"Boy! Boy! Wake up!"
Futsuno Hito swatted at the annoying voice. "Just a few more minutes, Kaa-san....it's too early...." He rolled over and burrowed his face into the scratchy pillowcase....
His eyes snapped open. This wasn't his bed. He had plain cotton sheets. He looked down at the pillowcase and winced when he saw it was covered in frilly lace. Ick. He sat up as memory came crashing over his mind and began to shudder. If this wasn't his own bed, or his own room, then that voice didn't belong to..."
"I'm not your mother." The lady in black didn't seem angry, however. In fact, her voice held a discernible touch of amusement. He watched her with wide eyes, the white sheets clutched convulsively in his hands. "Good morning. Time to get up. I have a lot of work for you to do yet." She nudged him again with her staff. "Get up, I said. Look, I even remembered that you'd need food. Eat it while I explain." Hito stifled a sigh and rolled out of the bed. He sat down on the floor, still in his hated 1940's clothes, and stuffed food into his mouth while the woman settled into a comfortable position on the ground next to him and began to speak. More than once he nearly choked on his food as she began to outline her frightening new plan.
*****
Setsuna suddenly sat up in bed and looked around in confusion. Where was she? This wasn't her room! Her panicked eyes finally settled on Hotaru's sleeping form, propped up in a chair next to the bed, and she relaxed as memory returned. Of course. Her bed had disappeared, and she was sleeping in Hotaru's room. She slowly got up, trying to be as quiet as possible. A quick glance at the clock said she'd been asleep for over nine hours. Fear made her heart race as she tried to feel any evidence of time manipulation, but to her relief everything seemed the same as it had been before she'd gone to sleep. She slipped out of the room. It was late afternoon-she should go find the others and see if they'd found out anything about that boy she and Ami had seen. She took off for the temple at a run, much more invigorated after her rest. Maybe she should take a few of them out of the time stream so they could help her fight this new enemy.
*****
Hito shook with fear. If anyone found him here, he was a good as dead! The lady had said he was safe, but he had a hard time trusting her. Besides, what was he doing here, fiddling with a car? He'd asked the lady, but she'd refused to say anything except that it was better he didn't know exactly what he was doing. He thought she was probably telling the truth, at least about what he was doing right now, but that didn't really make him feel any better about it. Not by a long shot. When he disconnected the hose the lady wanted him to, he stepped back. Suddenly he heard voices. With a worried look he ran to the darkest corner of the huge garage and crouched down. Two men got in the front seats of the big, expensive black car and drove it out. Futsuno stood up and wiped some beaded sweat off his forehead. What exactly had he done? He thought that hose had something to do with the brakes. . .
He jumped with a stifled yelp as a hand fell to his shoulder. "What are you doing here, boy?" Hito looked over his shoulder and gasped. A man in a soldier's uniform held his arm. He was in for it now...where was the black lady when he needed her? His mouth opened, but the man shook him before he could say anything. "What's a Jap doing here, huh, boy? Are you a spy?"
Hito's eyes widened, and he shook his head. "Iie!" The man laughed, and Hito could tell he felt in control of the situation, but Hito hadn't been talking to him. The black lady had finally come. She was directly behind the soldier and her staff was raised over her head in preparation for a blow. Hito fervently prayed she was aiming for the soldier, and not him. The huge key came whistling down to crack against the back of the man's skull. He fell without a sound. Hito fell to his knees next to him, feeling for a pulse. "Did you kill him? He was just doing his job! I'm not supposed to be here, after all!"
"He is not dead. He will be fine. He has to be fine, or my plan won't work. This man is very necessary. Let's go." Hito stood, thankful he hadn't cost this man his life, and walked up to the lady. Would she let him go home now? He closed his eyes and tightened his hold on her arm as everything began to swirl around him.
*****
As Setsuna finally entered the courtyard of Rei's shrine, she froze, mid-step. It was happening again, only this time the change was so great she nearly fell to knees from the disorientation. Everything seemed to swirl around Hikawa Jinja, and Setsuna forced herself to move through this rapidly changing reality. If she could reach at least one of the senshi in time, maybe she could stop them from being affected by this change...
Before she'd even taken three steps the swirl of space-time steadied, and Setsuna looked around in shock while she racked her new set of memories for the point of divergence. The temple alone had stayed where it was, old enough that the shift in time hadn't touched its existence. It was not as well kept, however, and Setsuna saw the dirty courtyard and dilapidated buildings hadn't been tended to in years. Rei-chan would never let it fall into such disrepair. As she watched, Rei's grandfather slowly made his way out of the house and walked toward the temple. She watched him use an old cane as he hobbled. She walked up to him and offered him a hand. He looked up at her in surprise.
"Who are you?"
"Let me help you, ojii-san," she said, concerned. "Do you have a granddaughter?"
He coughed. "Why, how'd you know? Yes, I do, but I never see her. I offered to take her in here at the temple after my daughter died, but that stupid son in law of mine wouldn't hear of it. My poor little Rei-chan..." he muttered to himself. Setsuna stood and took a step back as he entered the temple. She ran off before he could even turn to thank her for her help. This was bad! Rei not living at the temple was a major change indeed!
As she was running she finally remembered what had happened, and she reeled with the implications. She stopped moving and found a battered front stoop to sit on as she thought. Truman had been killed in a car accident that should never have happened. She didn't have more specific memories than that, so she took off for the public library, hoping it still stood where it used to.
*****
"Here." The black lady threw a set of clothes at him that looked fairly modern. She looked at him. "Here are some new clothes. Put them on, and I've left food for you over by-" she smiled wickedly, "my bed. Eat, sleep, and rest up. I'll probably have more for you to do soon."
Hito clenched his fists. "But you said if I did what you wanted you'd send me home! I want to go back to my family! I'm sick of this!"
The lady looked at him silently for a second, her red eyes unreadable in the swirling fog. She tilted her head curiously. "I'm going to be doing something very dangerous. I advise you not leave the immediate vicinity, or you'll probably be killed." Without another word she strode off, leaving a still angry Hito behind. He ground his teeth, but common sense kept him from running after her. He didn't really want to see what she considered dangerous. With a sigh and a brief prayer of thanks that at least she'd left him alone to change, he put on the new, and much more comfortable, clothes and settled down to eat the food.
*****
"Usagi! Go answer the door!"
"Hai, Kaa-san." Usagi pushed herself away from the couch and walked to the front door of the apartment. "Yes? Who is it?"
"It's me, Usagi-chan." Setsuna had no memory of meeting the senshi in this timeline, implying they'd never met, but she didn't take that for granted. She didn't take anything for granted."
Usagi's eyes narrowed. "Who are you?"
Setsuna sighed. It wouldn't be easy after all. "I would like to be your friend, Usagi-chan."
"Why are you calling me that? I didn't give you permission!" Setsuna took a surprised step back as she saw an angry flush cover Usagi's face. "You may call me Tsukino-san!!"
Setsuna reached out, shocked at such a violent reaction. "Usagi-"
"Tsukino! Don't come back until you learn some manners!" Usagi slammed the door shut in her face. Setsuna stood nonplused on the front steps, not believing what she'd just seen. Even on a bad day, her Usagi was ten times nicer than this angry girl. She was shaken. Usagi's greatest strength as Sailor Moon was her love of others. If that had been taken from her... Setsuna looked down as she mulled that unpleasant thought over. She decided she'd try to contact the other senshi first. How about Mercury? That had worked out last time. With a new destination, Setsuna set off to find out where Ami-chan lived.
Who would have thought that one man's death, at just the wrong time, could change Japan this much?
*****
Hito shivered as he sat on the bed. Things had gotten decidedly uncomfortable here in the last few hours. Whatever could make this place grow so cold, all of a sudden? He'd put on the old, hated set of clothing over the newer set, and had wrapped every last blanket around himself, and he was still way too cold for comfort. Strange noises came out of the mists surrounding the door, and he knew that the black lady hadn't been exaggerating when she'd said it would be dangerous to leave the safety of this small area. He nervously waited for her to return, thinking desperate thoughts of home, and wondering, for the first time, if he would survive to get back.
*****
As Setsuna walked toward the only Mizuno address in the area she wondered idly about the strange thing the boy had been "told" to tell her while they waited for Mercury's gunshot to disappear. He'd known something about the future that she hadn't been able to see even with her view of all the multiple futures that were likely at the very second she looked. "There is more than one time stream. You can also step outside of this one." She mused out loud. What could it mean? Did her enemy have some skill to do with time that Pluto herself didn't possess? If so, why give out a hint, however obscure, to the enemy? It just didn't make sense.
As Setsuna's mind churned through this problem her feet finally carried her up the front steps of a slightly run down, but well cared for apartment complex. In fact, for all it's shabby looks, it was one of the nicest she'd seen in this new time line. She shook her head in admiration of her unseen adversary's cleverness. In killing Truman on April 11, 1945 she hadn't given the ailing Roosevelt time to appoint a Vice President, so, for the first time in history, the Speaker of the House had become the new President. Setsuna couldn't recall the man's name with her older, "real" set of memories, but the newer ones couldn't forget it. Sam Rayburn, the man who'd broken the back of the Japanese Empire.
She shuddered. The bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been horrible enough, but the island hopping strategy that Rayburn had used to win the war had devastated her smaller island nation more than two first generation low-yield nuclear bombs ever could. A soldier stationed at the White House at the time of Truman's death insisted he'd caught a Japanese boy fiddling with Truman's car before it crashed, and an inspection of the wreck had proven the brakes had been tampered with. Setsuna wondered with a grim smile if it was the same boy who'd saved Mercury. The United States was outraged by such an attack on her government and outraged that it had been accomplished by a Japanese spy. After they won the war in the Pacific Theater in late 1945 MacArthur's sympathetic leanings toward the Japanese had been characterized as bordering on treason, and a much harsher government had been imposed by the politically astute Rayburn.
One small event, so much destruction. She wondered as she made her way down the raggedly carpeted hall of the fourth floor of the building if the boy realized exactly what he was doing. Probably not. He may not even know that he killed someone.
Setsuna knocked in Mizuno apartment, hoping fervently that Ami lived here. There was no Doctor Mizuno in the area.
"Yes?" The door opened. Setsuna took a step back in shock.
"A-Ami...?" Could this be Ami-chan?
"Yes?" A tinge of annoyance darkened the girl's face as she stared at Setsuna over a pair of metal rimmed, bright green sunglasses. She clicked her long blue fingernails together in an unconscious gesture of irritation.
"My name is Meioh Setsuna. Could I please come in?"
Ami made no moves to unchain the door. "What are you selling?"
"Nothing."
"What do you want, then?"
"I need to talk with you." She saw Ami's face close off and leaned forward. "Please."
"No, I-"
Setsuna lowered her voice to an intense whisper. "Sailor Mercury!"
"What?!" Ami tried to assume an expression of contempt, but fear tinged her voice. "Are you crazy, lady? There is no Sailor Mercury. There's a Sailor Venus, Sailor Moon, and Sailor Mars."
Setsuna's memories of this time were sketchy. She hadn't kept a close watch on the normal world in this time line. She didn't know for sure if Mercury was telling the truth, but there was something odd about the look on Ami's face. "Then why are you so frightened when I mention that name?"
Ami looked away. "Are you a police officer?"
"No."
"Are you a hacker?"
"NO!"
Ami looked indecisive for a moment, then shrugged and closed the door. Setsuna raised her hand to pound on it when it suddenly reopened, the chain off the door. "Come on in." She stepped back, leaving enough room for Setsuna to squeeze through. Setsuna looked at this new Ami in surprise. She was as different from the "real" Ami as the one with long hair, the one who'd almost died, had been.
Her hair was rather long, about as long as Michiru's had been in her original timeline, and hung in limp, straight clumps. Her hair obscured one eye, and her thin pair of sunglasses hung low on her nose, more decoration than anything else. She had so many earrings and hoops around the outside edge of her ears, in both the cartilage and the lobe, that Setsuna had a hard time seeing through them to actual flesh. Her fingers were covered with silver rings, and her clothing was short and rather scandalous. Setsuna didn't know what to make of this. If the changes were more than cosmetic, this Ami bore no resemblance to the prim, proper young genius she'd known. Suddenly Ami's question made blinding sense. "You're a hacker!"
Ami grinned. "Well, I'm pretty sure you're not a cop now-no one can fake that look of surprise and not be making money in Hollywood. If you're not a hacker either, what interest could you have in Sailor Mercury?"
Setsuna looked at her carefully. What should she tell her? "What does Sailor Mercury mean to you?"
Ami grinned, showing all her teeth, as if she were a threatening animal. She lounged back in the comfortable old couch that sat against one wall of the small living room. "Sailor Mercury happens to be a well known and very secretive hacker. Not much is known about him.
Setsuna smiled. "You mean her."
Ami shook her head. "No, I don't. I don't know if Sailor Mercury's a him or a her."
"Sure you do. I mean, you do know you're a 'her', don't you?"
Ami's smile widened. "And you say you're not a hacker."
"I'm not."
"Sure." Ami looked up at the ceiling and rubbed her chin in thought. "What would it take to buy your silence then, Meioh-san? Money?" Setsuna shook her head, trying to hide her shock at Ami's behavior. This Ami was quite sinister-she didn't know if she could get used to this. "Equipment? I can get my hands on some sweet laptops, dirt cheap. Free, actually." There was that unnerving smile again. Setsuna wondered if she'd practiced it in the mirror to get it just right. She shook her head again, curious as to what she'd offer next. "Drugs? Access codes?" Setsuna held her hand out, signaling for Ami to stop. She didn't want to hear any more.
"No, I don't want a thing from you, Ami-chan." She realized too late that she'd slipped again. Ami's grin had lost all hint of amusement as she let the diminutive suffix slip out.
"What did you call me?" Her voice was soft and gentle, laced with thick ice that seemed to freeze Setsuna's blood in her veins. She stood.
"Is there anyone else in the apartment? Your mother? Father?"
"No. It's empty right now. Why?" Ami's voice still carried veiled threat, and her expression was dark and closed. Setsuna reached into her dimension pocket and pulled out her henshin wand. Ami's eyes widened. "Where'd you get that? Are you a street magician?" Setsuna ignored her, closing her eyes, eager for the rush of power that was about to fill her tired body.
"Pluto Planet Power! Make UP!"
"What the-" Ami leaned back into the couch as Pluto finished her transformation. Pluto pointed the tip of her Garnet Rod at Ami's exposed throat.
"I wouldn't make any threats, Ami-chan." This Ami's arrogance and corruption was almost repulsive, and Pluto enjoyed the frightened look on her face for a fraction of a second before she lowered her staff. "I am Sailor Pluto, the senshi of time."
"Time?"
Pluto smiled down at her. "You're looking at your first bona fide time traveler, Ami." The blue haired girl stared at her with shock written across her features. "You truly are the real Sailor Mercury. And I need your help to fight an enemy." She sat down next to Ami. "We have an enemy that can move through time as I do. And she's changing the time line."
Ami jerked her head. "What do you want me to do about it?"
"You're the smartest girl I know, Ami-chan, and I'm going to need you and all the other Sailor senshi to help me. But first-" Pluto reached out, determined not to be caught by surprise again. She sent a bolt of energy into Ami. The girl rocked back in her seat and blinked blankly a couple times.
"What was that for?"
"You're now protected from changes in the time stream, as I am. If our enemy changes things again you won't be affected, except you'll have an extra set of memory."
"Extra set of..."
Pluto released her transformation, and Setsuna snapped her fingers impatiently at Ami. "Wake up! Stop repeating me! Get that famous brain of your working, Ami-chan."
Ami surged to her feet. "Call me that one more time and I'll-"
"You'll what?"
Ami looked at her helplessly for a second, then chuckled appreciatively. "Get really angry and do absolutely nothing."
At least she had a sense of humor. Setsuna smiled. "I'll try not to use the 'chan', but I've been calling you that for three years, Ami. It'll be hard to get out of the habit."
"Three years?"
"There you go, repeating me again." At Ami's frustrated growl she relented. "I've known you since you were fourteen in my original timeline. There you are Eternal Sailor Mercury, a formidable warrior, and the brains behind much of what the senshi do."
"Imagine that! So, I must be very different from that other Ami."
Setsuna could only nod at that understatement. "Very different. There aren't even words." She stood. "I still need to make contact with the other senshi. Would you please come along?"
"Why?"
"Well, we'll need to get you a henshin rod, if nothing else." She hoped Usagi would be cooperative enough for her to talk to Luna for a minute. Ami bounced out of her seat at Setsuna's words and latched onto her arm.
"Sounds like a great idea! Let's go!"
*****