"Lights, camera, action!"
A Sailor Moon Shortfic
Disclaimer: Sailor Moon created by Naoko Takeuchi, who if the little
notes she drops in Mixxzine are any indication, sounds like a rather fun
person.
The senshi gazed in horror at the mist-covered ruins surrounding
them as Endymion completed his explanation. Finishing, the
king-turned-phantom led his visitors from the future deeper into the
fog.
The scene stayed exactly the same for one minute, then two, then
three. Suddenly, a voice called out, "Cut! OK people, that's a wrap!
Let's get everything cleared out."
There was a loud thumping sound, as of a machine grinding to a
halt. The mists began to thin out, revealing the small device that had
been generating the concealing cloud cover. A horde of workers poured
out of concealment and began attacking the landscape with gusto,
revealing the "city" to be nothing more than a collection of cutouts and
stage props. Standing in the center of the activity was Sailor Mars,
looking rather pleased with herself.
A man holding a clipboard walked up to the senshi and cleared
his throat meaningfully. She nodded to him.
"Lady Mars, Team Alpha reports that the dragon is working
perfectly. However, they're still a bit concerned that it's movements
don't look truly natural."
Mars rolled her eyes back and sighed. "Perfectionists, the lot
of them! Why can't everybody just learn to relax? Tell them I've seen
the dragon and it looks and *moves* just like the one I saw when I was
young."
The man made an affirmative gesture and wrote something on his
clipboard. Rather than go anywhere, he simply watched the 'stagehands'
continue to work on the landscape, fixing it so that the illusion would
carry from a distance, rather than nearby in a fog. Mars noted that the
man's expression seemed rather moody.
"Is something wrong... uh, I'm afraid I don't know your name."
He turned to her and responded, "I'm Shin Takahashi." Shin
seemed to struggle with himself before continuing, "It's just that...."
"Yes?"
"Well all of this seems a bit much. The holograms, the robots,
the droids, and all those actors who had to learn to act like Nemesians.
It's all taken decades to put together for something that's only
supposed to last a few days. Was all this really necessary."
Sailor Mars considered a few moments. "Centuries, actually."
"Huh?"
"We've been designing and planning this for centuries. It's
only that we waited till forty or fifty years ago to start actually
building anything. Yes, it's all really necessary. Do you remember
what happened when the Nemesians showed up?"
Shin was a bit taken aback. "Well of course, everybody knows
that. They showed up, made a few threats, tried to attack, and we
slapped them down. We destroyed the demon guiding them and Queen
Serenity healed them of its influence."
Mars quirked her mouth. "Yes, but the only way we were able to
do that was because we knew they were coming. In fact, we knew they
were coming for a thousand years, and we had all that time to prepare.
That was the problem you see."
"A thousand years ago, our past selves were visited by attackers
from the future. Through a complicated series of events, we defeated
them and made the future safe once more. The problem is that we saw a
devastated city. We were told the invaders had done untold damage. How
could we just sit back, knowing that was coming, and do nothing to try
to stop it?"
Outraged, Shin shouted, "You couldn't!"
"Right, we couldn't. However, that still left the problem of
the timeline. If we stopped the invaders, then our past selves would
never be invaded, which meant we wouldn't know to stop them, which meant
we wouldn't stop them, which meant we would stop them....."
Shin muttered, "I think my head's starting to hurt."
"Temporal paradoxes will do that to you. Suffice it to say that
Sailor Pluto warned us of some rather nasty consequences of meddling
with course of events. It seemed like we were going to be stuck with
the deaths of all those people on our hands. Then we had an idea...."
Shin looked confused, "Your idea was to put on a show?"
Mars nodded her head enthusiastically. 'To put on a show,
exactly! We're faking the whole Black Moon war! Our past selves will
still see everything, still experience everything, that we did the first
time around. The only difference is that everything is going to be an
illusion, a trick, a shell without any reality behind it. None of it is
real!"
Looking doubtful, her companion ventured, "But won't your past
selves really be attacking? I mean...."
"We have the advantage of knowing in advance what's going to
happen. We know how to make the droids hold up until exactly the right
moment, how to fake being effected by Sailor Moon's healing, we've even
got a way to fake demonic possession." Her face clouded. "I hate to
think what the princess is going to go through, but we can't manage
without her. At least she'll be OK in the end."
Shin hesitantly asked, "Um, I heard some rumors about some
actresses being trapped in the past."
"Yes, they have to stay back there for a few months, until our
past selves stop keeping track of them. We're going to let them keep
the powers we granted them when we change them back to their normal
appearance, so I think it's a fair exchange. Are there any other
questions, Shin?"
"Well, I was wondering about one thing. Who came up with this
idea? Was it the Queen, Sailor Mercury, or Sailor Pluto herself,
maybe?"
Mars chuckled, "Actually it was Sailor Mercury. Minako always
did want to direct......"
The end.