Tenchi Muyo Fan Fiction ❯ Autumn of Life ❯ Chapter 2

Chapter 2:

"Washu!" Ryoko screamed as a jolt caused poor Ryo-Ohki to lurch and roll. "Where'd that hit come from?" The pirate spun her head around to catch a glimpse of their sneak attacker in one of the cabbit's view screens. She clutched the smooth, steel orbs that were the ship's controls and swung her arms to the right, causing the ship to roll in that direction as well. "Where? Where?"

"Ryoko, you're not going to believe it, but it's someone we know!"

Washu snickered as she typed on her floating laptop.

"Who? Kagato? Washu, spit it out, I'm having trouble dodging those blasts!"

"Hahahahahahah! I knew he'd not give it up so easily. I really underestimated his gumption, that's for sure…"

"God damn it, Washu who the hell are you talking about?"

"Our friend Dr. Clay, little Ryoko……and tone down that language!" She went back to her transparent computer screen. The light from the monitor flashed on her childlike face as a sinister sneer crackled through her features. "He's got a new ship……..what are we wittle ones to do?" She pushed a few more buttons as Ryo-Ohki meowed in distress as the last blast shook her hull.

"There's where rolly polly is a hiding!" As Washu pressed a red button, the outline of a cloaked vessel appeared on a view screen in front of Ryoko.

"Argggggh, now I've got you Clay! Ryo-Ohki! Weapons to full blast! Fire!"

"Ryoko! No, the angle and trajectory of that blast will……."

Washu was unable to finish her sentence as the tired cabbit ship let out a raging battle cry. The ship attracted points of light from all around space accumulating in a horrendous glow just above her pink domed bridge. Once the power had amassed to the breaking point, Ryo-Ohki released her fury upon Dr. Clay's vessel. Time seemed to stop. For, in the split second the beam of energy was about to breach his hull, Dr. Clay dematerialized his ship letting the beam go straight through….to its sister ship behind, the ship carrying Tenchi and Ayeka.

"Noooooooo!" Ryoko wailed.

***

Ryo-Ohki's misaimed blast shook Tenchi back to reality. Actually, it slung both he, Ayeka and Gnor from the room they were standing, into the hall and against the far wall with a thud. Fortunately, his shield comforted the blow. Ayeka began to stir and gazed into his kind eyes.

"Oh, Tenchi, I was so scared…..he had his grimy hands on ME!"

"Ayeka, we're not out of the woods yet, here, help me get this thing of Washu's to work and we will be out of here." Tenchi reached into his glowing garments and produced Washu's teleportation device. "Hold on to me, I think I just have to push this button…." He held up his right hand and was about to press the activation button when a green blast of energy shot the contraption out of his hand and it sailed across the hall.

"What the?" The boy turned to see a whole legion of monsters panting and glaring down at them from the far end of the corridor. These Ganali were not armed with mere swords but they held crude blasters and spears. "Quick, run this way! I'll hold them off, get the device!"

Tenchi pushed the Princess forward, toward the teleportation device. She gave him a look to protest but his own very serious eyes persuaded her to do as he asked. She ran down and reached for the square device. It was no use. The invention of Washu's was a smoldering glob of melted goo on the steel floor.

"Lord Tenchi! It's destroyed! What do we do?"

"You will die!" Gnor yelled as he rose to his feet. "I don't care what Master has ordered, kill that human boy!" His men flew past him. "And save the Princess for me!"

Throngs of scaly, half reptile, half machine creatures swarmed upon Tenchi. The boy exhaled and closed his eyes, trying to remember a lifetime of his grandpa's lesions in a fraction of a second. With ease, he ignited his blue light hawk blade and decapitated one attacker and with the back thrust sliced into the side of another. One monster lunged only to have the boy duck, causing his spear to strike his comrade. Ganali's fired their blasters, only to have the lasers slung back at them from Tenchi's energy shield. As the boy backed his way down the hall, following Ayeka, the steel floor became carpeted with the bleeding carcasses of these hapless beasts until the few left standing ran away in utter fear for their lives.

Tenchi inhaled deeply and opened his eyes. He shook with horror at the site laid before him. Those ugly creatures, all dead at his hands. He extinguished his blade and gazed upon his sullied hands, now stained with green blood. He felt strange. Tenchi didn't feel disgusted in himself, he felt strong, stronger than he had ever felt in his life. Ordinarily, such an act would have left him possibly in tears with guilt and rage at what he was capable of-like that sick feeling in the pit of his stomach after he told Ryoko he hated her in a fit of rage when she tore his mother's kimono. But now, he felt, well… superior.

"Tenchi! Move!" Ayeka flung herself upon the boy pushing them both out of the corrodor into the next as a wall of flames shot past just where Tenchi had stood. The ship was totally disabled by Ryo-Ohki's blast and in his day dreams, Tenchi had almost been incinerated standing in the middle of the hall.

"T…thank you Miss Ayeka…..I'm not sure what happened back there….." He was a bit embarrassed at the carnage he created.

"That's alright, Lord Tenchi……You, you did what you had to….to protect us." Her voice did not sound too sure of that. Ayeka had watched over her shoulder as the boy, the kind, gentle source of all of her affections, brutally dismember a whole legion of attackers without even opening his eyes, without even taking another breath. In seconds, he was the only one standing. She was glad of it, but Ayeka couldn't help the strange feeling in her own stomach as well…..one of disbelief and uncertainty.

"Tenchi, over there, I think those are escape pods. This ship is falling apart, we've got to get off!"

"Uh, right!" Tenchi answered as they both ran toward a section of the ship, smoke following them as they came upon the pods.

"They are too small! No! I can't go alone!" Ayeka spun around and grasped Tenchi around the waste. "I just can't leave you."

"Ayeka!" Tenchi pleaded to the princess. "Please, the pods only have room for one, please take this one and I'll use my own." He ushered the girl to sit in the somewhat cramped escape pod as the ship shook violently. "We don't have much time."

"Tenchi, please hurry."

"I think all you have to do is press this release…." He pointed to a green button inside the pod. He groaned when a red flashing light indicated that there was some sort of malfunction with the release. "Ok, let me see…..Ayeka, I'll have to launch you from outside….fasten the seat belt…I'm closing the door."

"Tenchi!" The beautiful princess lunged forward and planted a soft kiss on the youth's cheek. "Please be careful!"

"Don't worry," Tenchi smiled in his own goofy way and brought the pod door down.

Ayeka could see him through the large port hole of the escape pod. She also saw something that made her heart skip a beat….one of those hideous and drooling creatures was standing behind her Tenchi. She tried to reach for him, but her belt kept her in place.

The boy became puzzled at Ayeka's horrified expression. He could clearly see her terrified face and for one split second Tenchi was confused. A split second was all Gnor needed to thrust his dagger deep into Tenchi's side. The boy grunted at the initial strike and moaned even louder when the blade was withdrawn from his body.

Tenchi had not seen or felt that coming. He was confident he had disabled all the creatures and now silently cursed himself for lowering his guard for that small moment. He mentally frowned as he thought how disappointed his Grandpa would be for his forgetting all those years of training in the one split second it took for the Ganali inflict the mortal wound. He could stop it now. Tenchi pooled his power into a giant shield in time to splinter the blade as it came toward his body for another strike. The boy turned around, eyes filled with both pain and fury. His brilliant Light Hawk garments, now marred and stained with his own blood, billowed in the magical breeze. In his right hand, the boy formed a fist and from it grew the pure blue blade of the light hawk. In one fell swoop, he cleaved the head off of his attacker and as it fell and its former body fell, the boy let the shield and sword extinguish.

"Tenchi!" Ayeka screeched and pounded on the glass of the pod door, frantically trying to get to the injured boy.

The prince turned to her, so terribly slowly. He no longer had the capacity to maintain the garments of the light hawk and the billowing warriors robes dissipated and turned once more into his well-worn, brown field coat, although that too held an ever growing stain of red on his left side. He stumbled a bit and grasped his wound with his right hand. Ayeka's eyes widened as she saw blood running through his fingers as he put pressure on the injury. Suddenly, the ship lurched violently and smoke began to fill the small corridor that held the two pods. The sudden jolt propelled Tenchi headfirst against the pod window. He gazed lovingly at the girl held prisoner before him.

"A….Ayeka….." Tenchi muttered weakly as he raised his right hand to the pod window as if to caress her distraught cheek.

"Noooooo!" Ayeka raised her own hand to the window as if trying to grasp the crimson stained hand before her.

Tenchi smiled sadly and removed his hand from the window, leaving red streaks upon the glass. His eyes never left the Princess's as his right hand moved toward the green glowing eject button and pressed it.

In the blink of an eye, the Princess was hurled into the darkness of space with her last sight, the wonderful face of her beloved Tenchi growing smaller and smaller until he and the ship were gone.

"Be safe….Miss Ayeka." Tenchi mumbled as he clutched his bleeding side again. The boy stumbled and fell as the ship shook once more. Fire and smoke began to fill the cabin causing him to cough with much pain. He looked around him and saw the other pod through the smoke. "I've got to get off this ship!"

Tenchi made his way to the other escape pod, not noticing the trail of blood trickling from his left leg nor did he notice his pants leg was mostly soaked. Sighing a sigh of relief at finding the interior eject button was functioning, the boy grit his teeth at the pain as he fastened his own seatbelt. He brought the door down and with a shaky and bloodied hand then pressed the launch button. With no time to spare, the small pod was propelled into space just as the giant ship exploded.