"AGHHHHHHHH!" screamed everyone as they reacted to Rei somehow having just shown up, some more than others. Ranma merely got into a defensive posture, but Nabiki and Akane joined Asuka, Misato and Shinji in nearly leaping for the ceiling.
"Interesting mode of greeting."
"REI?!" Misato blurted, "How... When did you... Where did..."
"I have my ways. However, my appearance is not the most important matter at hand."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You are planning on attempting to change the future that you came from, correct?"
"Of course. I'd rather not get stuck in that sea of goo again."
It might have been a trick of the light, but a faint smile seemed to curve the pale girl's lips. "Then I must warn you that you risk much."
"Are you trying to warn us against acting?"
"Not exactly."
"Huh?"
"Imagine this. You go to your father after you are born, speaking of a great hidden secret of humanity being buried under the ice of Antarctica. You wish to inform him of the danger in going there. Yet, all he hears is the fact that something that will expand human knowledge rests there, waiting for him to dig it out. So he goes, despite your explanation of the dangers that await him, and the rest of the world, since you never got to tell him in his haste. Thus, you create the very beginning that you sought to prevent."
"Aww, man..." Shinji groaned, "We came back all this way and now we're going to go through the same stuff?"
"Perhaps, but then perhaps not. It could be worse," Nabiki muttered.
"What are you talking about?"
"Well, let's say that we decide to, I don't know, kill the guys who will create that mess. If we fail, they likely get meaner, and if we succeed, we don't know who we'll get. Either way, we wind up with a possibility of them getting more military power, both in guns, and politics. And that doesn't even begin to start on how bad it could get."
"Indeed. But one might not need to go that far to have such a problem," Rei informed them.
"Like how?"
"Whoa," said Asuka as she, Shinji, and Pen Pen momentarily faded in and out. "What the heck was that?"
Misato's eyes flashed purple for a moment. "You're not anchored here. Unless we find a way to anchor you to this time you'll just get end up getting pulled back to the future."
"You mean that we'd have to go back?!"
"Pretty much."
"That so blows..."
Rei turned her gaze upon the redhead. "Perhaps there is a manner of time travel that would allow one to transport themselves through time and stay there, but you three were taken, which meant that you do not have the same hold on your position as Misato."
"So, if we gain something that will keep us here, we'll be able to stay."
"Exactly. Be it friendships, lovers, a child born here, or even a pet, you need something to keep you here, to protect you from being drawn back to that time, and the other dangers that your trip has brought you."
"'Other dangers'?" Asuka parroted.
"If you manage to succeed in preventing the future you were born to, then you'll be changing the life of the future you, perhaps even preventing her birth. If that happens..."
"The me as I am won't come into being then."
"That sounds real bad," Shinji commented, "But at least you won't have lived with that mess..."
"Moron. It's the classic 'grandfather paradox'."
"Huh?"
"We're in our past, as far as we know. So, if we prevent the future we come from, then we won't exist, at least in the form we are in. That means that we won't know that we have to stop anything, and so we'd be back to the original way things went, and going back to fix it."
"Gah..."
"Glad you understand," muttered the redhead.
"And that describes it perfectly. However, if you're solidly in this time, then your past will exist outside of time. You will be yourself no matter what, and can live out your lives."
"That's good news, and even though I know that hearing you spout out all this stuff is really freaky, there is one major question that needs asking first."
"What is that?"
"How the heck are you here? You were pretty busy turning people to goo, and then there's the fact that your head is a giant white thing out in the ocean, back in our time!"
"That is simple," Rei answered, "I am :
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(Posted Wed, 27 Apr 2005 19:25)
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