Harley and Ivy chapter 13
Ryoko, the infamous but now semi-retired space pirate lay back on the dock overlooking the lake in front of Tenchi's house. The woman with spiky light blue hair was enjoying a little sun tanning time and the only covering she had at the moment was a towel lying across her hips.
Ryoko was many things but one of them was definitely not shy. Her adage was, 'if you got it, flaunt it.'
But not even she would be so bold if Tenchi, his father or grandfather were around. Well... Maybe if it was just Tenchi around but never his father, that man was just too big a hentai for Ryoko's comfort. All the men folk had went off to some kind of shrine retreat thing. All Ryoko knew was that all women were banned from going. A displeasing fact that Ryoko made sure everyone knew she disagreed with. Finally Tenchi had whispered to her, "Just think how much I will have missed you all and how happy I'll be to see you all when I get back."
Those words calmed Ryoko enough to let Tenchi leave with his father and grandfather. Of course Ryoko just 'knew' that Tenchi meant he would be thinking of only her and not the other women in the household.
Ryoko glanced up at the blue skies above her. Outside of her Tenchi, this world didn't have too awful much going for it in the space pirate's opinion but the blue skies with fluffy clouds and a warm yellow sun was certainly some of the nicer things.
Ryoko smiled as one cloud floated in front of the sun. It reminded her briefly of her spaceship/pet Ryo-ohki. And that cloud looked a little like Mihoshi tripping over her feet about to land on her face.
Closing her eyes in pleasure Ryoko could sense another shadow crossing in front of the sun. Opening one eye she peered upwards.
"Damn, that cloud looks almost like the prissy Princess Ayeka." Ryoko thought to herself. "I can almost hear it yelling at me..."
"Miss Ryoko! What do you think you are doing? May I ask?" A shrill voice suddenly yelled.
"Oh crap! Its not a cloud after all but it really is that pain in the ass Ayeka." Ryoko thought with a sour grimace as she opened both eyes and sat up to face the Jurian Princess standing over her with a disapproving look on her face.
"Its called sunbathing Ayeka. People do it all the time." Ryoko said.
"Immoral people who don't mind exposing their bodies for all who might care to see!" Ayeka shrilled, her heavy ceremonial kimono shifting angrily as she sweated in the hot sun.
"Who's to see? Tenchi, his father and grandfather have all gone. There is only us girls here." Ryoko smiled one of evil grins. "Or are you telling me you are one of those you might care to see? Why Ayeka I never would have guessed you swung that way."
Ayeka promptly purpled with either embarrassment or rage, Ryoko wasn't quite sure which.
"How dare you! I'm not a woman of loose morals nor am I one of THOSE women! I only have eyes for my intended Lord Tenchi!" Ayeka shouted proving it was rage and not embarrassment.
"Then what is the problem Ayeka? Let me sunbathe in peace." Ryoko snorted and then lay back down on the dock and closed her eyes.
"The problem Miss Ryoko is we are suppose to be cleaning Lord Tenchi's house from top to bottom for his return. Or did you forget that?" Ayeka yelled.
Ryoko, her eyes still closed grimaced slightly. Truth be told she had forgotten that fact.
"Wait! We ALL agreed to clean. Mihoshi isn't here. She left." Ryoko said in defense.
"Ayeka angrily folded her arms and glared at Ryoko who still hadn't opened her eyes to face her wrath properly. "Mihoshi was called away on patrol and you well know that! She has an excuse. You do not!"
Ryoko quietly mused to herself. "You ever notice these 'emergencies' always come up around cleaning times?"
Ayeka didn't want to be sidetracked by Ryoko but she frowned. "Now that you do mention it these being called away on missions is getting quite suspicious. They rarely happen at meal times but always when I am getting on to her to do some work around the house or to stop napping." Ayeka then shook her head. "No. Mihoshi isn't clever enough to arrange fake signals from her ship or devious enough to even think of shirking her duties, unlike you!"
Ryoko opened her eyes to stare up at Ayeka. "Sometimes I wonder how much of that cheerful ditzy act of hers is just that, an act."
"In any case Miss Ryoko…" Ayeka started up in her shrillest voice. "You need to put some clothes on and help with the cleaning!"
"Will you just chill out Ayeka? Its not like we're going to have some guests suddenly drop in…" Ryoko sitting up started to argue with Ayeka.
A crackling black hole appeared over the lake about three feet from the end of the dock and hovered in mid air startling both Ayeka and Ryoko from their favorite past time. Bickering and fighting among themselves.
In a blink of an eye two women fell from the floating hole to splash in the lake. A moment later a woman wearing a tight black costume, with a yell that sounded surprisingly like a cat's angry hiss followed them and splashed into the lake as well.
The black hole floated in mid air for several long moments before winking out of existence.
Ayeka and Ryoko looked at each other for a moment before rushing to the edge of the dock to help the people who had appeared out. Ryoko's eyes narrowed slightly as she waited for the people to surface. The black hole looked suspiciously like the one that the homicidal clown, The Joker had came from not long ago. At the first sign of a white face and green hair, Ryoko planned to attack with everything she had. The first head to break the water however had wet blond hair covering her face.
Harley frantically brushed her wet bangs out of her eyes to take a look around. The last time she had arrived in Tenchi's dimension it had been into a carrot field. She most assuredly wasn't expecting a bath. Finally getting her eyes cleared she looked up at the dock above her and saw the spiky shadow of Ryoko and the prim and proper shadow of Ayeka looking over the edge back at her.
"Miss Quinn?" Ayeka asked in question.
"I knew I had the dimensional settings right!" Harley said happily to herself.
A moment later a wet red head surfaced next to her and glared at her.
"Oh okay, so I missed land and hit the lake but you have to admit it. I did good to reach the right dimension." Harley said to Ivy.
Ivy opened her mouth to complain but then stopped. Licking her lips she realized the water they were in was fresh water, which wasn't that surprisingly since Harley had said she had hit a lake, but what was surprising was the water was pure and clean. Ivy detected none of the stale chemicals or twang of toxic elements that all water in Gotham contained.
Harley began to frantically look around the water. "Where's Cats? She fell in with us didn't she?" She shouted in worry.
"Bats?" Ryoko standing on the dock asked. "You brought that weirdo Batman with you?"
"She said Cats." Ivy replied distinctively and then looked up to see who was talking. Ivy's eyes grew wide as she spotted a woman leaning over the dock staring back at her. As Ryoko shifted the glare of the sun behind her was blocked and Ivy could see the woman had a mane of spiky blue hair, golden eyes and one of the most impressive racks Ivy had ever seen on a woman and it didn't hurt the woman was leaning over the edge of the dock completely nude either.
Harley started twisting wildly around looking for Catwoman. She tried to remember if she had ever heard if Catwoman knew how to swim. Cats were suppose to hate water but Catwoman was fully human and not really a cat so she had to know how to tread water, didn't she?
Just as Harley was about to start diving to see if she could find her, Catwoman surfaced spitting and hissing a few feet from her, right next to the dock.
"Hundreds of acres of land and you had to hit a lake?" Catwoman complained to Harley.
"Sorry." Harley replied.
Ayeka got down on her knees on the dock and reaching down she offered a hand to the strange woman.
Catwoman accepted her help and together they managed to pull Catwoman up on the dock. Ayeka was scandalized by how tight and form fitting the strange clothing the woman was wearing but a proper princess didn't fail to offer help when it was needed. It would be considered crass to not do so.
Ivy blinked as the strange woman she had been staring at suddenly disappeared with a strange noise. A second later she felt someone grip her around her waist and jerking her head to the side she saw it was that woman. And she was floating above the surface of the water. One arm around Ivy's waist and the other arm around Harley's. Again came that weird noise, a moment of disorientation and the next thing Ivy knew she was standing on the dock with the blue haired woman and Harley.
While Harley and Ivy blinked a few times trying to figure out just what had happened, although Harley had briefly seen some of Ryoko's abilities when she had last been in this dimension, but seeing and having it done to you were two different things.
Catwoman was too busy looking into her bag to pay much attention. A moment later she pulled out a wet and annoyed looking little kitten.
"You okay Delilah?" She asked as she held the kitten up to look at it.
The kitten shook it's fur and meowed and Catwoman looked relieved.
Between Harley and Ivy, Harley recovered first and launching herself at Ryoko she glomped her in a hug. Harley's smaller frame putting her face firmly between Ryoko's large breasts. Harley's costume being nearly shreds before the trip through the dimensional hole and then the splashdown was now nothing much more than just a memory.
"I've missed you so much Ryoko. I was beginning to think I would never make it back here!" The small blond woman nearly sobbed.
Ryoko looked surprised but she raised a hand and began stroking the blonds' wet hair soothingly. "It's okay Harley. Why don't you stop hugging me and tell me how and why you are back here and who these people are with you?"
Ivy felt herself start to frown watching Ryoko stroking Harley's hair but for the life of her she couldn't decide who she was jealous of. Ryoko for holding Harley while they were both nearly naked, or for Harley having her face between those delicious looking breasts of Ryoko.
"Yes." Ayeka eyeing with suspicion Catwoman and Ivy said. "Why are you back here? You told Sasami that you were going to go back to get treatment. And what has happened to your clothing! You are indecent! Such a spectacle. You and Ryoko naked and embracing like that!"
Harley immediately released Ryoko and stepped back a few paces. "I'm sorry Ryoko. It is just good to see a friendly face again." She said as she blushed bright red while trying to adjust the tatters of her costume to cover herself better.
Ivy eyebrow raised slightly. "More like a friendly body." She thought to herself. Hearing a noise Ivy glanced down the dock towards the house she could see in the distance. A small girl with spiky red hair was moving towards them.
"That must be Washu." Ivy thought to herself. She recognized her from Harley's description in the story she had told her back in the hotel room in Gotham.
As Washu reached them, she spared a glance at her naked daughter and rolled her eyes slightly but otherwise didn't comment about it. "My sensors in the lab spotted the opening of a portal near here." She said in lieu of a greeting.
Ayeka eyed her suspiciously. "You were suppose to be cleaning the living room." She reminded the diminutive scientist.
Washu brushed the comment off with a wave of a hand. "Don't you think it is more important to greet our guests Lady Ayeka?" She asked.
Even though it was a warm day, the lake had been a little cold and with a breeze blowing Harley found herself shivering a little.
Washu noticed immediately.
"Let's get our guests inside and into a hot bath and there we can do introductions and explanations." Washu stated.
"Where is Mihoshi, Sasami and Tenchi?" Harley her teeth nearly chattering asked. Ayeka was always a little cold to her the first time she had been here but Mihoshi, Sasami, Tenchi and to a smaller extent Ryoko had been accepting of her and she had been looking forward to meeting her friends again.
Hearing a slight whistling noise, everyone glanced up.
"Oh dear." Ayeka said as they could see a spaceship above them streaking towards the lake. Ayeka began to freak out while Washu seemed strangely calm.
The spaceship hurtled towards the lake at a alarming rate and… suddenly stopped dead still a few feet above the surface of the water.
Washu turned to look at the two strange women that had accompanied Harley back through a dimensional portal. "Mihoshi keeps forgetting that earth doesn't have a landing control beacon and usually crashes into the lake." Washu shrugged. "I finally got around to installing a control beacon just for Mihoshi."
A door in the side of Mihoshi's Galaxy Patrol ship swooshed open and revealed the blond officer standing there. The woman in the uniform cocked her head to the side when she spotted Harley standing on the dock.
"Harley?" The woman asked happily and stepped out of her ship… To plummet the last few remaining feet into the water.
Washu sighed. Ryoko raised a hand and clasped it over her face in disbelief. Ayeka merely shook her head. The three, now ex-Gotham women looked at each other and then in unison they walked over the edge of the dock and looked down.
Mihoshi now without her patrol hat and with her blond hair plastered to her face looked up at them with shimmering big blue eyes. "Waaaa! I'm all wet!" She cried at the three women looking down at her.
Meanwhile back in the Gotham dimension….
The mutated tree watched as Ivy, Harley and Catwoman hopped into the black hole on the floor and were gone.
Some would say that plants do not have emotions…
They would be wrong. The tree missed its former two mistresses, and its branches drooped in sadness.
But after a moment the tree shook itself free from its grief and prepared to carry out the last order it had been given by its mistress with the red hair.
A loud bang at the front door of the warehouse caused the plant to pause however. Turning several of the limbs holding flashlights in that direction it spotted several men storm into the warehouse. Following behind the men was a white faced man with bright green hair. At first the tree wondered to itself if the green haired man was another of it's mistress's plant creatures as well.
The men who had came in first were shaking a bit in fear at the fearsome sight of a giant tree hunched over in a confined space of the warehouse. The tree's branches towered over them and vines were everywhere.
The Joker, his permanent grin even wider than usual suddenly called out. "Let him have it boys!"
The men jerked up what looked like riffles to their shoulders and quickly fired.
If the tree could have laughed it would have. Guns had very little impact on it's kind except maybe to strip some bark off the outer layer of it's 'skin'. The laughter would have ceased however as the 'bullets' struck the mutated tree in several branches and the tree felt a burning pain as some kind of chemical was splashed on to it and raced through it's sap pathways.
The Joker started laughing as the mutated tree began to thrash and twitch as the super concentrated plant defoliant and herbicide did its trick on it. With a almost human groan the tree now rotten, yellow and dead fell down. Fortunately for the Joker away from the control consoles of the portal generator.
The Joker stepped over the withering vines and branches and reaching the power core he poised his finger over the 'off' button. With a gleeful push he pushed it down and listened as the power core wound down and was silent.
The sparking black hole on the floor faded away and was gone a moment later.
One of his henchmen wearing a clown's wig with a bright red nose walked over and looked at his boss in confusion.
"I thought you wanted to keep the portal open so you could go after them boss?" The thug asked.
Joker shook his head. "You see my boy that's your problem. You are trying to think. If I were to charge right after them I would most likely run right into that cackling pint sized red headed bitch and the blue haired freak. Not too mention that farm boy and Harley and Ivy! No, I'll let them think they got away for a while and when enough time has gone by that they think they have got away from me scott free, then I'll reopen the portal and catch them off guard." The Joker's eyes glittered dangerously.
Some of the henchmen who had been with his longer began to cautiously back away.
"You should stick with your strengths my boy and not try to think." The Joker continued to the thug standing next to him.
"What do you think my strengths are boss?" The thug stupidly asked.
The Joker suddenly turned in his direction and a fine mist shot out of the flower on the Joker's lapel.
The henchman grabbed at his throat and a few seconds later he started laughing. His face contorting in agony and pain, he fell to the ground all the while laughing.
"I've always thought you had a nice laugh." The Joker replied thoughtfully. "I would stick with that if I were you."
Finally the poor thug's laughter ceased as his constant laughing had prevented him from breathing. As the man lay on the ground dying, his facial muscles started to contract, pulling his face into a hideous smile.
"See?" The Joker said with a grin. "You seem happier all ready." The Joker then stepped over the dead body and walking over he sat down on the dead tree's trunk.
"Set up a perimeter. Nobody gets in or out until we've opened the portal and recovered our little run away Harley and I properly punish her… And everyone else in that dimension too."
The surviving henchmen ran to obey the Joker's orders as he started to laugh once again.