"TENCHI MUYO! LEGACY OF TEARS BOOK 2:" "ICHIKO'S TALE" -CHAPTER ONE- Incident at Twilight... "Bye mom!" Ichiko waved as she ran for the door. "Ahem." Her father stopped her. "Don't you think you should give your mother a kiss." Ichiko smiled and went over to Shiasta. Bending down, she kissed her wheelchair-bound mother, gently, then planted a kiss on the side of her father's muzzle. "Don't stay out too late, he told her." "I won't." Ichiko promised. "We're just going to see a movie." "Which one?" Her father asked curiously. "Actually, we haven't decided." Ichiko admitted. "We're just going to pick one at random when we get there." Miaku considered this a moment, then asked his teenaged daughter. "Who are you going with?" "Shiko and Tamara." Ichiko replied. Miaku approved of them and nodded. "Come home right after. We'll have a late supper." "I will." Ichiko promised as she ran out. Shiko and Tamara waited outside the movie house. Tamara was tall and slender. Her fur was neatly groomed and she had a row of twelve gold studs along the rims of her upper front ears. She was dressed in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt with an image of one of her favorite rock stars on it. Shiko was also tall, but with an atheletic build. She was the captain of the school's girl's softball team and she kept in shape regularly. She was wearing jeans and a t-shirt also, only her t-shirt was one of those novelty shirts of the "I'm With Stupid" variety which was vastly popular with the teenage population. "Oh here she comes!" Shiko said, unneccessarily, as Ichiko ran up. "Sorry I'm late." Ichiko bowed for a moment, then smiled. "So, how shall we decide." "Coin toss is out." Shiko noted. "Too many choices." "We could do eeny meeny?" Tamara suggested. "We did that one when we picked our lunches yesterday." Ichiko pointed out. "I have an idea." She pulled a piece of paper from her pocket and folded it until it had taken on the form of a familiar game. Then she wrote the names of the movies on some flaps and the names of colors and numbers on the other flaps. "Okay," she told Shiko, "pick a number..." They ended up seeing something called "The Time Machine." During the movie, they ate snacks and drank sodas. They sat in the front row, crouched down, watching in awe as the Time Traveller told his tale. When it was over, Shiko and Tamara decided to see a second movie and invited Ichiko to join them. "I can't." Ichiko apologized. "I promised my folks I'd be home right after the first one." "We'll see you in school tomorrow then." Tamara decided. "Okay." Ichiko agreed. "You're going to try out for the team tomorrow, right?" Shiko asked. She'd been trying to get Ichiko to join ever since school had started. "I'll think about it." Ichiko promised as she ran off. Her home was only three miles from the theater so she decided to walk rather than take the public transport. She had just stepped onto the long catwalk that separated the stalagmite her home city was on from the one the movie house was on when she heard a man's voice go "hmmm...." She turned and stared in shock at the man who was now in front of her. He had no fur and his face was flat in shape, except for a triangular nose. His teeth were squarish in shape and very small. Ichiko wondered how he managed to eat with them. Surely they couldn't be very good at cutting and tearing food. "Well," he said to his companions, who looked similar to him, "it seems this place is not uninhabited after all. I wonder what manner of creature this is..." "I'm a..." Ichiko began. The man who had spoken cut her off with a violent backhand across her muzzle. Ichiko spun around and fell to her knees. "How *dare* you speak without permission!" the man demanded, looming over her. Ichiko started to stand up, speaking in angered protest as she rose. The man struck her again. "I think this bitch needs to be taugh a lesson." He suggested as he began to undress. Ichiko began to inch backward in horror. "NO!" She screamed at them. "KEEP AWAY FROM ME!!!" The man's two companions got hold of Ichiko and held her still. The man who had spoken tore the clothes from her body and incinerated them with a weapon he'd been carrying. "If you struggle or cry for help, I'll use it on you." He warned. Ichiko could only whimper. She was too terrified to make any more coherent reply. She felt the strange man's weight on her and a painful jab between her legs. The assault seemed to last for hours. When it was over, the man dumped her semi-conscious form over the edge of the stalagmite. Ichiko felt herself falling, but was too stunned and ashamed to fully comprehend that this was happening. After a fall of several feet, she hit a ledge and came to rest there. The ledge was fairly wide and there was room to move and stand comfortably. But it was one hundred feet down and there was no way to climb up. Ichiko was unaware of any of this, however. The only thing she was aware of, was that she had just been raped. Shame filled her mind and permeated her very soul, erasing the smile from her lips forever. She wished she had fallen to her death. But she was too weak and hurt to do anything about it.