Tsukino Usagi, her own person for the first time in over thirty years, watches the pretty blue-oceaned world spin below her, `LV-426, huh?' she asks Yuri. `Yep,' Yuri's adopted a pleasant baritone and a Russian accent, as befits a space explorer. Usagi doesn't have the heart to tell her she prefers her as a soprano, `The original survey crew named her Acheron, and the Baptist Council claim documents use that name. By the time the colony was founded in the late 2100s, the Baptist Coalition had taken to using LV-426.' `Do we have a copy of those movies?' `Is the sky green?' `Remind me to watch them, I think I adored the fourth one.' `Will do, skipper. We've got landing clearance, Bay 70, Kansai spaceport.' `Oh . . Kay . . . ' Usagi shakes her head, `Tell me again why a Baptist Coalition colony speaks Japanese?' `It's not specified anywhere I've found, but I suspect it's because despite Baptist Council's desire to have their own world where they could exclude religious dissidents, by the time the Baptist Coalition got there they were too broke to afford that, and just about everyone speaks Japanese anymore.' `Perhaps. Bring us in for landing.' `As you command.' Usagi shakes her head, and smiles. An Unnamed Fic By Suika Roberts Prolog The Thing had been Ami's pet . . . sometime near when LV-426 was colonized. When it was, she had gone all-out, complete restoration, state-of-the-early-twenty-third-century-art rustproofing, a pale-blue metalflake paintjob that, supposedly, matched her wife's hair, and a motor that, other than Nikasil cylinders, was pretty close to stock, crank-fired rather than a cam-driven distributor, and fuel injected, but only putting out about ninety horses through the stock-looking double exhaust whistles. About fifteen years later, she built up a new motor, and transmission for it, a four-liter twin-turbo flat six fed into a highly modified, six-speed, beetle gearbox, with the same rod-shifter and reverse lockout. She played around with it for a few years, installed a couple quick-disconnects, took to using IRS bus transmission cases after blowing a fourth Beetle case, which, incidentally, allowed for quicker engine changes. For the next five centuries it was driven every couple decades, but mostly sat around taking up space next to the 911 and the 356 pre-A. Ami drove it to Chibi-Usa's graduation from high school. ~*~ `You're giving me a car? A really cool car, that burns _gasoline_?' Chibi-Usa smiles up at her favorite aunt, her cheeks dimpling as she teases. `I hadn't planned on it,' Ami answers, ruffling the girl's hair, then looks up at Umi, `Should I?' `Do you think she could handle it? She's only fifteen,' Umi smiles at her over Chibi-Usa's head. `I'll let you borrow it, how's that?' Ami says, `You'll have to give it back eventually.' `How eventually?' Ami shrugs, `A couple hundred years. Don't get it busted up, but have fun.' `You're the best! Why couldn't you be my mom?' `Because Umi'd be jealous?' Chibi-Usa didn't stop laughing for days. ~*~ Enough bribes in the local currency to buy a new car later Usagi gets the Thing down on the ground, and whistles off to explore Kyoutou. Hair colors run the standard, anymore, human gammut, mostly dark brown, but with plenty of blondes, blues, greys, purples, reds, and oranges. A little less green than normal, but within tolerences. It's hard to tell from the pedestrians and motorists, but the charter goal of "no queers" seems to have failed -- amoung magical people lesbians and gay men have noticeably higher reproductive success, and after the pogroms and counter-assasinations of the 2240s the government's been very careful not to annoy the magical population. She parks at a mall, pockets the keys, and slips out of the seat onto the ground. Even without the pedal-extensions few people would be interested in the Thing, covered as it is in the dust and mud of dozens of worlds, the top and doors both left in Yuriko's cargo hold, next to the crated turbo motor. Usagi gives her a pet on the front drivers-side fender, `You're such a pretty car,' then a little pat before she walks off. The mall, as expected, is typical colony-world fare, out-of-date offworld fashions, technology, and equipment, with a light smattering of more interesting locally produced goods hiding amoung them. She purchases a t-shirt that says `Nuke it from orbit, it's the only way to be sure' on the back and `LV-426' on the front where the pocket should be, feeling like a tourist. ~*~ Usagi sits on the riverbank, throwing rocks across the river, contemplating moving on. One boring, backwater colony world is much the same as another, after all, and she'd only chosen to visit this one because of its name. A sharp `Aiyah!' gets her attention, and she turns to watch a little pink-haired girl thrashing at the reeds with a stick. Unlike a normal reed-thrasher, she seems to have some sort of plan, or perhaps more a certain martial flair. After a moment, Usagi rolls to her feet, `Hey, little prince,' she greets the smaller girl, `You're leaving yourself open.' `Who're you?' the little girl keeps her stick up, held lightly in both hands. `A stranger,' she picks a reed from the bank, strips off the leaves, `Defend yourself,' and pokes the girl lightly in the belly with it. She swings wildly, but the slightly bigger pink-haired woman is faster, deflecting or dodging easily. `Not bad, little prince,' Usagi smiles, deflects another blow that would have broken her reed had it struck with even half force, `Not bad at all. I've been needing a student,' she steps back, bows just a tiny bit, `Tsukino Usagi, Sergeant Major, Retired, Dark Kingdom Militia. Serial Number 3901-107-0045.' `Oh,' Utena bows back, `Tenjou Utena.' ~*~ `You must be Usagi-chan!' Utena's mother, probably, greets Usagi. `Yes, I am,' Usagi bows, `Tsukino Usagi, Sergeant Major, Retired, Dark Kingdom Militia. Serial Number 3901-107-0045.' `Pleased to meet you, Sergeant Major,' the brown-haired woman bows, `Tenjou Mamiko, housewife.' ~*~ `What the,' Usagi stares at the letter, `How long did this take to arrive?' `Six days, with the routing issues going on,' Yuri's back to using her sweet little-girl voice, which Usagi thinks is rather squeaky, `And it took them two weeks to figure out that you're the responsible adult.' `Why did I agree to that again?' `Because they thought it would be good for their daughter to have an immortal guardian if something happened to them.' `Bah. Fucking predistined crap,' Usagi dashes tears from her eyes, `Get us there _today_.' Both the primary and secondary drives groan in response to her words, and the ship shudders as the two FTL drives throw the ship through time and space. Usagi sits down, tucks her head between her knees, and wraps her arms around her belly with a whimper, nausea wracking her slight frame in counterpoint to the migrane-like flashes of pain. It should be impossible to run two FTL drives, even if one of them is as fucked as the Mk3 that serves Yuriko for time travel, as close together as these are, even for an AI. Even for a 2.240, running as a 240, but careful tuning has reduced the worst of the effects. Unfortunately, Usagi gulps, that still leaves the minor ones like pain, nausea, hallucinations, and magical disruption. She whimpers again, and tries to sleep, or meditate, just drift on the pain. Thirty-six hours. That's not too bad, no, not at all. ~*~ The nausea stops, the pain flares one more time, and the ship stops shuddering, `We're eight hours out from LV-426,' Yuri says softly, using her "mother" voice, `Get cleaned up, then sleep a couple hours.' `Thanks,' Usagi rocks forward, stands, staggers towards the latrine on shakey legs, clutching her belly as it protests. ~*~ Usagi shrugs into her red-brown Class One jacket, buttons it, puts on the Sam Browne belt, and hooks the saber in place on her left. She looks over her full-dress uniform in the mirror, high collar with the full moon insignia of a Sailor, pair of .45s in thigh holsters, ribbons representing most decorations of the Dark Kingdom on her left breast, skill badges, and wonders what she'll do to earn the Medal of Honor with silver leaf cluster and two bronze leaf clusters, she, a thousand years older, wears. She touches the silver leaf on her Legion of Merit, and worries for a moment. ~*~ `Tsukino Usagi,' she makes her full self-introduction to the judge, `I'm here to assume custody of Tenjou Utena.' The grey-haired, slightly wrinkled woman looks down at the "woman" in front of her, `How old are you?' Usagi counts on her fingers, `Sixty-nine,' she answers, `Objective.' `Objective, Sergeant Major?' she frowns, `What about subjective?' `I was age-locked at ten, and I spent several months each on a couple time-travel-involved missions. Personal time-experienced-age is about seventy two, I think. I could have Yuri calc it for me, if you need it more exactly.' `No. What experience do you have with children?' `I was one, years ago. I was a Drill Sergeant about fifteen years ago, and was a company First Sergeant then battalion Sergeant Major until I retired.' `Better than a lot of parents, at least. She seems to really like you, so,' the judge sighs, `Don't abuse that, please, she's had it hard enough already.' `Her parents were good people, I'll miss them.' ~*~ `Utena,' she greets the girl, holds her arms open. Utena smiles, then gathers her into a hug, Class One uniform and all. --- log: 2007/Jun/28: Decided the flashback in Utcha didn't add anything, and I didn't want to clutter that fic too much, so it's coming out, and will go in here. The world Ohtori is on needed a name, so I borrowed this one from _Alien_ and _Aliens_ . . .