A Misadventures in Baking Story

Three Hundred Years in the Making
A Tenchi Muyo! Fan fiction attempt by Jerico Mele

	The sun shone down on the world, as it does more times than not,
breaking the horizon over Japan at approximately seven in the morning on
a beautiful spring day. Seven in the morning being a temporal
classification that had come into fashion on Earth many years before. To
Washuu it seemed a shame to lose so much information about the real
nature of time by assigning it a simple numerical and alphabetical 
relationship, but she supposed that most people on this little planet
couldn�t be bothered with doing four dimensional manifolds in their
heads whenever anyone asked what time it was. 
	To Washuu little things like that were the little perks to
interpersonal relationship, namely an excuse to sharpen her mathematical
skills and conceptual grasp on the shape of the universe, all 17 
dimensions of it. Sure, she could approximate by ignoring the tenth
order derivations and beyond, but where would the fun be in that?
	Still, she admitted grudgingly, the sight of a G class solar body
cresting the terminator and the resultant cascade of photons was a sight
that could lose nothing in translating back to simple terms. 
Washuu-chan sat back, enjoying the sight and silence. Sunday mornings at
the Masaki residence were a true period of tranquility, usually reserved
only for herself and Grandpa. And since Grandpa had left for the 
Shrine a few moments before, Washuu was by herself.
	Then a yelp sounded from upstairs, signaling the start of a new day at
the Masaki residence. Judging from the vocal patter, Washuu thought,
that would be Tenchi. And given previous behavioral 
information, it would seem that Ryoko decided to �wake� him up again.
Washuu�s reasoning was confirmed a moment later by the screams of
�Ryoko! Cut it out!� 
	With a gesture Washuu summoned her computer from its hiding place,
wrapped up in seven or eight dimensions that humanity wouldn�t know
about for a couple hundred years. Or until they get a good 
control over Planck scale energy reaction, she mused. She opened the
file marked �Ryoko� and added another tally under the heading �wakes
Tenchi with sexual activity.� I hope the remotes manage to infiltrate 
his room soon, she thought as she began another run of her personality
simulator, so I can get more specific data. Otherwise, she continued
silently, all these simulations are so much chaotic junk. The computer 
returned her an error string, the specifics of which he couldn�t be
bothered to read just yet, so she sent the computer away.
	�Oh Ryoko,� she said silently as she contemplated her daughter�s
methods of seduction. Like everything else she did it was so�unsubtle.
Then she picked out noises coming from the rooms above. The 
door to the hyper-dimensional bathroom, she suspected. It seemed that
Tenchi�s yelp acts like an alarm clock, with everyone�s day beginning
along with his. 
	Idly, Washuu called back her computer and activated the bathroom
monitors (she had carefully excluded Noboyuki from their activation
protocols shortly after meeting him, assuming that no data 
gathered from him would be worth the sights that might greet her).
Ryoko, Sassami and Ayeka were all 
beginning the morning bath. 
	A bath could be good, Washuu thought, tired of the hygienic nanites
that had kept her almost hospital clean for the last ten thousand years
or so. Nothing like a relaxing bath, she continued silently. But she
couldn�t take herself away from the sight of the sun as it continued its
slow (relative to her anyway) advance across the sky. So she waited on
the porch, at least until the others drove her away with their
unenlightened conversation. 
	Then she heard a beep from nowhere and bolted upright. Her computer
reappeared from n-space and displayed a message she had recorded 300
years ago, while in Kagato�s trap. 
	�Oh my!� she exclaimed, �today�s the day already?� 
	She turned and entered the house, running as fast as her legs could
carry her. Tenchi was coming down the stairs at a time as close to
simultaneous as Einstein would allow, and smiled when he saw 
Washuu. 
	�Good morning, Washuu,� he said happily, only to have her streak by
with a muted �That�s Washuu-chan!� before she disappeared into her
laboratory.
	�Wonder what she�s running from,� he said nervously, looking out the
door for something that could scare off the Universe�s Greatest Genius
�. Not finding anything the normal Masaki scenery he 
shrugged and continued towards the kitchen, waiting for Sassami to come
down and make breakfast.

	Tenchi�s good humor ran out a few moments after Sassami told him to get
Washuu for breakfast. Actually his good humor ran out a few seconds
before she asked him, his highly developed sense of 
paranoia tipping him off by noticing Sassami�s face puckering up to ask
him a favor. Logic dictated that due to the circumstances he would be
entering the laboratory very soon.
	So Tenchi worked up his courage and walked towards the door that led to
Washuu�s hideaway. In the back of his mind an old song played. He
couldn�t understand the words, it being an American song from long ago,
but the mood suited the situation. In fact �Johnny Comes Marching Home
Again� had become something of a theme for Tenchi recently.
	Tenchi knocked at Washuu�s door softly, hoping that he wouldn�t be
heard. Unfortunately he was incorrect in his attempt at underhandedness,
as the door opened silently on its own. He stepped into the laboratory,
faint tingle rippling across his body as he passed the threshold. All
the hyper-dimensional rooms did that to him, but he was too nervous to
really worry about it whenever he passed through one. Especially since
the only doors that extended cross dimensions were those leading to this
lab and the girls bath.
	The laboratory never ceased to awe him, even in the face of mortal
terror. It seemed so wrong that there was more space in this room than
in the house itself. He followed the steps, keeping silent, his plan to
surprise Washuu with the news of breakfast then run screaming out of the
lab.  He was also careful not to touch anything, partially because he
was a polite boy and partially due to abject terror over destroying the
house, Japan or the World.
	He reached Washuu�s work area after a few moments of descent. It was
unusually quiet, which was slightly disturbing, but he managed to
contain his fear and glance around for Washuu. After a few 
moments he managed to pick out her form, hidden among the various
apparatus that always seemed to be glowing or moving or both. After
checking behind him for any ambulatory chairs or racks he walked over 
and said hello.
	�Tenchi! How are you doing?� Washuu said.
	Something about how she said it made him nervous. Or perhaps it was
Washuu�s visible nervousness that set him off. She seemed to be blocking
his view of something with her body, no simple 
task for such a small girl�s body. 
	�Ah, Sassami asked if you�d like breakfast,� he said, nonchalantly
checking the area behind him in case she was still planning something,
then attempting to move slightly to the side to see behind Washuu.
Though she did it subtly he noticed she still blocked his view.
	�Are you working on anything special,� he asked, curiosity overpowering
his self-preservation instincts.
	�Oh no,� she said, quickly, stepping from foot to foot in a fashion
that indicated otherwise. Tenchi silently marked down the time and date
as the first time Washuu had ever been nervous without Mihoshi 
being present. �Just something I cooked up a little while ago.� She
giggled as she finished, at some private joke that only she got.
	�Would you like to come up for breakfast?�
	�Certainly.� She stuck her arm out for Tenchi, who reluctantly took it.
�After you.�
	Tenchi led her up the stairs, noticing that she still managed to keep
herself directly between him and whatever it was she was working on. 

	Mihoshi looked around, enchanted with the view out the window.
Spectacular, she thought, then giggled. So much going on out there, she
thought.
	�Oh,� she gasped as a hummingbird settled over the flower she had been
watching for the last couple of minutes. All around her, breakfast was
being consumed at a rate that would surprise anyone 
familiar with the eaters. For such skinny girls, she thought, we do eat
a lot. Then she whimpered as she began worrying about her figure.
	�Do you like it, Mihoshi?� Sassami asked innocently.
	�Yes!� Mihoshi yelled as she stood up and ran off. 
	�What happened there?� Ryoko asked as she watched her run off. Then she
looked around surreptitiously and grabbed the bowl of soup that had set
Mihoshi to running off. She grinned.
	�Ryoko you are the most dispicable thief I�ve ever encountered,�
Ayeka�s royal voice rang out. Ryoko winced, and turned to face her. 
	�Listen, princess,� Ryoko began, her temper shorter than usual before
noon, �I don�t need to hear it from some stuck up bitch that had
everything handed to her on a plate.�
	Nearly everyone at the table dove for cover, with the exception of
Washuu, who retrieved her computer from somewhere and began taking
notes. An expression of concentrated joy crossed her face as she waited
for the fun to start.
	Unfortunately, she forgot about Mihoshi�s absence.

	�Wow,� Mihoshi breathed as the sights and sounds of Washuu�s lab. She
didn�t come here too often, almost never alone after the others realized
the consequences of such inattentiveness. It amused 
Washuu to no end that Mihoshi, the Galaxy Police officer, was more
impressed by her room than a bunch of natives from a backwater planet.
Or it had amused her until Mihoshi managed to destroy the matter-
antimatter containment system that had been powering the little Genius�
experimental toaster oven. 
	�Wow,� she said again, gazing at the coffee table sized 1000 GeV
particle accelerator that served Washuu as a coffee table with blinking
lights. Her hand�s were drawn towards the buttons and controls that 
dotted the beaten surface of the table/particle accelerator. The tiny
portion of her brain not engaged with the strange sequence of blinking
lights and flashing readouts reminded her of the last time she pushed a
button in Washuu�s lab.
	The memory of people yelling and screaming, along with a not small dose
of pain enhanced memory managed to persuade Mihoshi�s hand. Pursing her
lips slightly she controlled herself. She sniffed 
slightly as a familiar odor wafted across the room.
	�Coffee cake?� she asked the room. After waiting for an answer, she
followed her nose (it seemed it always knows) towards the back of the
lab. A small podium, a stand really, with what looked like a 
microwave on top, stood against a wall of machinery. Warnings and
messages were plastered all over it, in a selection of languages that
ranged from Kanji and English to Jurian and Gutter Andromedan. Mihoshi 
didn�t notice these of course, but stared at the object hovering in the
microwave window. 
	�It is coffee cake,� she said quietly, so as not to disturb the silence
that coated the lab. She bit her finger, a sign of intense (for Mihoshi)
concentration. It looked so good, she couldn�t really help herself from
reaching out towards it�

	Upstairs, breakfast was progressing normally. A ring of floating logs
circled Ryoko as she growled at Ayeka, a low hum filling the room.
Tenchi was dragging a protesting Sassami behind the counter as Washuu
looked on, briefly taking notes on her computer, apparently unconcerned
at the carnage that could break out any moment. 
	Fortunately for the Masaki residence, a massive explosion blew the door
that led to Washuu�s lab off its hinges. It sailed into the kitchen,
smashing into Ryoko. Washuu began moving almost instantaneously,
sprinting as fast as her little legs would carry her. Her brain had
already determined what had happened, and she let out a blood curdling
scream: �Mihoshi!!!!� she bellowed in a voice several 
octaves too low to be natural.
	Then she was gone, down into the lab. The puzzled remainders of the
breakfast group looked at each other in confusion, then followed Washuu
at a more cautious pace, waiting for Ryoko to dig herself 
out. 
	Tenchi led the expedition, mostly out of curiosity as opposed to any
sense of chivalry. Ayeka followed closely behind him, still stifling
laughter at the look on Ryoko�s face after the door smashed her. 
Ryoko and Sassami were last, Sassami acting as a buffer between her
sister�s back and the angry space pirate. 
	Smoke clouded the room, turning Washuu�s lab into a slightly more
threatening place. There was more movement than they were all accustomed
to, a side effect of the machines attempting to minimize the 
damage to the rest of the experiments Washuu was running.
	�Washuu?� Tenchi asked. Upon receiving no answer he led the group
towards the place he had found Washuu earlier that morning. He noticed
that the smoke thickened here, and that there was a thin 
paste covering everything within a couple meters of ground zero. Washuu
was kneeling in front of the epicenter, head resting on her chest,
expression of extreme depression gracing her cute face.
	�Washuu,� Tenchi said tentatively. �Is everything all right?�
	Behind him, he heard Ryoko sniffing. �What�s that smell?� she asked.
Tenchi picked it out too, a faintly familiar, but definitely appetizing
odor that saturated the room.
	�It smells like�kind of like coffee,� Ayeka commented, noticing Sassami
tasting a bit of the paste. �Don�t do that,� she shrieked. �It could be
poisonous.�
	�I found Mihoshi!� Ryoko yelled from across the lab. She dragged a
dazed and slightly singed Mihoshi from underneath a coffee table. �She�s
all right.�
	�Must�ve been the sucrose alignment array,� Washuu said quietly. �Or
possibly the coffee compression system. Mihoshi,� she said the word with
great distaste, �managed to pick the most unstable 
process to interrupt.�
	�What was that thing, Washuu.�
	�Old family recipe,� the little genius said sadly. �What you humans
call coffee cake. I started this one off during my imprisonment onboard
the Soja. About Lamba cee to the thirteenth ago,� she said.
	Everyone looked at her. �All right,� she said, �three hundred years or
so ago,� she translate, silently adding �barbarians.'
	�I didn�t know you could cook, Washuu,� Sassami asked.
	�Washuu-chan,� she corrected absentmindedly. �Cooking is an art,
Sassami. Baking,� her expression changed from one of depression to pure
joy, �is a science!�
	�Why�d the coffee cake explode,� Ryoko asked.
	�You can�t rush a good cake,� Washuu said with a straight face.
	The others collapsed with a groan. Washuu stared around in confusion.
�What?� she asked. �Its the third law of glucose dynamics.�

Authors Drivel:
	This is my first non Eva fanfic. It was an exercise in character
portrayal, focusing more on Washuu, Mihoshi and a bit of Tenchi. It
turned out to be harder than I expected. C&C would be lovely, especially
on character portrayal and my arch-nemesis dialogue. Thanks for making
it this far.
And sorry about the Fruit Loops thing, I couldn't stop.

Jerico Mele, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Society for Creative
Interpretation of Reality.
Jmele@brandeis.edu
www.undergrad.brandeis.edu/~jmele