The boy walked uncomfortably in ‘noble’ clothes —white lacy shirt, scarlet vest, black trousers, black leather boots— tugging at the stiff, high collar or the puffy sleeves. He looked, he felt, rather like a pirate or a dandy fop. Whoever had picked out his clothes had the strangest ideas of how a rich gentleman should look. He rather darkly suspected whom. On the other hand, he thought that the girl with shoulder-length purple-hair could pull off the gothic-lolita maid fashion and make it look good.
“This is weird,” Ranma observed as the two of them walked through the halls of the Saotome family mansion.
“You mean getting our memories back all a sudden, Ranma-master?” Hotaru asked politely of the young man she served with all her heart as ninja-sorceress maid.
“Uh, that too,” Ranma agreed. “It was a bit of a shock to realise that my rescuing a bunch of cheerleaders caused everything to collapse into Flux. That was bad.”
Dismissing the cheerleader comment with a slight frown, Hotaru nodded agreeably. “Well, your interruption did prevent …the sorceress from reshaping reality in her image. That would have been really bad.”
“I guess,” Ranma agreed non-commitably. “But now that I remember what things were like before the Collapse, it makes all of …this seem pretty odd.”
‘All of this,’ as a broad arm-sweep indicated, was the lavish mansion bustling with maids. Maids were polishing furniture. Maids were waxing floors. Maids were carrying trays or fresh linen. Maids were working outside in the garden. Maids were armed with sword, pikes, warfans, and other things, out patrolling the walls. Maids were doing all sorts of jobs in colourful uniforms and all bowing politely as he walked passed, or rushing up to slyly ask if there was something he needed, or sultrily suggest they’d do anything for him.
“I see,” Hotaru said without sounding at all convincing. She considered, “I guess it would’ve looked odd back then, but now it just feel so right.”
The Anchor was based on Nodoka’s fantasy of feudal Japan, although she’s added her own distinct touches. The manor house, for instance, was staffed entirely by maids; her idea of maids, anyway, which included, for instance, the combat maids of the security forces. Almost every pretty young woman drawn to the Anchor from the Flux tended to end up employed there in one job or other, but all dressed in maid uniforms.
It might have been creeping Ranma out, but Hotaru felt accepted. She liked that, and the fact that she had a handsome young master to serve.
“Meh,” said Ranma. “Let’s go out and train.” That at least was familiar grounds.
“Okay, Sempai!” enthused Hotaru. That was another thing she enjoyed; using her power without having to hide who she was or what she could do; even if what she could do wasn’t exactly what she could do before.
“So how much control of this ‘Anchor’ does this Nodoka person actually have?” Haruka asked.
“Almost absolute,” Setsuna answered. “It seems that she has complete and utter control of the conditions here. Only someone with equal or greater power can challenge an Anchor Person inside her Anchor. Everyone else has no choice but to live by her Rules.”
“So she’s some sort of tyrant,” Michiru noted and exchanged a glance with Haruka. It would be up to them to take the villainess out, since the others would be too soft hearted.
“Oh, no. She’s a fairly benevolent ruler from what I’ve been told. However, I’m not talking mere political power, though she has plenty of that. Anchors are maintained to support human life by the Anchor Person’s Will alone. Climate and environment vary wildly from harsh to idyllic, but they are always at least habitable. The exceptions are Anchors where the occupants themselves have been changed into something not human. But whatever they are, those conditions depend entirely on the Will of the Anchor Person. All of them!”
“What exactly do you mean by that?” Ami asked.
“Forget every bit of science or logic you were ever taught,” Setsuna insisted. “The laws of physics hold in this Anchor only because she Wills them to. Drop a stone and it falls at a specific rate due to her expectations. If she Willed it so, that law of gravity could change. Anything and everything could. Water could flow up hill, light could crawl around corners. There are no inflexible ‘Laws’ of physics so much as ‘Rules’ that are subject to her revision at any moment.”
“That’s not so bad,” Michiru observed, “as long as she doesn’t have a reason to change things, that is. And she shouldn’t as anything that affects us, affects her supporters too.”
“True enough,” Setsuna agreed, then dropped the other shoe, “but from our point of view the danger is far more insidious. An Anchor also contains certain ‘Rules’ of behaviour. Like, for instance, we’re all maids. That’s not just a job in this Anchor, it’s a Role established by Nodoka’s Will; the way she expects maids to behave. The longer we remain inside the Anchor, the more we will fit into the niche until we can’t help but conform to her unwritten Rules of maid etiquette.”
“That’s what’s happened to Hotaru and Makoto?” Rei guessed. “Minako too, I suspect. There’re really into being Ma– Ranma’s maids.”
“Oh, yes, indeed,” Setsuna agreed. “Actually, you may have noticed that all of us are affected to some degree or other. If you don’t consciously resist, it’d be really easy to just go with the flow and get locked into the Role. And all that is unconscious and indirect. It may not even be intentional; just the way our Anchor Person expects things to work. For her, maintaining the Rules of an Anchor is an automatic reflex as natural as breathing.”
“So just what can she do consciously with her powers?” Haruka wondered.
“Just about whatever she wants,” Setsuna supplied. “She’s what they know here as a Wizard. Apparently that means that if she puts her mind to it, she could change anything, anywhere, anytime. Form and allegiances can be swept away with a thought and replaced by whatever she Wills. Unless you had Flux power of your own, you would have no defense, and only a greater power could change you back. You wouldn’t just be fitting into the Role, you would be locked in firmly.”
“So just how much of this ‘Flux Power’ do we have?” Haruka asked.
“The answer to that is simple: not enough,” Setsuna answered. “No where near enough. Think about it, what was the source of our senshi powers?”
“Our star seeds,” Ami replied promptly, “and their connection to —oh!”
“Exactly,” Setsuna agreed. “We probably still have the star seeds —no, we certainly do— but the conduit to the planetary mana fields can’t exist without the planets. After reality collapsed like shattered crystal, there’s nothing out there but Flux and Anchors. We might be able to tap into the Flux, but so far it really doesn’t seem like I –we– can from here, inside the stability of the Anchor. At least, not without permission –that is by fully accepting the Rules– which might be why Hotaru is Ma–Mister Ranma’s black-magicienne, ninja maid.”
“So if we want to have the same sort of power, we have to either stop resisting becoming Mas–magic maids, or leave the Anchor entirely?” Rei summed up. “Of course, if we stop resisting we’ll just become Mast– that boy’s happily, domesticated servants, serving his every need and submitting to whatever he desires.”
Haruka and Michiru shuddered.
“Yes, that’s about the size of it,” Setsuna remarked. “But, in order to escape without confronting anyone, we may have to tie up and gag certain young ladies.”
She cast a significant glance towards where Minako was muttering, “oh no, Master, you mustn’t. Not there! Mrmmph. A little farther to the right…” and drooling into the pillow she was pawing in her sleep.
“Ooo–kay,” Haruka drawled. “But if they have powers and we don’t, things could be just a little bit tricky.”
“Minako, Makoto, and Hotaru,” Michiru counted. “That’s three against the five of us.”
“You’re not counting Usagi-chan,” Rei observed.
“No, I’m not,” agreed Michiru pleasantly.
“We don’t know which side she’ll be on,” Haruka explained.
“That too. Anyway, we’ll also probably have to deal with our m– the boy.”
“I wouldn’t,” Setsuna warned. “A few maids skipping out is one thing, doing anything to our– the Anchor Person’s son on the other hand…”
“I meant to distract him,” Michiru corrected. “I’m not stupid, I’m not dense, I’m not going to upset anyone with semi-phenomenal cosmic power. Not until we have some of our own again, anyway.”
“Keep that in mind,” Sestuna advised, seriously. “We’re pretty much in the hub of the Anchor, and so the rim is twenty-five miles away in any direction… walking. I’d rather not try to do that with an angry wizardess turning every rock, tree, and shrubbery against us. It’s bad enough we’ll be practically kidnapping three magical girls who could, and would, turn on us the moment they got loose.”
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(Posted Tue, 13 Feb 2007 01:54)
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