Story: UY Splitter

It had all gone pretty much the way you'd expect even if you'd walked in on it halfway through. Really, the background details weren't all that important. It had been Lum's birthday party. All her friends on Earth and in space had been invited, and her father has spoiled her with a brand-new invention. A matter transporter! Yes, they'd all been quite excited. The humans especially (save Shutaro Mendo, who wouldn't be impressed if God himself pulled aside the heavens), who applauded with great enthusiasm.

"Wow, that's so amazing!" Shinobu gasped.

"Yeah, that's pretty great," Ryunosuke nodded.

"A remarkable feat of engineering," Sakura added.

The aliens weren't quite so impressed, though. "How did they resolve the particle whatchamacallit?" Benten asked.

"It's my understanding that the resonance field can create substantial difficulties for a device of this nature," Oyuki observed.

"Nuh uh!" Ran quickly shook her head. "No, no, no! Not getting in that! Nope! You can't make me!"

"Who cares?" Ataru said, gripping Sakura and Ryu around their shoulders. "Something like this means we can go on a date in a super private location!"

"Daaarliiiing!"

A crackle of thunder later, and Ataru found himself being propelled quite against his will into the matter transporter. Carrying a few hundred volts of electricity in his veins as he went. Because of course he did. Further, it should only be natural then that the device activated, and then immediately malfunctioned. Anyone that didn't figure that out either didn't read the previous episode leading into this, or had no grounding in the patterns that defined Ataru's life.

Anyway, the events above weren't exactly how everything went down, but it's a close enough approximation that we can simply dive right in without having to ask too many questions about what the hell is going on. To cut a long story short (too late!) the smoke filling the matter transporter cleared. Then Ataru flopped down onto the ground. Followed by another, and then another, and so on until seven of him had landed on the ground with little x shapes where their eyes should be and drool pooling out of their mouths.

All up to speed? Then let us proceed….

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Some people pace nervously while their loved ones are in hospital. Lum? Well, she floated. Nervously. Up and down the corridor. It never made sense to anyone else why she cared about Ataru so much, but love is the kind of thing that only makes sense to the person experiencing it. She loved his infectious enthusiasm. She loved his openness. She loved the little moments where he'd do something incredibly selfless, expecting nothing in return.

From her point of view, it wasn't that she wasn't seeing what everyone else saw. It was that she could see much deeper than any of them could. She just wished she could bring it out to the surface a lot more often.

The only other person that had stayed with her to find out what was going on was Shinobu. Which made a strange sort of sense, really. The other girls really didn't like him at all, and Mendo wasn't the sort to stick around for Ataru's benefit. And Ataru's parents had elected to stay on Earth rather than visit an alien hospital. Something about staying the hell away from alien devices, or something like that?

"Is that normal?" Shinobu asked. "Splitting up into multiple people like that. Does that sort of thing always happen with matter transporters?"

"Not so far as I'm aware," Lum replied. "Seven copies... It's hard enough keeping track of one version of darling!"

She drifted down towards the ex-girlfriend, not really feeling any of the animosity she used to. "Hey," Lum asked. "What was it that made you like him? Why didja go out with him?"

"It's stupid," Shinobu said. "He always knew how to make me laugh. Ever since we were little."

"That's not stupid," Lum said. "What you like is what you like."

"Miss Lum? Miss Shinobu?" a nurse with five tentacles and two arms called. "The good news is that the Moroboshis have stabilised. Considering what we know about humans, they have a clean bill of health.

"The bad news is, they appear to have some sort of teleportation ability and five of them have already -"

"LUM!"

"SHI-NO-BU!"


Two Atarus appeared out of thin air. One hugging Lum. The other Shinobu. W-well now! This level of affection from her darling wasn't something Lum was entirely used to!

"I hope I didn't worry you too much," her Ataru said. "Really, I'm all better now! And staring into your eyes makes me feel even healthier than ever!"

"Hey, Shinobu!" the other Ataru whispered, just barely loud enough for Lum to hear. "Should I tell the other me that his fly is open? Come on, let's get back to Earth, I know this great place we can watch the sun set! Just the two of us..."

It was so weird. Intellectually Lum knew that he was using some pretty cheesy lines, but for some reason it just sort of... Worked for her. Completely. Like, he'd chosen the exact right words, the precise body language. Tone. Expression. Everything came together perfectly to make her feel all gooey and weird. In a strange way it was like she'd fallen even deeper in love, and had no chance at all to resist.

Of course, right next to her Shinobu was having the exact same reaction.

"Ahem!" the nurse coughed. "We also detected rather significant differences in brainwaves that may result in vastly different behaviour. You may need to keep an eye on them and none of you are listening. Look, if you're going to kiss or any such thing, please do it someplace I don't have to see. Ugh..."

It was a funny thing. Ataru Moroboshi had always wanted a harem. Now, in a peculiar, roundabout way, he was going to get one. Let's see how one of the other girls was faring….

1. Sakura
2. Ryunosuke
3. Benten
4. Oyuki
5. Ran
6. Stick with Lum/Shinobu