"Excuse me, is this the Masaki shrine?" Tenchi
turned from his sweeping to face the speaker. It was
a gaijin girl with short brown hair, glasses and
wearing a turtle neck.
He immeadiately thought it was odd that so many
gaijin had come to the shrine, especially in light of
a lot of recent events. He could only imagine the
rumors floating about this place. He couldn't help
but hope that the two girls of this odd group didn't
suddenly develop a liking for him.
"Yes it is, are you tourists?"
"Well actually we're here to solve the mystery of
the Shrine," the speaker was a tall blonde gaijin with
some kind of orange scarf.
"What mystery?" Tenchi asked, genuinely confused.
"Well all the locals told us this place was being
terrorized by a demon that was released from the
shrine," this time it was the red head that was
talking.
"Oh, you mean Ryoko." The gaijin seemed surprised
by his casual comment.
"Roko?" Tenchi blinked, the dog had just talked.
"Wait a minute," Tenchi snapped. "I'm not this
fluent in English!"
"Oh don't worry about it," the blonde gaijin waved
that aside. "It seems like everywhere we go everybody
speaks English."
"Oh...Kay."
"Anyway, what's a Ryoko?" the tall skinny kid in
the green shirt asked. "Because they won't be happy
until we solve a mystery here."
"I've never heard of that particular creature
either," the girl with the glasses noted.
"Ryoko's...hard to explain."
"That's odd, you don't seem scared at all," the
blonde guy said again.
"Yeah, usually people are either terrified or
denying the stories," the red-haired girl agreed.
"Maybe there isn't a mystery here and we can go,"
the skinny kid said.
"Yeah, ret's ro," Tenchi arched an eyebrow and
stared at the dog.
"Actually he seems embarrased," the brown haired
girl noted. "Maybe HE'S behind whatever pranks have
people thinking there's a demon up here."
"Huh? Between training and tending the fields I
don't have much time for pranks."
"Sure, that's what you say," the blonde guy
pressed. "But I think you are this..." Ryoko popped
into existence next to Tenchi, the gaijin tourists all
jumped.
"Tenn..."
"ITS A MONSTER!!!" the tall skinny one called out
running for hiding.
"I'M NOT A....what language am I speaking?" Ayeka
appeared out of the house in time for the comment
about a monster.
"OHOHOHOHOHOHOHO!!! They have you pegged right,
Ryoko!! You are a...wait a minute, what language ARE
we speaking?" Ayeka looked confused for a moment.
"English," Tenchi answered. "Don't ask me how
we're speaking it."
"A monster and a banshee," the blonde said
nervously from several yards away. "This mystery
keeps getting more mysterious."
"Let's get out of here Freddy!" the red-head
whispered.
"WHAT DID YOU CALL ME!?!" Ayeka demanded, ignoring
the redundancy of the blonde's comment.
"Hey, hey, everybody calm down," Tenchi said.
"Excuse me, I don't know your names."
"Uh, Fred Jones," the blonde said. "This is Daphne
Blake, that's Velma Binkley, that's Shaggy and the dog
is Scooby Doo."
"Scooby Dooby Doo," the dog agreed nervously.
Ayeka and Ryoko looked at each other before staring at
the dog in confusion.
"Okay, well I'm Tenchi, and the two girls you just
called a monster and a banshee are Ryoko and Ayeka."
"THAT'S the demon from the shrine," the one called
Shaggy blinked.
"I'm not a demon," Ryoko said, sitting down...in
midair. The gaijin blinked and looked at each other
nervously.
"Re's frying!" the dog barked.
"Wow, where's the wire?" Velma asked. This
"monster" seemed intent on not scaring them, strangely
enough. Or rather they just didn't care about scaring
them.
"What wire? Anyway, I'm Ryoko, a space pirate and
Tenchi's my boyfriend!"
"Oh an Alien, we've heard that one before," Fred
laughed. Ryoko glared at him as AYeka gave her own
reaction to Ryoko's introduction."
"Why you reprehensible woman! I am destined to wed
Lord Tenchi and you know it," Ayeka turned to face the
gaijin. "I am PRINCESS Ayeka daughter of the second
Empress of Jurai."
"I take it your father remarried then," Velma
asked, as she tried to cover the fact that she had
never heard of "Jurai" before.
"Of course not!" Ayeka snapped. "Neither of the
Empresses has yet died, and with Lord Tenchi alive
there is no need of an heir to the throne."
"Wait a minute, he has TWO wives," "Daphne" sounded
mildly annoyed.
"That's weird," Shaggy agreed, the dog nodded right
along with him.
"Of course, it is the tradition of the Jurai kings
and queens to take two spouses," Ayeka explained. "At
first it appeared I would have to take two husbands,
but since Lord Tenchi is the most eligible to take
the...." Ayeka paused and turned to face a mirrored
thoughtful expression on Ryoko's face. Tenchi began
to look very nervous.
"So why are you two fighting over him if you can
both marry him?" Shaggy asked.
"Yeah why are we?" Ryoko asked.
"Oh no," Tenchi whimpered.
"Let me guess," Fred started. "You were playing
them off of each other so they wouldn't press you for
a commitment until you were older."
"And I would have gotten away with it, if it
weren't for you meddling kids," Tenchi paused.
"Actually this is something of a relief, why'd I say
that?"
"Oh every body does," Velma said. Daphne was
eyeing Fred closely and analysing how quickly he had
come up with that answer.
"Okay..someone said meddling kids," Shaggy
interrupted, then whimpered. "Can we go now?"
"Yeah, ro now," the dog agreed.
"Suure," Daphne agreed. "Come on, I think that I
need to talk to Fred anyway." Fred swallowed
nervously as the gaijin walked away. Then the two
girls turned on Tenchi and smiled.
~Well at least I don't have to choose between them
now,~ Tenchi sighed expressively. ~Though trying to
get through school before getting married is going to
be a lot tougher now.~
=====
"Caffeinated Kender? What's that, a berserk spell?" -
Tribble, Kender Warrior of the Celestial Kingdom
Signed
He of Too Many Names (Thrythlind/Thryth/Luke/Hyperbole/Pika/Pooka)
http://members.aol.com/thrythlind/snake.html
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