-M~~T~~P-
The Mad Tinkering Peach
"Time Slip" story arc pt. 15
The Latest Addition
After two days of testing, Eichichi was certain that Lu Long was whole, hearty, and healthy. Finally satisfied, she sent word for the group to come and see the results of her big project. Eichichi herself was feeling very nervous though. She wasn't sure how her friends would respond to her making use of their technique for her own ends, particularly given that she used it to clone the de facto leader of their group.
She fidgeted nervously at her front door, mulling over what she would say. How she would present Lu Long to everyone. For his part, the Green Dragon stood by her side. Though he was compelled to support her by his heightened sense of affection, being a copy of Ryu, he would have been there for her anyway since she was a friend. Being who he was, Lu Long put an arm around Eichichi from the side and pulled her in close. "It will be fine," he assured her. "Promise."
His words had the intended effect of steeling her resolve. His sentiment, coupled with his slightly higher voice were very comforting her ear. And without even looking up to see his face, she could feel his smile. Fortified by his support, Eichichi stepped toward the door. Lu Long moved a bit to the side, out of line of sight from the doorway so as to slightly obscure himself from anyone's view. As she stepped out into the sun, Eichichi finalized what she was going to say. "Thanks for coming everyone," she said, nervousness plainly discernable in her voice. Her eyes met with Teepo's, who gave her a smile for encouragement. Seeing that helped burn away the lingering feelings of consternation that were pecking at her heels. She took a deep breath to compose herself before continuing. "I wanted you all to see what I had been working on in the months since you all arrived here in your past. And now that its complete, I can leave Gantz behind."
Hearing her words through the open door, Lu Long took that as his cue to present himself. He stepped outside the front door of Eichichi's home and bowed gracefully before the group. The instant he entered their field of view, each member of the group instantly knew what was going on and why, though each had a different internal reaction. Princess Nina, ever one to cheer on a blossoming relationship, could glean from Eichichi's mannerisms and response to Bison exactly why she went down the route she had. Momo and Hana were both beaming with a sense of scientific pride for their peer's accomplishment. The occasional glimpse here and there of her notes now made sense to the twins. Both could see that Eichichi had managed to painstakingly kitbash their cloning rig from studying it during their relatively short time together. Rei saw in Lu Long a kindred spirit, instantly seeing in him another brother.
And then there was Ryu, the template himself. Upon laying eyes on his perfect clone, Ryu was rendered speechless. Though no words were really needed. Ryu approached Lu Long and they looked deep into each other's eyes, seemingly holding an entire conversation in eye brow movements and head nods. After a moment of this odd little silent show, the twin dragons in unison both exclaimed, "You son of a bitch!", followed by the manliest handshake anyone in their group had ever witnessed. Seeing the looks of acceptance for the situation on everyone's faces released the massive proverbial weight chained to Eichichi's shoulders.
Princess Nina approached the Green Dragon. With an infectiously warm smile, she said, "You undoubtedly know us. Introduce us to you."
Suddenly possessed of Ryu's inherent silly nature, an urge to put on a show filled the Green Dragon. He took a few steps back from his brothers. "Well, Princess," he began. "We have one dragon fond of flame," he said, obviously referring to his original. As he spoke the words, he tapped a foot on the ground, causing a small updraft of fire to rise around him and with a flick of his wrist, the flame wafted and danced a bit before dissipating.
Looking to his other brother, Lu Long continued with, "We have another who commands the chill." With that, he held out a hand and created a construct of Teepo and Ryu's old Dragon Blade made of solid ice. The intricate ice creation rotated slowly as it hovered just above his palm.
"And there's the village chief, who makes thunder sing." He conjured a a tiny cloud above the construct. After it rumbled with the cutest little thunder, it shot out a small lightning bolt to strike the ice, shattering it and leaving crackles of electricity in the shape of the sword.
"As for me," he said as he dramatically whipped his arms out to a T pose and began to float slightly off the ground. "I am Lu Long. Dancer in the winds!" To punctuate his statement, Lu Long transformed into an avian hybrid dragon form. With a cry reminiscent to that of a hawk on the hunt, he created a strong gust, putting wind beneath the Princess's wings and lifting her off the ground alongside him.
Princess Nina was enamored by Lu Long's bit of showmanship. Once he had sat her back to the ground from the gust, she giggled a bit and turned toward his blue counterpart. "It seems you picked up a flair for the dramatic from that travelling show we saw outside of Coursair."
Ryu smiled a bit and said, "Well, not really. I did enjoy the show, but you know me. I'm more silly than anything else."
After morphing back to his base form, Lu Long interjected with, "True. But I remember Hana saying how she specifically chose to be different from her original," he said. Turning toward the Princess he continued. "She was motivated to do it by your words, Princess." The Green Dragon's comment brought that initial conversation with Hana the day they officially met in the Tower to the forefront of her mind. As the thought passed, Lu Long said, "I figured a touch of theatrics would be a good way to differentiate us." Princess Nina could not deny that it certainly added an exclamation point to his introduction.
While Ryu, Rei, and Teepo crowded around their new brother, Momo stepped to Eichichi. "Did you make any improvements to the design?" she said excitedly, taking the words directly out of Hana's mouth.
Eager to show her work to her colleagues, Eichichi obliged Momo's curiosity not with a response, but by leading them into the house toward her lab space. As they entered the lab, the rabbit twins both took note of the design of Eichichi's rig. While Hana had seen it before, she now knew its purpose and could fully appreciate what her Iron Ox peer had achieved. Momo and Hana both took mental stock of how well Eichichi had adjusted the rig's overall design to make up for the much smaller space she had available to her as opposed to the plenteous room afforded to them by the far more open floor space of their Tower's labs. Particularly of interest was how the architecture of Gantz played so well with the rig's operation. Being a culture of tradesmen specializing in different smithing crafts, their buildings and homes were built to withstand the heat of the forges. Perfect, considering the cloning rig's operation generated a lot of heat.
They also made note of the various additional screens that fed readouts for different sets of information. Realizing both of them seemed to focus on the screens, Eichichi chose there to speak. "Aside from accommodating for the lack of space, the biggest improvement I was able to make was being able to dig deeper into the genome. When you told me that a miscalculation led to Teepo turning out different from his original, I made it my mission to discover how to harness that. After months of digging, I found a way to get even further into the weeds with regard to details that could be altered. I used these screens to output details regarding the aspects of DNA and even personality that could be affected." After finishing her statement, Eichichi fired up the rig and accessed Lu Long's DNA profile. "Even going off memory and notes I had taken in the Tower, building the machine was relatively easy. The real time consuming part was the process of figuring how to get further into the genetic makeup. It took dozens of trials and failures, but the the results speak for themselves. You no doubt heard the difference in his voice. That's just one thing I found I could change."
Starry eyed with excitement, the twins both chirped in unison, "Improvement through iteration." Speaking it aloud made them realize why Eichichi said it herself so often. It was basically her mantra. Her motto. A spoken representation of her work ethic. And hearing her friends say it brought a smile to the Iron Ox egghead's face.
However, the inevitable thought crept into Momo's mind. "What made you use Ryu as your subject?"
Eichichi froze in place. The giddy excitement and pride she was beaming with from being able to show her work to her peers slipped away as the shame took hold of her. She knew the question would come up at some point, yet she really had not prepared herself on how to answer it. On the inside she was frantically trying to form her explanation. On the outside, she picked up the cheater bar for her ratchet and nervously fidgeted with it while stammering. "Well... Um... You see..." Eichichi simply couldn't find the words through the embarrassment. The Rabbit Twins were both quick to pick up on this. Neither could exactly put a finger on what their friend was struggling with, but they could both tell she was not comfortable speaking it aloud. Momo and Hana both figured that if she wanted to speak on it, they would give her the space to get to it herself without prying from them.
After a moment of stammering and fidgeting, the Iron Ox egghead just stopped. She stopped moving. She stopped attempting to speak. She simply held herself in place. Eichichi took a moment to take a deep breath and compose herself. She realized she wouldn't be able to run from the explanation, so she turned toward them and faced the music. Looking Hana directly in the eye, she said. "I'm sorry." As soon as the words left her lips, her eyes went straight to her feet. "Ryu's reaction to Bison threw me into a weird tailspin of emotion." She gathered the courage to look up at Hana again before she spoke again. "After I had time to reflect on it, I realized that I had fallen in love with him. That caused me to veer from the original plan. At first, I was going do as Momo did with you and clone myself..." She looked down to her feet and nervously rubbed the back of her neck. "But then we went and saw Bison..." A single tear escaped and rolled its way down her chin. "I've never had anyone stick up for me like that and it made me feel things I was definitely not prepared to feel."
In that instant, Hana was taken back to that night on the trail between Windia and the Tower.[*] She recalled how Ryu's quick and decisive action that night spurred her emotion in basically the same way. She knew right then and there immediately what Eichichi was going through internally. She could not bring herself to object to their Iron Ox counterpart's actions.
Though Momo did not have the same inclinations due to difference in experience, she still chose not to object. As the mold for Hana's thought processes, she understood why her sister's mind went down the avenue it travelled when Hana had explained the scenario to her before. And though the rise of affection she grew for Rei was brought on by wholly different circumstances to those Hana had felt, she was able to put to the pieces together.
After a moment of silent thought on the situation, Hana spoke up. "Well, I warn you now," she began, her tone seemingly serious at first. "You WILL wake up at some point with a face lodged firmly between your boobs."
Momo snickered a bit and added, "And if he's anything like that man-cat brother of his, expect some unwarranted attention to be paid to your backside as well."
Eichichi was stunned into silence. She fully expected for her peers to lambast her for using their scientific accomplishment for her own selfish ends. It did her heart no end of good to see that it was quite the contrary. Even more than before, she felt like a welcome part of the group.
Author's Note - [*] - See Ch. 5 and 6.