AUTHOR'S FORWARD:
The H.S. Physics course referenced is one for students who really didn't bother on schooling much beyond high school. The instructor was trying to build interest in the real world, not train Nuclear Physicists. The man was also in his late seventies, so he had been teaching for over fifty years!
"The force of gravity is interesting. Unlike electromagnetism, there has been no 'negative' to the attraction of two objects discovered yet. I'm sure that if someone were to find it, they would be the richest person alive." - H.S. Physics
"Steam is the greatest wonder in the world!" - Doctor Steamhead, Ninja High School
Hotaru opened her eyes slowly. It had been six months since she had stopped Pharaoh 90, and for the first time since then, she had returned to her true age. With a small groan, she ripped the last persistent threads that held her too-small nightgown together.
She sighed to herself. She was sixteen, just a year younger than her nominal 'parents;' yet for the last half year, she had gone through a literal 'second childhood.' 'Papa' and her motorcycle, 'Mama-Michi' with her violin. She knew that they loved her, now; but in the back of her mind, she realized that, for all of that current affection, they were devoted to their own relationship. If only it were her turn at a relationship! With that thought in mind, she faded back into the arms of Morpheus.
Usa tensed, as she heard the soft chiming from the mystical device that she carried. She reached up to the oval 'meatball' of hair over her right eye and pulled out the Time Key that was hidden there. As soon as the crystalline object was revealed, she had to smile. It was pulsing with a radiance that was at odds with the usual recall color of a sky blue. Instead, the magical Key was throwing off a pulse of color identical to what an American she heard call 'black light': a purple hue that made certain colors shine as if lit from inside.
Her face, usually pixish and good natured, suddenly twisted in an expression that would cause most of her friends and relatives to blanch. Instead of a cute pout, or a sweet smile that would almost give a person cavities, her smile was one of a predator.
For Usa, the nine hundred year old with the mind and body of a nine year old, could drop the act. She hadn't actually been like that for ages. Puu, or rather Setsuna, had warned her that if the others were to find out that she was here to do something entirely different than 'training' for her duties as Sailor Moon, then the future would collapse in paradox. The future Senshi of Time assured her that once the proper signal had been sent, she could return to her proper age.
She did so, in a soft shimmer of pale pink light that faded to a white flecked with silver. Her body lengthened, until she appeared to be nearly identical to Usagi, barring her pink hair and eyes. The smile remained in place, as her eyes closed again.
"This is just not my day," The spirit of Akane moaned in the rainbow colored void she found herself in. She continued to rant softly, until a soft giggle notified her that she had a visitor to her dream-realm. She turned and noticed that Amaterasu was standing there.
The sunset-haired goddess grinned widely. "It's about time you awoke," she chuckled. "You are about to start your First Labor."
The Tendo girl beamed in her excitement. "I am?" she squeaked. "What is it?"
The goddess grinned. "It's simple," she assured the mortal girl. "All that you need to do is to fall in love with the Analogue of Ranma. That is the goal of this Labor."
Akane grinned. "Not a problem."
Amaterasu's smile became sly. "Oh, is it?" she chided. "Open yourself to your memories for this life."
The mortal girl shut her eyes to focus her inner vision. The goddess watched as her face twisted quickly through the entire range of emotions. After a few moments, she opened her eyes and speared the divine being with a glare. "Have you ever had one of those days?" she asked snidely.
The goddess sighed dramatically. "Remember your mythology?" she inquired. "Susano-o yanked me from my retreat." She began to pace in the nothingness. "This is a test. It isn't going to be easy. All the people who could be your soul mate here are female. Is it so bad to love someone because of who they are and not for their body's shape?"
Akane considered this, then nodded. "My Ranma changed form," she admitted. "So what is the difference if this one is full-time female?"
Amaterasu winked. "That's the spirit," she encouraged. "Now, all the possible people involved in this are the same age as you. The stage is set." The image of the goddess faded, her voice disappearing only after the body did. "I'll be watching you...."
Once again alone in the swirling void, Akane sighed. "At least I'm still a tomboy," she chuckled to herself, as she began to awaken...
As the various members of the Sailor Scouts awoke, each knew that something was different. Without being sure of the dynamic, each was certain that their relationship had moved to a different level than it had been previously.
In some locations, such as the house where the Outers lived, it was obvious. As Haruka and Micheru wandered down to breakfast, they froze as they beheld a matured Hotaru cooking breakfast for a smirking Setsuna, while the pair chatted about inconsequential things.
At the Tsukino residence, when Usagi jetted down the stairs and beheld a certain bubblegum-haired twin talking with her 'Aunt Ikuko' while the pair set the table, she managed to hit the throw rug in just the right way to have a surprise ride to the front door.
At three of the other's apartments, the only indication was a sense of anticipation, mixed with a dosage of dread.
And in the final location, one girl opened her eyes and looked upon the world with a sense of need. Out there was her True Love, and this 'Warrior of Love and Justice' was going to find her!
Setsuna stepped into her office at the high school and waved at a bookcase. Without any fanfare, the fixture vanished, leaving a stone doorway covered with indecipherable runes. Into this new arch she stepped and vanished into the Time Stream.
The jade haired woman appeared at the location of her appointed vigil. There, she met her companion for the following exercise. "There you are, Ama-chan," she chided. "Couldn't you watch this from Yggdrasil?"
The goddess matched the smirk on the other woman's face. "With Toltir running that Bet nonsense?' she grumbled. "Hardly. All the excess bandwidth is being used to monitor the threads that the cat's 'participants' have made."
The senshi of Time shuddered. "Quite," she murmured. "That... 'thing' was messing with Crystal Tokyo. I know that removing the choice removes the ability to grow," she started to cry gently, "but I'm locked into this mess by Geas."
The mother-goddess of the Japanese people gave her a friendly hug. "Look at the future now," she encouraged the distraught woman.
The jade-maned woman did so. The Time Gate was showing three distinct futures. The first was Crystal Tokyo, as it always had been. The second, A Tokyo, but one that seemed... dull, sad and dying.
The third.... Oh, by the Kami in the Heavens, it was beautiful. True, evil still existed; but here, evil and pain were experiences that caused the spirit to grow to overcome them. The goodness that existed here, instead of the staidness evident in the crystal-laden future, had depth due to the shadows that gave an everlasting vibrancy to everything.
"What is this?" she sighed in awe.
Amaterasu smiled benignly. "This is the deciding branch toward the future," she assured Setsuna. "The choice is: to 'cleanse' the ability to choose, and become stagnant; to walk away and let the world die in filth; or do you work to protect from the overwhelming Evils and keep the things that assure growth?"
Setsuna moaned. "If I could," she shouted, as she began to weep freely, "I'd choose the third!" Her tears dried instantly, as her companion formed a nimbus of light around herself. The goddess' head tilted back, as if looking toward the heavens even while in a place outside of time itself.
A bolt of light leapt from the upturned sigil on the goddess' brow, shrieking into the uncharitable distance. "Pseudo-immortal Setsuna Meiou," Amaterasu stated in a voice that reverberated with power, "you have served a kingdom that existed in the distant past, the only survivor of it, through twenty millennia while under a compulsion to bring it to it's ultimate end." The goddess' eyes opened as her head lowered to face her. The hazel eyes speared into her scarlet ones. "Do you wish to guide this travesty to a better path? Is this your heartfelt wish?"
The ancient Senshi of Time realized who was speaking now. "Kami-Sama," she whispered, a spark of hope growing in her barren soul. "I do so wish that I were able."
The spirit inhabiting the goddess nodded the deity's head. "Your wish, oh My daughter," the supreme being assured her, "is happily granted. Guide them away from Serenity Ishtar's folly." Amaterasu's hand rose, to trace the planetary symbol that appeared upon Setsuna's brow. "I Revoke this Geas from you."
Setsuna began to laugh in long-restrained joy, as the knot in her psyche simply disappeared. She could now release the pent-up pain of following an order that she knew was not only wrong, but ultimately deadly to everyone.
The Folly of the Moon Kingdom was no more.
The Nowhere Bar and Grill:
Ares groaned at Loki. "Look at this," he growled, waving his hand at the display. "Even that Insufferable Nothing, Grey, had a harder time than this girl does." He lowered his gaze to the drink in his grip. "'All you have to do is find your soul mate,' says ol' Weepy Lightbritches."
The Norse god of chaos smirked. "I don't know," he mused, stroking his bare chin idly. "She has no clue as to which girl she needs to pick. Quite chaotic, I'd say."
Dis, sitting at the next table over, leaned her head back to spear both gods with an upside-down glance. "You know," she confided, "it would make it more interesting to make these Scouts a rival group of identically powered counterparts. You know, a competing group of warriors, 'we're better than you are' sort of competition. I know the South Teams would be happy to field some, how do they put it, 'disposable targets,' to get the ball rolling.
Azmodeous and Baal leaned in. "Not fair," Baal growled. "Maybe us Underworlders want to be heroes, too, hmmm?"
The Demon lord of flies and insects bobbed his head. "Yeah!" he chimed in. "If these warriors are going to the mortals' Champions and Defenders, evil should have a chance to fight alongside them."
Loki's face split into an ear-to-ear grin. "In-teresting," he acknowledged. "But, you realize, that Silver Millenium Crystal is a Level 5 Cleansing arttifact."
A line of text appeared on the bottom of the screen, displaying alternately in heavenly and demonic script. 'AS OF THIS MOMENT,' the writing read in both languages, 'THE ARTIFACT KNOWN AS THE SILVER CRYSTAL IS NOW AN ARTIFACT OF BALANCE, CLASS EIGHT. THIS HOLDS FOR THIS PLANE AND THIS PLANE ONLY.'
A second line followed the first. 'BY THE WAY,' the marquee-line read. 'WE, THE LEADERS OF THE HEAVENS AND THE HELLS, WILL ALLOW THREE AVATARS OF GOOD, THREE OF EVIL AND THREE OF CHAOS, FOR BALANCE. OF EACH REALM, THE CHOSEN MUST HAVE ONE LAWFUL, ONE NEUTRAL AND ONE CHAOTIC. WE HAVE SPOKEN.'
Sudden grins abounded, no matter the orientation. The last time any of them have cooperated, a new pantheon had formed. This time, it was for Reality itself! Whee!
A sourceless voice suddenly froze the celebration. "BuT wHAt abOuT thE OPpoNEnTs?" a scratchy/silky/gooey voice asked.
Bar nuts, pretzels and sugar cubes rained down upon a honestly curious demoness/goddess of confusion.
The office of Kami-Sama:
The supreme being of Good smirked at Hild, as she lowered her slim fingers from the keyboard. "You know," he chuckled, "Konranko does have a point."
The white-maned Dark Goddess growled. "Her hair covers that nicely," she muttered.
He shook His head gently. "No," he hazarded, "I meant about the first challenges. The Balance Scouts will need to go against some opponents, and not necessarily all evil."
Hild pondered this. "Hmm," she muttered, "that is a good point, strangely enough. If they aren't seen as capable, they won't be available when the real menace arrives." She blinked. "But aren't menaces, by their very names, made of evil?"
Kami propped his heels on the desk. "What of a group of people, coming in goodwill, attempting to change a people, whole-cloth, into their idea of 'rightness'?"
The neifhelmer blinked. "Point made," she conceded. A dark thought struck her. "Wouldn't our Scouts just fight amongst themselves?"
He sucked on His lower lip in anxiousness. "They might, if they aren't forced into a team mindset early enough." He waved His own keyboard into being, and began to type furiously. "Where is He? Where is he?" He growled. Suddenly, he stopped, a broad grin suffusing His features. "Ah-HAH!" His fingers blurred momentarily, then paused. "Yes, not that, maybe," he stated absently, then blinked. "SHE would?" He sucked in a whistling breath. "Ooo," he cooed. "SNEA-ky!"
Hild watched through the other side of the molecule-thin screen, her own features mimicking Kami-Sama's. "You, my dear," she whispered huskily, "occasionally show me why I was with you before."
He just flashed her His patented rougish grin. "I do, don't I?" The office settled into a comfortable silence, occasionally broken by soft key-clicks and giggles of the two supreme beings.
TBC.....
Author's Notes: Whew! Here it is, the beginning of the First Labor. A group of planetary warriors, with Akane as one of the members, are going to have some competition. A group composed of all nine classes of being – AD&D rules – fighting for the protection of the Solar System.
That's not including Setsuna being released from her Geas, Kami-Sama and Hild throwing challenges both groups AND the youngest of the Sailor Scouts becoming the same age as the others.
This Labor could be called 'Sailing the Chaotic Seas of Reality,' couldn't it?
C&C – Flames sent to heat Kami-Sama's coffee – welcomed at centauress2 (at) sprintpcs (period) com