Hi everyone, this is FaerieRavyne. Well here is my first posted fanfic. Please be kind. I don't know if this will be good. Please R&R.

Disclaimer: I don't know who owns Tenchi Muyo!, but I don't. Don't sue. However, all the new characters do belong to me. There are mine, straight from the pits of my mind.

And now...

Tenchi Muyo!--Lost Souls

"Ryoko," yelled a young woman, "Where are you, you lazy bum. You are supposed to be helping me with the laundry."

Hiding in the rafters was the woman in question. Everyday it was the same old thing, Ryoko would hide and shun her household duties, and Aeka would call for her to help out and do her share. It never happened, Aeka would just give up and go finish the chores by herself. Everyone in the household would just ignore the constant yelling and go on with their lives. There were also the constant arguments between those two when it came to Tenchi, the only of-age man in the Masaki family.

Those types of days, however, had been slowly disappearing. Aeka had seemed to be growing apart from the rest since they had returned from fighting Lady Tokimi. Even though she argued with Ryoko as nothing had changed, she was different. Then one day, after a visit from Royal family of Jurai, things changed completely. Most thought that it was for the best, but deep down they did wonder at the quietness. There were no more arguments about Ryoko helping with the chores and no more arguments about staying away from Tenchi. Aeka would just wake-up and start the chores with no complaints. She seemed happy to do them, in fact.

What really shocked them was when she announced that she wished to attend school. They could not dissuade her, and they finally gave in. Of course she would go to the same school as Tenchi and when Ryoko found this out she decide that she wanted to go to school also. Aeka excelled at the studies, while Ryoko got by. Aeka NEVER tried to get Tenchi, to the shock of Ryoko. After they finished school, Aeka and Tenchi went on to college. Ryoko, deciding that Aeka was not after Tenchi anymore, didn't go. She had had enough of the school thing.

It was during the summer after her second year in college that there was once again a visit from Jurai, however this visit was different this time. Only an ambassador had come...

Sasami with Ryo-Ohki on her shoulders ran quickly up the long stairs to the Masaki temple where Grandfather Yosho, Tenchi, and Aeka worked on their chores. "Tenchi! Aeka! Grandfather!" Sasami yelled.

"What is it Sasami," Aeka asked, then she looked up to find herself looking at Washu and standing beside her was the Juraian ambassador. Sadly he looked at the older princess.

"I'm sorry to inform..." he began, Aeka never heard anymore as she quickly ran from the group. She ran passed Ryoko and Mihoshi as they came up to see what was going on.

"Uh, watch wear your going, PRINCESS," Ryoko said a bit of anger as she was pushed aside by the upset princess.

"Aeka," Tenchi made a move to go after her but was stopped by his grandfather.

"She needs time by herself, Tenchi," he said.

"I'm sorry to have upset the princess," the ambassador said, "but the emperor is not well. He is dying." This startled everyone. The ambassador continued, "He wishes to have his son and daughters, and his son's family by his side." The ambassador looked expectantly at grandfather. He simply nodded his answer.

"I guess I better get everything ready," said Washu. She looked at Grandfather with knowing eyes. He looked back with relief.

"Thank you, Washu," Grandfather said as she walked off.

At the Masaki house, in her room, Aeka sat with her head bowed. She took a deep breath and looked up. There were no tears in her eyes. I can't cry. Why can't I cry, she thought, Aren't I sad about this? She shook her head at her lack of emotions. She fisted her hands in anger. For a long time she has felt desensitized; she was wasn't angry with Ryoko for not taking her share of chores, not jealous at Ryoko's attention to Tenchi, and now not sad about her father's condition. She bowed down as the memory of their last encounter began to wash over her. And it was all because of him...

"No, father, I will not go back," Aeka yelled loud enough to scare the local animals that lived in the forests that surrounded the Masaki home.

"You need to settle down, you need a husband," he repeated his age-old argument. For two years since she had come to Earth, he has told her this. This time was going to be different, this time she was fed up with it, and it was about time that she took a stand.

She began to shiver at the memory as anger washed through her. " I will not, father, I will not marry because you tell me to do so," she began. The Emperor began to open his mouth to retort. Aeka cut him off, "and don't say that as a royal princess of Jurai it is my duty to marry." His mouth shut. "If that is your only reason for me to marry, then I will no longer be a royal princess of Jurai and I will no longer be your daughter." Then she walked off with her head held up high and her back stiff as if her spine was a metal rod. Her father just stood there with his mouth agape. When he left for home after his visit, Aeka wasn't there to see him off. He shook his head and left.

Washu looked into Aeka's room and found her sitting with her back to the door. She didn't she Washu. Washu watched with worried eyes as the princess was bowed in what seemed like sadness and shook with what seemed like sobs as they racked her body.

If only Washu really knew what was going on with the princess, then she would have entered and tried to comfort with the princess; but she didn't and so she left Aeka to deal with what seemed to be grief

After that Aeka wasn't the same. She was no longer a princess, she had denounced her right to the crown of Jurai, and so she decided that she should stop acting like one. Her arguments with Ryoko ended, and she worked her chores without complaint. She lived as any normal girl would. That's when she also decide that she needed to learn to do something other than being a princess, she would go to school and learn a useful skill. She excelled at her studies, and especially loved the study of mythology. That is when she decided that she should study and then teach mythology. She finally had a future, one that she had chosen herself.

Now this was happening, he was going to get her to Jurai and he would make her feel obligated to marry. She clenched her fist in determination; she was not going to let him. She got up and made her way downstairs into Washu's laboratory. She entered quietly, making sure that no one would hear her if there were anyone there. There had to be something in the lab that she could use to escape in. She found it when she overhead Washu as she was getting ready for the trip to Jurai.

"Well I guess I'll have to get back to this after our trip or maybe I could work on it during this trip. The assimilation of this super computer and the Mass would have been my greatest invention." She closed the box that contained the subject of her monologue. "Of coarse, that is after I get a suitable subject." She began to walk out the door. "I wonder if I could get Ryo-Ohki to assimilate again." She closed the door as she left her lab.

Aeka came out of the shadows and grinned. She had the perfect subject. Ryo-Ohl. If this assimilation went right, then Ryo-Ohl would be able to transform herself into a ship instead of being built into one. She went to the pot that held her tree. She walked up to her tree.

"Ryo-Ohl," she addressed her tree, it had now grown to almost it original size that it had been before the accident, all thanks to Washu's "special" plant food. A colorful stream of lights shown from the leaves in response to being called. "I need to ask you a favor." Now Washu was going to help her again, albeit unknowingly. "I must leave. Will you assimilate with the Mass and computer Washu has invented to become a full ship?"

It began to light up until the entire pot was full of light. The answer it conveyed was yes. Aeka went to Washu's lab and grabbed the box that Washu had been fussing with earlier. She hauled it to her tree and placed it right beside Ryo-Ohl. "Okay, Ryo-Ohl. Ready."

The tree began to shine with streaming rainbows. Soon it became too bright for Aeka to watch any longer and she shielded her eyes. When the light died down and Aeka uncovered her eyes, there was no longer a tree of Jurai, but a young woman, a few years younger looking than Aeka was. She had soft tanned brown skin the color of bark, and long green hair which was the same brilliant color of her leaves, a Juraian robe-like gown containing the colors of her rainbow lights, and large white wings of an angel. Aeka gasped at her beauty. She slowly opened her eyes to reveal beautiful silver eyes with golden fleck in them. Ryo-Ohl opened her mouth to speak, "I will always be at your side my princess." He voice was like tiny bells ringing. It was so sweet.

Aeka eyes harden at the word princess. "I am no longer a princess." Ryo-Ohl nodded remembering when Aeka had told her about the fight she had had with her father. "I wish to leave Ryo-Ohl. It's time that I left this place; I have learned all that I need to learn from here." She looked up, "It's time to take my studying elsewhere." Ryo-Ohl nodded in agreement. "I will leave everything that has always identified me as a princess of Jurai. First of all, you must rid yourself of your name."

"What shall I be called," asked Ryo-Ohl.

Aeka looked at Ryo-Ohl, thinking. Her clothes, her wings. Then it came to her. "In Greek mythology, there was a goddess. Her description reminds me of you. You shall be known now as Iris." Aeka smiled at the name; Iris smiled in return, she liked it. She nodded confirming the name.

Aeka began to walk out to go to her room, Iris followed. When they had reached her room, Aeka spoke once again, "Now it's my turn." She took a deep breath. "First, my clothes." She began to strip her clothes. When she was done, she looked in the mirror at her hair. "Now for my hair." She reached for the scissors, Iris gasped,

"Are you sure," Iris asked.

Aeka looked at Iris, "I must." She then cut her hair off. She then reached for the crown to take it off. It wouldn't come off.

She tried again. "Why won't it come off, Iris," she grunted.

"I do not know. It has always come off before, hasn't it?"

"I have never really tried." Aeka sighed. "Well, I guess I'll just have to hide it." She pulled at her hair and covered it. She turned her head into different angles and was relieved that one could not tell it was there, unless they knew how to look for it. This would just have to do. She bent down and from the folds of her robes she had just shed she retrieved a golden jewel. In both hands she clasped it and brought it close to where her heart lay. She stared at her reflection in the mirror.

Suddenly Iris's wings melted to form a cloak around her robes. She took off the cloak and then placed it over Aeka's bare shoulders.

Iris stared at Aeka who stared at her reflection. Iris remembered a time after they had returned from the battle with Tokimi.

Aeka sat in the pot that held her growing tree, Ryo-Ohl, carefully watering and feeding her. Suddenly it began to rain rays of rainbows down.

Knowing what her tree was asking, she answered, "Nothing really is the matter, I don't think." More rays of concern. "Well...I don't feel the same. I feel like I'm changing, but nothing else is." Ryo-Ohl rained yet more rays down. "Do you? I didn't think you could feel that. I thought that I was the only one who could feel this change." Aeka reached into her pocket and retrieved the golden jewel she had kept since the battle with Tokimi. She looked at it. She always had it on her, she could not be without it. She took a breath and stood next to her tree. "I cannot fight change, change is inevitable. We will see what happens, will we not, Ryo-Ohl." The tree answered with a light show.

"You do not look like the Princess Aeka any more," Iris finally reported.

"Good," Aeka said and then she and Iris walked out the door and then out the back, making sure no one saw them. "Okay, Iris, change." Iris nodded and began to warp. When she was done, Iris the goddess no longer stood there but a ship. Aeka could see but no one else because Iris enabled the cloaking that had been programmed into the computer that Iris had assimilated. Aeka stared at the ship, "This is my ship, and shall be known as the Olympus. Iris, is the computer and soul that lives within the Olympus." She nodded at her reason. "Iris," she called up, "Open the hatch and bring me in." As Iris responded, a green glow surrounded Aeka and then floated to the ship. In the command center, Aeka stood and looked at the house that she had called home for some almost five years now. Beside her stood a holographic image of Iris, minus her wings. "It's time to finish off Aeka," Aeka said. Iris nodded, then fired the guns.

Back at the shrine, Washu had returned to the group as they planned for their trip to Jurai. "Well, everything is in check with my lab. It will be easy to transfer the trans-dimensional door to the ship."

"Did you check on Aeka," Tenchi asked hopefully.

"I stopped by her door; she was in her room. I think she was shocked at the news, but she should be alright," Washu answered. Tenchi, Sasami, and Grandfather sighed in relief.

"I'm glad I didn't upset the princess. I believe the emperor really would like to see Princess Aeka," the ambassador begin, "I don't know how he would take it if she didn't come. It just might..." He never finished as an explosion was heard coming from the direction the house.

"No," Grandfather exasperated.

"Aeka," Tenchi yelled, then ran towards the house as the smoke rose into the sky. Everyone followed, fear washing through everyone.

In a ship above the Earth, Aeka watched as the planet became a small speck. After firing at and burning her room, and everything that identified her as Aeka, she and Iris quickly took off undetected in the cloaked ship.

"It's done, Iris. Aeka is gone. I am no longer a princess of Jurai."

"You still carry royal blood and YOU are still a princess, Lady Aeka."

"No," she turned to face Iris, "Aeka is gone."

Iris looked at the princess. She was right, Aeka was gone, Iris could see that in her eyes. "Then if Aeka is gone, then who are you."

The princess thought of her situation, and then smiled as an idea came to her head. In the mythology that she had studied, there was a princess that had been forsaken by her mother the queen because of her arrogance and pride. That is just as she had felt, betrayed by her father's ignorance and pride. That princess was then going to be sacrificed to a sea monster. Even metaphorically, that was not going to happen to her. It took a prince to save the princess in the story; she would have to save herself. She turned to Iris as the ship blasted into the endless night of space.

"My name," she said with pride at the irony and a smile on her lips, "is Andromeda."