"There was a paradox storm when I tried to fix a problem. It actually got worse," replied Setsuna, sounding thoroughly dejected.
"Oh...kay. Where are we?" Ami looked about but other than her friends all she could see were white mists in all directions.
"Limbo," answered Setsuna. "A time outside Time, and a place outside Space. We are anchored to the world still, but unless something happens, we'll all cease to be very shortly. I'm sorry."
The Senshi looked about at the darkening mists.
"Man, when you screw up, you don't mess around," said Makoto. "What was so bad that you had to risk this to fix it?"
Setsuna could see clearly now what their status had been and how much worse off this was than that. "A boy found a genie lamp, figured he'd make a mistake making that wish and tried to get a girl to help him. The girl made an offhand, ill considered, wish on the boy's behalf that was granted. All of the Senshi ended up being this boy's harem."
"Was he cute?"
Nobody would have been particularly surprised at that coming from Minako. As it had been Hotaru voicing that comment, that drew a few odd stares.
"He's a fairly handsome martial artist who has some problems expressing himself," explained Setsuna. "Unfortunately, his wish had retroactive effects and ended up with my attempt to fix it causing a causality loop. Which the timestream healed by ejecting us."
"So this is it," said Michiru, holding Haruka's hand. At least they got to die together.
"...or maybe not," said Ami as the mists began to lighten around her.
"Something is stabilizing us, acting as an anchor," remarked Setsuna, beginning to hope as the lights increased one after the other.
"A presence, a scent, a feel," Michiru proclaimed as the chill darkness receeded. "Someone is there."
"Let me see if I can find out," said Setsuna, summoning, then holding her staff aloft.
--------Serenity lifted the Silver Millenium Crystal high. "Let them be reborn in a distant age."
"NO!" Beryl lunged forward from the shadows, trailing blood and darkness in her wake. The two struggled, the Ginzuishou shining with alternating darkness and light. "If they are reborn it shall be as my servants."
"Never," stated Serenity with determination.
Darkness and light flared high, gutted low, then exploded in alternating bands of power.
-----
"What the heck was that?!" Usagi asked, relatively calm for their situation.
"The ancient past was changed." Setsuna frowned, now searching the timestream herself. "There."
--------Instead of finding a lamp, Ranma saw a meteor and went out to get it as he knew from one science class he'd been awake during that such things were valuable. He might even get out of debt with them.
On reaching it, he was about to dismiss it as space junk. Just some old hunk of metal. He reached out to touch it anyway. Which was when nine gemstones launched themselves at him, imbedding into his flesh and becoming tattoos.
On his forehead, a golden crescent. On his right hand, the symbol of Jupiter. On his left hand, the symbol of Saturn. Across his chest: Mars, Mercury, Venus. Right forearm - Pluto. Left forearm - Neptune. Stomach - Uranus.
Ranma collapsed.
----------
Setsuna looked at that and said something.
Hotaru blushed, good girls weren't supposed to hear language like that.
"You know what happened?" Haruka gestured towards the Garnet Orb that had just relayed those images. "What all that meant?"
"The retroactive changes are such that instead of finding a lamp, he found our prisons just before we faded from existence. Our link is the very boy whose harem we'd been before I tried to fix it. His life-force is our anchor, and through him is our only contact with the real world." Setsuna looked quite unhappy.
"So if he dies, we die," said Minako. "Least he's a hunk!"
Haruka said something uncomplimentary.
"So he can draw on our power?" Rei declared, not incidently hiding herself with her hands. Ghost or not, being naked wasn't any fun here. "I haven't been able to call on my Senshi powers."
Setsuna's distaste was replaced with thoughtful. "The more he calls upon our power, the more we'll be drawn towards our own reality. We'll be able to communicate with him once he starts doing that. Possibly in dreams or in mirrors first. Eventually we will be able to manifest back - and by that time he may be able to unlock this prison."
"So, what do we do now?" Michiru asked, amused at how not only Rei but most of the Inners were trying to conceal their bodies.
Setsuna seemed to examine the air, now lightly pulsing with brightness in time to Ranma's heartbeat. "To begin with, we..."
(Posted Sat, 25 Jan 2003 18:03)
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