Tenchi Muyo! is the property of Hitoshi Okuda, AIC, Madhouse Entertainment, and Funimation.

It's strange actually. This is kind of the reason I started this whole thing, and I've gotten to it so late. It's time to show you how I first thought of my characters.

"This is a nightmare, we shouldn't be here…" As Azaka and Kamidake flew away Nero held onto the handle to one of his heavy sickles, head never moving away from the house in the distance as he backed up a step. Due to a sliding door they were able to see that the modest interior was empty. "Psyche, anyone in there?"

"It's difficult to determine."

"She's right," Epsilon said, drying himself off with summoned wind. "There's a weird energy in there. I can't tell what it is but its-hold on…" He saw a figure coming into view. A woman in a blue and yellow dress let out a long yawn as she walked in front of the living room. Epsilon blinked a couple times and twisted to see Nero completely paralyzed by her presence. Everyone else was starting to huddle around Epsilon, mainly to dry off.

The woman rubbed her eyes. "So what's the racket out here?" She caught Omega as she looked out of the window, and in a instant she disappeared and reappeared in front of him. He looked at her face; feline features with cyan hair and golden eyes, curious at why she came to him. Before he opened his mouth she punched him in the face, hard enough to send him into a tree and breaking it in half.

"You shouldn't have come back." She said.

"Omega!" Gamma called out. "She looks familiar right?"

Omega pushed the tree aside and got up, angry ."I don't need a reason to fight her, but I do want to know who this person is."

"Ryoko Hakubi." Nero strained his nerves to speak. "The pinnacle of biological engineering. Superior to your design in every way, although I did what I could."

"Wait." Omega looked at himself. "What do you mean?"

"She is the inspiration for my genetic research." Nero said. "Which lead to your creation."

Ryoko floated up to his face, causing Nero to freeze. "I'm not some thing to be copied." She hissed, her body crackling with orange lightning. "Stay out of my way as I deal with Omega."

"Good enough for me!" Omega yelled, unsheathing his twin sabers. "I'll show you how inferior I am!" He started to move, first walking and then jogging towards her. Ryoko responded by dashing towards him, not even touching the ground as she came at him. As she sped up, he maintained his pace and then in a flash he struck with both of his short blades as they crossed. They turned around to face each other, Omega smiling as he lifted his right blade, a thin streak of blood on the edge. Ryoko glanced down at the torn section of her left sleeve, now stained red.

"So this is the blood of the ultimate bioweapon?" Omega goaded her as he wiped his weapon off using his hand. "Maybe I've gotten better at…at this…" Suddenly he swooned in place, paying greater mind to the smear in his palm. It sunk into his hand and then he doubled over and screamed. The pain rocketed through his entire body, bringing him to his knees.

"We've got to do something!" Epsilon said, but Nero stuck his arm out in front of him.

"Our focus is not here but elsewhere. Victor, is this Omega's curse?"

"It has to be!"

"Multiple life readings!" Psyche shouted. Nero responded by jumping into Epsilon's shadow. From around the corner stepped a young man holding a wooden handle adorned with red jewels. He looked at the scene in front of him in shock, while behind him, his shadow grew darker.

"How'd you guys come back?" As he thought on it, Nero pulled him aside, kopesh pressed on his neck.

"Drop the sword, Tenchi." He complied immediately. "Now can you tell me what happened to Omega?"

Tenchi saw Omega's pain. "Looks like bad blood." The screaming turned to laughter as Omega stood up, charged with lightning.

"Victor!" Gamma's head snapped over to Nero. "Omega's curse is vampiric! He's absorbed the qualities of Ryoko's blood!"

Omega understood in a instant. "So that's what this is? Amazing!" He cast aside his weapons, overwhelmed with the ecstasy that comes with new power. "I can rip apart anything now! Even you…" He placed his hand out, and the lightning collected into a orb. He aimed it at Ryoko, who crossed her arms and stood still.

"Wait don't-" Gamma couldn't get the words out before the orb exploded spectacularly, laying him out.

Now Ryoko was the one laughing. "Not easy being me, is it?"

"You really need to stop antagonizing him." Another woman walked in from the back door, in a pink dress, her maroon eyes just as condescending as her soft, sharp voice. "You know how he gets when he's angry."

"I don't see you doing anything about him, Princess."

Around the demure woman materialized a group of cylinders similar to Azaka and Kamidake, but smaller in scale. They quickly surrounded Omega as he got up and restrained him within a energy field, by moving around they had kept him forced to the ground. He was in pain, but in defiance he kept his mouth closed. As they approached their captive, Epsilon lost his patience stepped in front of them, his halberd out in front.

"Let him go." Omega was in wonder at seeing Epsilon defending him. Gamma, Rho, Upsilon, and Helen followed suit.

"Ryoko, Ayeka," Gamma addressed the two, bowing as he did. "You should think about actions." He looked past them to Nero, dragging Tenchi into the conflict. Ryoko and Ayeka tensed up at the display.

"We no longer wish to fight." Nero said.

"Could've fooled me." Nero looked around for the source of the new voice when a black hole opened up beneath him and Tenchi. Nero let Tenchi fall in as he jumped out of the way. The hole shifted from the ground to the air and a girl in dark green came out with Tenchi at her side.

"Thanks." He said.

"I had a feeling you would return," She said to Nero, rubbing her chin. Her long vibrant red hair and green eyes gave her a even more youthful look. "But not in your present state."

"Washu; just the person I needed to see." Nero put away his sword. "I can call you Washu?"

"For now."

"Well, what can we do for you?"

Washu looked over at the prostrate Omega and at her whim he was pulled towards her, her green eyes inspecting him. "I'll take him for a while. After that, I'll help you find your way."

"Fine."

On Nero's agreement, Washu took Omega through the portal and she went in behind him.

Rho looked around at everyone else. "What just happened?"

"An agreement." Helen explained.

"We are disadvantaged." Upsilon said. "It seems that they know a thing or two about us."

"Or more likely they know about the other version of us."

"We can talk about that later." Epsilon said. "Will Omega be okay?"

"Washu's examinations tend to be invasive." Gamma admitted. "But he'll live."

Epsilon thought on it, but he couldn't shake his uneasiness. He wandered around unknowingly until Ayeka stopped him.

"You can stay here, young knight, if you feel like it."

Epsilon turned to Gamma, who went over to Tenchi. "Tenchi Masaki, if you would allow us?"

There was a thin smile on his face. "What's a few more guests?"

"Thank you." The rest of them dispersed and left to their own devices. Nero however, had come across an idea…

The night wind was cool to Omega's skin, but he still felt stiff from the shackles he had been in, and the new clothes he now wore. He just sat on the patio, alone with a basket of carrots given to him by a girl named Sasami. Taking a bite of one, he noticed a animal beside it. He thought it was a cat at first when he heard it meow at him. Then he moved the basket aside and he saw a brown and white rabbit with a red jewel on its head.

"Do you talk?" Omega asked it. When it didn't respond he assumed that it couldn't. It tried to grab the carrot in his hand, but Omega kept it out of reach. Eventually he gave up and let it take the vegetable, taking a bit of enjoyment from watching it eat. That quickly vanished when he saw that the basket was empty.

"Ryo-oki really likes carrots." Ryoko walked in and sat down beside him. "And she does talk, just only to me."

"Thanks for solving that. Next question," He tried to collect energy but he couldn't keep it stable. "How do I do this?"

"Washu didn't tell you? Figures she'd nearly dissect you and not bother to tell you anything." She brushed her hair aside and undid a earring, a red gem at the end of it. She placed it in the palm of his right hand, with her hand over it. a blue glow came from between the hands, and the gem appeared inside his wrist. When he tried again, it worked without a hitch. To Ryoko's surprise, Omega buried his face in his hands.

"I'm Gem-powered now, unbelievable…"

"What's so bad about that?"

He slowly turned to her, irritated that her face looked so much like his. "The more I've been here, the more I feel like I'm losing myself and becoming more and more of, " He waved his hand around. "Whatever this place is. Now I come to find out that my very creation was just an attempt to copy you. Is there anything I can consider mine?"

She poked him in the head. "You still got that noggin of yours."

"Not really. There's another person up here, named Mark; he was their friend until he died. Nero used his neural structure to complete me. That's why they let me stick around; otherwise I would be long since dead."

"To hell with that! You've gotta find out your reason for being here."

"What's your's?"

Ryoko looked out at the forest. "I was trapped in a cave for seven hundred years. No way out, and no hope of escape. I was alone for a long time, until this kid came by. He knew that there was some kind of 'demon' that lived there, but he was never afraid of it, of me I kept an eye on him when he came by and he grew up to be rather handsome." A smile crept onto her face.

"How long did he stay around?"

"Long enough to set me free. And he let me stay here, with him, once he understood who, not what, I was."

"Tenchi." Omega concluded. "He's the one."

Ryoko nodded. "Unfortunately I still have to share him."

"Your life here is…nice." Omega stretched out to lay on his back, only to almost pass through the patio into the ground, Ryoko barely able to grab his arm and pull him out. Omega was visibly shocked at the ability.

"Are there any more tricks you need to tell me?"

From within the house, Epsilon overheard a lot of Omega and Ryoko's conversation and became regretful as he remembered how he felt about releasing him. It had been a long time since then. His thoughts drifted to home, and how long it had been since they had first took that door and left. And even before then, when he fought Athanor, when he got the scar on his face, when he put on that shining gold armor…

"What have I turned into?"

"A knight." He snapped out of his sorrow and found Ayaka standing next to him.

"Princess." He lowered his head.

"You don't have to do that."

Epsilon raised his head. "There was a time when being this was what I wanted the most."

"I know." She said. "It's what the other you said."

"The other me…" Epsilon touched his necklace. "Who was he?"

"It would be better if the rest of you heard that story."

"I don't think you were here to tell me that."

Ayaka stifled a cough. "That story Ryoko told; it's not entirely true. Lord Tenchi was scared stiff of her when they met."

He mentally checked off the fact that she referred to someone as young as Tenchi as 'Lord'. "Then why is she still here?"

"If there's one thing she's right about, it's that Lord Tenchi is a kind and caring person."

"You care for him as well."

She didn't say anything back, her chest rising and falling. "Your friends will need you. Don't leave them."

"Of course."

"Ayeka!" The call came from Sasami. "Get everyone ready for dinner!"

"Let's go then." They left then, walking past a flight of stairs. A door built into the wall opened up and Washu popped out.

"Ah, Epsilon, right on time." She looked out at the others in the living room. "I'm going to need all of you to come into my lab."

Gamma and Nero were gleeful at the news. Rho was more wary. "Could we at least eat first?"

"We can eat while we're working." Gamma tapped Rho's shoulder.

"You just want to see the lab, don't you?"

"I really want to see the lab." Gamma admitted. "We also need answers, and who better to give us those than the greatest mind in the universe?"

Washu basked in his praise. "You still have some respect, that's good. Bring in Omega."

"You rang?" And Omega slowly faded into the room, a couple feet off of the ground and upside down. He shrugged his shoulders "Eh, close enough."

"Wanna go back in there?" Gamma asked him.

"I'm not going to stop her. The sooner the better."

"What will we be doing?" Upsilon spoke up.

"Combat practice. It's the only thing I've yet to study."

He and Helen got up from their seats. "Count us in."

"Great, follow me." They went through the door one by one and it closed in front of Ayeka. Ryoko stepped in and stared at the door.

"So, is Epsilon like you remembered?"

"More or less. He's still a little young. What about Omega?"

"The same."

"I'm surprised, besides that woman, they're so close to being just like the others."

"Yeah, a little too close." Ryoko's yellow eyes furrowed. "Washu should be able to handle them."