Subject: [FFML] Re: [Fanfic][Tenchi]Sketches of Tenchi 13: Tenchi's Excellent Adventure
From: Bert Miller
Date: 8/15/2006, 2:33 PM
To: David McMillan
CC: ffml@anifics.com

As always, thank you very much for taking the time to write!

David McMillan wrote:

Bert Miller wrote:

Two months ago:

"Don't let him get away!  Fire!  Fire!"

    "Shoot that ship!  Blow that up! KIIIILLLLLL THEEEEEMMMMM!!!!!"
Heh.  You're right, I ought to spice up my first line of dialog a bit more.

One spaceship chased another through the thinning starfield.
Ahead lay emptiness, except for the faint whirlpools of distant
galaxies.

"I AM firing!  I'm just not hitting him!" replied the red-headed
woman, slamming the weapons board before her in frustration.

    Red... uh-oh.
Heh.  Bit of a give-away, there.

Eventually the Lovely Angels retrieved the message-pod and opened
it.  Holographic words appeared in the air above the capsule.

     Hey, I recognize these two!  They're the Lovely Pair-- no, the 
Dirty Angels-- nono, don't tell me, I'll get it....

"What the hell is this?!" Kei screamed in frustration, hammering
her control panel.  "'I, Rikudo Koshi, do hereby give my
permission... episode of...'  WHAT?  What is this scum of the
galaxy talking about?"

    <plotz>  Oy, vey....
Heh.  These fateful lines which always do seem to cause alarm, for some 
reason.  ;)

Yuri frowned in puzzlement.  "And what is a 'Vinge fusion?'  I've
never heard of it."

    ...AAAIIIEEEEE!!
    No, wait, that doesn't cover it.  Lemme try again:

    AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 



Rikudo Koshi, the man who'd awakened her, was dead now, her first
victim.  Of his spaceship's passengers, she had the other adult
safely imprisoned, but the two children had crept back aboard the
spaceship, and were preparing to take off.  Worse, there was
something missing, something the man had placed aboard his
spaceship before she'd been more than half awake.  She didn't know
for sure what it was, but strongly suspected that she'd better stop
that ship.

    Oboy.  Just one question:  who gets to play Pham?  Or in this 
case, the Pham/Anne fusion?
Well, you did find out.

Excel immediately began filling all comm channels with probes of
the ship.  Surely there must be one unsecured port.  Ah-ha!  An
infrared sensor on one of the external airlocks was missing the
latest security patches!  Excel was half-way through the logic
needed to take control of the fleeing ship when suddenly a
fragment of the code she was assembling reminded her irresistably
of Il Palazzo.  Immediately, all comm channels filled instead with
paeans of praise to her creator.

    And thus began the takeover of the Galaxy via USENET.

"Maybe you should go home, Lumiere," the taller of the two girls
was saying worriedly as she hovered over the shorter.  "You don't
usually get headaches.  Maybe you're really sick."

    <boggle>  These girls, too?  Well, as long as *they* don't get 
added to Tenchi's fiancee list...
    Oh, who am I kidding?
Now, now; there's a difference between fiancee and houseguest... (one hopes)

As the visitor approached, Eclair, a well-build redhead apparently

    well-builT
Correction noted.

in her late teens, looked up and frowned, internally readying
herself for action.  The man looked almost as if he'd been stitched
together from a bunch of long-dead corpses and somehow re-animated.
And, in her experience, unusual-looking visitors to GOTT often
meant trouble.

    Hey, it's pervert-no-sensei from Azumanga!
    ...well, the description fits.
Never occurred to me to cross-over Tenchi with Azumanga.  Doesn't really 
seem like it'd work well.  I've toyed with the idea of cross-overs of 
Azu with Jonny Quest and with Negima, though.  :)

Lumiere, a short, slender girl apparently about ten, with light
violet hair, just ignored all this.  When the man reached the
counter, she looked at him carefully, blinked twice, and then
smiled at him pleasantly.  "Welcome to GOTT.  How may we help you,
sir?"

"Errh..." the visitor cleared his voice, which sounded as if it
hadn't been used for a while.  "That is... actually, I think I'm
here to get help.  My name is... Pedro.  That's it, Pedro.
Something... something's happening... very dangerous to galactic
civilization as we know it."

    Now, my Excel-fu is nearly nonexistant, but I DO recognize this 
guy. IIRC, he should die pretty spectularly pretty soon.
Certainly, bad things happen to Pedro a lot during Excel Saga, to which 
he unfailingly replies, "Oh No!"

Now:

"Hey, you two!"  Washuu, over breakfast, indicated the two
newcomers, Kei and Yuri.  "What's up with all this communication
interference over on your side of the galaxy?"

"It's not our fault!"  Kei and Yuri replied simultaneously.

    Which means it is.  Well, in a very roundabout fashion that no 
sane person could possibly have predicted.
Heh.  You're quite perceptive.

Washuu blinked.  "I never said it was.  Now, what's the story?"

"Yuri's the techie geek; let her tell it," smirked Kei nastily.

"SOME of us actually studied in school," smiled Yuri back with
transparently-fake sweetness.  "But really, all we know is that
some new entity out in the 'Transcend' is causing havok in
interstellar communications, filling every channel with insane
babble continuously."

    "Death to Vermin."
    On the first pass, I actually skipped past the Vingean attribution 
-- *this* is where I began to get a clue.
About where I figured most people who'd read "A Fire Upon the Deep" 
would.  Vinge has written enough other works that the phrase "Vinge 
fusion" by itself doesn't mean much (and could be taken to refer to 
Joan, for that matter).

"Hmmm... and this has been going on for how long?  Rogue
transcendental entities normally age and die very quickly."

    She should know -- she probably created most of their progenitors.
Heh.  Yes, in a Tenchi OAV universe, that's inevitable.

"About six weeks, I think," Yuri replied, thinking.  "Yes, that's
right, it started while we were still on our way back from the
rim."

    Duh duh DUUUH!
Heh.  Cue ominous music...

Utter silence fell.  Kiyone and Aeka gave the Pair a leisurely
dirty look.  Tenchi continued to chew, looking around in
puzzlement.

    "leisurely dirty"?  I'm not sure that works.
Perhaps not.  I'll probably change to "leisurely disapproving looks".


"Dare I ask what you were doing on the rim?" asked Washuu drily.

"We were chasing this scumbag, but he got away into intergalactic
space..." started Kei.

"...also known as the 'Transcend'..." interrupted Washuu.

"He claimed he had located the whereabouts of an ancient ruin
on an asteroid way out there," added Yuri, "but couldn't be
bothered with obtaining a license for tech archaeology or paying
for the mandatory precautions."

    Yeah, like no computer more advanced than an abacus.
well, in Vinge's original, yes; I'm not sure that gradient is that steep 
in this universe.

"...and many 'ancient ruins' in the transcend would, of course, be
dormant self-aware computer-based entities, built utilizing
techniques impossible to construct or operate inside the
gravitational well of a galaxy," finished Washuu.  "So, in other
words, your fugitive may have reached this ruin, and may have
reactivated  it, and it may now be responsible for the
communication problems."

    IOW, he's ignited a Fire upon the Deep.

Kei and Yuri looked sheepish.  "Well, that's just one hypothesis,
of course."

    It's the hypothesis that provides the greatest degree of blame and 
recrimination against the Angels.  Therefore, since this *is* a fusion 
fic, it is true.  Genre law prohibits any other explanation.
True.

"Are there any clues in the 'insane babble' as to what this new
entity might want?" Kiyone asked.

"As I understand it, it's all gibberish about serving someone
named 'Il-Palazzo'," answered Yuri, before adding an impish "Lady
Noike."

Kiyone reflexively snapped, "Don't call me that!"

Washuu's and Sasami's eyes widened simultaneously.  They glanced
at each other, then Sasami whispered, "But that was over a billion
years ago!  You don't think... that he somehow managed to
resurrect Excel?"

    Duh Duh DUUUUUUH!
Certainly ominous words!  ;)

"The counter-agent!  We have to find the counter-agent!" Washuu
replied in a whisper.  "The one I built back then!  It would take
way too long to build another one; galactic civilization might
not last that long!"

    So, Wa-chan, where did you *leave* it?

Oh, yes.  Those few automatons she could spare from the task of
building all-channel communication relays had just completed
construction of a new, heavily-armed spaceship, the first of a
vast armada of conquest.  And she'd also finished brainwashing her
prisoner.  That meant, Excel supposed, that it was probably time
to send Nabeshin off into space, chasing after Rikudo's original
ship.  If that ship contained anything like what she suspected,
it must be located immediately, or Il-Palazzo's grand vision would
be in danger.

    Nabeshin?
    Remember that scene in that movie where the character's jaw hit 
the floor, his eyes bugged waaay out, and the sound FX was that 
"AaaaooooGaaaa!" of a submarine diving alarm?
    I just *did* that.  It hurt.  Thanks SO much.
Heh.  Glad I managed some surprise, then.

"The bandwidth being used is enormous, for one thing.  But most
of the traffic is to and from a distant point in the 'Transcend'."

"He's a spy for Excel, then," the GOTT chief, Eclipse, remarked.
"Good thing we caught him."

"No, I think Pedro here is being directed, and occasionally
completely animated, by another transcendental entity, one of the
most mysterious ones we know."

    Oh.  So Pedro=Pham.  I guess that lets Tenchi off the hook.  But 
who's gonna play Ravna?
To the extent that I had an equivalent, Eclair and Lumiere, as you found 
out.

"We can't take the chance that you're wrong," Eclipse countered.
"And even if you're right, any transcendental entity might be
allied with Excel by now."

"Hyatt wouldn't be.  Hyatt is an old-timer as transcendental
entities go.  Mostly such entities just evolve and die, very
quickly by our standards, but Hyatt, according to our records,
periodically comes back to life.  We have records of this Hyatt
being active for short periods of time from up to a hundred
thousand years ago."

    ...y'know, this plot thickens any further, I'll be able to walk on 
it.
Heh.  Nice line.

Eclair gave Lumiere a sharp look as she whistled.

Eclipse simply looked impatient.  "Anything more?"

Lumiere took a deep breath.  "Well, our official records only go
back that far, of course.  But I remember having conversations
with Hyatt from long before that.  LONG before."

    Errr... what?  I've only ever seen one ep of their series, but I'm 
guessing that there's some canon thing where Lumiere has a VERY old 
"soul," so to speak.
Well, yes.  <spoilers> The cat doesn't get let out of the bag until the 
end of ep 9/whole of ep 10 of Kiddy Grade, when Eclair recovers her 
memory, but neither character is anywhere near the age they're portrayed 
as at the beginning of the series.  After these revelations, if you go 
back and re-watch eps 1-8, you see things in a VERY different 
light.</spoilers>

Eclair raised one eyebrow.  "THAT far back?"

"Yes.  I think this Hyatt might be a offshoot of the ancient Mar
Shan civilization.  Or maybe even..."

    J'onn J'onnz:  "Let's not go there."
Just a tip of the hat to Hyatt's "Martian Princess" putative origin...

Suddenly Pedro looked right at the two girls and spoke in a voice
very unlike his normal one.  "Eclair, Lumiere, listen closely.
Excel must be turned off, or no-one's sanity is safe.  Even now
she is killing me, starving my consciousness of the bandwidth I
need to think.  You two must take Pedro and go at once.  I will
direct you, once en route.  The Universe itself wills that you do
this."

    Aaaaand, our merry band of Excel charas is complete.  Except that 
Hyatt seems to be doing double duty as TWOTU.
Yes, TWOTU doesn't fit very well into an OAV Tenchiverse, unfortunately 
(the role being already taken, as it were),
so this tip of the hat was as much as I could manage.

"But I do not!" Eclipse insisted.  "This is none of GOTT's
business!  You two are to stay out of this matter, and we'll leave
this 'Pedro' imprisoned here so he can't do any harm.  These are
my orders.  Disobey me on this, and I'll not only dismiss you two
from GOTT, but see that you're both outlawed!"

    What, again?  (I have heard bits&pieces)

Eclair and Lumiere glanced at each other, both smiling faintly.

"Again?" Eclair asked whimsically.

"Again," Lumiere nodded.

    Well, she must have hired them back after last time...
Kiddy Grade ended with E and L re-employed by GOTT, yes.

- - - - - - - - - -
Now:

"All right."  Washuu sighed in resignation.  "I'll explain.
Il-Palazzo was a protege of ours, mostly of Tokimi's..."

"Washuu..." Sasami crossed her arms.

"..Okay, maybe more my protoge when you get right down to it,"

    SP:  protege.
Noted.

Washuu amended sheepishly.  "Anyway, similar to the way Kagato
eventually rebelled against me..."

"...And he kind of looked like Kagato as well," Sasami opined,
finger to chin in thought.  "I wonder if Washuu has a weakness for
pince-nez and shoulder-pads?"

    ...NOT going there.
Heh.  Just felt obligated to address the resemblance somehow...

Washuu paused just long enough to direct a dirty look at Sasami,
then continued.  "Il-Palazzo took what I'd taught him and began to
pursue his own agenda.  He wanted to conquer the entire
Macrocosmic All, but his way of going about this was to start
small:  first, he'd take over this Universe, and to do that he'd
start by taking over this galaxy, his first objective.  To this
end, he constructed an immense self-aware computer out in
intergalactic space, applying advanced techniques which are only
possible out there in very, very flat space, and then having his
first computer design and build a second, it build a third, and so
forth.  Eventually he ended up with Excel, the most obnoxious
transcendental entity ever created.  Excel brought a crushing end
to civilization in all nearby galaxies back then before we managed
to shut her down."

    Actually sounds a bit like Wayland and his SHIVA computer from 
"Dance of Shiva."  Except run through an Excel-style comedy filter.


"Three reasons.  First, she's extremely hard to damage seriously.
She's much more invulnerable than you are, for instance.  Second,
have YOU ever tried to find one lone, cold asteroid in the middle
of intergalactic space, especially when some entity is trying to
hide it from detection?" asked Washuu sarcastically.  "And opening
a subspace portal into flat space accurately is more difficult
than you think.  Space is slippery out there; there's no
gravitational gradient, so there's nothing to anchor the far end
of your portal to."

    Ah, technobabble, I've *missed* you so much!  :)

"Edward projects 33 percent probability that asteroid is somewhere
within a specific volume of space ten times size of this galaxy,"
added Radical Edward.

    That... narrows it down.

"Ah," Tenchi nodded his understanding.

"Those were the main problems I solved in developing the counter-
agent, of course," Washuu added.  "It has the ability to locate
Excel and teleport right to her, and then has a specialized attack
which drops her central core, the seat of her consciousness, into
a black hole."

    Huh?  Wasn't that usually IllPalazzon's gig?
Very observant of you!

Tenchi turned his head, looking at the other members of his
household:  Ryouko, Aeka, Sasami, Mihoshi, Kiyone, Mayuka, Edward,
Alielle, and the newcomers Kei and Yuri.  "Are we all at risk,
then?"

    Mihoshi should be immune.
Maybe.  But Washuu has a hard time verifying any hypotheses regarding 
Mihoshi, for some reason...

"Well, no, of course not, Tenchi.  There's no way for Excel to
harm you, Sasami, Alielle, or I, and probably Mayuka; her
telepathic assaults affect only purely three-dimensional minds.
Now, I suppose we could experiment with hooking Mihoshi up to a
telepathic amplifier, to see if she can counteract Excel..."

    GAH!  Cure worse than the disease, Wa-chan?

"You'd subject the entire galaxy to Mihoshi's thought processes?!"
Kiyone interrupted, appalled.

    My thought exactly.  But if Kiyone was interrupting Washuu, then 
W's line should end with a -- break, rather than a trailing-off elipsis.
Will replace with a dash.

"Would you MIND letting me finish?"  Washuu countered.  "...but
frankly, our best bet is to just locate and use my original
counter-agent."

    Whom I'm guessing is our current Hyatt/WOTU being.
Close, but no cigar.

"Okay, so where is this counter-agent?  Somewhere deep in your
lab?"  Tenchi wondered.

Washuu snorted.  "No, activating it causes it to teleport to
whereever Excel is, and I never bothered to retrieve it way

    SP:  wherever.
Noted.

back then.  So it was probably on the same asteroid as Excel when
Excel woke up, and may still be there."

A panicked uproar ensued.  "But then wouldn't Miss Excel have
immediately destroyed it?!"  Aeka cried out.

    "Miss Excel."  Y'know, Ayeka, you don't have to be so formal when 
referring to Great Galaxy-Eating Beings From Beyond Time And Space.
Heh.
"We haven't traveled in Kiyone's new ship yet," Tenchi remarked,
referring to the third-generation Jurai ship Kiyone had recently
received as part of Seto's campaign to change Kiyone's name.

    ...I need to go back and re-read the previous chapters.
Don't bother; it wasn't covered.  This is the first mention I've made.  
Possession of the advanced third-generation Juraian ship "Kyoko" happens 
to be one of the few differences between Kiyone and Noike, that's all.  
And I'm in the process of erasing said differences, except possibly the 
precise relationship with Mihoshi.  I like Kiyone as a victim of Mihoshi 
too much to alter that.
- - - - - - - - - -
On a lonely hilltop very far away from Earth, Menchi watched a
very large red metal bird land nearby, close to the ruins of an
old castle.  What WAS that thing?  It was obviously artificial,
but who had ever imagined building an artifact that could fly?

    ...oh, boy.  I wondered if the Tines would turn out to be cabbits 
this time around, but... oy.  VEY.
Heh.  Actually, casting Menchi as a Tine was inevitable, I thought.

- - - - - - - - - -
"Anything new?" Washuu asked, walking back up the grassy knoll
from the stream where she'd been helping Sasami and Mihoshi bathe
Mayuka.

    Gave me a scare, there, but then I realized that our merry band is 
probably still aboard Kyoko.
Yes.

"Besides us, there's a couple of other ships chasing the original
one from the Transcend," Kiyone announced.  "One's a GOTT cruiser,
colleagues Mihoshi and I have worked with before.  A bit young,
but they seemed competent.  More so than some galactic agents I
might mention."

Kei and Yuri shot quick glares at Kiyone, who played innocent.

    <snerk>

"About whom do you think Lady Noike might be referring?" Yuri
asked Kei rhetorically.

"No idea what Her Ladyship Noike could be talking about," Kei replied.

Kiyone gnashed her teeth.

    MEOW!  Hiss!  Spit!
Heh.

"Ed thinks ship is even more formidable than chatroom consensus
believes."  The waif frowned.  "Chatroom correctly identified
neutrino flux for phased zero-space reality cannons, but nobody
picked up the microscopic oscillations in the ship's hyperthrust
output.  Close match to one of Momma's ideas for building lab
like yours."  

    That could imply... lots of bad things.  At minimum, potentially 
unlimited consumables logistics, supplied via DoorSpace.  At 
maximum... well, if you could pipe the Death Star's beam through 
something like Washuu's lab to any exit point you desired....

Washuu's eyes widened.

"It's closing on the GOTT ship!" Kiyone cried.

Washuu sighed.  "Oh, fragglerack.  Step on it, Kiyone."

    Kiyone:  "Oh, me puir wee bairn!  She isnae mature enough yet t'be 
to be carrying this kind of load!"
Heh.  Maybe I'll have Kiyone develop a taste for Saurian brandy...

"I didn't really understand how to pilot the ship, and Poemi
didn't either, so I don't quite know how we got to this planet,
or even exactly where this planet is.  Poemi's not very technical;
she wants to be a voice actress when she grows up.  But I wanna
be an animator, so I have to learn all about computers and high-
res holovid and real-time rendering and stuff.  I don't know how
anti-gravity works, but I can tell you all about how you render
light as it moves through an anti-grav field!"

    I don't recognize these two, but I have a hunch that I should...
Well, Poemi didn't appear in "Excel Saga" except as the subject of 
Sandora's drawings, but Sandora showed up a fair amount.

- - - - - - - - - -
The "La Muse" shuddered.  Alarms sounded inside the ship.  "There's
another ship coming up behind us!" Eclair shouted.  "It's firing
at us!"

"I can't get a reading on its armament!" Lumiere replied.  "On
screen!  Hail the other ship!"

The main screen of La Muse changed from space to a human face, a
strange-looking man wearing a bright red jacket and sporting a
huge hairdo.  "'zat you, Eclair?  Lumiere?  Lookin' a bit
different these days, girls, but then you always do.  Long time no
see!"

"Nabeshin?!" Eclair shouted.

    Oh CRAP.
    Wait... they know each other?
In "Excel Saga", Nabeshin has a previous acquaintance with almost every 
passing character that gets introduced, especially if it seems highly 
unlikely that he would or could.  If he's a galactic action hero in a 
Tenchiverse, then he's probably known, if only by reputation, to 
galactic agents such as these two, Kei and Yuri, and Mihoshi and 
Kiyone.  And Eclair and Lumiere, having had more time to meet people, 
have naturally met him before.

Mihoshi, despite really being young, has met him also, perhaps while 
accompanying her mother Mitoto, who knows EVERYBODY.

"Why are you shooting at us?" Lumiere cried.

"Well, got no choice, really.  Friends or no friends, I gotta do
whatever's best for Excel, ya know?  Sayonara, ladies!"

Lumiere just stared at the screen, appalled.  Eclair clenched a
fist.  "We're no pushovers!  If you've been corrupted by Excel,
I'll shoot you down myself!"

"Good luck trying," Nabeshin shook his head sadly.  "Excel
designed this ship with transcendental organic technology.  This
ship just produces any weapons it needs on demand."

    So, does that make it Vorlon, or Species 8472?
    ...grife, I am *such* a geek....
Heh. 

The screen changed to an external view of Nabeshin's ship.  Twin
pylons were extruding themselves to either side of the ship even
as the girls watched, soon growing larger than the original ship,
and lengthening into twin barrels pointing at La Muse.

"Transcendental technology..." Pedro whispered, standing behind
the girls.

"How could something like THAT work this deep inside the galaxy?"
Eclair demanded, pounding a fist on her console.

    Well, if anyone ever got hold of the research that the Qeng Ho did 
at the OnOff Star....
Now, now, this is "A Fire Upon the Deep", not its prequel...

Lumiere just shook her head.  "Our shields won't withstand that."

On screen, the twin barrels started glowing.  Eclair and Lumiere
starting steering a desperate evasive action.

"Tune primary shields to band 1102.42," Pedro said.

Lumiere glanced back at Pedro, one eyebrow raised.  "Tuning now."

"And adjust secondaries to oscillate rapidly between 704.9 and
705.3."

"What?" Eclair asked, half-turning around.

"Just do it," Lumiere whispered.  "It must be knowledge from
Hyatt.  It's our only hope!"

    That and Obi-Wan Ken... oh, nevermind.

- - - - - - - - - -
Nabeshin grinned as his first shot hit La Muse's starboard engine
nacelle and the aft part of the main body.    "Got 'em.  That
ship'll blow completely in thirty seconds."

Just then a rapidly blinking light on his console caught
Nabeshin's attention.  "Another ship coming up behind me?"  He
rapidly re-oriented his ship towards the newcomer and fired a
second shot, only to watch his shot stopped cold by six streamers
of pure light.  "What in the twelve cold hells of Zehru are those?
NOTHING stops these guns like that!"

    Nothing except the WINGS of the LIGHT HAWK, bay-bee!


Lumiere grimaced, holding her head.  "It's Excel.  She just turned
the volume up a notch.  I'm trying to shut it out, but her babble
is just so inane..."

    Yeah, Lu's the cyber-path, isn't she?  Excel must be harder for 
her than most.
Very much so. 

"So these girls are also agents of a galaxy-wide organization?"
Tenchi asked as he advanced over the grass.  "Like Kei, Yuri,
Kiyone, and Mihoshi?"

"Tenchi, let me introduce you," Kiyone announced.  "These are
Eclair and Lumiere.  They work for GOTT, which means they normally
work on trade-related matters."

"Where are we?" Eclair looked around her in wonder.  "We weren't
within transport range of any planets.  And it seems familiar..."

"This is my new ship," Kiyone told Eclair smugly.  "A Juraian
ship.  We're inside the central unit."

"A Juraian ship?"  Eclair clapped her hands in delight.  "I've
never been in one before!"

Sasami tilted her head in puzzlement.  "Lumiere?  That name seems
familiar.  Have we met?"

    Well, if Eclipse's conversation earlier is any hint, Lu's (or part 
of her) has been around for a LONG time.

"Eclair too," Washuu muttered as stared at the newcomers.  "But
your appearances aren't ringing any bells."

Eclair blushed.  "Well, we do change them every once in a while."

"You do?" Kiyone asked.  "You've always looked like that as long
as I've known you, and Mihoshi and I worked with you five years
ago."

Tenchi felt a momentary impulse to remark that Lumiere only looked
about ten years old, but managed to suppress it.

    Good idea.

"Oh!  I remember them as well!"  Aeka remarked.  "Miss Eclair and
Miss Lumiere visited Jurai when I was a little girl, about
Sasami's age."

    Some eight centuries ago.
700 years, I think.

Ryouko added, "And I remember fighting them back when I was
working for Kagato.
And this could be up to 5000 years...
  They look a little different now; did you
two change your hair colors?."

"No way.  It couldn't be," Washuu stared at the two girls,
stunned.  "Impossible."

    WARNING:  Shoe about to drop.  Shoe about to drop.  All hands, 
brace for impact!
Heh.

"Loom'iyieri'ylliani?  Ek'klare'sthivst?"  Sasami whispered.
"Is it really you?  After all this time?"

    Okay, so they've BOTH been around for quite a while.
In canon, Eclair is the older of the two.

Eclair's eyes widened.  "You know those names?  Who ARE you?"

Lumiere's eyes opened.  "Tsunami!  Washuu!  That's why this place
seems so familiar.  You've come back to us!"

Sasami smiled sheepishly, then appeared to narrow to a vertical
line, which lengthened, then widened back out into Tsunami.

    I could make a 'diet' joke here, but...

Washuu simply replaced her preteen body with her adult body with
no observable lapse of time.

- - - - - - - - - -
on a bare hilltop very far away from Earth, Menchi stood beside
Poemi under the trees, watching as another large metal bird
descended from the sky.  This one was black, and very ugly, Menchi
thought.

    Nabeshin.

The 'ship' settled to the ground.  A door opened.  "Poppa!" cried
Poemi, as she darted out of cover, arms open, to embrace Nabeshin.

    Oh.
    Waitaminnit.  NABESHIN?  Has KIDS?
    Oh, we're all SO dead...
Canon for "Puni-puni Poemi", the OAV semi-sequel to Excel Saga.
Nabeshin and Kumi-kumi-san from Excel Saga have a daughter, Poemi Watanabe.

Nabeshin extended his arms, a big grin on his face, waiting for
Poemi to get near, then drew back one arm and struck her across
the face.

"Poppa?" Poemi cried, huddled on the ground, as she looked up at
Nabeshin uncertainly.

"Poppet, I live and work only for Excel now," Nabeshin explained,
standing sternly with crossed arms.  "My mistress needs to make
sure that the ship you came on, and everything inside of it,
including you, are completely destroyed.  First you will tell me
what has happened to it; my instruments indicate that most of the
interior is missing."

"No, Poppa!"  Poemi cried in horror.  "You can't be working for
that monster!"

"But I am," Nabeshin said casually, even as he reached into his
afro and pulled out a large plasma rifle.  "My mistress gave me
the ability to do this."

    But... "mess wit' the 'fro, and you gots to go."  Even EXCEL can't 
tamper with Nabeshin's 'do!

At that moment, Menchi darted out of hiding and bit Nabeshin on
the rear end.  Nabeshin dropped his weapon, then turned to strike
Menchi, who let go and darted away into the nearest thicket.
Poemi took advantage of the distraction to run away as fast as she
could, sobbing.  "I can't believe Poppa would do this!  It must
be that Excel's fault!  She'll pay for doing this to my Poppa!"

- - - - - - - - - -
"When I say _very_ long ago, I mean VERY long ago," Washuu said
impatiently.

    And when Washuu says *very*, she ain't talking about your 
grandfather's brand of "very," nosireebob!
Heh.

"She means," Tsunami explained gently, "that Loom'iyieri'ylliani
and Ek'klare'sthivst were two of my very dearest friends and
companions about a billion years ago, the last time my sisters and
I were all active in this galaxy."

    Y'know, a Vingean universe is probably one of the few backgrounds 
really *big* enough for the whole Tsunami/Washuu/Tokimi trio to play 
around in.
:)  Yep.

"Didn't you explain most of it to your other assistant back then?"
Tsunami asked.  "That nice, polite girl android?  I don't remember
her name."

Washuu looked sheepish.  "Neither do I."

    Um.  Lemme guess: Rop?
Nope.  Good guess, though.

"Ah, we've reached our goal," Kiyone announced.  "The other two
ships are currently on the planet below us.  We're heading down."

"Ed has a lock on Excel's emissary, outside his ship.  No life
signs from ship."

Kiyone nodded.  "Kyoko, if you please..."

One narrow rod extruded itself from Kyoko's wooden exterior and
fired, vaporizing Nabeshin's ship.

    I love Kiyone.  She's just my kind of gal.
    Ummm.... and why didn't Pedro turn up in that conversation at all? 
Wouldn't Hyatt have had $0.02 to chip in?

- - - - - - - - - -
Tenchi's party beamed down to the ground next to where Nabeshin
stood, gnashing his teeth over the destruction of his spaceship.
Nabeshin whirled, yanking two plasma blasters from within his
'fro, but Ryouko simply teleported over and destroyed both with
a single sweep of her lightsword.  Aeka touched her hairpiece,
and Nabeshin was imprisoned within a transparent forcefield.

"Oh, it's Nabeshin!" Mihoshi noted, holding up Mayuka to see
better.

    <cringe>


"Miss Poemi, then," Aeka continued.  "While we are certainly
happy to rescue you, and any other helpless victims as well, we
are also looking for a certain..."  Aeka turned to Washuu.  "How
would you describe it?"

"Err..." Washuu replied.

"A dense, silver, ever-shifting cloud, about my size, which should
have been on your spaceship," Pedro interrupted in a voice not his
own.

    Okay, I was *wondering*...

Washuu raised one eyebrow, then snapped her fingers.  A yellow
sphere with two blinking eyes suddenly appeared on Pedro's head.

    ????
Washuu's standard technique for analyzing people outside her lab.  See
OAV ep 11, where Washuu uses this same sphere on Zero (impersonating
Ryouko); GXP ep 17, where she uses it on Yamada Seina; and OAV ep 20,
where she uses it on Noike.

"Oh!  You have to free Sandora, then!  The bad dogs are holding
him prisoner!"  Poemi said to Aeka.

"San- Sandora?" Pedro asked in his own voice, very thick.  Washuu
raised the other eyebrow.

"I'll get him," Ryouko announced.  "Where is he being held?"

Menchi whined something complicated at Poemi, who nodded and
began translating.  "Three valleys towards the rising sun stands
a huge stone fortress, surrounded by a moat, which no dog has ever
swum!  The walls are ten paces thick.  The doors are barred with
iron and guarded by ten snarling dobermen who never sleep!  In
one of the corner towers the boy must be held, though which no
dog can say..."

Ryouko disappeared.  Five minutes later she was back, with
Sandora.

    Five MINUTES?  Geez, those dogs must have been TOUGH.
Ryouko spent most of that time translating the instructions into what 
she saw from above.

"Dad!  You're alive!  But you died in the crash!  Mom remarried
decades ago!"

"Pedro, my son!"  Tears poured freely from Pedro's eyes.  "I'm
only alive thanks to..."

"Hyatt!  I recognize those design touches!" Washuu exclaimed,
examining multiple holographic screens spread out in mid-air
before her.  "You were reassembled and re-equipped by my old
assistant, Hyatt!  She's still alive too!"

    ...OH.  Okay, that explains a few things.

"Hyatt was your polite assistant?  The ancient, self-resurrecting
transcendental entity controlling Pedro?" Eclair asked.  "She was
that cute dark-haired, pale-skinned android of yours?"

"The assistant to whom you confided the details of how the
counter-agent works?" Lumiere asked weakly.

"Yes, that's my Hyatt!"  Washuu replied.  "Good.  Hyatt remembers
everything.  So now that we know we'll be able to use it, we just
have to actually find the counter-agent."

"No problem.  It's this way," Pedro pointed.  "This close, I can
sense it."

Just over a nearby rise, the party could see a few chunks of red
spaceship hull decorating the next hillside over.

"Is there anything left?" Yuri asked worriedly.

"It's there," Pedro said positively.

One red chunk turned out to be a substantial chunk from the

    Repetition of "chunk"
So noted.

center stateroom section.  Leading the way, Pedro ducked and
squeezed through a crudely-made hole in the side, then stood
facing a closet door.  Pedro opened it.  The closet was completely
filled with a silvery, shiny growth, an organic, growing substance
whose entire surface consisted of extremely sharp spines.

"Yep, that's it!  That's the counter-agent," Washuu announced,
pleased, holding up a mysterious device to the growth and reading
the display.

"Great!  Okay, now, how do we activate it?" Tenchi asked.

"Hold on, hold on, it HAS been a while since I created it, you
know..."

Pedro cocked his head.  "I can do it, if someone else can supply
the password," he announced.  "I've been... this body has been...
wired specifically for this purpose."

"Password?  Was there a password?" Washuu looked at Tsunami.

"You gave it to them," Tsunami replied, indicating Eclair and
Lumiere.  "I think."

"Well, _I_ certainly don't remember it!" Eclair huffed.

"I... I remember it," Lumiere roused herself enough to mutter.

"Oh, no!" Pedro put his hands to the side of his head in dismay,
then stepped up next to the open closet and thrust his hands deep
inside the counter-agent, whose sharp needles pierced him through
and through.  "Aaaarrgh!  Hurry!  Just say the password aloud!"

Lumiere nodded, her brow creased with agony, and carefully
pronounced "K'shatriyavlaph!thrillyapyihhyel@priyadya."

    And she thought she had a headache BEFORE....

Tsunami blushed and gave Washuu a displeased look.  "I can't
believe you used THAT phrase as a password."

    <snicker>

"So what's it mean?" Ryouko asked in interest.

"YOU are hardly in need of a coarser vocabulary," Aeka noted
primly.

Tsunami blushed harder.  "It has to do with... how trees make more
trees."

    ...SO many jokes I could make right now.
Heh.

"Specifically, how trees a billion years ago went about it,"
Washuu amended.

The Counter-Agent began to glow and pulsate.  After thirty
seconds, the glow had increased to a point blinding to most
observers, then shrunk into a small silver shape, which floated
away from Pedro and towards Poemi.  Poemi reached up towards the
object as it reached her, now resembling a silvery fish skeleton.
As she touched it, another flash occurred, and Poemi rose into the
air and began to rotate slowly, her clothes dissolving and new
ones forming around her.  Her hair color changed from orange to
pink.

    ...okay, THIS is new.
Not intentionally; this is the henshin sequence from "Puni-puni Poemy", 
complete with fish skeleton.

Tenchi just shook his head sadly.  "Washuu, did you REALLY have to
design the process like this?"

"Hey, it's a classic theme!"

Finally the process stopped.  Poemi floated, eyes closed, as her
arms rose in front of her and her hands opened, face up.  As the
glow vanished, her eyes opened.  Her face had just time to twist
into cold anger before Menchi darted out from cover into her
arms.  Poemi and Menchi vanished.

Far off in intergalactic space, Puni-puni Poemi and Menchi
reappeared deep within a cold, apparently-deserted asteroid,
face to face with a immense construct, partly electronic, partly
biological, mostly neither.  A cord appeared next to Poemi,
apparently hanging down from the ceiling.  She pulled it.

    ...naturally.
Of course!  :)  How else can an Excel be disposed of?  (But she seem to 
always climb back out eventually...)

All around the central core of Excel, space itself weakened, its
most fundamental properties altered.  Light leaked through from
somewhere else.  A hole in space itself appeared, into which
Excel's central core, and Menchi, were irresistably sucked.

    WHAAAAAAT!?  Why MENCHI?!?

"No!  I've failed you, most glorious Il Palazzo!  Your faithful
Excel regrets this and promises to do better next time!  But
irregardless of where this hole in space is taking me, at least
I have an emergency food supply!" came drifting faintly back
through the hole in space.

    <facepalm>
That's why Menchi.  Heh, heh.


- - - - - - - - - -
And back on the Kyoko, Eclair was just finishing explaining their
circumstances to the others.  "We have no ship now, and, well,
GOTT has outlawed us again.  So you see..."

Lumiere turned to Tsunami and Washuu and gave them a bow, smiling.
"Please allow us to accompany you, Mistresses."

    Oh, no.

"Of course you can," Tsunami smiled at the pair.  Washuu, on the
other hand, turned to glance at Tenchi, snickering as she did so.

"More?" Tenchi asked in disbelief.

    You'd think he'd be used to it by now.
Oh, he is; he has to be.  :)

THE END (for now).

    I assume they got Poemi back?
Sure, some way or another.
    And how did Hyatt end up Transcendant, anyway?
Mostly by just moving out there permanently.  She has a Washuu-designed 
brain, after all.


The 'Transcend' and 'Blight' concepts (Excel plays the Blight
here) are from Vernor Vinge's Hugo-winning "A Fire upon the Deep".
My plot also bears a vague resemblance to his.

    <snort>  "Vague," he says.
Well, I don't spend anything like Vinge's word count on the Tines.
But, okay, maybe I'll rephrase that a bit...  :)

Eclair, Lumiere, and the GOTT are from "Kiddy Grade".
    
    Ah, *that's* what the series name was.  I've read a bit about it, 
but only ever saw one ep.
There are a lot of minor idiocies in the series which drag it down (and 
they're even more
annoying for being mostly unnecessary if the scriptwriters had simply 
been willing to put
a bit more thought into things!), but I like the series anyway.  In 
particular, I think of ep 10,
Eclair's reaction to the recovery of her memories, as being a minor 
masterpiece.




             .---Anime/Manga Fanfiction Mailing List----.
             | Administrators - ffml-admins@anifics.com |
             | Unsubscribing - ffml-request@anifics.com |
             |     Put 'unsubscribe' in the subject     |
             `---- http://ffml.anifics.com/faq.txt -----'