an Operator's Manual."
"What kind of changes, Setsuna-mama?" Hotaru spoke for the first time.
"Well, first off, you're not staying with Haruka or Michiru." Setsuna glanced over the crowd. "You've been staying with Makoto."
"Well, that at least makes a certain amount of sense," said Ami. "After all, when they first met her it wasn't long before they *were* trying to kill her."
"That also explains why I'm here," Hotaru said, vaguely remembering something like that. Makoto saying she liked to cook anyway and there was extra room for another futon shortly after that bit in the planetarium. Hadn't that happened?
Setsuna sighed. "There's also the matter of Ami's fiance."
"WHAT?!" This almost qualified as a sonic assault.
Ami merely fidgeted and blushed and shrank in on herself while hoping he was cute.
Setsuna sighed again, unhappily. "This outrageously inept father tried to teach his son a special martial arts manuever called the 'Catfist' by throwing his son repeatedly into a pit of cats while the child was tied up with fish sausages."
There were several "eeew"s after that, but this was tame after the other news of the day.
"So... wait. I remember. There was a little boy and his father offered to engage me to him in return for medical treatment. My mother mainly wanted to get this boy away from his father so played along in the hope that the father would do something really stupid in front of witnesses so that the child could be saved from the next such lapse. His name was Run... Rum..."
"Ranma Saotome, your fiance and Makoto's sensei in Anything Goes martial arts," said Setsuna now rubbing her temples as if she had a migraine. This had not been a crossover timeline previously. "You're remembering it because the past is beginning to catch up. You were partly shielded because the change occurred very close to here."
Ami nodded and began writing details out in her notebook. She hoped he was cute.
"Waitaminute, Ranma Saotome?!" Usagi blinked. "I remember that name!"
"Yes, he was also engaged to you and to Rei and to any of the daughters Tendo and to Ukyo Kuonji," Setsuna said to Usagi. "I really need an aspirin."
"Ukyo Kuonji?! He was my sempai!" Makoto said brightly as she finally got back. "Waitaminute, my sempai was engaged to another guy?"
"Ukyo Kuonji is a girl who dresses up as a guy due to an oath she made," said Setsuna. "Make that an extra-strength aspirin."
Makoto sniffled as her sudden vision of being reconciled with her sempai crashed and burned.
"If you use the Silver Crystal, you *might* be able to fix it, Usagi, but I wouldn't bet on it." Setsuna normally didn't drink but was considering getting very very drunk at this point.
"Waitaminute, Ranma as in 'Ranma 1/2'? I have a manga on that right... Well, I *had* a manga." Rei blinked as she finally caught up. "*I* am engaged to Ranma Saotome?"
Setsuna couldn't help but smirk briefly. "Yes. 'Terrible tragic story' of young shinto shrine maiden tomboy who get engaged by great grandfather to son of wandering martial artist."
"That's crazy!" Rei exclaimed, a bit of panic in her eyes.
The smirk vanished and Setsuna winced. "I *really* need a headache pill. Or three. You don't have the manga anymore because timelines got crossed and now all that actually occurred."
"And he turns into a girl when splashed with cold water, turns back with hot, arrogant martial artist with no people skills? Father turns into a panda?" Rei flinched. Oh sacred flame, she did not like this.
"Is he cute?" Ami asked from somewhere within the blushing huddle.
"What about *my* boyfriend?" Minako asked. "He's dead over there."
"GET ME SOME ASPIRIN DAMN IT!" Setsuna rubbed her forehead. That hadn't exactly helped.
Rei scurried off. Everyone else just stared.
"AH! His body vanished!" Minako pointed. Great, now she didn't even have an ex-boyfriend.
"The past is catching up... oh no." Setsuna felt like beating her head against the table except she was already in serious pain.
"What?!" Minako was hopeful.
"Rei isn't engaged to Ranma anymore," noted Setsuna as Rei returned. "An eddy in the timestream wiped that and gave her a different fiance."
"What?!" Rei almost dropped the bottle of aspirin.
"Rei is currently engaged to someone else who manages shrines. A boy from Okayama named Tenchi Masaki. Do you mind giving me that aspirin now?" Setsuna took the bottle, shook out three of the painkillers and slugged them down with the last of her tea.
"Tenchi Muyo?!" Rei said with more than a trace of disbelief. "Well, that's a little better at least."
"Wow! Am I engaged to anyone, Makoto-mama?" Hotaru asked cutely, not even realizing that she was now fourteen years old.
"I don't know, Hotaru-chan. So Rei's engaged to a guy named Tenchi, Ami and Usagi are engaged to Ranma Saotome who is also my martial arts sensei?" Makoto asked. She was almost afraid to ask if *she* were engaged to someone.
"Oh, screw it," said Setsuna uncharacteristically. "*All* of us are engaged."
"WHAT?!"
"Oh, wait one moment. He didn't close the loop. I can undo all this!" Setsuna came up with an eerie light in her eyes. "That way only the Weakest Link would have to die."
"EXCUSE ME?!"
"I will *not* be engaged to Ryouga Hibiki," declared Setsuna. "Oh, Haruka, when did you get here?"
Haruka straightened his tie and wished that he could have shaved this morning. "Uhm, anybody notice something *different* this morning?"
Everyone (except Setsuna) shook their heads wildly on seeing a more masculine (and in need of a shave) Haruka in the doorway.
"Let me guess," said Minako after Haruka had walked away. "My dead boyfriend whose name I still don't know thought Haruka was a guy?"
"Apparently," said Setsuna.
"What happened to Luna and Artemis anyway?" Ami had just noted that the two mooncats were missing.
"Taking a sabbatical after they found out Ami's fiance suffers from extreme ailurophobia." Setsuna picked up the crystal that Usagi had apparently forgotten about. "I need to get busy."
"WAIT!"
Setsuna abruptly vanished. Everyone looked around at each other.
Ami watched her computer. "Temporal wave detected. Reaching us. NOW."
"I'm still here," noted Hotaru. "I wonder if I'm engaged still?"
Ami looked down at her notes. "Apparently I'm still engaged to Urawa-san."
"That's nice," offered Rei. "Do you suppose anything's changed?"
"Well, there's the picture of you and Yuuichiro after that bit with the daimon train girl," noted Usagi. "So he's probably still your boyfriend."
"That's not all that comforting you know," said Rei with a wince.
"Another temporal wave," said Ami after her computer beeped. "3,2,1. Ok."
"Here's the picture of when Haruka and Michiru split up." Minako sighed. "Well, with Haruka being such a flirt it was bound to happen sooner or later."
"Excuse me, look for something that's *changed*," advised Rei, looking about her with her scarlet eyes. "Though it might be that something already has changed and we wouldn't necessarily know it."
Everyone stared at the short-haired albino briefly.
"What do you mean?" Usagi asked, wondering if this was just more introspection on the part of the pale girl. Rei could be so weird some times.
"If our pasts, and everything with them changed, how would we know?" Rei Ayanami, Sailor Mars, began doing something that everyone that knew her dreaded. She was getting philosophical. "After all, do not our pasts shape us as individuals? If Tsukino-san was not so fastidious and so concerned with her skills as a practitioner of Wing Chun style Kung Fu, would she have been able to defeat Eudial in that battle? If Mizuno-san were not such a practical joker, would she have pursued Urawa-san - much less caught him in a snare trap until he agreed to marry her? Do not our individual pasts shape our present which in turn becomes our future? If..."
"Another temporal wave," interrupted Ami before Rei could build up too much steam. "Whatever Setsuna is doing, she's apparently having trouble. 3, 2, 1."
Everyone started looking around.
Serena offered a guess. "Is that a new jacket, Amy?"
Amy tugged at her WWII bomber jacket that she'd gotten from her cousin George. "No, I just don't wear it a lot."
"Nan desu ka?"
"Speak English, Hotaru, I know your Dad is very traditional Japanese but we lost that war a long time ago," advised Serena. "Besides, you're staying with Lita right now anyway."
"We're still costumed crimefighters, aren't we?" Mina nervously checked and gave a sigh of relief when she found her mutant powers of light generation were still intact. The Dazzler could still battle evildoers it looked.
Amy heard a beep and pulled out a heavily modified PDA. "Another temporal wave approaching. Uh oh. Looks like there's been a Hulk sighting in Nerima!"
This time the temporal wave was visible and seemed to carry the sound of Sailor Pluto swearing like a, well, like a sailor.
"I take it things are not going well at the Gate Of Time," grumbled Takeo Mizuno. Tuxedo Mercury hoped this wouldn't take long, he was missing soccer practice for this!
Yumemaru Tsukino, aka Tuxedo Moon, stretched his shoulders. "Well, what can we do?"
Mika Chiba, the sometimes Sailor Terra, just looked at her boyfriend and wondered what was going on.
Another wave and sound of someone inventively swearing.
"Pika?" Makoto inquired. "Pika pi pikachu?"
"Cle. Clefairy fairy fair," noted Usagi.
Ami sighed. All her pokemon were having a conversation and she was having to spend time working with her pokedex.
"um um umbreon," suggested Hotaru.
"Jiggly! Jigglypuff puff puff," insisted Minako.
"Char!" Rei disagreed strongly.
Another wave passed, this time with the sound of someone pleading for it to work this time.
"Nothing different," said Ami, taking a moment to look at herself in the mirror of her compact.
"Where's Master?" asked Hotaru, chewing nervously on the tip of her tail. She knew it was a bad habit but this sort of thing made her nervous. Of course, lots of things made her nervous.
Another wave though the sound accompanying it sounded like someone weeping.
There was a few moments of silence, which was broken as Sailor Pluto reappeared. She stared at each of them as if looking for anything out of place then let out a deep relieved sigh. "Thank kami. Everything's fixed. Here you go, Usagi-san."
Usagi took the crystal back then looked up at Sailor Pluto. She looked *awfully* stressed out.
"I think you need to schedule some quality time with your boyfriend," advised Minako.
Setsuna froze, then slowly turned, one eyebrow twitching. "*What* did you say?"
"Yes, Pluto-san," said Belldandy as she put down her teacup, smiling up at the twitching Sailor. "I'm sure Urd or Skuld would be happy to watch the Time Gate briefly."
*THUD!*
"You know, this is the first time I've ever seen Sailor Pluto faint," mentioned Minako.
"This is fate," insisted Rei.
------------
The model of time travel and changing futures doesn't stay consistent within the Sailor Moon series, so i thought i'd have some fun with it. Take it cool, people!
originally appeared in "Future Tense"
-----------------
Nabiki blinked. "They're rich, but they live in a place like THIS?!"
Kasumi and Akane clung to each other as lightning crackled and a cat howled somewhere nearby. Their eyes attempted to watch everything at once. Shadows seemed to move of their own accord.
"Now now, it isn't so bad." Soun shook his head. "They're just a little eccentric."
All three of the daughters noticed that the doorbell was a noose. All three of the daughters screamed when they saw the doorman.
"You rang?"
"Yes, Lurch, tell Mister Addams that I brought my daughters by to meet the future husband of one of them. And how *is* Puggsley?"
"Follow me," Lurch moaned.
------------------
"...and just think, one of you can marry Puggsley Addams and go live in that nice big house, with all the money, and I'm sure if you ask they'll put in a dojo." Soun finally stumbled to a halt. If any of his daughters were listening, it wasn't obvious.
Nabiki stared straight ahead. She had been pulled out of the carnivorous plant, but hadn't recovered from the experience. She occasionally twitched and shuddered. Soun was ashamed that one of his daughters was sufficiently far from her stoic samurai heritage that being nibbled on and viewing peristalsis from close up had rattled her that badly. As for the acid burns, why they hardly showed with her hair combed like that.
Kasumi had her little smile but her eyes were glazed over. She'd bravely offered to help out in the kitchen, only to learn that it was far from the safe haven that her own kitchen was. It had been a horrifying experience. Even worse had been being attacked by the entrees. Soun still wasn't sure what had happened in the kitchen, but he had noticed the way Kasumi had kept an eye on the silverware the entire time they were there. And when that one young girl had said how much she wanted to serve Kasumi specifically, his eldest daughter had turned quite pale.
Akane was still jumping at shadows and would likely have to be pried away from Kasumi at this point. Soun wasn't sure what it was, but going to play with Wednesday had apparently been an unsettling experience. Akane also kept feeling her neck for some odd reason.
"Well, here we go, this is the second place."
"It's clean," Kasumi noted, a tiny bit of hope in her voice.
"I don't see any gravestones," Nabiki observed, but wasn't willing to get her hopes up at this point. It had only been a day since visiting the Addams, after all.
"A big house." Akane calmed a little bit. No spiders visible either. This was a good sign.
"This is where the Chardins live, come on, let's get lunch here." Soun smiled at the signs of life coming back to his daughters.
--------
"No, no, no more!" Kasumi's eyes were wild. That look was mirrored in two other sets of eyes.
"Now now, this is the last one. This way each of my daughters will be engaged to marry, and everything will be set." Soun nodded solemnly. "It was quite difficult for me to track Genma down, but one of you marrying Ranma will ensure the Tendo legacy. In fact, this is the most important of the engagements since it is the oldest and involves the family property. He's not rich, but he's supposed to be a pretty good martial artist."
"So, whoever marries Ranma gets our house," mused Kasumi. Ranma was thirteen. That was way too young, but all things considered what was a little age difference?
"So, whoever marries Ranma gets the dojo," mused Akane. Same age. Gets the dojo. No little sisters with "play rooms" that had large spiky things and blades and a fondness for using various venomous creatures. Like that spider that had been nearly as big as Akane's head. Okay, he was still a *boy* but there was a difference between dumb and ignorant. He could grow up to be something like Doctor Tofu, you just had to get the caterpillar to the butterfly stage. And why had Wednesday wanted her to read that Necrono-whatsit book?
"Is he cute? Doesn't have an extendible mouth or three foot tongue? Hang around with undead or carnivorous plants? Live in a house with evil witches?"
"Yes, the house and dojo. I'm not sure. Definitely not on the last three. That's him," Soun pointed to a thirteen year old boy sparring with his father. "Now remember, you promised not to mention the engagement to him until he turns sixteen." Soun became aware that he was talking to thin air.
Genma stopped at Ranma's sudden vanishing.
"Mine!" Kasumi pulled at Ranma's right arm. She had been selfless long enough. Time to stand up for what was hers. Her kitchen. Her house. Not being served on a silver tray with plum sauce was also on that list.
"Mine!" Akane disagreed, pulling at Ranma's left arm. It was for the dojo, after all. Besides, Ranma was a martial artist, surely he had more in common with her than either Picolette or Puggsley.
"Mine!" Nabiki declared firmly, after all she could make herself rich and didn't need to marry into wealth. Ranma was into martial arts. Big deal, Nabiki could deal with martial arts. Iron corsets and oral surgery and forks being thrown by an old witch at one place, and the other place had plants that tried to eat you and food that crawled off the plate and a little sister that whispered how you'd look with a little plum sauce and 30 minutes at 350 degrees. As both arms were occupied, Nabiki tried to pull at Ranma's legs and succeeded accidently at tugging his pants off.
"Oops," said all three girls, staring at what was revealed. Fortunately he was wearing boxers that day. Unfortunately they'd slid a little from friction.
Genma gave a puzzled look to Soun, knowing that his old friend wouldn't violate their agreement to keep the engagement secret until the day they were to make it official.
Soun rubbed the back of his head. "Must be love at first sight, ha ha. heh."
Genma accepted that and looked back to where Ranma trying to pull his pants back on with three girls still latched onto him. They were arguing about who got Ranma. Damn, his son must be more manly than he had thought!
OMAKE OMAKE OMAKE OMAKE_ originally from "Genma Ascendent"
"What is this, another Bet fic?" Akane snorted as she looked through the script. "So what is it this time? Do I pull out a gun and shoot the pervert in the tub?"
"Well, if it's a Bet fic, at least I get to say something besides 'Oh my' and act like my brain was shut down from the cleaning fumes." Kasumi reached for another chocolate Pocky stick. "Because some writers base on the end of the manga instead of the beginning, the only thing left of Nabiki or my personalities is the most outstanding traits-turned-cariacture. You know what
would happen if the same thing were applied to you, Akane. The 'psycho-b*tch effect'."
"I'd get to be interested in a few things in addition to money, and it's nice to be able to stretch your role some. Just a moment, Akane. Ah, let's see." Nabiki adjusted her glasses. "WHAT IF Genma, after having been put through Hell by Happosai's training, had decided to become as unlike Happosai as he could?"
"Well, admittedly, THAT would be different," Shampoo shrugged and sat back as she looked over her script. "Oh hell, I show up only briefly, and that's as a 'damsel in distress'?"
"Better you than me," retorted Akane. "Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. I am *so* tired of all the stories where I get kidnapped by some magical prince or other. Why can't I be the one to be the knight come charging in to do the rescue?"
"Out of character," answered Ukyou, Nabiki, and Shampoo simultaneously.
"There was that once you saved him from Kodachi," Kasumi reminded Akane, frowning as she read her script. Maybe she ought to pencil in a few changes. She knew the author would be amenable if it came from her...
"Besides, that was your role in that 'Off Your Noodle' story, which was dropped because of initial response to the idea of Kaori Daikokuji winning that race." Kasumi stirred her coffee with her chocolate stick absently as she read through. "Oh my. Ukyou is Ranma's sister?"
"Gak!" Ukyou spit beer as she took in her own scene. "Oh, sorry, Akane. I never even wake up during the one scene I appear?! Excepting the montage scene? Phooey. That's worse than the Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne fusion!"
"He's rich, intelligent, not that great a fighter, built better, and going to college." Kasumi flipped through to the end. "And it's *not* a 'Kasumi gets Ranma' story? Pity, I'd at least get some good lines."
Everyone flicked back to the last page.
"That isn't necessarily a given, Kasumi. I got good lines and parts in 'Future Tense' and the 'Cat Scratch Fever' revision. Not that anyone noticed." Akane made a dismissing gesture. "At least in this one I get what I want - to be left alone!"
"I think it should be a 'Nabiki gets Ranma' story, after all, he's rich here and knows the value of money. Just imagine how well I could manage a newly wealthy nation's money." Nabiki smirked and regarded the group over the tops of her glasses. "After all, if I didn't maintain some interest in money, everyone would be screaming 'OOC' no matter what my motivational base was."
"I think it should be a 'Shampoo gets Ranma' story. See here, he's been accepted into the
Joketsuzoku." Shampoo pointed to a page. "Though I _do_ want to protest the continuing use of the term Amazon. 'Without breasts' indeed! What do they think *these* are?"
"What?" Ukyou looked up with a puzzled expression.
"The Greek phrase 'Amazon' references the practice of the nomad matriachal tribe that Homer wrote of as removing one of their breasts to be better archers," Kasumi said without looking up. "Not something the Joketsuzoku would normally consider."
"Why do I only get Ranma (not that I want him) when he's an arrogant egotistical jerk?"
Everyone else decided to ignore Akane's outburst, rather than get caught up in this argument again.
"I think it should be an 'Ukyou gets Ranma' story, after all maybe his sister could bunk with him at his new college!"
"At least it isn't like that 'Calvin & Hobbes' crossover," sighed Kasumi.
"I don't know, Genma falling into Spring of Drowned Bad Little Boy With Overactive Imagination seemed kind of fitting," Ukyou flipped around in the script. She had to have a spoken line SOMEWHERE! "And the idea of Ranma falling in Spring Of Anthropomorphic Somewhat Wise But Mainly Affectionate & Playful Tiger has *some* appeal."
"You didn't have Ranma going into Hobbes mode every time he got splashed," Kasumi rubbed her forehead. "I kept getting pounced on by an overly affectionate tiger begging for cookies."
"I kept getting pounced on by an overly affectionate tiger who thought I needed to loosen up and play more." Nabiki sighed and studied at a section of her script. She smiled a little, remembering the tickle wars in that story. Playing the part of the Ice Queen beginning to loosen up under the tiger's antics had been... refreshing.
Akane smirked. "Hey, after I beat the stuffings out of him, he *stopped* pouncing on me and trying to get all perverted. I came out ahead in that one."
"Well, I wouldn't have minded getting pounced on a few times," grumbled Ukyou. "It certainly would have been a change of pace."
Ranma-Hobbes pounced from his position in the shadows. The Tickle Wars were about to resume.
---------
OMAKE OMAKE OMAKE OMAKE OMAKE OMAKE OMAKE
originally from "Cat Scratch Fever"
Turning the other cheek, an omake by GreggSharp
---------------------------------
Akane is standing next to Ranma and giving her "cute" smile to the camera.
"Now, it's come to my attention that some of you don't accept that the violence
I commit upon Ranma is justified by his actions or particularly nice." Akane
smiles again at the camera, one eyebrow raised as if in inquiry. Her tone
suggests she's addressing children.
Ranma snorts. "Well, it's definitely uncute!"
Akane puts down the barstool she's just used to slam into Ranma's face and sits
down on it, smiling again at the camera. "As you can see, this is entirely
"Three Stooges" violence. No actual pain or harm done."
Ranma's down out of camera field but manages. "Yeah right!"
Akane tosses the mallet aside and smiles again, using a tone one would use to
explain something to a difficult preschooler. "Whether I use a mallet..."
"or a baseball bat..."
"or an archery set..."
"or a razor sharp katana..."
"urk! can someone call Doctor Tofu?"
"or even hundreds of thousands of volts, it doesn't hurt Ranma a bit because
it's all cartoon violence." Akane shrugs. "Besides he's got it coming for
calling P-chan a filthy pig."
[help] a tiny sign, smouldering slightly, appears at the bottom of the screen.
Akane stomps down on something out of sight a few times and the sign disappears.
Akane smiles again. "I hope this has made everything perfectly clear."
Akane leaves. A few moments of blank screen before a thoroughly beaten up, cut
up, arrows protruding from him, Ranma uses the barstool to crawl up into the
camera's view. He blinks a couple of times at the camera, then begins removing
arrows.
"Not real? Doesn't hurt? Doesn't matter? None of the bombs or blades or special
attacks or anything? After Jusendo and all? None of it?" Ranma stops and blinks
at the camera again. "Then why do I have something against hitting girls?"
Picking up a large mallet, Ranma (still bearing a few bruises and cuts) grins at
the camera. "Okay. Now who should I see first? Akane or Nabiki?"
After a few moments he nods and runs offcamera to the right. "Oh, Nabikiiiiii!
I've got something special for you today!"
"Well, give it here, Saotome."
"Okay. Since you asked for it."
"Oh, Akane! I've got something for you to express my affection!"
"Really Ranma?!"
"See folks, whether I use a mallet..."
"R-R-Ranma?"
"Or a mouko takabisha..."
"b-b-but you don't?!"
"or a kachuu tenshin amaguriken, it doesn't matter!"
"medic?"
=================
The Problems With Time Travel, an omake
by Metroanime (aka Gregg Sharp)
"Rei, are you all right?"
Rei held her head, trying to dislodge the sudden influx of visions which had overwhelmed it. "Oh."
Makoto frowned. "Heck, that's weird. I feel it too, like..."
"Like waking up from a bad dream or something truly terrible has just passed us by," Ami frowned. Whatever it was, it was certainly interrupting the study session.
"It was unpleasant," said Hotaru.
Everyone blinked.
"Why is Hotaru-chan here?" Usagi asked, then hastened to add a clarifier. "Not that you're not welcome."
Lots of puzzled expressions.
The door slid open and a boy none of them could recall seeing before stood there. "Venus? Jupiter? You're all here, you're alive? It worked? Thank..."
Everyone had gone from disturbed to puzzled to flabbergasted as this strange boy fell over and slammed into the low table they were surrounding. Ami added a side order of guilty relief as the boy missed her by a few inches.
Ami was up immediately and checking for a pulse. Finding none, and signs that the boy had been *crying* made this even more puzzling. "He's dead?"
"Okay, what the heck is going on?!" Minako was beyond flabbergasted. Usagi had gone into shock but she wasn't saying anything. "Why do we suddenly have a boy here who knows our Senshi identities and..." Minako ran out of steam abruptly. Dead? And why did the boy look sort of familiar?
Makoto looked at Ami trying to open the boy's clenched hand and used her own strength to force it open. The cause of death was immediately identified by everyone there.
"The Silver Millenium Crystal?!" Ami noted, then directing a questioning glance to Usagi.
Usagi fumbled for her brooch and checked, then showed everyone how the crystal at the center was missing.
"ARrrrgh!" Makoto said with considerable feeling. "Why? How? Someone tell me what the heck this means!"
"...and how we're going to deal with a dead body here." Rei pointed out helpfully. "How do we explain *this*?!"
"It's simple, time has been changed."
"WAAUGHHHH!"
As soon as everyone peeled themselves off the walls, Rei made a simple request. "Setsuna-san, can you just use the door like everyone else?"
Setsuna walked up to the boy and reached out to close his eyes. "Well, *now* you've earned my trust. Go gently, dutiful soldier."
"Whoaaa whoaa WHOA! Time-o out-o!" Minako held her hands up in a "T" formation. "What do you mean? Is this another menace from a Dark Kingdom, Black Moon, Chartreuse Wombat or something?"
"'Chartreuse Wombat'?" mouthed several of the sometimes Senshi.
"The sanctity of the timestream," began Setsuna.
"Stop!"
Everyone looked at Usagi. She rarely went into Princess mode, but it was showing now, the steel behind her usual fluff.
"Explain this, Setsuna." There was no hint of her usual ditziness. Rei bit back a comment as Usagi suddenly had that aura of authority around her.
Setsuna sighed and found a seat-cushion. "Fine. Can I at least get a cup of tea?"
---------
The tea had been hastily fixed, and now the body of the unknown boy had been laid off to the side where it wasn't sprawled inelegantly across the table. Besides, now they could close the door.
"It's simple enough," began Setsuna, "though where to begin?"
"This boy's from the future. Sailor Venus and Sailor Jupiter were... killed. This boy somehow got the Silver Crystal from Usagi and used his own life-force to bring them back." Ami said into the silence, putting together the clues.
"I died?!" Minako's hair went into wild cowlicks suddenly.
Makoto twitched a few times. She didn't like dying.
Setsuna looked unhappy but spoke as soon as Minako had stopped twitching. "I looked into the time loop as soon as I noticed something had changed. We all died."
"WaaaahhhH!"
Ami ignored Usagi's wail. "But what about Crystal Tokyo?"
"Created as a mockery," said Setsuna, her eyes closed as she remembered the horrible visions.
Many looks at the boy again, this time with a jumble of different emotions.
"Who's the boy?" Minako finally got out.
"Your boyfriend. Not trusted by myself, or Luna, or Artemis, and especially not by Haruka."
(sniffle) "I got a boyfriend and he's dead before I got to meet him?" Minako was ready to start a full blown crying jag at this.
"A new enemy occurred, someone who could mask themselves through time. I still wasn't able to see them clearly. Just that one after the other of our ranks fell. Sailor Mars was first, then Venus, then Jupiter, then Mercury, then Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Endymion, and Sailor Moon."
"You didn't die?" Rei asked the obvious question.
"Eventually," said Setsuna, shuddering slightly.
"How did we die?" Ami asked, thinking that if the menace were still out there they needed to develop a defense.
"The enemy is faster than we can get off attacks apparently. I couldn't see the enemy but I could see how the future versions of ourselves tried to fight it. After Sailor Mars was ripped in half, Sailor Moon went into shock and couldn't function. After that it apparently got in between your ranks and struck. It uses physical attacks backed by great strength and what was apparently a hard carapace or shell."
"How could you tell if you couldn't see it?" Minako asked in the silence following Setsuna's remark.
"Because when it punched through Sailor Jupiter's head, the remains sprayed out over quite a large area. Are you *sure* you want to know these details?"
Makoto slowly got up, excused herself, went outside and threw up.
"From what I further saw, this boy who had been told not to follow us, did so anyway. Minako was going to have to break up with him, since she'd already blown too many secrets during the Cherry Blossom Festival when she'd had entirely too much sake. He apparently didn't care. He snuck in, got past the Beast, and used the Crystal."
"So, he's..." Minako's gaze towards the dead boy was wistful. He wasn't cute. Still, just a boy who liked her enough to throw his life away for her? She finally gets a boyfriend and someone who understands her and he's dead before they finally meet?! What kami had she offended?!
"Not a member of the Royal Family. Not a member of the Silver Imperium. Just a normal everyday boy who saw the need to do something and did it even though he knew from one of Minako's stories that doing so would likely kill him."
Everyone spent a few moments looking towards the dead boy.
Ami tried to get images of exploding Makoto heads out of her mind. "Uhm, so..."
"Unfortunately, he wasn't that good at things and made some assumptions, so when he rebuilt the timestream there were a few changes." Setsuna frowned slightly. "Unfortunately, the Crystal does not come with an Operator's Manual."
"What kind of changes, Setsuna-mama?" Hotaru spoke for the first time.
"Well, first off, you're not staying with Haruka or Michiru." Setsuna glanced over the crowd. "You've been staying with Makoto."
"Well, that at least makes a certain amount of sense," said Ami. "After all, when they first met her it wasn't long before they *were* trying to kill her."
"That also explains why I'm here," Hotaru said, vaguely remembering something like that. Makoto saying she liked to cook anyway and there was extra room for another futon shortly after that bit in the planetarium. Hadn't that happened?
Setsuna sighed. "There's also the matter of Ami's fiance."
"WHAT?!" This almost qualified as a sonic assault.
Ami merely fidgeted and blushed and shrank in on herself while hoping he was cute.
Setsuna sighed again, unhappily. "This outrageously inept father tried to teach his son a special martial arts manuever called the 'Catfist' by throwing his son repeatedly into a pit of cats while the child was tied up with fish sausages."
There were several "eeew"s after that, but this was tame after the other news of the day.
"So... wait. I remember. There was a little boy and his father offered to engage me to him in return for medical treatment. My mother mainly wanted to get this boy away from his father so played along in the hope that the father would do something really stupid in front of witnesses so that the child could be saved from the next such lapse. His name was Run... Rum..."
"Ranma Saotome, your fiance and Makoto's sensei in Anything Goes martial arts," said Setsuna now rubbing her temples as if she had a migraine. This had not been a crossover timeline previously. "You're remembering it because the past is beginning to catch up. You were partly shielded because the change occurred very close to here."
Ami nodded and began writing details out in her notebook. She hoped he was cute.
"Waitaminute, Ranma Saotome?!" Usagi blinked. "I remember that name!"
"Yes, he was also engaged to you and to Rei and to any of the daughters Tendo and to Ukyo Kuonji," Setsuna said to Usagi. "I really need an aspirin."
"Ukyo Kuonji?! He was my sempai!" Makoto said brightly as she finally got back. "Waitaminute, my sempai was engaged to another guy?"
"Ukyo Kuonji is a girl who dresses up as a guy due to an oath she made," said Setsuna. "Make that an extra-strength aspirin."
Makoto sniffled as her sudden vision of being reconciled with her sempai crashed and burned.
"If you use the Silver Crystal, you *might* be able to fix it, Usagi, but I wouldn't bet on it." Setsuna normally didn't drink but was considering getting very very drunk at this point.
"Waitaminute, Ranma as in 'Ranma 1/2'? I have a manga on that right... Well, I *had* a manga." Rei blinked as she finally caught up. "*I* am engaged to Ranma Saotome?"
Setsuna couldn't help but smirk briefly. "Yes. 'Terrible tragic story' of young shinto shrine maiden tomboy who get engaged by great grandfather to son of wandering martial artist."
"That's crazy!" Rei exclaimed, a bit of panic in her eyes.
The smirk vanished and Setsuna winced. "I *really* need a headache pill. Or three. You don't have the manga anymore because timelines got crossed and now all that actually occurred."
"And he turns into a girl when splashed with cold water, turns back with hot, arrogant martial artist with no people skills? Father turns into a panda?" Rei flinched. Oh sacred flame, she did not like this.
"Is he cute?" Ami asked from somewhere within the blushing huddle.
"What about *my* boyfriend?" Minako asked. "He's dead over there."
"GET ME SOME ASPIRIN DAMN IT!" Setsuna rubbed her forehead. That hadn't exactly helped.
Rei scurried off. Everyone else just stared.
"AH! His body vanished!" Minako pointed. Great, now she didn't even have an ex-boyfriend.
"The past is catching up... oh no." Setsuna felt like beating her head against the table except she was already in serious pain.
"What?!" Minako was hopeful.
"Rei isn't engaged to Ranma anymore," noted Setsuna as Rei returned. "An eddy in the timestream wiped that and gave her a different fiance."
"What?!" Rei almost dropped the bottle of aspirin.
"Rei is currently engaged to someone else who manages shrines. A boy from Okayama named Tenchi Masaki. Do you mind giving me that aspirin now?" Setsuna took the bottle, shook out three of the painkillers and slugged them down with the last of her tea.
"Tenchi Muyo?!" Rei said with more than a trace of disbelief. "Well, that's a little better at least."
"Wow! Am I engaged to anyone, Makoto-mama?" Hotaru asked cutely, not even realizing that she was now fourteen years old.
"I don't know, Hotaru-chan. So Rei's engaged to a guy named Tenchi, Ami and Usagi are engaged to Ranma Saotome who is also my martial arts sensei?" Makoto asked. She was almost afraid to ask if *she* were engaged to someone.
"Oh, screw it," said Setsuna uncharacteristically. "*All* of us are engaged."
"WHAT?!"
"Oh, wait one moment. He didn't close the loop. I can undo all this!" Setsuna came up with an eerie light in her eyes. "That way only the Weakest Link would have to die."
"EXCUSE ME?!"
"I will *not* be engaged to Ryouga Hibiki," declared Setsuna. "Oh, Haruka, when did you get here?"
Haruka straightened his tie and wished that he could have shaved this morning. "Uhm, anybody notice something *different* this morning?"
Everyone (except Setsuna) shook their heads wildly on seeing a more masculine (and in need of a shave) Haruka in the doorway.
"Let me guess," said Minako after Haruka had walked away. "My dead boyfriend whose name I still don't know thought Haruka was a guy?"
"Apparently," said Setsuna.
"What happened to Luna and Artemis anyway?" Ami had just noted that the two mooncats were missing.
"Taking a sabbatical after they found out Ami's fiance suffers from extreme ailurophobia." Setsuna picked up the crystal that Usagi had apparently forgotten about. "I need to get busy."
"WAIT!"
Setsuna abruptly vanished. Everyone looked around at each other.
Ami watched her computer. "Temporal wave detected. Reaching us. NOW."
"I'm still here," noted Hotaru. "I wonder if I'm engaged still?"
Ami looked down at her notes. "Apparently I'm still engaged to Urawa-san."
"That's nice," offered Rei. "Do you suppose anything's changed?"
"Well, there's the picture of you and Yuuichiro after that bit with the daimon train girl," noted Usagi. "So he's probably still your boyfriend."
"That's not all that comforting you know," said Rei with a wince.
"Another temporal wave," said Ami after her computer beeped. "3,2,1. Ok."
"Here's the picture of when Haruka and Michiru split up." Minako sighed. "Well, with Haruka being such a flirt it was bound to happen sooner or later."
"Excuse me, look for something that's *changed*," advised Rei, looking about her with her scarlet eyes. "Though it might be that something already has changed and we wouldn't necessarily know it."
Everyone stared at the short-haired albino briefly.
"What do you mean?" Usagi asked, wondering if this was just more introspection on the part of the pale girl. Rei could be so weird some times.
"If our pasts, and everything with them changed, how would we know?" Rei Ayanami, Sailor Mars, began doing something that everyone that knew her dreaded. She was getting philosophical. "After all, do not our pasts shape us as individuals? If Tsukino-san was not so fastidious and so concerned with her skills as a practitioner of Wing Chun style Kung Fu, would she have been able to defeat Eudial in that battle? If Mizuno-san were not such a practical joker, would she have pursued Urawa-san - much less caught him in a snare trap until he agreed to marry her? Do not our individual pasts shape our present which in turn becomes our future? If..."
"Another temporal wave," interrupted Ami before Rei could build up too much steam. "Whatever Setsuna is doing, she's apparently having trouble. 3, 2, 1."
Everyone started looking around.
Serena offered a guess. "Is that a new jacket, Amy?"
Amy tugged at her WWII bomber jacket that she'd gotten from her cousin George. "No, I just don't wear it a lot."
"Nan desu ka?"
"Speak English, Hotaru, I know your Dad is very traditional Japanese but we lost that war a long time ago," advised Serena. "Besides, you're staying with Lita right now anyway."
"We're still costumed crimefighters, aren't we?" Mina nervously checked and gave a sigh of relief when she found her mutant powers of light generation were still intact. The Dazzler could still battle evildoers it looked.
Amy heard a beep and pulled out a heavily modified PDA. "Another temporal wave approaching. Uh oh. Looks like there's been a Hulk sighting in Nerima!"
This time the temporal wave was visible and seemed to carry the sound of Sailor Pluto swearing like a, well, like a sailor.
"I take it things are not going well at the Gate Of Time," grumbled Takeo Mizuno. Tuxedo Mercury hoped this wouldn't take long, he was missing soccer practice for this!
Yumemaru Tsukino, aka Tuxedo Moon, stretched his shoulders. "Well, what can we do?"
Mika Chiba, the sometimes Sailor Terra, just looked at her boyfriend and wondered what was going on.
Another wave and sound of someone inventively swearing.
"Pika?" Makoto inquired. "Pika pi pikachu?"
"Cle. Clefairy fairy fair," noted Usagi.
Ami sighed. All her pokemon were having a conversation and she was having to spend time working with her pokedex.
"um um umbreon," suggested Hotaru.
"Jiggly! Jigglypuff puff puff," insisted Minako.
"Char!" Rei disagreed strongly.
Another wave passed, this time with the sound of someone pleading for it to work this time.
"Nothing different," said Ami, taking a moment to look at herself in the mirror of her compact.
"Where's Master?" asked Hotaru, chewing nervously on the tip of her tail. She knew it was a bad habit but this sort of thing made her nervous. Of course, lots of things made her nervous.
Another wave though the sound accompanying it sounded like someone weeping.
There was a few moments of silence, which was broken as Sailor Pluto reappeared. She stared at each of them as if looking for anything out of place then let out a deep relieved sigh. "Thank kami. Everything's fixed. Here you go, Usagi-san."
Usagi took the crystal back then looked up at Sailor Pluto. She looked *awfully* stressed out.
"I think you need to schedule some quality time with your boyfriend," advised Minako.
Setsuna froze, then slowly turned, one eyebrow twitching. "*What* did you say?"
"Yes, Pluto-san," said Belldandy as she put down her teacup, smiling up at the twitching Sailor. "I'm sure Urd or Skuld would be happy to watch the Time Gate briefly."
*THUD!*
"You know, this is the first time I've ever seen Sailor Pluto faint," mentioned Minako.
"This is fate," insisted Rei.
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The model of time travel and changing futures doesn't stay consistent within the Sailor Moon series, so i thought i'd have some fun with it. Take it cool, people!
