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Teasery Goodness The Third - Bob Schroeck - 01-16-2010 The light stopped pulsing and suddenly coalesced to form a holographic image of Usagi in "princess mode", complete with all the accessories she'd acquired in the last moments of the battle against Beryl -- the golden breastplate over her gown; the crown with six points, one each of earth, water, fire, ice, lightning and light; and God's Toothpick (!) with the crescent moon wand mated to one end to turn the whole thing into something like a bishop's crozier, with the Ginzuisho blazing like white fire at its center. Her eyes were closed, and there was an expression of (forgive me) serenity on her relaxed face. "Ohmygod!" Dawn screeched. "That's... That's Serena!" "Usagi," I corrected absently. "Her name is Tsukino Usagi." "But..." Dawn began, and at that moment the image's eyes snapped open. It looked straight ahead, as if into some unseen camera, and did not seem to acknowledge either of us. "Hello, Doug-Sensei," the image of Usagi said in faintly- accented English, and I smiled fondly at the sound of it. (Need I note that she sounded nothing like the actress in the cartoon?) Usagi could speak English perfectly without an accent -- like Dee, she'd acquired complete fluency from a magical accident -- but she loved the idea of sounding "exotic" to native speakers, even ones who knew better (like yours truly). It was one of her few concessions to a minor streak of vanity she normally kept well suppressed. "I'm not entirely sure this will work, but if it does, yay me." She grinned without quite looking at me, and I suddenly felt a pang of loss. Usagi and the other Sailor Senshi -- Makoto especially -- had been like daughters to me. And I had seen all of them but Usagi fall to Beryl's forces before I'd suicided to take out the dark queen's fortress. *Before I'd *suicided*...* A surge of hope washed away the loss as I realized something that should have been painfully obvious to me years earlier. "I wanted to let you know that in the end, I beat Beryl, and with the leftover power given to me by everyone I told the Ginzuisho to bring you all back, which it's done. It's also going to set things up so that you can move on. But before that, I wanted to..." Her eyes grew shiny. "I wanted to tell you that we're all okay, even after everything that happened, and that we love you, and that we'll miss you. And please come back to us some day, if you can." "Oh, Usagi-aijou..." I murmured. "Wow," Dawn breathed. "What did you do?" "I taught them," I said softly. "And advised them. And died for them." Dawn looked at me with wide eyes. "You went to the Negaverse with them!" "Dark Kingdom. Yeah," I said, studying the holograph, which seemed to have paused itself while we spoke. "I used my metagift to basically detonate a nuke in the heart of Beryl's palace." "Whoa," she breathed. "That's nothing like how the cartoon ended." I shrugged. "I wouldn't know about a cartoon. I just know about real life." Dawn turned from me and was studying the quiescent image. "And what she's wearing is different, too. I mean, she had the dress in the cartoon, too, but not the armor stuff. And the crown... wow. That's just amazing." "You really think so?" The image suddenly turned to look directly at Dawn, who shrieked and jumped back. "It talked to me!" The image of Usagi blinked, and looked Dawn up and down. "Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you were Rei for a moment." "That's been going around," I muttered under my breath. Trembling, Dawn raised her arm and pointed a finger at the image. "I thought *you* were a *recording*!" Usagi gave an embarrassed smile and rubbed the back of her head with her right hand. "Um. Well, I *am*. Kinda." She emitted a very familiar nervous chuckle. "Usagi," I said, dropping back into my "sensei voice" with her for the first time in decades, "what did you *do*?" Her smile shifted from embarrassed to sheepish and her affected accent disappeared. "I guess I sorta kinda put too much of myself in the message? And I forgot to put a terminal condition on the enchantment." "So I've been carrying a soulprint of you in my head for all these years? Why the hell haven't you played before now?" "Um." She looked over at Dawn, who was still staring with wide eyes, and then back at me. "I think I flubbed the activation conditions, too." I rolled my eyes, but when I opened my mouth to comment, she scowled at me. Which on her just looked adorable. "Give me a break, Sensei! I'd just had everyone die on me, even the ones who were dead to start with, I'd just beaten Beryl, I'd resurrected *everyone* the Kingdom had killed, *and* I'd rewound the whole planet a year to give us all a 'do-over'. *Plus* I set myself up as the guardian to watch over everything in case some other threat popped up. *And* I made sure you got a portal that would carry you toward your home world! You're not going to get on my case for messing up a... a... a phone message, are you?" Her lower lip began to quiver, and as her eyes began to swim with tears, all the confidence of Serenity II vanished from her; light rippled across her form, and then she was back in her school uniform. She looked more like the schoolgirl I'd first met one busy night than the Queen she had become. -- Bob --------- Then the horns kicked in... ...and my shoes began to squeak. - Wiregeek - 01-16-2010 d'awwwww Usagi no Baka! "No can brain today. Want cheezeburger." From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies - robkelk - 01-16-2010 Yeah - WAFFy without being too sentimental. And a touch of the baka-Usagi we all know and ... love? Quote:"Usagi," I said, dropping back into my "sensei voice" with herA pleasant change from the usual "What did you *do*, Rei?" Quote:So I've been carrying a soulprint of you in my head for allOh, dear. What to do with that... er, her... I did mention that Eimi has a full schematic of A.C. Peters' android designs, and he should also have Rin-Rin's android designs by this point. And Doug has some handwavium. So he can build her a body. How to get her out of Doug's head, though... hmmmmm... -- Rob Kelk "Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of the same sovereign, servants of the same law." - Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012 - Black Aeronaut - 01-16-2010 *Blinks* Doug's got a sample of the Wave with him? Oh dear, I'd forgotten about that. (^_^) I don't think he'd make an R. Usagi Tsukino... At least not until he got home. And even then I think he'd put in a call for an assist. Does he ever get the number for Skuld's personal line? - Bob Schroeck - 01-16-2010 Quote:How to get her out of Doug's head, though... hmmmmm...No need to brainstorm, this will be taken care of by the end of DW13. -- Bob --------- Then the horns kicked in... ...and my shoes began to squeak. - Bluemage - 01-17-2010 Quote: blackaeronaut wrote: The Wave? It took me about three reads to *not* process that as the Cursed Wave, wonder which Phase was involved, and contemplate the effect of the occasional A in C Minor showing up in the Walk. My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours. I've been writing a bit. - Proginoskes - 08-17-2010 blackaeronaut Wrote:*Blinks* Doug's got a sample of the Wave with him? Oh dear, I'd forgotten about that. (^_^)And once he gets home, if DW.Doug == RP.Doug at that point (or even if he doesn't!), what kind of effect will wavetech have on Warriors' World? (Possibly not much, if there are people with metatalents that mimic handwavium's effects, at least on nonliving systems.) - robkelk - 08-17-2010 Let's just say that Eimi and that flask of 'wavium won't be the only samples of the 'Wave in Warriors' World... -- Rob Kelk "Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of the same sovereign, servants of the same law." - Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012 |