Serena kept pounding on the door to the Medical Bay, yelling and demanding that she be allowed back in. It had been several hours since Queen Serenity had transferred her program to the other side of the ship, and the woman/Mother/AI was still refusing to let her back in.
She had also locked out Serena’s control over the teleportation system—she thought Saturn might be able to heal him enough to wake up, the shuttle craft—she could always go down there and get her, and the transceiver so she could send a message via the Mercury Computer Data Network and they could teleport up there.
“She better not be trying to keep him for herself,” she muttered, pacing before the door. “Where did I put those android bodies, I’ll break in.”
“I locked them down as well, child,” came the voice of Serenity as she talked through the comm. system as the woman formed in the hallway.
“AAAHHHH!” cried Serena, not used to not knowing what was happening on her own ship. “I want to see Master!”
“He needs time,” said Serenity.
Serena blinked at that. She hadn’t said he was sleeping, just that he needed time. “He ... he’s awake?” she asked, hope filling her voice.
Serenity nodded. “However, he needs time to assimilate what he learned. Give him time to recover from what he has learned.”
“But I want to be with him!” cried Serena.
“I understand, child,” said Serenity, placing her hand on top of Serena's sagging shoulders. “But for the moment, he must deal with what he learned on his own.”
“How much does he remember?”
“Enough.”
Ranma sat on the bed, arms wrapped around his legs in the fetal position, as he tried to deal with what he saw. After all, it wasn’t every day you witnessed your own death. Well it was Ruby’s death, but it still felt like his own.
He was a great man, Ranma wasn’t about to dispute that. The guy single handed defeated a bunch of those youma, protecting Queen Serenity until even the sheer numbers wore him away.
Pain. So much pain hit his heart when he saw the world torn down around them, the end of everything they knew. Sure, he’d seen it on television as it happened to other characters in anime. But to have the memories of it happening to him was a completely different matter entirely.
“I know it is hard,” said Serenity, still in the room while she allowed another portion of her program to deal with Serena. “It took me a long time to get over the Great Fall.”
“How?” he asked in a near whisper. “How can you get over something like that?”
“Time,” she said, sitting beside him and taking him into a motherly embrace. “Knowledge that they couldn’t harm anyone for a long time, that those I lost would be reborn, that all was not in fact lost.”
He nodded, glad she was hugging him. He didn’t enjoy feeling so weak, so helpless.
Damn it, I ain’t Ruby now! I’m Ranma Saotome! I’m alive! I got my own life, my own passion, my own path!
She seemed to sense he was still struggling with his revived past. “This does not mean you are not Ranma Saotome. It just means that now Ranma Saotome encompasses a bit more data, a bit more perspective about things. My daughter was reborn as a completely different girl, but yet she is still Princess Serenity on the inside as much as she is the girl she was reborn as,” she added, not wanting to reveal names of the Senshi until they wanted him to know. “All you have now is to redefine who you are.”
“It can’t be that simple,” he muttered, fighting back the tears and sadness of what he witnessed, some shame at the fact he was uncertain if he was even capable of being like that guy, a man who seemed to be a Master of the Art and himself.
“It surprisingly is,” she said with a smile. “And don’t worry about Serena,” she said. “She’s been alone for a long time, so she’s a bit ... excitable to have the chance that someone she cared for very much is back with her. And while she’ll need to learn to deal with that, she will be here to help you adjust.”
“Is she coming here?” he asked, slightly afraid of the whack-job AI and her mallet. Just why small-chested girls kept hitting him with the damn things, he’d never know.
“I gave her a simple chore to do to take her mind off things for the moment.”
Ranma wondered why he had a sudden sense of dread at hearing those words.
“WAAAAAAAH!” cried the AI in question, running down the halls of her ship instead of transferring her program matrix to the desired area. “I got to make Master some food!”
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(Posted Fri, 12 Oct 2007 14:58)
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