Usagi struggled to keep her eyes open through Washuu's lecture. It
wasn't easy since she was running very low on sleep.
The entire night before had been one long unending series of tests and examinations, sometimes together, but mostly one at a time. Sleep had been gathered in ten and twenty minute packets, but never enough.
"... and so you see the Soja was tied into multiple dimensions at the same time. That means that when it exploded, some of the force from the blast tried to spill over into the other dimension but was blocked by the safety precautions that I had installed. Those precautions, however, were not designed to handle a blast of quite that magnitude."
Washuu was lecturing from behind a small podium. Usagi finally gave in and let her head sink toward her desk.
Before it could make the landing, though, a chalkboard eraser whizzed across the room and smacked her on the forehead. "Ms. Tsukino, I would appreciate you paying attention in class."
Usagi groaned but forced her eyes open again. "Yes, ma'am."
"Where was I? Oh, yes, when the safety buffers were overloaded, a dimensional resonance was created which then transmuted into a wave. The fabric of dimensions is very hard to shift, but once you get it started, it can go a long way before it stops."
"When Soja exploded, such a resonance was created and a loop of this reality was sent hurdling across the multiverse. As it went, it slowly lost speed from each dimension that it passed through until it finally came to a stop in your world. At the point where it stopped, the two dimensions "overlapped" for a few milliseconds before it began to return to it's normal shape. During that brief period of overlap, it seems that your astral signatures were imprinted on this reality and it brought you back with it."
Washuu paused as Ami raised her hand. "Yes, Ms. Mizuno?"
"Ms. Washuu, why did Lady Mercury come into this world with her body and her ship while the rest of them didn't?"
"Good question. I'll be glad to explain it to you as soon as Ms. Aino wakes up!" Another eraser found its mark. "Thank you."
"The wave apparently manifested in your world at roughly the point where it was created in this world, near Earth. Thus it was still moving and didn't fully overlap. Mercury, however, was much farther from Earth and thus was closer to the point where our reality stopped, and as such, was more fully copied into this dimension. It is because of her strong astral signature and, her strong ties to the ship's computer that they were copied at all. Normal humans, and most other races wouldn't have been picked up by this reality, no matter how "close" they were."
"Any questions? Yes, Ms. Kino?"
"But, if we were just being copied, why did we end up in the same bodies as our other selves?"
"Simple. When you were copied, the reality must have tried to overwrite the copy of your astral signature that already existed in this world. That would have meant that you would have ended up in younger bodies but without the younger minds. Instead, the differences in your astral signatures were so great that they didn't actually cover each other and you just ended up in that body. Things would have been worse if the wave had hit your reality a few hundred years earlier."
"Any more questions? Ms. Aino?"
"Will there be a quiz on this?"
Minako, fortunately, was saved by the bell, or buzzer, as it was. Their new bodies were ready.
Both copies of Haruka, Michiru, and Hotaru woke up a little while after the Inner Senshi started their own separation process. They were all a bit groggy, but the feeling that they were alone in their own heads was more than enough compensation for Haruka and Michiru. All four of them. Hotaru didn't really notice a difference as her personalities had been mingled almost the entire time that she had been conscious.
They just sat quietly for a while, savoring the silence. Well, except for the Hotarus where were chatting away and giggling.
"Hello, girls. Good to see that you're awake. How are those new bodies?"
Haruka smiled and made held out her arm and made a fist. "They seem to be just fine. Is there any reason why we look the same age as the other bodies? I mean, couldn't you have made us look at least a little different?"
Mercury frowned a little. "I don't really know. Washuu did all the designing, even though I did manage to talk her out of a few things that she wanted to try... I guess she just decided that it would be more fun this way."
"Fun?" interjected younger Michiru. "How are we supposed to explain a set of twin sisters?"
"You'd be surprised how much 'fun' has to do with getting Washuu's help at all. As for appearing as twins, I'd advise against it, actually. Change hairstyles and pretend to be cousins, maybe. I'll hack you some documents later if you want to go to school."
"Yeah, that'd be nice. I'm going to need a driver's licence," elder Haruka added.
Her younger self looked at her strangely. "Don't even think about driving my car."
"Why not? I'm you so your car is my car. Only makes sense."
Soon they degenerated into an argument and Mercury was forced to turn to the Michirus for conversation.
"Well, what are your plans after this? Are you going to join the other Senshi? I believe they have planned some sort of training program or something."
The older Michiru thought about it for a few moments. "No, I think we need to make sure the Deathbusters are actually gone. We didn't do a very thorough job of it this time. Besides, we need to make sure that Hotaru's taken care of."
Mercury nodded, knowing well Michiru's soft spot for the younger girl. "I see. Professor Tomoe is around here somewhere, I believe. You might want to talk to him about a place to stay if you want to take care of his daughter and I'd personally like for you to keep an eye on him and make sure that his research doesn't cause any problems. Washuu was giving him some advice and God only knows what kind of trouble that'll get him into."
She looked down at her watch. "I'd better be getting back to the lab, the others should be coming out of the protein bath any minute now."
Both Michiru's bowed to her and she reciprocated and left.
The younger Michiru turned to the older and asked a question. "So, what about us?"
"You? You're going to get some training, too."
"I see. What kind of training?"
"Combat, tactics, some basic magic, diplomacy, everything that you're going to need to be a Senshi. Oh, and the most important skill of all."
"Most important skill? I'd have thought it would be combat."
"No, not by a long shot. The most important skill that you can learn, my dear, is controlling Haruka."
"Oh," she replied quietly.
"Haruka!" her older self called. School was in session.
Some hours later, the rest of the Senshi woke up and after a little initial confusion, began to make the plans that they had all been thinking about but didn't voice because they doubted that they would ever actually get separate bodies.
"So, what are we going to do now? I mean, we can't just go back home and hope that no one notices that we're suddenly twins," younger Rei said.
"Well... ah..." older Makoto began. Everyone looked at her expectantly. "Well, Minako and I decided that... well, we're not going back to Tokyo for a while."
A mummer of alarm rippled through the other Senshi.
"Is there any reason for this decision?" Serenity asked calmly. Even if her body was identical to Usagi's there was no mistaking the two.
"Yeah," Minako leapt in. "We're going to England to see what became of the Dark Kingdom's other gateway to Earth. If Sailor V didn't destroy it like she did in our world, then we need to find out if it's usable or not. If it's already open, we need to destroy or disable it so we don't have to fight on two fronts at once. If it's still closed, we should see about strengthening the barriers in case we decide to use it as a back door later."
Serenity nodded but still had her reservations. "How long do you think it will take?"
"A couple weeks to destroy it, more if it's not open and we have to figure out how the wards work," Makoto said.
"Don't take too long. How about you, Rei-chan?" Serenity directed the last towards elder Rei.
"Umm... well, I can probably cut my hair and put on a little make-up or something and pretend to be a distant cousin who wants to work at the shrine. It shouldn't be too hard to convince grandpa to put up a pretty young thing like myself," she grinned, her cheeks dimpling cutely.
Some of the others groaned at her display, younger Rei most of all. "I can't believe that I ever turn into her," she muttered.
"What was that? Did you say something?" elder Rei asked, somehow managing to keep up the ultra-cute look and appear menacing at the same time.
"Ah... I was just wondering what Serenity-sama's going to do. Her parents probably won't go for the distant cousin thing..." She trailed off when she noticed the elders giving her a strange look.
"Good idea!" Serenity exclaimed and turned to Mercury, who no one else had noticed come in. "Can you whip up a Luna-P? I'm going to need to do a little mind control on mom and dad."
"Wouldn't it just be easier to do it telepathically?" Mercury asked.
"Easier, yes, but the Luna-P's effect lasts a lot longer. Besides, it's worked before."
"Yeah, that brings up another topic, what are we going to call you? Chibi-Usa, maybe?" elder Rei jibed.
"I think that Serenity is a perfectly acceptable name. Though having two Reis is going to be strange."
"I'll think up something. But isn't Serenity a bit too European or American?"
"We have a few relatives in California, so I'll just pretend to be from there. Fake an accent for a week or two and no one will ever notice. That is, if Mercury can create us identities on paper, too."
Mercury nodded and soon the conversation drifted to other business.
Endymion, one time King, and Mamoru, future King, awoke in a separate room where Professor Tomoe was sitting, pouring over a sheaf of notes. Every so often he would giggle in delight and keep on reading.
After a few minutes of watching him, Endymion decided to risk disturbing him, if that's possible. "So, Professor, what do you have there?"
"Little Washuu, God bless her," he hugged the notes to his chest, "showed me what I was doing wrong with the teleportation research! With these notes, I'll have a working prototype in no time at all!" He was almost frothing with joy.
"Ah... Professor, didn't that get you into a lot of trouble last time?"
"Yes, but she also showed me why that happened. I'm not going to let the device be that undirected again, believe me."
"If you're going to do it at all, make sure that you're careful. The last thing we need is some interstellar horror rampaging through Tokyo or a terrorist group with the power to plant bombs anywhere."
The professor, for his part, didn't seem to be paying attention.
Mamoru decided that this was a pointless conversation and made a suggestion. "Why don't we go and find the others? It's probably getting about time for us to be heading home if I'm going to get any sleep before class tomorrow."
The train ride home was just as uneventful as the ride out to Okayama the day before had been. Usagi and Mamoru sat close together, though not as close as before, and Endymion and Serenity sat far closer.
Ami, for her part, was trying to get a head start on the assignments that Lady Mercury had given her. Mercury planned to stay with Washuu for a while and work on some things but had decided that was no reason not to help Ami better herself, or so she claimed.
Probably for the first time in her academic career, she was being challenged. It was a bit annoying, but she was enough of a realist to understand that she would gain far more knowledge this way.
Besides, the first task was to write a more effective piece of youma detection software than the Mercury computer was currently using. There were some notes and data files included with Mercury's specs to help her along, but it was still going to take a while.
The two Reis, for their part, were busy getting a head start on "training." They'd already been at it for a couple hours and younger Rei did seem to be having a bit of success. She was conjuring up a tiny needle of flame and getting it to move about her palm without burning her. She'd already burned herself several dozen times, but that didn't stop her from continuing.
The burns, after all, were quite mild since her control broke the second she felt the pain and the little flame disappeared. And as the ride went on, her yelps grew fewer and farther between.
Minako and Makoto were both lost in thought trying to figure out why their other selves hadn't stayed around once they got new bodies.
Outside, finally, the Juuban station rolled into view and they began to gather their things for disembarking. Serenity took up the rather bulky bag of gadgets that she had gotten Mercury to produce before they left and checked to make sure that everything was still in place.
Far away, in a slightly different dimension, Washuu was watching the data she had gathered on the Senshi scroll past and chuckling to herself. She would have paid quite a lot for this kind of information, certainly more than a handful of cloned bodies.
"Little Washuu? What do you have there?" Mercury asked from behind her.
She jumped slightly in surprise. "Nothing!" She quietly keyed the clear screen command. "I was just reviewing some data that the external sensors picked up earlier. Say, why are you still here?"
"You said that you needed a lab assistant for something and I've no other pressing engagements so I thought that I'd stick around..."
"Yeah, I did say that, didn't I. Hmm..." Washuu pondered. "First thing we can do is go down to the tribble pens. I've got a very interesting specimen down there."
In another laboratory, this one much darker and even more sinister, a shadowy figure sat. His monitor was slowly scrolling data stolen from Washuu's computer via a tap he had planted many years ago. He hadn't thought it would be that useful at the time, but now it was proving invaluable.
He laughed manically as he contemplated his revenge. Yes, this was exactly what he needed to grind Washuu into the ground with.
He wouldn't make the same mistakes twice.
END ARC
The entire night before had been one long unending series of tests and examinations, sometimes together, but mostly one at a time. Sleep had been gathered in ten and twenty minute packets, but never enough.
"... and so you see the Soja was tied into multiple dimensions at the same time. That means that when it exploded, some of the force from the blast tried to spill over into the other dimension but was blocked by the safety precautions that I had installed. Those precautions, however, were not designed to handle a blast of quite that magnitude."
Washuu was lecturing from behind a small podium. Usagi finally gave in and let her head sink toward her desk.
Before it could make the landing, though, a chalkboard eraser whizzed across the room and smacked her on the forehead. "Ms. Tsukino, I would appreciate you paying attention in class."
Usagi groaned but forced her eyes open again. "Yes, ma'am."
"Where was I? Oh, yes, when the safety buffers were overloaded, a dimensional resonance was created which then transmuted into a wave. The fabric of dimensions is very hard to shift, but once you get it started, it can go a long way before it stops."
"When Soja exploded, such a resonance was created and a loop of this reality was sent hurdling across the multiverse. As it went, it slowly lost speed from each dimension that it passed through until it finally came to a stop in your world. At the point where it stopped, the two dimensions "overlapped" for a few milliseconds before it began to return to it's normal shape. During that brief period of overlap, it seems that your astral signatures were imprinted on this reality and it brought you back with it."
Washuu paused as Ami raised her hand. "Yes, Ms. Mizuno?"
"Ms. Washuu, why did Lady Mercury come into this world with her body and her ship while the rest of them didn't?"
"Good question. I'll be glad to explain it to you as soon as Ms. Aino wakes up!" Another eraser found its mark. "Thank you."
"The wave apparently manifested in your world at roughly the point where it was created in this world, near Earth. Thus it was still moving and didn't fully overlap. Mercury, however, was much farther from Earth and thus was closer to the point where our reality stopped, and as such, was more fully copied into this dimension. It is because of her strong astral signature and, her strong ties to the ship's computer that they were copied at all. Normal humans, and most other races wouldn't have been picked up by this reality, no matter how "close" they were."
"Any questions? Yes, Ms. Kino?"
"But, if we were just being copied, why did we end up in the same bodies as our other selves?"
"Simple. When you were copied, the reality must have tried to overwrite the copy of your astral signature that already existed in this world. That would have meant that you would have ended up in younger bodies but without the younger minds. Instead, the differences in your astral signatures were so great that they didn't actually cover each other and you just ended up in that body. Things would have been worse if the wave had hit your reality a few hundred years earlier."
"Any more questions? Ms. Aino?"
"Will there be a quiz on this?"
Minako, fortunately, was saved by the bell, or buzzer, as it was. Their new bodies were ready.
Both copies of Haruka, Michiru, and Hotaru woke up a little while after the Inner Senshi started their own separation process. They were all a bit groggy, but the feeling that they were alone in their own heads was more than enough compensation for Haruka and Michiru. All four of them. Hotaru didn't really notice a difference as her personalities had been mingled almost the entire time that she had been conscious.
They just sat quietly for a while, savoring the silence. Well, except for the Hotarus where were chatting away and giggling.
"Hello, girls. Good to see that you're awake. How are those new bodies?"
Haruka smiled and made held out her arm and made a fist. "They seem to be just fine. Is there any reason why we look the same age as the other bodies? I mean, couldn't you have made us look at least a little different?"
Mercury frowned a little. "I don't really know. Washuu did all the designing, even though I did manage to talk her out of a few things that she wanted to try... I guess she just decided that it would be more fun this way."
"Fun?" interjected younger Michiru. "How are we supposed to explain a set of twin sisters?"
"You'd be surprised how much 'fun' has to do with getting Washuu's help at all. As for appearing as twins, I'd advise against it, actually. Change hairstyles and pretend to be cousins, maybe. I'll hack you some documents later if you want to go to school."
"Yeah, that'd be nice. I'm going to need a driver's licence," elder Haruka added.
Her younger self looked at her strangely. "Don't even think about driving my car."
"Why not? I'm you so your car is my car. Only makes sense."
Soon they degenerated into an argument and Mercury was forced to turn to the Michirus for conversation.
"Well, what are your plans after this? Are you going to join the other Senshi? I believe they have planned some sort of training program or something."
The older Michiru thought about it for a few moments. "No, I think we need to make sure the Deathbusters are actually gone. We didn't do a very thorough job of it this time. Besides, we need to make sure that Hotaru's taken care of."
Mercury nodded, knowing well Michiru's soft spot for the younger girl. "I see. Professor Tomoe is around here somewhere, I believe. You might want to talk to him about a place to stay if you want to take care of his daughter and I'd personally like for you to keep an eye on him and make sure that his research doesn't cause any problems. Washuu was giving him some advice and God only knows what kind of trouble that'll get him into."
She looked down at her watch. "I'd better be getting back to the lab, the others should be coming out of the protein bath any minute now."
Both Michiru's bowed to her and she reciprocated and left.
The younger Michiru turned to the older and asked a question. "So, what about us?"
"You? You're going to get some training, too."
"I see. What kind of training?"
"Combat, tactics, some basic magic, diplomacy, everything that you're going to need to be a Senshi. Oh, and the most important skill of all."
"Most important skill? I'd have thought it would be combat."
"No, not by a long shot. The most important skill that you can learn, my dear, is controlling Haruka."
"Oh," she replied quietly.
"Haruka!" her older self called. School was in session.
Some hours later, the rest of the Senshi woke up and after a little initial confusion, began to make the plans that they had all been thinking about but didn't voice because they doubted that they would ever actually get separate bodies.
"So, what are we going to do now? I mean, we can't just go back home and hope that no one notices that we're suddenly twins," younger Rei said.
"Well... ah..." older Makoto began. Everyone looked at her expectantly. "Well, Minako and I decided that... well, we're not going back to Tokyo for a while."
A mummer of alarm rippled through the other Senshi.
"Is there any reason for this decision?" Serenity asked calmly. Even if her body was identical to Usagi's there was no mistaking the two.
"Yeah," Minako leapt in. "We're going to England to see what became of the Dark Kingdom's other gateway to Earth. If Sailor V didn't destroy it like she did in our world, then we need to find out if it's usable or not. If it's already open, we need to destroy or disable it so we don't have to fight on two fronts at once. If it's still closed, we should see about strengthening the barriers in case we decide to use it as a back door later."
Serenity nodded but still had her reservations. "How long do you think it will take?"
"A couple weeks to destroy it, more if it's not open and we have to figure out how the wards work," Makoto said.
"Don't take too long. How about you, Rei-chan?" Serenity directed the last towards elder Rei.
"Umm... well, I can probably cut my hair and put on a little make-up or something and pretend to be a distant cousin who wants to work at the shrine. It shouldn't be too hard to convince grandpa to put up a pretty young thing like myself," she grinned, her cheeks dimpling cutely.
Some of the others groaned at her display, younger Rei most of all. "I can't believe that I ever turn into her," she muttered.
"What was that? Did you say something?" elder Rei asked, somehow managing to keep up the ultra-cute look and appear menacing at the same time.
"Ah... I was just wondering what Serenity-sama's going to do. Her parents probably won't go for the distant cousin thing..." She trailed off when she noticed the elders giving her a strange look.
"Good idea!" Serenity exclaimed and turned to Mercury, who no one else had noticed come in. "Can you whip up a Luna-P? I'm going to need to do a little mind control on mom and dad."
"Wouldn't it just be easier to do it telepathically?" Mercury asked.
"Easier, yes, but the Luna-P's effect lasts a lot longer. Besides, it's worked before."
"Yeah, that brings up another topic, what are we going to call you? Chibi-Usa, maybe?" elder Rei jibed.
"I think that Serenity is a perfectly acceptable name. Though having two Reis is going to be strange."
"I'll think up something. But isn't Serenity a bit too European or American?"
"We have a few relatives in California, so I'll just pretend to be from there. Fake an accent for a week or two and no one will ever notice. That is, if Mercury can create us identities on paper, too."
Mercury nodded and soon the conversation drifted to other business.
Endymion, one time King, and Mamoru, future King, awoke in a separate room where Professor Tomoe was sitting, pouring over a sheaf of notes. Every so often he would giggle in delight and keep on reading.
After a few minutes of watching him, Endymion decided to risk disturbing him, if that's possible. "So, Professor, what do you have there?"
"Little Washuu, God bless her," he hugged the notes to his chest, "showed me what I was doing wrong with the teleportation research! With these notes, I'll have a working prototype in no time at all!" He was almost frothing with joy.
"Ah... Professor, didn't that get you into a lot of trouble last time?"
"Yes, but she also showed me why that happened. I'm not going to let the device be that undirected again, believe me."
"If you're going to do it at all, make sure that you're careful. The last thing we need is some interstellar horror rampaging through Tokyo or a terrorist group with the power to plant bombs anywhere."
The professor, for his part, didn't seem to be paying attention.
Mamoru decided that this was a pointless conversation and made a suggestion. "Why don't we go and find the others? It's probably getting about time for us to be heading home if I'm going to get any sleep before class tomorrow."
The train ride home was just as uneventful as the ride out to Okayama the day before had been. Usagi and Mamoru sat close together, though not as close as before, and Endymion and Serenity sat far closer.
Ami, for her part, was trying to get a head start on the assignments that Lady Mercury had given her. Mercury planned to stay with Washuu for a while and work on some things but had decided that was no reason not to help Ami better herself, or so she claimed.
Probably for the first time in her academic career, she was being challenged. It was a bit annoying, but she was enough of a realist to understand that she would gain far more knowledge this way.
Besides, the first task was to write a more effective piece of youma detection software than the Mercury computer was currently using. There were some notes and data files included with Mercury's specs to help her along, but it was still going to take a while.
The two Reis, for their part, were busy getting a head start on "training." They'd already been at it for a couple hours and younger Rei did seem to be having a bit of success. She was conjuring up a tiny needle of flame and getting it to move about her palm without burning her. She'd already burned herself several dozen times, but that didn't stop her from continuing.
The burns, after all, were quite mild since her control broke the second she felt the pain and the little flame disappeared. And as the ride went on, her yelps grew fewer and farther between.
Minako and Makoto were both lost in thought trying to figure out why their other selves hadn't stayed around once they got new bodies.
Outside, finally, the Juuban station rolled into view and they began to gather their things for disembarking. Serenity took up the rather bulky bag of gadgets that she had gotten Mercury to produce before they left and checked to make sure that everything was still in place.
Far away, in a slightly different dimension, Washuu was watching the data she had gathered on the Senshi scroll past and chuckling to herself. She would have paid quite a lot for this kind of information, certainly more than a handful of cloned bodies.
"Little Washuu? What do you have there?" Mercury asked from behind her.
She jumped slightly in surprise. "Nothing!" She quietly keyed the clear screen command. "I was just reviewing some data that the external sensors picked up earlier. Say, why are you still here?"
"You said that you needed a lab assistant for something and I've no other pressing engagements so I thought that I'd stick around..."
"Yeah, I did say that, didn't I. Hmm..." Washuu pondered. "First thing we can do is go down to the tribble pens. I've got a very interesting specimen down there."
In another laboratory, this one much darker and even more sinister, a shadowy figure sat. His monitor was slowly scrolling data stolen from Washuu's computer via a tap he had planted many years ago. He hadn't thought it would be that useful at the time, but now it was proving invaluable.
He laughed manically as he contemplated his revenge. Yes, this was exactly what he needed to grind Washuu into the ground with.
He wouldn't make the same mistakes twice.
END ARC