'Was' being the operative term, yet again. Sailor Pluto sighed again, seeing that Saturn was now apparently curled up and blank-eyed, watching the boy in front of her. Well, at least she seemed to have stopped weeping her heart out for the moment, but... come on, girl, it's not like your dearest darlingest 'Ranma-sempai' is dead, alright?
Though whether that actually meant anything to Saturn at the moment... Come on, girl, pay attention to your surroundings at least...
Pluto sighed, then. There was just so many things she had to keep an eye on...
Not to mention that had to do something about the sleeping red-haired girl, now laid out on one of the Time Gate's sofas. Timing would be important, with that one...
"That's, that not - 'Lightnings-sama'." One of 'Lightnings' support staff spluttered. "Hell, that's not even Saotome-kun, he doesn't even look anything like him at all -"
"The clothes.' One of the other support staff members whispered. And indeed the young man - boy - sleeping in front of them was dressed in the clothes one Saotome Ranma had been seen in last. Complete with AEGIS ID.
"But - the Light - I can't feel anything ...Can you?" There had been a 'bump', and then the sense of something cutting off, and then -
...A screaming gap where Glory had dwelt...
"No." The woman - one of the few females in 'Lightwings' support team - muttered. 'But Ho - Saturn says there was somebody who looks like - this - in one of the photos Saotome-kun's classmates took - she's one of the fan-club people who're in the know, and you know how they are - they keep trying to take pictures of Ranma-kun, no matter how many times it just gets fogged out..."
"Wait, wait, you mean - that... that's crazy. Look at him, he's just an ordinary brat, like any other stupid brat walking the streets! How could this be Saotome-kun, much less 'Lightwing'-sama - "
And that was when yet another member of the support team spoke up.
"Saturn was - "
"...Eh? What about Saturn?"
"She was doing something to...him. And then... the Light, what was left the Light went all away..."
Everybody in the support team within hearing distance looked at him, then, And then, at Saturn. Who was curled up on a sleeping bag, murmuring something to herself, over and over.
"She was...trying to heal him. She always does that, whenever he gets even a little hurt..."
" - So she says. But - the Light is gone, it's gone, and, and - she's a Sailor Senshi. Lightwings-sama always said that the Sailor Senshi were not to be trusted, that they did fight Invaders and Enemies sometimes, but that was just to get rid of rivals, since they wanted to take over the world for themselves..."
The woman looked at Hotaru, swallowing.
"But - he also always said that Saturn - Hotaru-chan was different..."
"But she's a Sailor Senshi, right? " The young man swallowed. "- Why weren't those two, Uranus and Neptune or something, trying to kill her any more? They - they even went and interfered when it looked like that Sailor Moon was trying to get near her and brainwash her, more then once... Like, like they wanted her to be near Lightwing-sama, or something!"
The support team swallowed collectively. But...but...
Pluto blinked. OK, what had just happened, and just why had Hotaru just 'backhanded' about half of 'Lightwings' support team with her force fields?
And she was still curled up on that sleeping bag, to boot.
...Oh, well, whatever, whatever, it wasn't like she had time to devote to looking at just Hotaru and Ranma at the moment.
She could watch her recordings later.
The panda looked at the boy sleeping in the bed, trying to ignore the oddly empty spot inside him.
There was no way this ordinary-looking brat could be his glorious son, his Ranma, that AEGIS had paid him so much money to train and bring up properly according to their - guidelines. Oh, some of the things they had insisted on had been quite - annoying, and he hadn't been able to give quite the same kind of through training that he had been given to his son, but they were the ones paying him, and paying him well, so...
Besides, Ranma had always seemed to have so much power - a lot of the stuff the Master had taught him and he had stolen or discovered on his own seemed pretty unnecessary, anyhow...
Well, anyhow - Hotaru-chan must have gotten it wrong, this time, though he couldn't figure out why the heck she would ever think this this ridiculously ordinary-looking brat could actually be his son, the shining Saotome Ranma. Why, he looked like - like that idiot of a younger brother of his, who'd died when he was a kid, or something...
The panda rolled that thought around in his currently furry head.
...It felt...very strange...
And now the Inners had gathered, plus the cats and Tuxedo Mask, all looking quite grim and heroic, in Pluto's opinion.
Well, they might be happier once they realized that with 'Lightwings' out of the picture for the duration, they actually had a much better chance to 'have a talk' with Saturn (and pepper her with 'healing and purifying attacks' presumably), like they had wanted to do for a while - but to get to that point, first they had to try to dealing with the coming storm.
Pluto sighed, then. Well, it wasn't like she didn't understand just where Uranus and Neptune were coming from when they tried to keep Saturn away from Moon - the 'Memories of the Fall (of the old Silver Millenium) still managed to give her nightmares, after all. And the memories of Saturn doing 'clean-up duty' featured pretty strongly in whatever memories of that that the three of them had, unlike the Inners, which had all been safely dead when that happened, so...
Ahh, well. She didn't think that either of those would put up any more then a token objection any more if Moon actually tried a healing and purifying on Saturn, now, anyhow - they'd both been getting pretty tired of seeing the 'puppydog act' even before this had blown up, from what she'd, ahem, 'overheard', anyway, after all. Not to mention a wee bit guilty, which was all for the good, she supposed.
Pluto sighed, yet again. All and all, she did understand why her former - unamalgamated - self had been so 'Hands off, hands off, don't rock the boat now' about the Saturn and 'Lightwings' situation in general - but still, there was such a thing as being too passive, in her current opinion. Not to mention, just much too trusting in 'Fate' and 'Destiny'.
Well anyhow, back to the situation at hand....
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(Posted Mon, 27 Nov 2006 14:36)
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