Disclaimer
Tenchi and all associated characters are the property of AIC and Pioneer LDC. I don't own any rights to them. Any other characters are property of their respective copyright holders, not me.
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The Great Cabbit Search
Chapter 1
On Your Mark…
*****
"Ok people, listen up!" Washu called to the chattering group seated in her lab.
It had absolutely no effect; the babbling continued.
Like they don't all see each other on a daily basis. Why do people always wait until they're all gathered in a single spot to talk? the diminutive scientist and part-time goddess wondered. She reached into a subspace pocket and pulled out a large weapon. Careful not to point it at anything that might be damaged, she pulled the trigger.
WHAM! The plasma discharge burst over the heads of the group and the talking immediately stopped. Well, almost.
"Oooh! Pretty!" exclaimed Mihoshi. "Did you bring us here to watch fireworks Washu?"
Washu gritted her teeth and mentally restrained herself from pointing the weapon at the blonde and discharging it again. It didn't help that she kept remembering that Mihoshi was a distant relative of hers. Maybe it would be better to point it at herself… Resisting all temptation, she tossed the weapon back into its hole.
"No. And now that I've got your attention, I'll begin." She cleared her throat. "As you all know, I've been researching the origin of the strange cabbits." She looked over at Ayeka gently stroking Ay-ohki's long white fur. "I've found several realities that they could have come from, but I can't pinpoint it exactly. In some, they even appear to be natural entities capable of assuming many different forms. The only way to tell for sure is to collect samples, so that means traveling to those realities. Skuld, if you please?"
The little Goddess stood up and walked over to a large device covered by a tarp. She pushed a button on a remote control and the tarp vanished. The group gasped in awe as Washu's machine stood revealed for the first time. It was a phone booth looking thing, painted a faded blue with the word POLICE stenciled over the door.
Ryoko was the first to recover. "Hey! What is this? It looks like a big blue box with a door."
Washu snickered. "Very perceptive Ryoko. It is a big blue box with a door. I got the idea for it from an old TV show. That door leads to a new addition to my lab. Now, if you'll all follow me…"
*****
The room was… huge. No, bigger than huge, but huge was the only word Tenchi could think of at the moment, except maybe "immense". In the center of the dimly lit room was what looked like a lake. Whatever it was, it was dark and ripples appeared to move across its surface. The lake was entirely surrounded by a yellow guardrail with caution signs hung every few meters. A quiet humming sound permeated the air. Tenchi turned to his mother-in-law.
"What is this place Washu?"
"It's the transfer room for my Reality Hopper. That's not water out there, it's a portal to another dimension," she answered.
The rest of the group ran to the guardrail to look.
"Hey! Be careful, those caution signs aren't there just for looks ya know. That portal empties into hard vacuum."
"Washu, what's causing the ripples?" Sasami asked.
Washu walked up to the rail. "There's an energy shield covering the portal. If it weren't there, that thing'd be sucking air right now. The ripples are the effect of the vacuum on the positive pressure over here. The shield is thick, but isn't that strong. Watch."
She took a small tool out of one of her pockets and tossed it into the portal. It sat for a moment and then slowly fell through. They could all see it floating in space on the other side.
"For some reason the portal requires a vacuum on at least one side. Since we know what's on this side of the portal, I've put the other side in space where it'll be pretty much invisible to anyone passing by and we can enter that reality without being seen. This means we're going to need a spaceship to travel in," Washu explained. "That's why I made it this big."
"We have Ryo-ohki," Ayeka commented. "Or Ay-ohki."
Washu shook her head. "Ay-ohki's not full grown; he shouldn't be transforming for a couple months yet, and Ryo-ohki's not big enough. Oh, she's fine for you three lovebirds and maybe even short trips for everyone else, but all of us'll need more room to live in or we'll be at each other's throats. It's too bad Ryu-oh's not regrown yet."
Ayeka looked at Ay-ohki. "Ryo-ohki was transforming when she was younger than him."
Ryoko opened her mouth but Washu interrupted her. "That was the second generation Ryo-ohki. She didn't have to be taught. And if you haven't noticed, the larger her cabbit form, the easier it is for her to transform. Ay-ohki is still very small. Give him time though, I think he's going to be somewhat larger than Ryo-ohki." She looked at her daughter and the princess. "And I'll remind you two again even though you're starting to find out yourselves: maturity is not a function of size for a cabbit. But all that aside, we still need a ship."
"How about Yukinojo?" Mihoshi piped in.
"Well… Yukinojo's big enough to live in, but we may need more cargo space. I'm thinking of something a little bigger."
Mihoshi's face fell. "Oh. Then it's too bad we can't use Yagami. It would be perfect."
"Bingo!" said Washu with a big grin.
"OH! You mean…?" Mihoshi's face lit up.
Washu's grin got wider. "Yep. I've already called her. She should be here within the next couple of days. She has some GP business to finish up first."
"Oh boy, oh boy. I get to see her again. Goody, goody, goody." Mihoshi started bouncing from foot to foot and clapping.
"Washu! Washu!" Sasami was also jumping up and down, and pointing. A planet was moving into view in the portal. "That looks like the Earth!"
Washu looked over at Skuld who had been standing quietly the whole time, having seen all this many times before.
"It is Sasami." Skuld answered with a small smile. "But not our Earth. That's where we're going first."
*****
Author's Notes.
Well, here we go. I'm sorry this chapter is so short; and the next two will be fairly short as well I think. After that I promise they'll get longer. (Author ducks some rotten vegetables tossed at him.) Really! I promise! Oh, and Washu's machine IS NOT A TARDIS. She just painted the entrance to look like one.
BobR
12/7/2001
