Galaxy 1001D presents:
Washustein; or the Modern Mad Scientist
Starring Washu Hakubi as Doctor Washu Fitzgerald von Washustein
Tenchi Masaki as Tenchi Mancini
Mihoshi Kuramitsu as Mihoshi Gerstell
Aeka Masaki Jurai as Ayeka Jurai
Sasami Masaki Jurai as Sasami Jurai
And Ryoko as the Monster-woman
Tenchi Muyo and all related characters are © AIC/Pioneer/Genon/Funimation. Additional material by Ben Elton, Richard Curtis, and Rowan Atkinson © BBC Enterprises story is written solely for entertainment and is not intended to make a profit in any way.
Based on "Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus" created by Mary Shelly
And "Tenchi Muyo" created by Masaki Kajishima
Chapter Twenty-two: I Must Go Alone…
"It's like I always say," Washu sighed. "If you want something done right, kill Mihoshi before you start."
"Mihoshi," Sasami muttered. The child turned her head to look both ways. "Where is Mihoshi anyway?"
"Mrow?" Ryo-ohki looked both ways as well.
"Ouch," came a forlorn voice from under a mound of snow. Two boots were sticking out of a snowdrift.
"More bad luck," Washu fumed. "Looks like Mihoshi made it."
The blonde emerged from her wintery blanket. "Wow! I saw my whole life flash before my eyes! So that's who copped a feel four years ago…"
"Blast it! We had them and now they've slipped through our fingers!" Washu growled as she kicked Ryo-ohki. The little cabbit yowled and ran away.
"Oh Master!" Mihoshi scolded as Sasami helped her to her feet. "Why did you kick poor Ryo-ohki for? What did she ever do to you?"
"Nothing," Washu explained tersely. "It is the way of the world. The abused always kick downwards. I am annoyed, so I kick the cabbit…" she looked down to witness Ryo-ohki attack a small field mouse that squeaked in protest. "…the cabbit pounces on the mouse and the mouse…" The tiny vermin ran across the snow and lunged at the back of Mihoshi's skirt.
"Aah!" the blonde yelped as she grabbed her backside.
"…bites you on the behind," Washu finished.
"What did I do?" Mihoshi protested.
"Nothing," the redhead made a dismissive gesture. "You are the last in God's great chain. Unless you can find an earwig you want to victimize or perhaps a cockroach…?"
"Tenchi!" Ayeka shouted from the top of the hill. "Ryoko! You bring him back! Do you hear me?"
"Give it up Ayeka," Washu called out, "unless you or Sasami know how to drive a dogsled?"
"No, I don't," Ayeka frowned as she tromped down the hill to join the others.
"Neither do I," Sasami added.
"Mrow…" Ryo-ohki murmured.
"I don't recall asking you, catnip for brains," Washu snapped.
"Mew!" the cabbit turned her head away indignantly.
"Well don't worry, I do," the redhead assured them. "I won the junior dogsledding competition when I was ten. Come on Mihoshi. No need to give them a greater head start."
"Ow!" Mihoshi moaned as she limped forward on one leg.
"What is it now, bubblebrain?" Washu rolled her eyes.
"I think I sprained something when I landed," Mihoshi sighed. "I'm… sorry Master. I think it's my ankle!"
"So I must go alone," Washu gazed into the distance, all bitterness leaving her features. "It has come to this. I had a feeling it would be this way. It is my responsibility and mine alone. I brought my daughter into this world, but instead of love all I gave her was my bitterness and spite over losing my beloved Tenchi. I taught her how to be petty and cruel and ignored her lessons on being innocent and caring." She turned to face the others. "I may take my frustrations out on the rest of you, but the truth is I have no one to blame but myself for what has happened." She faced her rival. "Ayeka, I forgive you, for the truth is that there's nothing to forgive. You've shown a great deal of restraint after the way I've acted. No matter how dastardly I behaved, you always reacted with mercy, dignity and honor."
Ayeka nodded and stood stoically with her chin held high.
"Sasami," Washu turned to the blue haired child, "Eve was right. You've been a better mother than I could ever be. My daughter should have gone with you. She'd be a better person for it. Who knows? The lessons she's learned from you may save us all."
"Oh Washu," the child smiled bravely and brushed a tear out of her eye.
The mad scientist addressed her remaining creation. "Ryo-ohki, thanks for teaching my daughter to be gentle and how to care for something other than herself. I'm glad you have Sasami. She can give you the love and care I couldn't. The love and care you truly deserve."
"Mew," the cabbit nodded sympathetically as a tear filled its golden eye.
"And Mihoshi," she turned to her servant. "Mihoshi, you've been with me in this from the very beginning. If I don't come back I'd like to say that I've come to treasure your honest and friendly companionship…"
"Oh that's so nice, Master!" the blonde beamed.
"…but we both know it would be an utter lie," Washu grunted. "So if this truly goodbye I'll simply say: 'So long, get lost, and if the Lord judges me harshly for my sins an eternity with Beelzebub and all his fiendish instruments of torture will seem like a picnic compared to five more minutes with you, pea-brain!'"
As Washu entered the dog pen and hitched the dogs to the remaining sled, Mihoshi said in a sing-song voice, "Goodbye you lazy, wacko rubber-faced pygmy." The dopey smile vanished from the blonde's face as Washu looked up from her work to fix her servant with her piercing gaze.
"If I do make it back, I shall make you eat those poorly chosen words, Mihoshi," the mad scientist said as she finished tying the dogs to the sled. "We both know you couldn't last five minutes without me."
"Oh come on, Master," Mihoshi giggled. "It's not like we're going to get eaten by bears the moment you leave!"
"Hope springs eternal," Washu sighed. "Gidyap!" she cracked her whip and the barking dogs pulled her sled out of the pen and over the summit.
Seconds after Washu left a large brown bear walked out of the woods and stopped to scratch its back against a nearby tree. Ayeka, Sasami, Mihoshi, and Ryo-ohki screamed before they fled back into old man Yosho's house.
As Washu urged her dogsled on, she despaired when she saw a light sprinkle of snowflakes filter down from the sky. "Yet another of my colossal mistakes," she thought grimly as she followed the trail left by Ryoko's sled. The trail led across a frozen lake, and that meant level ground, but how long until the snow obscured the tracks? At least Eve's trail indicated that the ice was safe to traverse. Or did it? Would the newly frozen ice be able to support the weight of Eve's heavily laden sleigh or would it crack under the heavy load? For all Washu knew, her daughter and Tenchi could be dead already. And if they made it across, would she ever see them again? Her daughter and the love of her life could be lost to her forever…
"…And I've been on their trail ever since," the mad doctor concluded in the captain's cabin of the S. S. Pioneer. "So you see, I've lost both my daughter and my beloved Tenchi. My folly has led to this, and my pride wouldn't… huh?" The ingenious redhead glanced around. "Where am I? Who the heck are you? What am I doing here?"
"I'm Norbert 'Nobuyuki' Walton," the bespectacled captain said uncomfortably. "I'm the captain of the Pioneer. I rescued you in chapter one, remember?"
"What?" Washu squinted as she tried to remember. "Oh! Yeah! That's right! This entire tale is one of those 'story within a story' things that was really popular in gothic horror around the turn of the nineteenth century isn't it? That's right, the ice was cracking, and we spent the time waiting for the ice to crack telling you my tale of woe! Now I remember!"
"That's okay," Nobuyuki sighed as he seemed to vanish and then reappear. "I understand that I don't have much of a presence…"
"So, now that you've heard my tale, do you still find me so attractive?" Washu asked him. "Let's face it, I'm either a liar, insane, or guilty of some of the most terrible crimes against man and God that a gal can do! To be honest, I wouldn't blame you if you threw me overboard like the Jonah I am, Cap'n! That would be the safest thing to do!"
"Safe?" the smiling captain snorted in derision. "I don't care about playing it safe! I'm just as bad as you are! I've callously placed my men's lives in jeopardy just to get into the history books! Relax Washu, I'm hardly one to judge!" he laughed as he pointed at himself with his thumb. "Everyone thinks I'm crazy for trying to be the first one to get to the North Pole! We're not hauling any cargo, just supplies! There's no money in it until we get back home. We probably won't get back home if we keep going north! I'm perfectly willing to sacrifice us all for fame and glory, does that sound familiar? You've got nothing to be embarrassed about here!"
"Oh… Nobuyuki," Washu whined sweetly as tears filled her emerald eyes. "That's so sweet…" The mad scientist and the ship captain embraced each other. "You really do understand me… Wait! What?" The redhead pushed Nobuyuki away. "Did you just say you were trying to get to the North Pole?"
"Yep!" the captain announced proudly. "That's right!"
"What are you doing here then?" Washu asked him. "This lake is in the middle of the Alps! We're hundreds of miles inland! There's no way to sail to the North Pole from here!"
"What?" Nobuyuki gasped. "But… but… we set sail from England! We sailed due north! There's no way we could be in the Alps! No way!" He went to a drawer and pulled a handful of maps and navigational charts out. "This is impossible! I can't understand it!"
"Well never mind," Washu said as she looked out the window. "It looks like the ice has thawed enough so we can move! Let's get this boat moving! I've got to catch up to Tenchi and Eve!"
In the meantime Ryoko parked her dogsled outside a lonely windmill by the edge of the lake. "Oh Tenchi," she whined. "Please get better! Please-please-please-please!" She picked him up and carried him to the doorway. "I'll take you inside where it's nice and warm, okay? You've just got to get better! You've just got to!"
Tenchi groggily opened his bleary eyes. The tranquilizer was starting to wear off and he could just about hear Ryoko's voice. He was being carried, as if he was a bride being taken over the threshold…
"Here we go, inside, safe and sound," Ryoko said as she maneuvered into the windmill's narrow doorway. "Oops!"
Just before Tenchi could fully regain consciousness, he hit his head on the doorjam and was knocked senseless. He eyes rolled back into his head as he moaned and passed out again.
"Ooh!" Ryoko whined. "He's dying! Dying! And the only doctor within twenty miles is Washu von Washustein, and she's pure concentrated evil! What am I gonna do? Only one thing left to do! Get him out of his wet clothes and keep him warm with my body heat!" With that she set him down on a pile of burlap sacks and removed his clothes. After she removed her own clothing, she cuddled with him for a while, but he still didn't wake up.
"I've got to build a fire!" she decided. Her clothes still didn't seem dry, so she made herself an outfit from scratchy burlap sacks and went out to find some firewood. "Maybe I should find us some drier clothes while I'm at it..."
Almost a mile away, two travellers where having a conversation.
"So where did you say you were from?" the Englishman asked.
"Neanderthal, or as you would say in your tongue, Neander Valley, Mr. Darwin," the German replied. "So you found all of these different species on your voyage to the Galápagos Islands and you said that got you thinking. What did it tell you?"
"It was bizarre!" Darwin replied. "So many species similar, but distinct from each other! Each taking a place in the food chain that the other would if it was in the area! And in Australia I saw evidence that the aborigines were being replaced by the white settlers."
"And what does that tell you?" his German friend asked.
"It tells me that it is quite likely that earlier examples of God's creatures were replaced by later ones," Darwin concluded. "Who knows? Maybe every plant and animal that we see today is merely a replacement for an earlier version…"
"Good grief Darwin!" his German traveling companion protested. "You're implying that at one time God made a more primitive version of mankind than exists today! I'll never believe that man used to be a savage beast until I see it for myself!"
An animal scream was heard in the woods that chilled their blood. A naked wild woman, clad only in tattered rags of coarse vegetable fibers dashed about on all fours. The woman's eyes were as yellow as a cat's and her long flappy ears made her seem more feral. Her wild spikey hair was a strange cyan white color. She didn't seem to belong to any race on Earth. When she saw them she hurled herself at the startled duo with a savage cry.
Later, back at the windmill, Ryoko was congratulating herself on a job well done. "Let's see, I got their wallets, I got their clothes and they had some food on them. Yup. Job well done. It's like Washu always says: If you want to make it in a man's world you gotta be completely ruthless! Okay, Tenchi, let's find some clothes that will be dry on you. Here's some pants!"
"Oh…" Tenchi stirred in his sleep. "My aching head…" he groaned softly.
Ryoko picked him up by his feet causing his head to hit the floor. He was knocked out instantly. She slipped the pants on him and then pulled him right-side-up. "Oh Tenchi, speak to me!" she whined as she dressed him. "I'm getting really worried about you! Why don't you wake up? I'll make the fire. That will get you nice and warm, would you like that? Here goes!"
The SS Pioneer sailed across the Alpine lake with relative ease. The ice had thawed and the snow was beginning to melt. It looked like Washu's environmental meddling was beginning to wear off.
"I still don't understand why you went back to get Ayeka, Sasami, and Mihoshi for," Washu grumbled.
"I wanted proof that we're in the German Alps and not in the Arctic Ocean," Nobuyuki replied. "Besides, I wanted to talk to them and see Ryo-ohki. I had to know if your story was true."
"Well?"
"Oh I believe you, don't worry about that!" the ship captain smiled, "and I'm still not judging, don't worry!"
"You're such a lecherous old softie, Cap'n," Washu giggled.
"Hey Sasami, what's that?" Mihoshi pointed into the distance.
"It's smoke!" the little girl declared.
"What could be causing it?" Ayeka asked.
"I don't know," said old Katsuhito. "There's nothing out there but an old windmill," he squinted into the distance as he shielded his eyes with his hand, "and it seems to be in flames!"
Next: My Name is Ryoko