And so the plot continues, and Tenchi get's a better look at the less bodacious side of Visitors from space (Holds up Celipa poster) Not that Saiyan's can't be hot mind you.
Bardock: That's my wife Teme...
Kyugan: So? Your wife's hot, take pride in it.
Chapter 3: No need for a Guinea Pig!
"There we go!" Washu hummed, smiling as she watched the tank containing the now naked Saiyan youth fill with light green liquid "This tank is filled with synthetic Saiyan DNA, it'll boost his recovery speed tremendously, without any undesirable side effects."
"Are you…SURE he'll be alright in there?" Tenchi wondered flinching slightly as the youth was submerged, only the breathing apparatus around his mouth and nose keeping him from drowning.
"Who's the Galaxy's greatest genius here?" Washu demanded, looking affronted that the teen would question her methods, despite, or perhaps BECAUSE of, his previous experiences with them "The DNA will enter through his pores, merging with his existing tissue, searching out anything that might be bothering the little tyke and setting it right again."
"If you say so." Tenchi murmured, idly watching alongside Sasami and a curious Mihoshi as the Saiyan youth's hair rose tranquilly in the green water, his pained features slipping into a relaxed slumber as the anaesthesia finally kicked in.
"Saiyans are truly amazing." Washu marvelled, her fingers blurring over her keypad as she eyed the data coming off the teen "They're immune system is almost as tough as Ryoko's, they hardly ever get sick, and once the reach their physical prime, they age at a rate that even Jurai medical science would find amazing."
"I seriously DOUBT that." Ayeka sniffed, the elder princess looking a little affronted at the mere suggestion that a pack of behind-the-times monkeys could surpass Jurai in ANYTHING.
"Oh but it's true." Washu insisted, a coy smirk on her lips "Despite the fact the average Saiyan lifespan is short, since the average age to die in battle is around their thirties, those that SURVIVE past their thirties tend to KEEP surviving. I think the record was something over 300 years, but he didn't look a day over thirty despite no life-prolonging treatments. He might have lasted longer if he hadn't been offed by his offspring."
"His own son killed him?" Tenchi stammered, the quarter-juraian prince looking at the redheaded scientist in alarm while Sasami and Mihoshi flinched at the concept.
"Or daughter." "Washu pointed out "Saiyan society is BRUTAL, Tenchi-dono." She offered, noting the teen's distressed expression "Brutal and PRIMITIVE by most standards, sometimes the only way for a Saiyan to claim their inheritance was to kill their sire." She held up a finger "Though I remind you my data on them is over 2000 years out of date."
"You're not that far off…" Ryoko muttered, her tone low, her feature unreadable as she leant back against one of the massive tubes that intersected Washu's lab "They used to send their 'weaker' kids off to 'less dangerous' planets in pods." The Pirate explained "Not to protect them," she elaborated "but so they could conquer them, then return when they'd grown a little." She grimaced "I ran into a few of the little ankle bitters on jobs with Kagato…vicious little bastards…"
"Must've been a full moon." Washu noted, the redhead smirking at Ryoko's look of confusion "Saiyans youths are naturally rambunctious and feral, but for one to give YOU trouble it must've been close to a full moon."
"I don't get it…" Tenchi muttered, the teen looking at the mother-daughter pair in confusion "What's so special about a full moon? They werewolves or something?"
"Were-APES actually." Washu corrected, cutting off Tenchi's attempt at humour by bringing up yet ANOTHER view screen "It was a rare occurrence on their home world, since their moon's orbit made it so it was only ever full once every ten years, but whenever a Saiyan gazes upon the light of a full moon, they undergo a DEVASTATING metamorphosis."
Tenchi blinked, looking on in shock as the already intimidating men and women in the recording suddenly got decidedly MORE so, their canines lengthening, their already impressive muscles enlarging, literally bursting out of their clothes as they exploded upwards, hair replacing itself with thick, dark fur as the newly formed giant apes roared defiance.
"In this form, the Saiyans lose all cognitive ability, but gain a TREMENDOUS boost in power and destructive capability." Washu instructed, taking in the looks of alarm on the groups faces as one of the apes loosed a mighty blast of energy from it's mouth that effectively nuked the mountain in front of it "Makes them mighty ornery too."
"So I see…" Tenchi muttered weakly, the teen making a mental note to make sure the kid in the tank was either locked indoors or off world during the next full moon.
"In any case," Washu chirped, the redhead cutting the video off before turning back to face the group with a smile "I'm starving! Let's get some breakfast in here!"
"I'll do it!" Sasami offered, the younger of the two princesses waving a hand in the air, before beaming down at Ryo-Ohki on her shoulder "Ryo-chan! Come help?"
"Such a good little girl she is." Washu noted approvingly, the redhead watching the pair scamper off in the direction of the kitchen with a sigh "So unlike mine…"
"Stuff it 'MOM'." Ryoko muttered, the cyan haired space pirate flipping the redhead the space bird with a scowl, earning a bemused sigh from her creator/mother.
"Such an uncouth child." Washu sighed, earning a snicker from Ayeka, which drew Ryoko's ire to the princess, the redhead moving to break up the fight before they damaged anything, only to notice Tenchi holding his chin "Something bothering you, Tenchi-Dono?"
"It's nothing…" Tenchi assured her, smiling at the redhead for her concern, only to frown, a confused expression on his face as he furrowed his brows once more "I just…can't shake this weird, nagging feeling that we've forgotten something…"
Back at the crash site...
The Saiyans pod twitched as the mechanical rods sticking out of the hull bent, several of them embedding themselves in the earth, while the rest braced themselves against the damaged pod HEAVED, the rend in the hull widening with the sound of rending metal as a smaller, spherical object pulled itself out of the wreckage, staggering away from the ruined pod on spidery legs, only to right itself before it fell to the ground.
Scuttling away from the damaged pod on its mechanical legs, the little mechanical sphere extended several antenna of varying lengths into the air, a small, mechanical eye like device appearing out of it's body, swirling around in it's socket as it took in it's surroundings with detached interest, sending the images it recorded back to it's masters, bouncing them off existing local transmissions to disguise them from any scans that might be in place.
Clambering out of the crater, having discerned that there was nothing worth recording there, the mechanical sentry promptly scuttled into the nearby forest, taking note of the damaged, scorched woodland around it, factoring it as the result of it's landing and thus discarding the information as 'useless' in favour of moving towards the numerous signs of life it could detect on the perimeter.
It paused upon stumbling across what appeared to be what had appeared to be an empty clearing, only to find it occupied by several primitive domiciles, all but one of which were unoccupied.
Unable to compute the strange, unidentifiable sounds coming from within the strange, vibrating orange shape before it, the drone's simplistic CPU was about to investigate, courtesy of a probe, only to decide against it, opting instead to scuttle back into the foliage like a crab, rather than risk being destroyed before it completed its mission.
Unaware of his near-encounter with the less bodacious side of outer space, a half-naked Noboyuki Masaki crawled out of his tent, standing up straight and stretching out his arms with a jaw-popping yawn.
"That was a good night's sleep…" he exclaimed, pulling his glasses on after wiping them down to remove any dirt "Tenchi! Girls! Rise and shine sleepyheads!" he called out, only to blink in confusion at the lack of response.
"Tenchi?" he called out again, bending down to peer inside the tent he'd shared with his son, only to find it empty "Ryoko? Sasami-chan?" he called out, looking around the deserted camp, scratching his head in confusion "Did I miss something?"
The cawing of a crow overhead was his only response.
Masaki House, Washu's Lab...
"Mmm!" Washu sighed, the redheaded genius stretching languidly as she stepped through the closet door and back into her lab, "Nothing like one of Sasami's breakfasts and a hot bath to get the day started!"
Not that today's bath had been entirely without problems she recalled, snorting as she recalled the knots and bites the other girls had found as they'd washed up from the previous night's excursion into the wild.
"Honestly," the redhead muttered, recalling Ayeka's shrieks of distress at finding ant-bites running up her precious arms and legs "camping in the woods in something as redundant as a tent…the things I let Tenchi-dono talk me into."
Tenchi, after several hours of pondering, had finally recalled that they'd left his father up in the woods, and had gone rushing off with Ryoko and Ryo-Ohki to bring the Masaki breadwinner home, Ayeka being too busy rubbing ointment on her bites to notice, while Mihoshi watched soaps on the TV without a care in the world.
'So laid back…' the redheaded genius mused, shaking her head as she resumed her seat on her floating cushion, her next-dimensional laptop appearing before her even as the space around her shifted from the standard 'garden room' to the darker examination areas which Tenchi, and occasionally Ryoko, were intimately familiar with.
"Hey there." She greeted, smiling up at the tank that contained the Saiyan youth, noting with approval that the worst of his wounds were already healing nicely "Resilient little fellow aren't you? Considering that outdated clunker you landed in, you're lucky to be alive."
She frowned suddenly, her emerald eyes narrowing as she looked from the Saiyan slumbering in the liquid DNA, to the data coming from the tank as it healed him.
"Still…" she muttered, tapping her upper lip with her finger as she held her chin "What bothers me is your wounds themselves…I didn't say anything to Tenchi-sama or the others, but it's CLEAR you didn't get those injuries from the crash."
She grimaced, looking over the information from the tank with a grim expression as it flowed up the screen before her. Broken bones, torn ligaments, ruptured lungs, a dislocated retina, a concussion, muscular bruising and several missing teeth were but a few, there was also traces of energy burns, not to mention countless other ailments.
'Whatever the hell put the poor kid in this condition,' the redhead muttered, looking up from her screen to eye the youth with concerned admiration 'must've been one HELL of a fight. I wouldn't be surprised if he was out for a week-!'
She trailed off as the Saiyan youth's eyelids twitched, her emerald eyes widening in astonishment as a pair of black eyes opened, twitching slightly on contact with the green water of the tank. Blinking the pain aside, she watched as the Saiyan slowly took in his surroundings with a dazed expression, only to widen in alarm as he realized he was in a tank.
"Whoa there!" Washu urged, snapping out of her surprise as the Saiyan's energy level began to rise at an alarming rate, a few keystrokes from her laptop allowing her to broadcast her voice into the tank through speakers "Easy there little guy," she assured him, her voice as soothing and unthreatening as she could make it "I'm not gonna hurt you…" she smiled in a way that would've put Tenchi, or anyone that knew her really, on edge "That is, unless you give me a reason to."
The Saiyan blinked, only to calm down, looking around the lab through the view screen, his hands pressing against the hatch of the pod, eyes wide with understandable confusion.
"Surprised to be still among the living are we?" Washu asked, smiling ruefully as the Saiyan turned to look at her through the water "Well you almost didn't make it, for one reason or other, you Saiyans aren't exactly the most popular faces out there."
The Saiyan's features showed nothing but saddened understanding, offering a small shrug of his shoulders that was DISTINCTLY un-Saiyan behaviour, as if he'd heard it all before.
"Hell if it weren't for Tenchi-dono and my own curiosity, Ayeka probably would have blasted you to little pieces." She smiled up at the youth teasingly "And what a waste THAT would've been!"
The Saiyan sweat dropped, looking on nervously as the redhead cackled, clearly wondering just what kind of madhouse he'd stumbled onto.
"Looks like you're just about ready to come out…" Washu noted, looking over the information coming off the screen with intrigued approval "Have to admit, you Saiyans have really changed over the past 2000 years…I wasn't expecting to wake up for at least another day."
She smiled, and the Saiyan youth suddenly felt a shiver race up and down his spine, from the top of his head to the tip of his tail, at the sight.
"Which means…" Washu chuckled ominously, her features shadowed as she turned to leer at the highly intimidated Saiyan "We can skip right to the 'Examination' part of the treatment!"
With Tenchi...
"Something wrong Tenchi?" Ryoko asked, looking up as Tenchi paused in his attempts to mollify his father, who hadn't taken too kindly to being forgotten.
"Just a little cold…" Tenchi assured her, smiling over his shoulder reassuringly as Ryoko guided Ryo-Ohki back to the house, suppressing the shiver that ran up his spine as he once again tried to get his father to stop pouting.
He didn't know why, but for some reason, he could've sworn he'd heard Washu's ominous laughter not two seconds ago, only to brush such thoughts aside as he was beamed down to the walkway of the house.
Space, Lunar Orbit...
In the darkness of space, a strange vessel, similar to the space pods used by the Saiyans, only infinitely larger, loomed ever close to the small blue planet known as earth, it's luminous hull cloaked from the sensors of any scanning devices that might be in effect, something that many who ventured to the planet took for granted.
After all, from an invader's point of view, what was the point of shielding your ship from the primitive scanning arrays of a backwater civilization that couldn't even send a manned flight to the closest planet of their own solar system?
Said invaders soon learned the HARD way that investing in shielding would have been in their best interests, as primitive backwater planet or not, it was under constant monitoring by the Galaxy police AND the Jurai Intelligence network, who took any, even partial threats, to the livelihood of the royal family members located on the planet VERY seriously.
As it was, shielded from prying eyes, the ship moved unimpeded past the earth's small moon, the blue planet reflected in the opaque glass of its central view screen, before which a shadowy group huddled in anticipation.
Masaki House...
"Welcome back!" Sasami greeted, the little princess sticking her head out of the kitchen as the group entered the house, Mihoshi looking up from her soaps to greet them "I've got lunch cooking as we speak!"
"Sounds great!" Tenchi grinned, turning to his father, who perked up at the prospect of a nice, hot meal ignoring Ryoko, who'd joined the blonde officer on the couch in favour of looking around "Where are Ayeka and Washu?"
"Nee-chan's still in the bath…" Sasami admitted, an apologetic, long suffering smile on her face as she sweat dropped, "she said she's not coming out till the bites die down, but I'm sure she'll be down in time for lunch."
"I'll eat her share if she isn't." Ryoko offered, waving a hand without turning to look at the girl, only to cackle as the 'Straight Guy' flipped out over his 'Idiot' partner's antics.
"Ryoko…" Tenchi muttered, shooting the pirate a disapproving glare, which was naturally ignored, not noticing his dad shuffle inconspicuously out of view like a perverted crab "And Washu?"
"Where else?" Sasami asked, the little princess beaming at the teen as she tilted her head towards the door under the stairs "She's been in her lab since breakfast finished."
Tenchi shivered, eyeing the dread portal with understandable nervousness. Normally the teen was quite content to let the redheaded genius wile the hours away in her lab, provided of course she wasn't wiling them away by running experiments on his person.
However, NORMALLY the redhead didn't have an alien from a near-extinct warrior race to play with, and judging from what little he'd managed to glean of Washu's personality, it was clear that their little guest was in for a rough stay. "I'll…just go get her then…" he muttered, knowing from experience that sending Mihoshi in could result in an environmental disaster.
"I'll come with." Ryoko offered, the cyan haired space pirate vanishing from the couch and reappearing alongside the nervous teen "I can't let you go in there alone, Tenchi…"
Tenchi sighed, internally grateful for Ryoko's presence, Washu was less likely to try anything funny if there were witnesses, though he did wish the amorous pirate would keep her hands to herself as they entered the dread portal, stepping into the darkened, tube filled lab that was the source of more than a few uncomfortable memories.
"Great…" Ryoko muttered, shuddering as she eyed the massive columns of pipes and tubing with understandable concern "She's in 'Research' mode…kid's probably been dissected by now…"
"Ryoko…" Tenchi muttered, eyeing the former space pirate disapprovingly, even as he shuddered at the mental image she'd summoned up "She's not THAT bad…"
He trailed off as lightning cracked around the corner, Washu's enlarged shadow cackling madly as she held what looked like a scalpel and a fork in either hand.
"You were saying?" Ryoko murmured, smiling coyly down at Tenchi, who in his terror had glomped her, his face plastered between her breasts, not that she minded.
Realizing his error with a flush, Tenchi struggled to extract himself, a task made decidedly more difficult given Ryoko's desire to keep him in place, the two of them proceeding round the corner, only to blink at the sight before them.
"Ah! Tenchi-dono!" Washu greeted, the redhead dressed in her infamous nurses uniform as she corked a bottle containing what Tenchi prayed to GOD wasn't what he thought it was "And Ryoko-chan too! What brings you here?"
"Can it mom." Ryoko muttered, shuddering slightly at the sight of the HUGE ass needle resting nearby, with signs of being recently used "We're here to make sure you don't dissect the kid."
"Dissect him?" Washu muttered, looking highly affronted "The VERY idea! What could I possibly gain from a dissection that I couldn't gain through a medical scan?"
"Where is the little runt anyway?" Ryoko demanded, looking around the lab suspiciously, noting the busted healing tank and several shattered restraints "Don't tell me he got loose?"
"I…might have jumped the gun a little…" Washu admitted, sticking her tongue out with a sheepish grin "Still, how was I to know he'd react so strongly to being a little teasing?"
"ANYONE would freak if you asked them to be your Guinea Pig." Ryoko muttered, crossing her arms beneath her breasts in exasperation "Seriously, bad enough you keep trying weird ass crap on me and Tenchi…"
"Was it from THIS mouth that such cruel words were spoken?" Washu demanded, the redhead suddenly assuming her adult form, which filled out the nurse's outfit rather well, as she stretched Ryoko's cheeks out, much to the pirate's displeasure.
Deciding to leave the mother and daughter to their argument, Tenchi instead turned his attention to the damaged sector of the lab, noting with interest that the healing tank had been destroyed from the inside, and that the restraints, which he recognized as the ones used whenever Washu was experimenting on him or Ryoko, had been shattered with apparent ease.
'Just how strong is this guy?' the quarter Juraian wondered, stepping down the darkened corridor with a hint of nervousness, the Tenchi-ken in hand, just in case. Child or not, he wasn't about to take any chances. After all, Washu ran around in child form a lot, and look what SHE could do.
His attempts at repressing the horrible, horrible memories were thankfully interrupted when a small but muscular arm lashed out of the darkness, a hand wrapping around his mouth, dragging him out of sight even as another grabbed his arm and twisted it behind his back, causing him to drop the Tenchi-ken.
"Be quiet." A low, raspy voice whispered "I don't want to have to hurt you, but if you give me no choice…"
Just cause it wouldn't be Tenchi if he wasn't taken hostage at some point.
And so we see how the universe views the saiyans, and a prequel to Tenchi's newest threat.
And Yes, Tarble's still naked, and no, nothing is going to rub against anything, you sick freaks.
Review for more.