“Why are you looking at me like that?” asked Ranma, as Serena took on a facial expression he more commonly associated with Shampoo.
“I still have several options to help you remember your past as Admiral Ruby,” she cooed, as she stepped closer to him.
This in turn, made Ranma step backwards away from the curvy AI. “Um...” he squeaked.
Finally, he had backed himself into a corner ... literally, allowing her to stand before him, and say her idea. “We’ll just go see my Mother,” she announced, causing Ranma to face-fault.
“You did that on purpose,” he muttered from the floor.
“And you’re being mean by not remembering me,” accused Serena.
Ranma grumbled as he stood up, straightening his uniform. “Even in a ship I’m supposed to own, women still mess with me.”
He followed after her. “So where is your ... um ... Mother?” he asked, unsure if computers even had parents.
“She’s the main AI interface for the Moon Palace Computer Network,” answered Serena. “Well, she’s also the soul of Queen Serenity, somehow,” she said, uncertain herself.
“Her soul?”
“Yeah, she put it in there after the Great Fall,” answered Serena.
“So ... she’s a ghost in a machine?” asked Ranma, fearful that perhaps the anime he had seen up till then ... could be real. Could that mean that some girl from deep space would show up, and claim she was engaged to him, as he was the heir to some grand empire?
Bad thoughts ... bad thoughts ... bad thoughts...
“Sort of,” said Serena. “I’ve tried to understand the mechanics behind it for the last ten thousand years, but I never could quantify a soul.”
“You’ve been studying it for that long?” asked the astonished reborn admiral. He couldn’t even focus on Math for a few hours, and she studied something longer than ... well, anything he knew.
She nodded. “After everyone ... well, died, I had a lot of free time on my hands, and a lot of technology to play with. The Serenity Ascendant is even more advanced than she was back then!” she proclaimed with excitement.
“But back to the matter,” she started once again. “If anyone can help us wake up your old memories, it’ll be Mom. She’s real good at stuff like that.”
Ranma nodded, his mind cataloging his situation. He was currently on a starship, run by an AI that had been around since some Moon Kingdom fell, had been studying and advancing all that time (making him wonder how strong he’d be if he practiced the Art for that long) while waiting for him to return, ... who cried like Soun Tendo on a bad day if she thought Ranma was being mean.
He’d have to make certain she wasn’t watching him when he got back to Nerima. That had trouble spelled large enough that even he could see it. “So we gotta go to the Moon Palace?” he asked.
“No, silly,” she said, giggling a bit. “We can just connect to it, and she can transmit herself here for interaction. We have the same facilities that she would have on the Moon. Better in most cases,” she finished, before mumbling about ‘not being allowed to fix things’.
“Okay,” said Ranma, uncertainty in his voice, which Serena didn’t pick up.
“Wait,” he said. “Is there anyone else who got reincarnated who is around?”
Serena paused for a bit, processing what she knew from detailed records she hacked into over the years, comparing them not only with the data from the former Court and Military, but what she could find from police reports and other government agencies on Ranma. “A few, but only several seem to have any connection with their past. But they aren’t authorized to be on the ship.”
“Can I authorize them?”
“Not until you remember,” said Serena. “Sorry, security procedures. Technically, I’m supposed to confine you to Medical until you have been cleared by a doctor. But that might be a bit difficult since they’re all dead.”
“Um...”
“Or we could go talk to Mother?” she offered.
“Yeah, Mother sounds good,” he finished. Man, this girl is weird. “Uh ... thanks for everything,” he finished.
“No problem, Master,” said Serena, blushing a bit. She was just happy at this point that he was trying to remember, even doing so on an instinctual level, if her internals scans were correct.
But she did wish to hurry him along in regaining his memories. After all, she had found Princess Serenity as well as the other Senshi, despite the fact that Mother hadn’t informed her that they had been to the Moon Palace. She was just lucky that her own checkups of Earth data networks had located him, and her own scanners had been able to lock onto him so she could teleport him to the ship. He had obviously been in danger from that piglet that had wandered into his room. Its movements indicated it had to be sick.
Well, she’d ask him about that later. It was currently safely frozen in cryogenic stasis. Maybe they could help it later on.
But right now, she had to take him to see Mother ... if she actually answered the message this time. Apparently, the long dead Queen could be very busy at times.
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(Posted Sat, 13 Jan 2007 00:09)
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