Momo: The Mad Tinkering Peach.
Myria had been defeated. The world was relatively unchanged. The main differences were that now there was life starting to sprout in the once notorious Desert of Death and the ferocious sea had calmed greatly, allowing people to cross at their leisure.
The vast majority of the world had not even noticed that the overly protective mother figure that doted over them was no longer there. Life went on.
Two full years later.
Momo, the engineer with a thirst for knowledge that was pretty much unable to be quenched, was in her tower. It was a day like any other, as she was toiling, tinkering, and playing with machines she had brought back over from the other side of the world.
Unbeknownst to Momo, some of her friends had been planning a little reunion. Ryu, prodigal son of the Brood, Rei, metamorphing Woren ninja, and Nina, princess of Windia's Wing Clan, had all gathered at the base of Momo's tower. While Ryu and Rei still lived together as brothers in the Cedar Wood, it had been some time since they had all been together. Princess Nina wanted to "get the band back together" for old times' sake.
They had been through the Tower before and even over the course of two years passing, not much had changed. There were still machine parts all over the place and random beasts and robot soldiers roaming about. Nothing a dragon, a weretiger, and a powerful sorceress couldn't handle. They made their way through the Tower with about as much trouble as a girl with big breasts has getting free drinks at a bar. When they broke the plane of the top floor, Honey, Momo's navigator unit and sidekick, recognized them immediately.
"Honey!", Princess Nina squealed. "It has been a long time, hasn't it?"
"Seven hundred thirty one days, six hours and twenty five minutes, princess," Honey replied in a high pitched, almost monotone voice.
The three friends were all taken aback by Honey's response. They had never heard Honey speak before. They had all just figured she couldn't. "Well, don't that just beat all," Rei said.
"The sudden change in your body language suggests you are all now experiencing surprise and awe. Allow me to explain. All Navigator units were created with the ability to speak. My voice modulator was damaged before Momo found and reactivated me. She learned how to fix it while studying other machines brought back from Station Myria."
"That girl never ceases to amaze me," Nina said. "I swear I would trade my seat in the royal family for even a fraction of her hyper intellect."
"I will relay your compliment to her," Honey said. "She is currently in Lab 4 past the library."
"Can we go talk to her?" Rei asked.
"Of course. While she always remains busy, Momo always welcomes visitors," Honey replied.
"Sweet! Let's go see our mad scientist," Rei said as Nina knelt next to Honey and picked her up.
"Lab 4?" Ryu pondered aloud. "I thought Professor Repsol only had three labs in the tower."
"Momo added Lab 4 after our return from our latest excavation tour of the wreckage of Station Myria," Honey explained. "She uses it to house her experiments in the field of genetics."
"Oh, okay." Ryu said. "Genetics." He leaned toward Princess Nina and whispered, "What's genetics?"
She looked at him with just as puzzled a look on her face as he had on his and shrugged her shoulders.
They passed through the library and into the new wing of the Tower that was home to Lab 4. As they walked in, they all saw a large glass tube on the far wall filled with an odd thick blue liquid. Floating in it was an obscured mass that none of them could identify. Then they heard the voice from above on a catwalk that stretched around a corner.
"How is the internal pressure for the chamber holding up down there?" the voice said.
Suddenly and surprisingly, they heard the same voice come from the ground level. "Pressure is stable and initial vitals are green. The new instant self correction protocols we added are working like a charm. We can pop the cap any time now."
The voice was definitely Momo's, but why were they hearing it in two different places?
The voice above them spoke again. "Okay, I am setting the auto-pilot program to drain the tank after a full diagnostic runs and comes back negative for issues. It should be about forty five minutes."
"Roger," called the lower voice. "Grab a bite in the meantime?"
"Okay."
What happened next shook the three friends to their very cores. From the catwalk above them they saw Momo round the corner and come down a ladder. From a door directly to the left of the large tube, they also saw Momo, only she was a bit different. The second one looked exactly like the Momo they knew, same outfit, same glasses, everything. Except that she was platinum blonde (almost white with a sheen that was nearly silver) instead of a redhead.
Both Momos saw their friends at the same time. In perfect sync, they spoke. "Oh, hi guys. Long time, no see."
Ryu, Rei, and Nina all stared with mouths agape. It stayed awkwardly quiet for a moment until Honey broke the silence. "Momo, I believe introductions are in order."
The redhead stepped up. "Oh, right! Silly me. She already knows you all, but Ryu, Rei, Princess, this is Hana. She is me." The white haired Momo pushed her glasses from the bridge of her nose all the way to her face and then waved. "Well, she is sort of me," Momo continued. "She is my genetically perfect twin, inclusive of my memories." Momo and Hana could see the unending confusion that gripped their friends.
Hana stepped forward and spoke up. "Do you remember at Station Myria when we had to cut down those perfect matches of some of the enemies we encountered before? The Sample guys in that lab? I'm the same thing. Only I'm not evil and won't try to kill you." Hana paused a moment, then with a grin continued. "That is unless of course you give me a reason."
"Exactly," Momo said. "I learned how to use the cloning technique from files and info Honey and I recovered from the wreckage of the station and used a sample of my own genetic material as a test. It all went perfectly and the result was Hana. When I pulled her from the tank, I gave her the option to go where ever she pleased and do whatever her heart desired. Being a perfect copy of me, she naturally wanted to stay here at the tower and get right to work. The only difference between us is that I modified her genes to change her hair color so we could be told apart. And because of a miscalculation, I also changed her dexterity by accident. She is right handed."
Still flabbergasted, Rei approached the twins. "She is all of you? Like everything?" he asked as his head whipped back and forth between the two of them.
"Everything," Hana replied as she put her hands on her hips and her ears perked up a bit. "I'm a 100% complete physical copy of her and I have all her memories up until the moment she took the sample of herself to clone. My first personal memory is of Momo pulling me from the cloning tank."
"You're like really are all her?" Rei asked again, almost in disbelief. "Do you have that same little birthmark on your right butt cheek that she has?" Before the words even fully left his mouth, Rei knew he would regret that…
Once again in perfect sync, they spoke. "What?!" they screeched as they both instinctively grabbed at the cheek in question. "How do you know about that?!"
Just then, Honey jumped out of Nina's arms and made her way to a desk in the lab, where she took up a perch. A small port on her chest opened and from it, poured an odd light. She was projecting a moving image onto the wall and playing back audio through her voice box. The group could hear the sound of a shower running and they all looked to the projection. The image being produced was recorded by Honey through her own eyes while Ryu and his group were on the Black Ship crossing the sea.
In the video, Honey was in the shower room the team had designated for the women, waiting in the corner for Momo to finish. She looked up and could see Momo's obscured naked form in the shower stall through the opaque glass door. Honey heard a small noise and looked slightly to her right. A panel in the ceiling was moved a bit to one side and she could just barely see Rei there, observing intently.
Knowing he was likely in for not just one, but two hellacious beatings, Rei backed up nervously with his hands up in front of him in surrender. Momo and Hana both summoned their chrysm cannons and had him in their sights. "Uh oh… Busted," he said as he tried to discern an escape route. Unfortunately, he realized he had back peddled too far and had nearly put his back into a corner. "Okay! I'm caught," Rei said sheepishly. "You got me. Yes, I was looking." The twins were on him at point blank range in an instant and put the barrels on his chest.
"Tazer rounds, Momo. We don't want to have to clean up a big man kitty splat," Hana said with venom in her voice. Momo nodded.
"We were on that boat for weeks! I was bored. I was getting cabin fever. I was going stir crazy." Rei figured his words weren't going to save him. Accepting his imminent high voltage fate, he let out a long, exasperated sigh, dropped his head, and fell to his knees.
Ryu and Nina looked on. Both of them were in a fit of giggles and trying with all their might to contain the laughter. "No help for the tiger?" Rei plead, looking at them as they giggled. "Doesn't this beat all… Go ahead and do it then. But come on, you Grassrunner chicks are hot! If it's any consolation, I happen to think you have a really nice set of hips."
That statement caused the girls to freeze in place. Slightly embarrassed and unable to hide the flush in her cheeks, Hana stammered as she spoke. "Y-y-you're just s-s-saying that. You're trying to cover your tracks and not g-get the shock treatment of y-your life."
Momo took over. "Yeah, you wouldn't say something like that for real. Especially after all that teasing you threw my way while we traveled together. 'Egg head, dork, four eyes, virgin, nerdy rabbit girl'… That stuff hurt, you know!"
Nina began to giggle even harder and Ryu, unable to keep it at bay any longer, let out a deep belly laugh. "Uh, Momo…" Nina began. "I don't think you quite get it."
"Yah, Mo", Ryu said as he wiped away a laughter induced tear. "Have you ever wondered why he always insisted on being directly behind you no matter what formation we were in?" He punctuated the question by tracing the outline of the hourglass figure in the air then pointing to his eyes.
Just as they were both about to pull the triggers, Honey's display changed. She switched to a conversation between Rei and Ryu at the Brood town, Dragneir.
"Hey little bro," Rei in the video said as Ryu walked just near him. "What do you think of the rabbit?"
"Momo?" Ryu in the video responded. "Man can she cook! The last night we were in the desert, she whipped up some crazy risotto made with cactus. Cactus! Who would have thought? Damn, that was good eats!"
"Not what I meant, brother…" Rei said after a small sigh. "Do you ever quit thinking with your stomach?"
"Not following you…"
"Come on, bro… You can't tell me you never thought of her other than being a good cook and really smart. I mean, behind those bifocals, she is kinda pretty, ya know." Rei said.
"Still lost…"
"You've never seen her out of that baggy outfit she's always in, have you?" Rei asked as frustration for his adoptive little brother's obliviousness showed itself as a throbbing vein in his forehead.
Ryu put a hand to his chin a thought a moment. "Now that you mention it, I haven't," he said.
"Well, I have and let me tell you, there is quite a nice little package under all that wrapping, if you get my meaning… One day, I wouldn't mind getting to know our little bunny behind all that brain too. And certainly doesn't hurt that she has some really mean curves and the cutest butt."
Honey cut the video feed at that.
Momo and Hana were both locked in a momentary stupor caused by embarrassment. Both of their faces were completely red and their long ears were twitching wildly.
A/N ~ This little story essentially sets up a continuity for a couple of other stories I have in mind. Unless I say otherwise, any Breath of Fire story I release after this will take place in my "Mad Tinkering Peach" universe. One of them I have ideas for would star Momo's clone, Hana. I'll be writing them to be sisters rather than clone and original. I always thought clone stories where the clone tries to live up to, surpass, or take over the life of the original have become cliché. Mass Effect 3's last expansion drove the final nail into that coffin.
Hana, by the way, is Japanese for flower and Momo is peach. I came up with the idea for them as sisters because of my twin nieces. Their names are Peach and Blossom (my sister is kind of a hippy/flower child). They both need to wear glasses and at one point both had long pigtails. The difference though is that Blossom's hair is red and Peach's is platinum blonde.
Random tidbit - For Honey's voice, think of a higher pitched version of the FLUDD device from Mario Sunshine.