Someone Else's Present (BMC: Spectre Sisters)
| Someone Else's Present (BMC: Spectre Sisters) | |
|---|---|
| Date of Cutscene: | 08 January 2024 |
| Location: | Black Moon Clan's Ship |
| Synopsis: | Following Scene 2215/Rabbit Hunt, Take Two, Koan returns to the Black Moon Clan's ship to process the idea that she's in 2025. She can't be, right? But processing turns into speaking with her sisters - and speaking to her sisters turns into a confirmation. What do you do when you're in the wrong one? |
| Cast of Characters: | 280, Usagi Tsukino |
| Tinyplot: | Black Moon Clan |
It was 2025. 2025. How could it be 2025, when they were in the past, when Sailor Moon, that hateful, wretched woman, was Sailor Moon instead of the Neo Queen, was still a mortal instead of cruel god? How could it be 2025, when the world was intact?!
Koan didn't know what to think. She didn't, couldn't, understand it, and so she had departed the museum in a blaze of confusion and misgivings, leaving behind the hateful Senshi and their butler, empty-handed, a failure once more.
What else could she do, when her world had been thrown for a loop? She, her sisters, their clan, they were not just off-target, they were off-world!
Something had to have gone terribly wrong in the plan. But how? As she emerged from darkness into her quarters, Koan sat heavily upon her bunk, tipping onto her side to stare at the wall and think through what she knew was supposed to have happened.
Firstly, there was the plan.
The plan was a straightforward one, crafted in emergency. It was a plan to follow the Rabbit through the storm of time from which she had fled, to seize the Silver Crystal, and finally claim the source of Neo Queen Serenity's power for themselves - for Prince Demande, who would use it to lead them into a new age, one where the young had the chance to shape society, where the abhorrent false peace the planet had been enveloped in would end, where humans would be human again, with all the flaws and potential for change and yes, even violence, that came with that.
The Rabbit had fled from Crystal Tokyo, not through the wrecked streets and toppled bridges of the ruined city, but through the very depths of time themselves. Wiseman had said so, and Saphir had confirmed it, and so it was gathered that the Rabbit meant to retrieve aid from the past, planned to flee Sailor Moon's last great era, to 1994, where the then-princess was still hiding amidst humanity, fighting from the shadows.
All they had to do was follow her, reclaim the prize she had stolen, and then they could put an end to Serenity and Endymion's cursed bloodlines, such that all humanity would be well and truly free of their influence. Follow her, guess at her route, prepare themselves for what they would see, and so it was 1994 they prepared for, because that was when Saphir said she would arrive.
The Rabbit was born before the Calamity, and the Calamity began in 2000. Everyone knew that, even those born and raised on Nemesis as Koan was, knew that. The old world fell to the Calamity in 2000, and lay in desolate shambles as Neo Queen Serenity and King Endymion picked up the pieces of the toxic, maddened ruin for half a century. Itr wasn't until after that half-century that The Great Restoration began, with all the planet eating from their hands like dogs, worshipping them as gods.
It was because of that knowledge that the Black Moon Clan had known the Rabbit would push past the 21st century, fleeing for the relative safety of the late 20th century. In the 21st century, the legendary Sailor Moon would be gone, replaced by the Witch Goddess humanity had so foolishly accepted as their queen. She would be committed to purifying the world, and unable to spare power for the Rabbit. Furthermore, the Rabbit would already exist in the year 2000, and Wiseman and Saphir had both cautioned the danger of meeting oneself face to face, flesh to flesh.
The stupid girl wanted to save her home. She would never risk running into herself. The Rabbit would flee to a time before her birth, to an era where Sailor Moon was known, powerful. So she would go to an era were the scattered remnants of the Old World's history promised Sailor Moon still fought.
Her choice was supposed to be 1994. She was supposed to flee to 1994, and they would follow, and she knew this and yet here she was, still rolling about in her bunk, frustrated by the words of those arrogant warriors!
The Rabbit fled, the Black Moon followed, and it could not be to a year beyond 2000, for it would be too dangerous, and pointless besides, for so much of the world would be a spoiled ruin, left in tragedy by Neo Queen Serenity and King Endymion's dual incompetence. The world was dead, from 2000 to 2058, and afterwards, much of it still barely resuscitated even centuries later. The Great Restoration had lasted hundreds of years.
And yet, it could not be denied that this world lived and breathed.
The people walked the streets, in turn busy and bored, sedate and sensational, a crawling, heaving mass of humanity like she'd never seen, living on top of each other in towering buildings without a jut of crystal in sight, the air tinged with exhaust and pollution, the people working for money rather than satisfaction.
Koan had never seen anything like it - not on Nemesis, where the people gave their all in toil and practice, preparing to liberate humanity, and not in her brief glimpse of the Crystal Millennium, where the people lazed about, content as spoiled pets, all their needs provided for. The people were as varied as the plants, and just as strange and mystifying, and the magic -
"Ughh," Koan groaned to herself, turning her face into her flat pillow and drawing her knees to her chest. "I should have known something was wrong the moment I saw those sparkling pretty boys. In all history, there was only the king to stand beside the Senshi. But how could I know they didn't just kill them all?! They certainly let plenty of others die!"
Billions! Billions died in the Calamity, and from the ruins of the world, there had been only eight souls with true power, just as the Neo Queen had wanted.
It had just made sense. It had all made sense. Being in 2025, that was what made no sense, and anyone would agree.
"Aarrruuuuugh," she groaned again, her face smashed against the pillow to stifle the noise.
But not swiftly enough.
"Koan, is that you making all that racket?" The voice, sharp and irritable, belonged to Koan's eldest sister, Petz. "What do you have to complain about now? Weren't you supposed to be off hunting the Rabbit?"
If Koan were stupid, which she was not, she would ask her sister the same thing. Finding the Rabbit was a task assigned to all of them, and yet it certainly felt like Koan was the one putting in all the effort!
But she was not stupid, and so she did not say that. Instead, she rose, sitting cross-legged to better stare Petz down.
"I've only just come back from hunting for the Rabbit!" This was true, and not an admission that she'd let the girl slip from her grasp. "And - while I was doing that, something... came up. Saphir-sama said that following the Rabbit would lead us here, to the year <i?1994, didn't he?"
Bringing up Saphir was a risk, given the crush her eldest sister had always harbored for him, but Koan was hardly going to just admit to harboring doubts over what a group of Senshi had to say. No, she had to bring it up subtly. Tactfully confirm that those blasted Senshi were full of it.
It was a risk that paid off in unfortunate ways for Petz dropped the subject of their prey in favor of immediately tearing into Koan.
"Of course that's what Saphir-sama said! And he was right, of course! We found the Rabbit, just as he said we would, as soon as we stepped out of our ship. Are you losing your memory? Did you get hit on the head or something? As though it isn't bad enough you were in here wailing like some soft Crystallite - "
Koan reminded herself first, that sisters loved one another; second, that Petz showed affection through abrasive language; third, that Petz was and always had been stronger than her; and finally, that Crimson Rubeus, handsome though he was, would gut her like a fish if she actually damaged her sister and diminished their forces. As was usually the case, it was those last thoughts - of the potential consequences of her actions - which prevented Koan from lashing out.
"I am neither losing my memory nor suffering from a head injury, nee-sama," she regretted bringing it up. It was a stupid, foolish thing, to actually listen to the lies of her enemies. "I just wanted to confirm the year. That it was... 1994, rather than something like -" she didn't have to say it. She knew that. "2025, or something."
Petz stared at her.
Koan stared back.
Petz continued to stare, for the length of a breath, and then another, and then another, and then, just as Koan was beginning to feel truly awkward, Petz erupted.
"2025?! You think we're in 2025?! Do you see a world in ruin? Do you see wreckage of the world, hear the ravenous baying of the maddened, smell the rotting of the fields of death? What about this world - full of pollution that doesn't sear the flesh from your bones, crowds that don't even stampede towards the trains, and stadiums filled with the roar of excited fans makes you think this is 2025?! I was right, you did hit your head!"
On a very technical level, Petz was right. That soon-to-be dead Soldier of Truth had burned a mark into her cheek that (fortunately for her) hadn't scarred, and the cheek was attached to the head. But there was no way that Koan was going to admit that.
"I did not hit my head! I just, that is I - I noticed! That the technology seems too advanced! For this to be 1994, and so I simply wondered if -"
"If we'd landed in an apocalyptic era without noticing?" Petz snapped, incensed. "Even if you could believably be considered that oblivious, how dare you assume the rest of us would be? And furthermore, do you think the commanders - Rubeus-sama, Esmeraude-sama, or Saphir-sama would have failed to notice? Do you believe our own Prince Demande would have failed to notice?"
Petz had a tendency to loom over her sisters even when she was at her most relaxed and they, at their most formal. With Koan sitting on her bunk and Petz standing before her, the difference in their heights was stark, and Koan couldn't help but to slump her shoulders and lower her head as the tirade went on. It was stupid. She knew it was stupid. What chance was there, that her enemies had been telling the truth, while she and her commanders floundered in the dark?
"The fact that you'd even consider such a thing is shameful," Petz continued with her lecture. "And I can still see a sliver of doubt in your eyes. Get up. There's only one thing for this."
One thing for this? But what could that be?! Koan jumped to her feet, habitual obedience overriding caution, but her eyes cut to her sister's and found them narrowed, fixed on her face. She was daring Koan to question her, and though Koan had many - many questions for her sister in this moment, she dared not ask a single one.
"Follow me."
Petz departed from their sleeping quarters with a sweep of her feathered shawl and a slide of black metal doors, and Koan hurried to follow, darting glances about to see what Petz could be planning. She was quick to find out - as soon as they left their sleeping quarters they were in the midst of the small, rounded room that constituted as their working space. The room was, as was often the case, occupied, by the white-haired Boule Brothers as well as Koan and Petz' own sisters, Berthier and Calaveras, both at their desks - Berthier hunched over a monitor and Calaveras rebraiding the end of her whip.
It took but a single, sharp glance from Petz for the two Boule Brothers to decide they had better places to be. Without a word, they rose and strode from the room, the black metal sliding door opening and shutting with a soft shhhhst of noise. With them gone, Petz' agitation became more obvious - she pursed her lips, clicked her teeth, and dropped a hand to jostle Berthier's shoulder, startling their pale-haired sister, who looked up with wide-eyes and bared teeth.
"What could be so - ah, Petz, is there something you needed?" The sharp, biting hoarfrost tone of her voice gentled swiftly, at the sight of Petz at the end of the hand on her shoulder, and Berthier sat up straight, following Petz's gaze to where Koan stood at the entrance to the room, still looking irked and shame-faced. "Something with Koan?"
"Pull up a calendar," Petz ordered sharply. "Our idiot sister over here thinks it's 2025."
Koan scowled, hunching in on herself, arms crossed, and thought bitterly, Thank you so much, sister dearest.
"2025?! Did you hit your head?" Calaveras chimed in at once.
Berthier was silent, though the look on her face was one of disapproving confusion as well. She closed out the document she had been reviewing and opened a web portal, typing out a search for a calendar as instructed.
"That is exactly what I said, Calaveras," Petz sneered disdainfully. "It's simply not possible for it to be - why does that calendar say it's 2025?!"
For that was what the calendar on Berthier's screen read: JANUARY 2025. The four sisters stared, three in abject shock, the fourth in grim satisfaction. Koan might not have wanted to believe this, but now that her sisters had made it a matter of intelligence and honor, she was bitterly pleased to have been the one to bring forth the news.
Berthier's hand shook as she exited the screen and queried, 'What is today's date?' The computer provided an answer within a microsecond: 8 JANUARY 2025.
"Because it is 2025, just like I thought it could be," Koan declared. She lifted her chin and strode forward, until she stood behind Berthier, and jabbed a finger at the monitor. "Just like the computer says."
"The stupid thing must be broken," Calaveras argued immediately, glowering at Koan. "We've all been out there, there's not a chance it's 2025! It looks nothing like that era!"
"If the computers were broken, Saphir-sama would have fixed them," Petz replied. She was staring at the computer monitor, at the date which refused to conform to her understanding of the universe. "It can't be broken. It... we really are in 2025. But - even they could not have falsified history this way -"
"No, they could not have," Berthier confirmed, and when Koan looked down at her, the reflection in the monitor's glass showed that the genius of the Spectre Sisters was also staring at the date. "The storm in time we followed the Rabbit through must have lead her - and us - astray. We aren't in our past. We're in someone else's present."
The idea was boggling, and Koan could see the confusion, concern, and distress in the faces of each of her sisters, could feel it reflected on her own face. It was one thing to hear the news from an enemy. it was an entirely different matter for it to be confirmed by their own technology! What did it mean for them, for their plans? Were they trapped here? Did their victory over the Crystal Millennium even matter, if they were cut adrift in another time?
Why had their leaders remained quiet? Was it possible that they didn't know?
"How could you not know about this, Berthier?" As usual, Calaveras was the first to run her mouth. With her whip in hand - even if only for the sake of coiling - she made for a threatening figure, standing over the second youngest. "You're on the computer all the time!"
"You are at sports events all the time, don't they make a habit of announcing the dates at those sort of things?" Berthier shot back. "I have been reading, and forgive me if I read over a date, in the midst of familiarizing myself with this era's technology!"
"Forgiveness not granted! There's a difference between tuning out a date being read and researching the era without even knowing what year it is! That's almost as bad as Koan!"
"Me?! I'm the one who noticed this first!" There was nothing fair in war. Lies were naturally to be expected. "You three are the ones who insulted me, I was right!"
All three of her sisters glowered, because as far as they knew, Koan was the one who had figured out something was amiss, while they were the fools who had insulted her for it. It didn't matter that she had spent an entire morning looking over a calendar that she only now realized must have surely advertised the year, all without realizing. They didn't know that, and she would never tell them. And so they said nothing. She had a point, and they all knew it.
"The better question is... what do we do now? What can we do?"
"What do you mean, what can we do? Our job, of course! We'll capture the Rabbit, secure the Silver Crystal, and then - " Petz paused, falling silent.
"And then what?" Koan challenged, though it felt as though her throat were squeezing shut to do it. "What will we do after, if we're in another time?"
"Well, I'm sure that the commanders know how to get us back to our original time-" Berthier began, only for Calaveras to cut her off.
"Like they knew to get us to 2025, instead of 1994? Don't look at me like that, I'm not a traitor, I'm just pointing out that if the plan could go wrong once, it could go wrong again. We could be stuck here... so we might as well make the most of it."
"What?" "What?" "What?!"
The three sisters' voices echoed as they stared at the second eldest sister, and Calaveras rolled her eyes. "Just think about it! We're not in our time, that means nothing we do here matters. No worrying about some run away consequence that wipes us from existence! We can do whatever we want - we can really and truly cut loose."
And she's... not wrong. Koan looks at Calaveras, at the vicious satisfaction in her eyes, the hungry gleam when she looks down at the whip in her hand, and she can imagine what her sister will do, with the freedom to act without consequence.
It will certainly be fun to watch.
"But are we sure we can get back home?" She couldn't help but emphasize the question, and by the sour look on Petz's face, secretly, she shared her fear.
"Of course we can get back home," Petz ground out. "And I'll prove it. We'll go to Commander Rubeus, and he'll prove that -" that the commanders were aware? That they knew what was going on? That they'd kept it from them? None of the possibilities were overly appealing, but the thought of being trapped in the past is certainly the worst option of them all. "That there is certainly a plan for returning us all to our proper place. Just you wait."
With no other choice, the three younger Spectre Sisters fell in place behind the eldest, following her through the ship as she lead the way to the Commander's wing, where they hoped to find Commander Rubeus alone. It would be dangerous enough, potentially showing doubt to their commander, but in front of Esmeraude, ever looking to get ahead? In front of Saphir, ever watching for a flaw?
No, speaking to the commander alone was the only option.
Though, when they found him -
"Of course we're in the year 2025," Rubeus dismissed with a flap of his hand. He was in the gym on the craft and working through a set of bicep curls, lifting a weight larger than Koan's head with ease. Sweat slid down the defined muscles of his upper arm, and Koan hurriedly tore her gaze away. "What, don't tell me you four didn't notice."
"O-of course not, Commander Rubeus! It's only that, well, with - with this being another timeline, there's always the - the natural thought that we... did wonder why no one spoke of it -"
"Because it didn't matter. Your orders are to find the Rabbit. What's it matter what year it is? I don't care if we're in 1994, 2357, or hell, the ancient city of Carthage -" he grunts as he lifts the weight again - "Maine, we're not going anywhere until we get the Rabbit."
"Of course! Of course, and no matter where we went, we would naturally be striving to catch the Rabbit," Petz quickly affirms, "And then, of course, we'll be returning to the 30th century."
A beat.
Calaveras was the next to speak, adding a hurried, "Right, Commander?"
"Is that why you're here?" Rubeus burst out laughing, and carried on for a full moment before stowing his weights and standing to his full height, looking down at all of them. "Obviously we'll be going back once we've achieved our goals. Did you really think we'd be stuck here?"
[end]
