"Ami-chan! Ami-chan! C'mon, Ami-chan, you never used to be this fragile!" Ami groaned and slowly forced her eyes open. As she met a pair of concerned red eyes her own snapped the rest of the way open and she sat up with a gasp.
"You're not a dream! Sailor Pluto. . ." she searched through her memory, ". . .the guardian of time? So there are senshi for the outer planets too?"
Pluto considered not telling her, but figured she was going to tell Ami enough unsettling things in the next few minutes, so why not this too? She nodded. "Yes, there are senshi for Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune as well."
Ami tilted her head to one side. "None for Jupiter?"
Pluto quickly scanned her still confused memory. "Yes, there-no, there isn't here." She looked down. What kind of Sailor Team was this? Makoto had died with her parents. The girls were seventeen, yet they had never even heard of the outers. How very strange. "Look, let me explain why I'm here, and my strange clothing when I came in." Pluto took a deep breath. This was going to be harder than she'd thought. Where could she begin? "Did you know that at one time the Americans broke the Japanese secret code?" Ami nodded. "And the Japanese found out about it in time to prevent the Americans from using their stolen knowledge for anything important, right?" Another nod. Pluto hesitated, then plunged ahead. "We weren't supposed to discover that they knew, Ami-chan. Someone with time travel capability went to the past and told the Japanese military." Okay, that was just pure speculation, but what else could it be? Thank goodness that the root of this time shift could be tracked down! "The Americans were supposed to win, Ami-chan. They occupied our country, changed the government, turned the Emperor into little more than a figurehead, and changed the whole outlook of our country." A look of horror crossed Ami-chan's face at the thought. Pluto leaned forward. "Why do you live in such a poor house, Ami-chan? Your mother is an excellent doctor. Where did it all go?"
"Okaa-san? A doctor? Surely not! That's not appropriate work for a woman!" Ami shook her head in denial and Setsuna nodded.
"So your mother and father are still married? They didn't get a divorce?"
Ami's eyes seemed ready to pop out of her sockets. "Divorce? Who could get a divorce?" Setsuna reached out and put a hand on Ami's arm.
"In my time line-the correct one-your mother is a very wealthy doctor, your parents got a divorce, you live alone with your mother in a very nice house, and you are one of the smartest people in the country."
Ami looked at her in surprise. "Otou-san has always said I'm too smart for my own good."
Pluto smiled. "I'm glad that hasn't changed. I need your help, Mizuno Ami-chan, Sailor Mercury. I have to fix what's been broken."
Ami nodded. "If your time line would allow me to do things-would allow Okaa-san to be a great doctor. . .it can't be all bad." She looked down at her hands. "So, what happens when you change everything back? Will I disappear? Die? Will I remember any of this if we succeed?"
Pluto sadly shook her head. "No, Ami-chan, you won't remember any of this. But I will." Ami searched her eyes, then simply nodded. Pluto took her hand. "We have to do this now before I forget anything. Transform."
Mercury reached into her pocket and pulled out her pen. "Mercury Power! Make Up!" Pluto watched as Ami became Sailor Mercury and struggled to hide her disappointment. Not even Super Sailor Mercury. Quite a different time line indeed. Shabon Spray wasn't going to help her much. She was pretty much on her own. She considered bringing the other senshi in, but she didn't know how they would handle it. Usagi would probably fall apart, Minako was entirely too unstable, and Rei would grate on her nerves too much. She didn't want to have to put up with them. Mercury would have to do. She concentrated, and the Time Door appeared before them. Mercury stepped back with a gasp and Pluto sighed and reached out to pull Mercury in after her.
*****
"I understand what you're saying, but surely that's not all we need to do to change the course of history," Mercury argued. When she shook her head her long hair, loose now and even longer than Pluto's, swayed slowly back and forth. Pluto shrugged.
"Well, I'm hardly omnipotent, or something like this would never have happened, but I think it will work. We've studied the sequence of events carefully, and I'm sure all we need to do is make sure they don't interpret that one message. If they don't see it, they don't act on it, and the Japanese are convinced that the Americans can't read their code. Then the Battle of Midway will go as it was supposed too." Pluto shivered as she thought of Hiroshima. There were some things she hadn't told Mercury. There were some things she didn't want to think about herself.
"I still think we should search for the person that told our intelligence service about the code-then we can stop this at its source."
Pluto shook her head. "I don't think so. I'm too afraid of running into whoever is changing things. Right now I don't know anything about them, and-forgive me, Mercury-but I'd need more help than yours to defeat such an enemy, I fear. I'm almost sure no one short of Sailor Moon would be enough to stop someone capable of effecting a huge change in the time line like this."
"I see!" Mercury nodded, "You want to thwart this enemy in the most indirect way possible." She looked down and then brought her head back up and squared her shoulders. "Well, then, let's get to it." She flexed her fingers. "I'm not sure how long this will take. They don't teach girls too much about electronics."
Pluto cocked her head at her. "I'm a grad student in physics, if you'd rather I do that part. . ." Not that it mattered much...Pluto didn't think they'd really have time to be subtle about things.
Mercury looked up at her with a naked hunger for knowledge written across he face. "A graduate student? In college, you mean?" Pluto nodded, made speechless by the pure wonder on Mercury's face. She'd never bothered to feel thankful for the privilege of attending classes. Sometimes she'd even thought them a burden. If nothing else, this hair-raising adventure would give her a more positive outlook on her life. Mercury recovered her equanimity. "Well, uh, I think that would be best. I think it would be easier for me to keep everyone distracted while you destroyed any record they may make of that message."
Pluto nodded. "Very well, that's what we'll do then." She brought up her Garnet Rod and held out her other hand toward Mercury. "Let's go."
*****
Hito looked up wearily. He wanted to go home, but as soon as the woman had brought him back to the weird fog place she'd ignored him and closed her eyes, concentrating on something he couldn't see. Every once in a while she'd mutter to herself, but other than that, she just sat there in some sort of trance. He looked down as his stomach growled. He hadn't eaten all day, and he felt like he was dying of thirst. He'd sat quietly for quite a while now, afraid of what the woman would do if he disturbed her, but he was too hungry to care anymore. With a groan he pulled himself to his feet, still wearing those funny, old clothes, and walked up to her.
"E-excuse me, lady," he began respectfully. "Excuse me?" He reached out to touch her shoulder and was a little surprised that it felt like any other shoulder. He'd almost expected his hand to go straight though her, or something equally strange. The woman started severely at his touch and looked around wildly.
"What? What? Who did that?" She centered her gaze on him and calmed down a bit. "Oh. It's you. What's you problem?"
"I'm hungry, thirsty, tired, I want to go home, and I'm sick of these stupid clothes!"
The woman nodded calmly. She seemed to be more moved by his disgust with his old fashioned outfit than she was by any of his other desires. "I see." She closed her eyes for a second, and suddenly food appeared before them, steam still rising off the plates. "Help yourself."
Hito held back for a second, "Don't you want any?"
"Silly boy! I don't need to eat! Now leave me alone." She waved him in the direction of the food and went back into her weird trance. Hito was too hungry to bother asking her anything else. He fell on the food with relish.
*****
Pluto looked over at Mercury as they huddled in an alcove on the roof of one of the military buildings. "So, how are you going to distract them?"
"I thought I'd just walk into the comms room and start talking in Japanese. I figure that will get them running. I'll stay in senshi form so I can outrun them, and if worse comes to worse I can use my Shabon Spray to help me disappear."
Pluto smiled at her. She was braver that the Ami in her old time line. "You'll definitely get their attention, especially wearing your senshi uniform. You probably won't even have to speak in Japanese!" Mercury blushed at her comment and nodded. Pluto closed her eyes and felt for time with her mind. "We're going to start any time." Mercury firmed her face and nodded. Pluto suddenly stood up. "Now, Mercury!"
Mercury stood up as well, jumped off the building, and ran inside. After a few seconds Pluto heard a huge commotion and closed her eyes. She had to land in the right room. . .there! It was a little to her right. She brought up the Garnet Rod. "Dead Scream!" The magenta ball of energy exploded from her staff and blew a huge hole in the ceiling. She jumped down through and ran for the communication equipment. There it was-the message stating that the emperor was going to visit the Japanese fleet's flagship to inspect the troops and increase morale. Pluto shook her head. Such a patently false message just proved how little the Americans understood the Japanese. As if the Emperor would leave the country in a time of war-it was unheard of. She shook off her bemusement at the difference between Japanese and American cultures and set about destroying the message. She considered trying to make it look like no one had been in here, but then decided that would take too long. Better to just make sure every record was destroyed. "Dead Scream!" She whirled the Rod around her head in a buzzing blur as she released her attack, causing it to travel in a widening spiral that obliterated every part of the room but its exact center, where she stood. She stood perfectly still for a second, trying to catch her breath. This was turning out to be a very tiring day.
"Pluto! Sailor Pluto! What's wrong!" Pluto looked up and saw Mercury pelt into the room, followed by two American soldiers with their guns out of their holsters. She felt a chill crawl up her spine. This could get very ugly indeed.
"Mercury! Hurry! They're behind you!" Mercury ran up to her and turned around to face her pursuers, who had stopped their chase long enough to look around at the comms room in horror. Then an angry look crossed their faces and they began to close in the two young women.
"I'm sorry, Pluto, I tried, but they were too fast for me!" Mercury was breathing hard, her beautiful hair dirty and disheveled. "They shot at me twice! Twice!"
Pluto nodded but didn't say anything to her. She had a choice. She could let these men see her disappear, or try to escape to jump to the Time Door later. Mercury pressed closer to her. "They look really angry, Pluto! Are we going to leave now?" Pluto shrugged. She didn't have much of a choice. Both she and Mercury were in no shape to try to elude the entire American population on this military base. She'd just have to hope that nobody would credit these men with the truth when they told their stories. She reached and grabbed ahold of the Time Door, and began to pull. Suddenly something pushed her, and she thought she heard a noise through the maelstrom of time-space she was trying to open. "Watch out Pluto! They're shooting!" She felt herself begin to lose contact with Mercury and desperately clung to the girl with her free hand. She landed softly and opened her eyes. She was lying on the cloudy floor of the area around the door, and Mercury lay on top of her, the back of her uniform clutched in Pluto's hand. Mercury jerkily raised her head. "Are you okay, Pluto?"
Sailor Pluto nodded and began to struggle to get up. "C'mon, Mercury, get off me so I can get up." The younger girl was a heavy weight on her and Pluto was annoyed that she didn't seem to be moving.
Mercury's head fell back down against her. "Gomen, Pluto. I don't think I can."
"What?"
"I-I think they shot me."
"What?!" Pluto redoubled her efforts and managed to prop herself up. She turned Mercury over and saw a rapidly spreading red stain on her usually pristine uniform. "No! How'd this happen?"
"They were going to shoot you. I couldn't let them do that."
"Just hold on, Mercury! Don't talk, you'll waste your strength!"
Mercury laughed weakly and ignored her. "It doesn't really matter, does it? I mean, we succeeded, ne?" She coughed a little. "Why am I even here? Shouldn't I be the Mizuno Ami you knew in your world?"
"Baka! I said to stop talking!" Pluto felt her eyes tear up. She'd brought this other Ami into this mess, and now it looked like she'd get her killed. She tried to grab ahold of her emotions. Hysteria wouldn't help anyone right now. "I had to protect you from the effects of the time stream with my power, or the second we started changing things you would have disappeared. When I let you go you'll change back physically to the Ami I knew, and probably lose all memory of this adventure."
Mercury opened her mouth, but Pluto shot her a brittle, angry look. "Don't! Don't say a word! I have to figure out how to heal you, or both you and the current Ami Mizuno will die out here!" Pluto looked at her. "You should already be experiencing something of what I do when the time line changes. Think hard-concentrate. Do you have two distinct sets of memory?"
Mercury shook her head and opened her mouth to speak, but then suddenly closed it again without a word. A surprised and confused expression washed over her grimace of pain. Pluto nodded. "You do. And-" she closed her eyes and concentrated for a split second, "-I'm back down to two as well. So we succeeded. But I have to heal you. Maybe I could go to Usagi-Ginzuishou should do the trick. . .but how to get you there?"
She turned her head from her panicked thoughts as she heard a small groan escape from Mercury's lips. She was pulling herself upright. "What are you doing? Didn't I tell you not to waste your strength? And you're the one that wants to be a doctor," she muttered in disgust. "You're bleeding badly, Ami-chan. If you try to get around with a hole in your stomach like that you'll die in no time."
"But you can't carry me, Pluto, and if I'm going to get help we have to go now, or it'll be too late." Sweat from her exertion covered Mercury's forehead, and her hair looked damp and stringy with it. "Look, I can remember some of my studies, and common sense tells me a stomach wound is painful, and while it's not usually immediately fatal, it definitely will be if I don't disinfect it. If I get an infection-" Mercury looked down and gasped with a painful wince as she tried to force herself to her feet, "-I'm dead for sure." She fell back to the ground. Pluto knelt by her side.
"You're too weak to be moved, and you're dying. I don't know what I can do for you, Ami-chan, except stop time and go for help."
"You can't! That's forbidden! I remember that much!" Mercury reached up. "You're more important than me in the scheme of things, Pluto, soldier of Time." She reached up weakly and Pluto caught Mercury's clammy hand in her own dark ones. "I'm dispensable-"she gasped again and Pluto leaned close in worry. Her breaths were coming quicker, as if she couldn't draw in enough air. "Just protect. . .Princess. . .Serenity. . ." Mercury's eyes closed. "Usagi. . ." she whispered, then fell silent. Pluto's eyes widened with worry and she felt for a pulse. After a few seconds of panic she felt a weak beat and saw that Mercury was still breathing. Thank goodness. Pluto dashed tears out of her eyes. This alternative Mercury was so brave, and so helpless. It wasn't fair that this little girl should die because of her incompetence in guarding the time stream.
"Hold on, Ami-chan," Pluto murmured encouragement to the younger girl, hoping she could somehow hear her, "I'll find a way to save you."
*****