Season 2: Home Life and Shadow Plays
Episode 9: No Need for a Cure
Washu's Laboratory
"Can you really cure Ayeka?" Tenchi asked.
"I believe that I can," Washu said.
"Out with it, Washu!" Ryoko snatched the little
scientist by the collar and dragged her up. Washu
regarded her with a sort of resigned, irritated look.
"Hey, Ryoko, are you drunk again?" she asked.
"What?"
"Because you really stink," Washu wrinkled her nose
and wafted her hand back and forth in front of her
face.
"Lady Shinku, please behave in keeping with your
station," Ryoko had winced at the title. "Besides, it
won't do any good to do anything to her."
"You have a point, princess," Ryoko admitted and
set Washu down, not very differently. Washu wasn't
particularly concerned.
"Now, can you explain what you've found out Washu?"
Tenchi asked.
"Yes, please make yourself clear Washu-chan."
"I'll try," she said, calling up a holo-keyboard
and typing in commands. A holographic image of Ayeka
appeared, surrounded by a net of interlocking energy
strands. "This is Ayeka's energy field before she
burned out. The information I had at the time was
sketchy so this might not be a totally accurate
representation so much as it is a reconstruction based
on my current findings." Everybody nodded as she
pointed out the pale blue energy net on the
three-dimensional hologram.
"Okay, now these strands are actually indicative of
the paths of certain sub-atomic particles that
surround the Jurai noble. These particles interact to
produce the Jurai energy, though there is also some
influence from the person itself that makes the effect
very difficult to reproduce accurately through
artificial means. In essence, a person is capable of
sustaining a higher charge and producing much more
complex effects that a mere machine."
"Get to the point Washu," Ryoko snapped.
"The point is, Ryoko," Washu typed a few more
commands on her keyboard. "That this is what the paths
about Ayeka look like now." The hologram changed to
reveal a ravaged net. "In order to supply Ayeka with
enough power for what she wanted to do, she
transferred a majority of the particles about her into
Jurai energy. At least I suspect that this is what
happened. So now this little orbit here," she pointed
to a line just above the hologram's head. "Has only
one or two other orbits that it intersects with. Same
here, and here and so on."
"How does this help, Washu-s..chan?" Ayeka asked.
"You still haven't shown how this damage could be
fixed.
"Yes, well," Washu cleared her throat. "When you
attempted to channel just a moment before, most of the
energy went into bridging these gaps here." She typed
a few commands on her keyboard and pointed to three of
the gaps in the net. As she pointed they were filled.
"The energy was converted back into the necessary
particles and so the damage was repaired."
"So all she has to do is keep channeling and it
will repair itself," Tenchi asked.
"NO!" Washu and Ryoko snapped at once.
"The net was repaired here, Tenchi, but," Washu
typed some more and the hologram changed again. "See
here, the strain was starting to fray these other
strands across the net as a whole. And as that was
happening her vital signs went wild. Just channeling
is not an option, it will do more harm than good."
"Then what is the answer?" Ayeka demanded
exasperated. Washu was programming the hologram again.
"If we can supply your net with Jurai energy from
an outside source," Washu noted. "Then perhaps that
outside force can provide the energy needed to rebuild
your net."
"I'm willing�"
"Not you Tenchi, it won't work. I thought about you
and Ryoko almost immediately, but the energy fields
are not compatible."
"What," Tenchi said. "Why not?" Washu was typing on
her holo-board again.
"Well the short of it is that you are not
pure-blooded Jurai noble," Washu said. "Not that it
would really matter in a normal case, Ayeka isn't pure
either. Ryoko seems to be the only pure bred noble
anything of you three."
"I beg your pardon!" Ayeka snapped angrily. Washu
continued on without paying attention.
"Watch what you're saying, Washu," Ryoko growled,
disliking the reminder of the heritage that had caused
so much trouble.
"But in Ayeka's case her non-Jurai noble ancestor
was just an average person without access to any power
source. Some where in your ancestry you have Terran
spiritual power as well." Two new holograms appeared
showing Tenchi and Ryoko with similar particle nets
about them. Tenchi actually seemed to have two
intersecting nets of pale blue and white. "I've
watched, you can't channel Jurai power without
channeling Terran power as well. It is not compatible
with Ayeka's net."
"What about Grandfa�" Ayeka started.
"He's powerful, and pure blood, at least unmixed
blood. He's also quite old, however, and I don't know
if he could do it, for all that he is hale."
"Your Jurai power generators?" Ryoko suggested.
"Well, after confiscating and dismantling one of
Kiyone's new rifles," she said that with a touch of
pride. "I concluded that the energy produced is too
raw to be used for much in the way of practical
purposes, just brute stuff like with Caine and then
powering Kiyone's rifles."
The conversation was interrupted by the appearance
of a communicator screen from the Yagami.
"Are you guys still there?" Kiyone asked. Then she
took in the scene and sighed. "Did something happen
with Ayeka?"
"We were discussing a possible treatment for
my�injury," Ayeka hmphed in response to being treated
as if she weren't there again.
"I see, well we don't have too much time left, and
there has been a complication."
"What kind of complication?" Tenchi asked. "I
thought the Jurai Empire and GP had already said they
didn't mind us talking to Earth's governments."
"Yes, well this is for Ryoko," Kiyone reported. The
screen split to reveal Kamidake, the younger of the
two knights.
"Princess Ayeka, I hope that you are well," he said
almost immediately.
"I am as fine as can be expected, Kamidake-san."
"Has the great Washu," there was no sarcasm. "found
a�treatment for your�condition?"
"There is a possibility, but you have business with
Lady Shinku, do you not?"
"Yeah, what do you want me for?"
"There has been a problem with some of the Akuneko
that were captured on the Jurai border."
"I thought they all went back across dead space,"
Tenchi said.
"Well, the survivors of the Shiroi clan that
attacked the main force of Jurai apparently don't want
to return," Kamidake said. "They seem to want asylum
over here, and now we have reports that more ships are
appearing. Not combat vessels it seems, but various
civilian craft."
"What can I do about that?" Ryoko asked irritably.
"Perhaps when you speak to the governments of Earth
today, you can arrange permission for a colony over
there. On one of those unused planets maybe. This
permission is really more of a formality anyway, isn't
it."
"Unused planets," Tenchi repeated. "They're unused
because they're unliveable."
"That's what terraforming is for," Washu announced
suddenly, a particularly hungry gleam in her eyes.
Everybody sweatdropped as they imagined what a Washu
terraforming project would look like.
"Talk to Kiyone and Tenchi, they're doing the
talking."
"Excuse me Lady Shinku, but they also seek your
permission," Kamidake said embarrsed.
"Why would they want my permission," Ryoko asked.
"Because they are apparently looking to you as
their rightful ruler."
"Well they can take that and stuff it," Ryoko
snapped. "Why are you making this call and not some
pointless little bureaucrat."
"Well�I was�concerned for Princess Ayeka," he
admitted. Ayeka blushed demurely. "She was defending
me at the time."
"Well this is certainly an interesting turn of
events," Washu suggested. "Perhaps you would be
willing to help with Ayeka-san's treatment?"
"Of course I'd be willing, I can come to Earth
immediately."
"No, please sir, don't trouble yourself," Ayeka
interrupted. "I shall come to you, if
Washu-sa�.err�chan has nothing against that."
"Certainly not, there's only so much I can do in
this part of the galaxy any way."
"You're leaving?" Ryoko asked in disbelief.
"I shall be back Lady Shinku, you can have faith in
that," she smirked. "Somebody needs to teach you the
proper way in which royalty should behave."
"I do have one complaint," Washu noted. "Unless
Ryoko is willing to let Ryo-Ohki carry us�"
"Yes!" Ryoko snapped.
"Then it is settled then," Ayeka sighed. "I shall
be returning to the imperial planet, Kamidake-san, but
please do not tell anyone as of yet."
"Well Tenchi, are you just going to stand there?"
Ryoko tapped her foot angrily. "I thought we had
somewhere to go. Oh never mind." She vanished,
teleporting off to the Yagami no doubt.
"She's getting worse isn't she," Ayeka sighed.
"I'll try to talk to her as soon as I can get her
alone again," Tenchi said, before dissipating into a
series of blue-white motes.
=====
"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
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Kick off your party with Yahoo! Invites.
http://invites.yahoo.com/