Meanwhile, at the Gates of Time in the Future...

Meanwhile, at the Gates of Time in the Future...
Date of Cutscene:	05 May 2025
Location:	The Gates of Time
Synopsis:
Cast of Characters:	Setsuna Meiou

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The area around the Gates of Time, to those that know of it, is rather infamously a huge, formless white void. One that causes most people who visit for more than a few moments want to curl up in a nonexistent corner, hug their knees and rock gently back and forth until the locality starts making sense.

Which means it's probably a good thing there aren't actually any corners, lest the place be littered with the madly-gibbering unfortunate.

Still, the place is not without feature. There is the Gates of Time.

The capital letters are DEFINITELY audible.

And nearby is it's guardian...who, for various reasons, can sense when others intrude on her space. And is primed to attack said intruders at a moment's notice.

Thus, when the Guardian of Space-Time, Sailor Pluto went charging towards the intruder she sensed, Garnet Rod flowing through an attack pattern, she recoiled a bit as her attack was halted mid-swing by a hand grabbing the Rod at the EXACT moment she went to reverse it's direction. Slightly shocked, she blinked at seeing a gloved hand that matched her own, which she then followed back to see...herself?!

Jumping back, Pluto pulled the Garnet Rod free from a grip that wasn't actually trying to keep ahold of it and frowned, leveling it at her seeming copy, "...identify yourself."

Standing across from her, Pluto's identical duplicate looked her up and down while shifting slightly back and forth, as if to get a slightly different angle of view every second, "...those are PROPER heels...I've never seen them from the outside before...it's like a special effect!"

At her visitor's odd exclamation, Pluto blinked a few times before a confused look crossed her face. Frowning slightly and arching an eyebrow, she asked, "...are you SERIOUSLY quote mangling a line from 'Day of the Doctor' at me?"

Snorting in return, the other Sailor Pluto tapped the side of her head, "...got you to stop and think for a moment, didn't it?"

Sailor Pluto regarded her counterpart with a flat look for several seconds before heaving a sigh and shaking her head, "...touché." She then dismissed the Garnet Rod before going on, "...so you're me...and by the feeling I'm getting, you're from the Past?"

Younger Pluto thought about that for a moment, as if making sure that the statement was accurate before finally nodding and responding simply, "Ayup."

Pluto frowned and narrowed her eyes at the other, "How? Travel through time is expressly forbidden. You should know that as well as I."

Younger gave a little bit of a shrug in response, "We kind of sidestepped. I'm not actually YOU-you...our timelines diverged rather radically somewhere way back...not really sure where. Either way, since I'm from what is technically an alternate dimension, there's no triggering of the Taboos, and you don't have to take things out on 'Small Lady'."

At the mention of Chibiusa's nickname, Pluto's expression immediately softened to one of concern, "Then she's okay? I've been extremely worried since she went missing."

The Younger Pluto leaned up against the Gates and nodded in response, "She's fine. More or less. Apparently my parallel is the relief sump for all the spacetime 'weird', so having her show up wasn't even the strangest thing that'd happened that month. Sailor Moon's been active for less than two years now and I've already had to learn the plural of 'apocalypse'. And only ONE of those was Beryl." The Younger Pluto snorted and shook her head, "Worst part is that SOMETHING about their all going active knocked the Gates completely out." She hooked a thumb to point at the doors of the Gates, "Huginn and Muninn? COMPLETELY out of alignment and in standby afterwards. And you know as well as I that getting them pushed back is a HUGE hassle. For all intents and purposes, my Gates are kaput for the immediate future." Younger then smiled, "...on the plus side, since the Gates aren't functional, they don't require constant Guarding anymore...which means that in my timeline, I get to actually go live a life and help the Princess and all the others rather than sticking here and having to watch it all go by. Uranus, Neptune and I all live together in a big house." With a tilt of her head, Younger Pluto gives her counterpart an amused look, "...you should try it sometime."

Pluto gives her Younger self a rather flat look, "You know as well as I do that I can't do that. I have a Duty laid upon me and I cannot forsake it."

Younger Pluto gives her counterpart a rather arch look right back, "Of course I do. I also know there are loopholes to those same rules. Loopholes that you are DELIBERATELY ignoring." Raising a finger, she points at her other self, "For example, the Taboo in question is 'You must not Abandon your post.'" Younger Pluto shrugs, "Easy peasy. You get someone to spell you here for a few hours or a day or so." She trails off and glances at the Gates for a moment, "Well, not NOW, granted, but AFTER this. Hell, get the Queen to make it official."

Pluto stares at the other woman for a few moments...and then she looks away, muttering, "...it's not that simple..."

Younger Pluto, however, is having none of it as she pushes herself to stand up straight and point at Pluto, "Like HELL it isn't! It is ABSOLUTELY that simple. In my world, that's EXACTLY what happened. After I almost missed my first Christmas with the family Uranus, Neptune and our friends had become because of that Geas the Taboos are, the Princess put her foot down and loosened them so they weren't as strict." She then glances over at the Gates and throws her hand out to wave in their direction, "I know your circumstances are somewhat different, but there's no reason changes can't be made so that you can have a day off now and again."

The Younger Pluto stands there, staring intently at her older counterpart until said older woman eventually looks over and returns her gaze. The two lock eyes for a few moments before finally the Younger Pluto sighs and rubs her face with her hands, "...Look, just think about it. In any event, we're eventually going to have to go home, and most of the push is going to have to come from this end. Targeting shouldn't be TOO hard, since my Gates and I are still intrinsically linked...and I'm fairly certain if we crosswire the flux capacitor to the vortex manipulator with some of the spare wiring made of that dilithium-thiotimoline blend the Hecker circuits are made from, we can set up an alternate shunt you can use to get us home when the time comes."

Pluto frowns a little and opens her mouth to respond, but her Younger aspect cuts her off, "YES, I'm well aware that I'm skipping a LOT of steps...but that's first and the last one...and with the two of us working together, it should be a straightforward enough job."

The older Pluto gives her younger self a flat look, "I was GOING to comment that you seem to be assuming that the Black Moon Clan isn't going to be a problem."

Younger chuckles and gives a grin that has teeth, "You guys had them at a stalemate BEFORE the cavalry arrived...and now there are a bunch of mahou that they have never seen, including the Shittenou AND TWO of all the Inners, Uranus, and Neptune...oh, and Saturn."

Pluto blinks and suddenly looks a bit panicked, "SATURN?! You brought SATURN?! Why is she even awake?! Why is the Bringer of Silence with you?!"

Her younger counterpart sighs, then pinches the bridge of her nose, "...look, why she's awake at all is something of a long story...but suffice it to say that the young woman reborn as Saturn has been through some serious shit of a level that would have turned MOST people into nihilistic sociopaths...but somehow she's come out of it as one of the sweetest, most caring young women I've ever had the pleasure to meet. She lives with Uranus, Neptune and I and to give you an idea what she's like, when she first moved in with us and she found out who we are...mind this is long before she found out she was Saturn and we'd resolved to not let her awaken as Saturn if we could help it...she was at the time using a Device that let her be a mahou...and she immediately styled herself as 'Sailor Charon' and went around telling people that 'Pluto is still a planet in every way that matters!'" A smile splits her face at the memory.

The older Pluto opens her mouth to respond...but then blinks, shuts it, then then tilts her head, "...why would anyone think Pluto isn't a planet?"

Younger growls a little and rubs her face with her hands again before throwing them up in the air, "...because in my timeline, there's a guy called Neil Degrasse-Tyson who, props to him, has done a LOT to popularize science in general and astronomy in specific, to the point where he was able to get them to let him do an update to Carl Sagan's 'Cosmos'...thing is, he's got this thing where he used his pull to get the IOC to reclassify Pluto as a 'dwarf planet' 'because it hasn't cleared it's orbital yet'."

Pluto stares for a moment, then scowls, "...that's stupid."

Younger Pluto flings her arms out wide, "I KNOW, RIGHT?!"