"Why would you do something like that?" Pluto's hologram asked a bit dully.
"Well, you must consider part of the intentions of the ones who originally converted us. If they'd had their way, we would have been shock troopers for that yakuza boss, as well as being... 'toys'."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Attractive and young girls, many of whom had not been... intimate, and had great powers who were now completely controllable and free to use?"
Pluto's mouth dropped open a bit before it firmed into a thin line. "I see. But what does this have to do with doing what you did?"
"Everything. You see, if it were to even be simply lost, the possibilities for disaster would be endless. Just in this area, there are individuals who would cause us great problems without even thinking about it, like the old pervert who built a martial art around stealing women's underwear, or the rich boy who thinks that automatically means he can be a samurai, and believes that it should be him who should have a robot girl harem. Each day that the remote was a separate unit meant that someone worse than its creators could find or steal it, and take us along with it."
"I see...."
"Other ideas were floated," Ami admitted. "But most, like the idea of infecting him and keeping him male, didn't work out."
"You were going to make him one of you?"
"It was what gave us the idea to integrate the remote into him. You see, if he was infected, then he could have him trying to please us, and us trying to please him."
"What was wrong with it?"
Ranma snorted loudly. "Simple. Try ta imagine everyone only focused on makin' the other one happy. They all keep on the idea of doin' somethin' for me. I'm so wrapped up in doin' somethin' for them that I don't care 'bout anythin' else. So, we're all so focused on makin' the other happy that...."
"Nothing else gets done."
"'Xactly. Sure, they'd be knowin' that goin' out ta save people'd make me happy, but if we were so busy that we never even noticed any trouble...."
"Then you wouldn't know to go out and stop it," the hologram said with a wry look to her face.
"Yup. It's bad enough when I'd gotten a couple of girls tryin' ta prove that they'd be the best one for me, 'specially when they started gettin' so inta it that they'd lose track of stuff. Don't wanna think 'bout what'd happen if that got really big."
"That makes him doubly important, as he's our 'control unit' of sorts, since he's not about to get wrapped up in too many things for us to lose focus on," Ami put in, and shrugged. "Besides, it is not like we can actively assist in our own un-enslavement."
"Why not?" asked the hologram.
"Simple. Those who converted us didn't want us to get any ideas. We would have some access to their systems, and had abilities that might help us free ourselves. So they put in a bit of programming that not only prevents us from trying to return us to normal, but actively makes us try to keep up our current positions. And that, in effect, has as additional guardians of our enslavement as ourselves."
"So you'd be fighting to make sure that your body could be abused by some middle aged executive."
"Even if we didn't want to."
"This really limits my options, you know."
"I suppose that you can't go back in time and undo this."
That got a nod from the hologram. "Besides the fact that I'd be 'robotized' when I entered the timeline? If I did try to stop this before it happened, then I'd wind up causing a paradox, and considering the trouble that would come up if that were to happen...."
"I understand. Though...."
"What?"
"You did let Chibi-usa come back. Twice."
"It's not like I had a choice. I knew that she had to come back, if to keep the timeline from shattering. And I'm the Guardian of the Time Gate, not the 'Space Gate'. The only way that I could get her to safety was to let her go through time."
"And now that you have this situation, we're going to have work this through," Ami responded.
"Pretty much."
An annoyed look crossed Ranma's face. "Then if we can't undo that stuff, what can we do?"
"Hmm..." Ami murmured as data flitted over her eyes. "The first thing that I can think of to do is to:
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(Posted Wed, 16 Nov 2005 07:39)
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