23. Mercury's Extracurricular Class

Story Start: Tsukino Household

The doorbell rang and Naruto called out "I got it!" Quickly making his way to the front door, he swung it open and blinked in surprise as he said "Hey Ami, what are you doing here? I thought all of you girls were on a shopping day?"

Ami smiled as she bent her knees to be closer to his level and said "We were, but I excused myself after the first hour. I'm afraid I'm just not that big of a spender. Anyways, I was wondering if you wouldn't mind having a discussion with me." Her face turned serious and she said in a far quieter tone "It's about our friend Leon."

Naruto blinked in confusion, wondering what the Mercury sailor scout wanted with the Lunarian artificial construct before he shrugged and said "Sure, let's head up to the attic and talk there."

The pair entered the house, Ami giving a quick greeting to the Tsukinos as they passed them in the family room. Once they were up in the attic, Naruto hopped up onto Chibiusa's bed sitting by the pillow indian style while Amid sat on the other end with her legs bent and her soles touching, after taking her shoes off first of course.

"Soooo, what about Leon did you want to talk about?" Naruto asked with a frown of confusion.

"Well, you know how the Invaders targeted my cram school yesterday?" Ami asked.

"Yeeeah, that was kind of the point of the shopping trip wasn't it? To help you relax after that 'Miss Trust' droid pulled her voodoo on all of your fellow students to make them turn on you." Naruto said with crossed arms. He hadn't been part of that fight, or the one previously where the Dark Moon Clan had taken over an animal park. He and Chad had been taking on Old Man Hino in another sparring match during the Animal Park fight and the second one he had been giving his regularly scheduled report to Minato. He was the slightest bit sour that the Scouts hadn't thought to contact him for either of the fights though at least no one had gotten hurt during them.

Ami looked a tad bit embarrassed, rubbing the back of her neck and smiling sheepishly as she said "Well yes, but honestly I would have been fine simply going to the library and enjoying a good book. I guess I'm just not made to go on shopping sprees like the others."

"And yet you're now here talking with me?" Naruto asked with a raised eyebrow.

Ami brought her neck rubbing hand to her mouth as a fist and coughed once into it as she said "Well, yes. You see, I had a thought. If the Lunarians constructed and Artificial Intelligence in their Lunar Scape, then isn't it possible that the other planet kingdoms may have done the same?"

"And you think that Leon might have an answer for you." Naruto said.

"Worth a try right?" Ami asked with a hopeful smile.

Naruto hummed his agreement and reached out his hand. Ami cocked her head but easily reached out to accept it. Naruto's Lunar Mark appeared and flashed white.

When Ami's eyes cleared, she gasped in amazement as she took in the scenery around her and said "This is amazing!" Glancing down at Naruto, she said "I had no idea you could bring Non Lunars to this place!" She then blinked in surprise seeing Naruto in his Royal form.

Naruto looked up with a smirk and said "It's actually pretty easy, so long as the person I'm bringing is physically close enough anyways. By the way, nice dress."

Naruto willed a full body mirror into existence and Mercury let out a pleasantly surprised "Oh my." She enjoyed how she looked in her Princess form for a moment or two before she looked back at Naruto and gave him a smile as she asked "So shall we see Leon now?"

Naruto nodded and led her to the Registry. As they entered the room, the hologram projector in the celling came on and Leon appeared. Smiling at them, Leon said "Prince Naruto welcome back, I am quite pleased to see you again. When Princess Serenity informed me of the Dream Invasion the Dark Moon Clan put you and Princess Chibiusa in I was most worried."

"Thanks Leon, it's good to see you as well." Naruto said with a smile.

Leon then turned his attention to Ami and his smile widened a little further as he said "And Princess Meridia, this is most certainly a welcome surprise, to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?"

Ami blinked in confusion and asked "I'm sorry, but what did you call me?"

Leon cocked his head with a slight hum and asked "Were you not aware of what you were named during the Silver Millennium? I am aware that your memories were sealed by Queen Serenity in order to prevent undo mental strain on your infant bodies after being reincarnated but I would have thought that they would have been unlocked now since you have reclaimed the mantel of Sailor Mercury. After all, Princess Serenity's memories have been mostly unlocked by this point in time." He then frowned a little as he tacked on "Although it seems that portions have been lost in the reincarnation process."

Ami looked down with a shake of her head and said "I'm afraid none of us other than Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask have had our memories unlocked. I think I sometimes see memories in my dreams, but they're more like flashes of images and hard to recall when I wake up."

"Well now, that's mildly concerning." Leon said with a frown. A moment later he shook his head and adopted a more 'professional' stance and said "We can come back to the memory situation at a later time, you two came here seeking for information after all! Now, what may I help you with?"

"Well, Meridia here," Naruto started, clearly trying out the new name before moving on, "was wondering if her people had made anything similar to the Registry, or even the Lunar Scape in general."

"Ah, yes, I can see with how she would wonder that given her sealed memories." Leon stated with a nod before he continued "Unfortunately, due to the fact that I was created to help Lunars with finding the right people to contact for information, I do not have any information pertaining to the construction of a Temporal Mental Bridge that any of the other kingdoms may or may not have made. However, given that the Kingdoms have intermarried, I can direct you to someone with Mercurian heritage who may be able to answer your questions. Would you like to see a list of available people, along with their occupations?"

"Yes, thank you Leon." Ami said with a nod and Leon stepped to the side as a list of around a hundred people appeared, all of them with occupations listed with fancy words that basically said they were either scientists working in the Mind or Time departments or really good engineers. Ami frowned a little with a slight hum and asked "Can you narrow down the list to those that worked as the heads of their departments?"

"Of course Princess." Leon said and the list drastically shrunk down to only five people. As it did so, Leon stated "Would you like to talk with these people as a group or would you prefer to further narrow the selection down Princess?"

Ami's eyes narrowed slightly as she thought for a brief moment before she said "I believe that this is a small enough group Leon."

"Very well, I shall activate the Conference Protocol. Prince Naruto, please lead Princess Meridia to Conference Room 1." Leon said, a map of the Lunar Scape appearing and a line going from the Registry to the named Conference Room appearing. Naruto nodded and quickly memorized the short route before he grabbed Ami's hand and led her out of the Registry.

Reaching the Conference room a few minutes later, Naruto opened the door and the pair walked in to the site of three women and two men, all of them wearing lab coats and all of them with the color blue mixed into their hair, one of the women having almost an entirely blue head of hair, only two yellow stripes bracketing her eyes showing her mixed heritage, and even then Naruto wasn't certain that wasn't dye he was looking at.

The group of scientists all looked up from the group huddle they had been in and the oldest among them pushed his spectacles up the bridge of his nose as he said "Ah, I assume that this is the reason why we were all called here. But we can get to that reason in a moment, introductions first. I am Dr. Merem, Temporal Engineer."

"Dr. Merina, Mental Health, I specialize in Dreams and how they affect the body." The woman with the two blond locks stated with a small nod.

"Dr. Merdoc, Architectural Engineer." The second man said with a slight wave with one hand while the other idly played with the small ponytail his hair was in.

"Dr. Mercaniel, Astrophysicist specializing in Temporal Theory." one of the other women introduced, this one with the slightest tinge of green mixed in with the yellow and blue showing she had some distant Plutonian in her along with Lunarian and Mercurian roots.

"And I'm Dr. Merdina, I've got about ten different degrees so I won't bore you with a list, just consider me a Jack of All Trades." Said the last woman, the only one besides Dr. Merem to have some grey in her hair, though you really had to squint to see it.

"I'm sensing a theme here." Naruto stated deadpan.

All of the scientists laughed and Dr. Merem said "Yes well, parents naming their children with Mer at the front was a pretty strong tradition on our planet. Sure there were those named otherwise, but generalized statistics is that only about fifteen percent of people were named without those three letters in front of the rest of their name."

"Un-huh." Naruto said before he looked up at Ami and said "Don't take this the wrong way Meridia, but your people were weird." He put just a little bit of stress on the name before he shook his head and said "You know what, it's just plain weird suddenly calling you that after how long I've known you, I think I'm just going to stick with Ami from now on."

Ami giggled a little and said "That's fine Naruto. I admit that I find it slightly unusual as well."

Dr. Merina chuckled and said "Isn't that a little hypocritical coming from the guy named after a Ramen topping, Fishcake?"

As some of the scientists and Ami snickered/giggled, Naruto gave her a flat look and said "It's Maelstrom."

"If you say so." Dr. Merina said with a cheeky grin.

"Children, if we could get back to the reason we have been gathered?" Dr. Merem suggested, and everyone became serious as he turned to Ami and asked "So Princess Meridia, what information do you seek?"

Ami straightened slightly under the now inquisitive stare of the scientists and stated "I was wondering if the Mercurians created something similar to the Lunar Scape to facilitate the exchange of information between time periods. You see, Queen Serenity of the Lunar Kingdom sent my generation of the Sailor Scouts into the future via reincarnation but only her daughter and Prince Endymion have had their memories of their past lives restored in any appreciable amount and I was hoping to try and find a way to unseal my own memories or at the very least speak with someone who can help me further add to my repertoire of abilities."

"Oh, I think we can help you with that." Dr. Merdina said with a smirk.

"Indeed, but it might be better to show, rather than tell." Dr. Merdoc said with an eager grin. He proceeded to then push up the sleeve of his lab coat revealing what looked like an Apple Watch. A push of a button had a holographic interface appearing and he rapidly typed at it. A moment later, the conference room faded out into complete whiteness. Light blue bled into the mono-color surroundings before the world suddenly seemed to snap and they appeared on the balcony of a very futuristic looking castle floating above Mercury, the planet spinning at what to them looked like a sedate pace, belying how fast the massive satellite's orbiting speed actually was.

"Welcome, to Castle Mariner!" Dr. Merdoc said with an expansive wave.

"Whoa." Naruto said looking around.

"Indeed, this is very impressive!" Ami said with the grin of an intern allowed into the main labs of her dream job.

"Glad you like it Princess Meridia, but if you think this is impressive then wait until you see the Archive." Dr. Merdoc said leading her from the balcony and into the castle. As the pair left, Dr. Merdina kneeled to be eye level with Naruto and said "Thank you for making it possible to come to this place, Young Prince, we'll take it from here."

Naruto nodded and said "Your Welcome. I think I'll head back to the Lunar Scape and see if any of the other Kingdoms made something similar, I'm sure the other Sailor Scouts will want to know when they learn about this."

The elder nodded and said "That is a logical conclusion to come to, farewell."

"Bye." Naruto said, closing his eyes in focus for a moment before he disappeared in a small pulse of silver light.

Scene Change: Tsukino Residence

Hours spent in the Lunar Scape but only moments in the 'real world' later, Naruto's eyes opened and he rolled his neck a little. Across from him, Ami opened her own eyes only to immediately place a hand to her forehead and said "My Goodness, that reconnect to your physical body is quite disconcerting."

"You'll get used to it with practice. So, was your trip down memory lane successful?" Naruto asked.

Ami beamed and said "Yes, it indeed was! All of the memories of the techniques I knew in my previous life have been unsealed. I may not be able to actually USE all of them at this moment due to power constraints, but my repertoire is still larger than before."

"Good to hear. And I was able to confirm that the other Kingdoms made similar Temporal Mental Bridge constructs. I'm sure the rest of the girls might be interested in learning a few of the more advanced techniques as well." Naruto said.

Ami nodded at that before she cocked her head and said "I'm not sure we'll be able to get them to cut their shopping spree early though, even for something like this. Perhaps we should wait until tomorrow to inform them of it."

Naruto rolled his eyes and said "Ugh, teenaged girls and their shopping trips. Glad I'm not older so that they couldn't rope me into being their pack mule. No Offense to you of course."

Ami put a hand to her mouth and giggled as she said "None taken, I assure you." Turning serious, Ami stood up from the bed and said "Thank you for all of your help Naruto. I know it's not really a proper thanks, but would you like to go get some ice cream? My treat."

Naruto grinned and hopped off the bed as he said "I'll never say no to free ice cream, let's go!"

The blonde quickly making his way down the stairs had Ami giggling again even as she followed. It was good to see Naruto acting his age every once in a while.

END

Author's Notes: I suppose before anything else I should apologize. This was finished three days ago but it took me a few days to grab my mom's laptop in order to user her Word program for spell check. Sorry again.

So I went off the plan again this chapter as you can see. For starters, Dog Day for Artemis and Smart Payoff don't come off as anything that I can really work with other than just copying and pasting the episode transcripts and add maybe one or two lines for Naruto. Boring. I mean, the drama between him and Mamoru have been taken care of, and what's one more fighter against the droids when Usagi is now using more than that silly wand of hers to kill monsters? I guess in Smart Payoff he could have given Ami a bit of a pep talk to keep her chin up, but since she never actually doubted the scouts when it came to crunch time? Yeah, pointless exposition there.

However, the next episode, Child's Play, would have Chibiusa being sick LITERALLY a chapter after we had the Black Moon Clan pull off an attempt at Bio Warfare. That is repetitive to the extreme in my opinion. Still, I'll work something out, simply because I'd like to do an episode with two Black Moon Clan members as the baddies rather than a Droid of the Day. Plus it gives me a chance to show off the Inners using non standard attacks so thumb's up there. That said, we are coming up to the last five or so episodes of this season so look forward to that coming up.