Colette's office was filled with so much random junk, I couldn't tell if it was something useful in a cosmic dimension upholding kind of way, or just something completely useless.

"What's this thing?" I asked, pulling out a rectangular metal box with a CRT screen on one end.

"Careful with that," Colette said. "Or, wait. Nah, that's fine."

"Are you going to tell me what it is or keep being vague and mysterious about it?" I asked.

"Amvery, relax," Koriko said.

"I am perfectly relaxed," I said.

"You're a bit out of sorts," Riho said.

"Shut up! Louise, c'mon, tell them how chill I am," I said.

Louise tilted her head at the box like a dog hearing the word "walk."

"I could defend you, but I'm more curious about what this is," Louise said.

"That counts as being on my side," I said. "So fess up, Colette."

Colette was on her computer while eating noodles from a foam tray. "That thing shows you fairly accurate scenarios of the past if you're curious about how something would have gone if you made different choices. Quantum whatevers make it go."

"Huh," I said. "Wait, for real? Like those sitcom things?"

"Like what now?" Colette asked.

"You know, those sitcoms where they don't know what to do for an episode so they do three random stories. Sometimes they'll have what if scenarios. It's like those!" I said.

"Well, this thing has a very long cooldown so you're only gonna get one what if in a day," Colette said.

"Can we try it?" I asked.

"Sure, yeah," Colette said.

There were a bunch of dials and such on it that Colette configured for us. It could tell who we were when we put our hands on a pad next to the dials. The how of it wasn't super important to me, but I had a scenario I did want to see.

"And we just say what we wanna see and it figures it out?" I asked. "Do we need a bunch of follow up questions?"

"It's not a chatbot, it's way more complicated," Colette said. "But it's also pretty good at showing what you're looking for, you can thank me for that, I worked hard to get it tuned correctly."

Once I was sure Colette wouldn't freak out if I took the device out of the room, I dragged Louise back to our room on the arenaship.

"I have some ideas for scenarios that could be interesting," Louise said.

"I'm sure, you can go after me," I said.

"But that'll take a while..." Louise pouted.

"Trust me, you'll like this one if it works," I said. There was a mic on the device that let you tell it a scenario. Again, I didn't really care about how this worked, I just wanted to see this.

"What if Louise and I...got together while we were still enemies?"

"Seriously?" Louise asked.

"Tell me you're not curious," I said.

Louise thought about it, then sat down by me, wrapping an arm around me.

After a few moments of static images tuning themselves, the picture cleared up. It was a time early in our stay at the DFA academy, after our first match together, in fact.

I sat in the locker room after my loss, and Louise popped up just like she did back then, with only a towel on. We got into an argument, but instead of turning it into a discussion about how we ended up there, I got in her face.

"It's only one match and I'm sick of you already," Past-alternate-me said. "If you're not gonna put some clothes on, just get out of here."

"Make me," Past-alternate Louise said.

"I dunno if that's really how I talk," I said.

"It seems accurate to me," Louise shrugged.

Our what if selves got closer.

"I'll make you, all right," My alternate self said.

"Oh yeah? How will you do that?" Alternate Louise said.

The me on the screen grunted as her face contorted, blushing and getting angry at the same time. It felt like within a blink the two of us went from shouting at each other to making out. I couldn't even tell who broke first. The towel draped around Louise dropped, and both present me and my alternate self went bug eyed ogling her. I had seen her plenty in the buff since we finally got together, but it was always a treat, even in a projection of a hypothetical past.

"This doesn't mean anything," Alternate me said as she stripped out of her clothes, neither of us bothering to check if the way into the locker room was shut. We gave into the desires so easily, was this just an aspect of the device just getting to what we wanted to see? Or were we really this close to sex the whole time? I would never have admitted it back then, but there was probably enough pent up sexual tension between us that this was only hairs away from really happening. Which made me feel a bit of longing, but I mostly just enjoyed the view.

"Just...working some aggressions out," Alternate Louise said as she knelt in front of my alternate self, who sat on one of the benches. Louise nibbled at my thighs, each bite getting her closer to where she really wanted to be. My alternate what if self hissed in pleasure the moment Louise's tongue was on her, gripping her hair tightly.

I whimpered as Louise took care of my every need, stopping only to catch her breath and nibble at my inner thigh some more. I was getting keyed up enough just watching this, and could tell Louise was too as her hands moved from just staying still around my back to feeling around my body.

Alternate me nearly fell off the bench when she came, held up only by fat dragon tail. Louise cleaned herself up, with a feeling like guilt maybe sitting in between both of us. Even if we were close to sex back then, it wouldn't surprise me if we weren't ready for the emotional aftermath of it.

Alternate Louise quietly got dressed, and neither of us said anything before splitting.

"Oh, come on!" I said as the image on the screen faded.

"What?" Louise said.

"I didn't even pay you back for that?" I asked. "I so would have."

Louise giggled. "I dunno, the you from back then? No offense, but I'd be surprised."

"I guess..." I said. "I bet we didn't even talk about it after. Maybe just a friends with benefits thing if we did it again."

"Yeah..." Louise said. "I like the way things worked out."

"Me too," I said.

We both stared at the screen, expecting to see more of us in the aftermath, not really confronting what sex between us would have meant, just indulging in pleasure as we got used to this strange world. But it remained blank.

"Wasn't it surreal watching that?" Louise said.

"We could just film ourselves going at it and have the same effect," I said.

"Still, it's strange to watch yourself have sex when you actually didn't..." Louise said.

"Stop getting all existential, wasn't that hot?" I asked.

"It was, yeah," Louise said. "Makes me want to try some of it now."

"Oh yeah?" I said. "Well, if you do what that alternate you did, I'll definitely do the same to you."

"Sounds like a deal," Louise said, her smile warming the room.