A small crowd had been gathered around a large view screen in the
town square.  They all watched in awe at the replay of Victor's cerimony.
Of course, it now included a warning for the faint of heart, so as to avoid
any law suits stemming from stokes, heart attacks, fainting, etc. at the
sight of his face.  The angle cut to a close up on his face, a shot that
could only have been captured by an invisa-cam, one of few non-lethal
devices
invented by Professor Washu.  His speech flowed out of the massive speakers
and into the history books.
    "Tenchi Muyo and all characters there in are the property of Pioneer
LDC, Inc and Pioneer Entertainment (USA) L.P., as well as any company I may
have missed.  If so, my apologies to you.  The author owns only the writings
and any characters he see fit to create himself.  However, all chapters
prior to chapter twenty of this story are the property of Aubinimity only,
as
are any characters he has created.  Thank you."

    Chapter 21
        Shifting The Balance Of Power Among The G.P.

    Nagi needed Washu's help, and it pissed her off to no end.  It turns
out, Detective Mitsuki was a slightly more disciplined officer in the art of
silence then she had first assumed.  But, as she always says, "When you just
can't seem to crack a nut, get a bigger hammer."  A small grin tugged at the
edges of her mouth.  As much as she disliked violence (hard to believe, yet
true), the came times when you just had to hual off and beat somebody within
an inch of their sorry life.
    Times like when she finally caught a painfully slippery bounty.  This
brought one to mind right away.  <Oh, when I finally catch her, I will make
that creature *whimper* to be killed.  Then, I'll give her another month, or
maybe even two>.  Bigger grin.
    Coming back to reality, she remembered.  She had to play a little
revenge rift at the moment.  Which meant she could practice her skills to
be perfect for Ryoko.  Massive grin.
    But, she needed to ask her hostage for help to do it.
    Buh-bye grin.  It was fun while it lasted.

    A little later, Mitsuki was properly restrained.  Washu was starting
to enjoy being captured by Nagi.  The bounty hunter had come to her all but
crawling on her hands and knees to borrow one of Washu's interrogation
machines.  Once the scientist gave in, she sat back a counted off the
seconds
aloud.
    "Four...three...two...one...action!"
    The door flew open and Nagi stormed through it.  She glared at Washu,
her scowl the mirror image of her earlier smirk.
    "You don't by any chance, I don't know, wanna know how it works do
you?  Just throwing out educated guesses off the top of my head.  Strike
that, HIGHLY educated guesses."
    It was almost as funny as being locked in the bathroom and making
Nagi wait to pee.  Almost.
    Now, under Washu's gaze, the detective was straped to a table with
a red, crab-like helmet on her head.  Washu picked one of the suction cups
off the helmet, pulled out enough of the cord to give it some slack, and
slapped it onto Nagi's forehead as hard as she could.  Nagi fell back,
stopped at a fifty degree angle when the cord went taut.
    "Not enough slack for her to hit the ground.  Better brush up on my
math.  I'm *supposed* to be the greatest genius in the universe."  Washu
told
herself as she gently pressed a cup to her own head.  Then, dodging a kick
from Nagi, she pressed a button on the helmet.  She could see shock on the
two other faces present.  Calmly, Washu picked through Mitsuki's memories.
She tried to tell Nagi how to do the same a minute ago, but it only made her
captor's eye cross.
    Before long, she found what she was looking for.  Well, sort of.  For
some reason, all she could find was a mental curtain over that time period.
A whole section of one, maybe two days wasn't there.  It was just gone.  As
far as it's possible to gauge Nagi's moods by the back of her head, she had
found the same block.  She spun around to face Washu.  Her eyes bulged out
of
her skull, veins pulsed on her face, saliva and flecks of white foam dripped
from her between her clenched teeth.  She picked Washu up by her purple head
band, put her face half an inch from the professor's, and glared at her.
    Yup, she was a tad angry.
    "For years I've tracked this woman, for this information," she said
in an unsettlingly controlled voice.  "Now I have her, using the best little
torture-toy that the so called greastest genius in the universe ever made,
and it tells me nothing at all?"
    Washu shrugged, and was promptly flung across the room.  When she got
back up, she tilted her head to the side a bit and smiled.
    "What is it?  How can you be smiling after that?  What the hell is
going on inside that poofy head of yours?"
    "Well, I was just thinking, since Tathers and Mitsuki both can't help
you figure out what happened to your sister, and you want to avenge her..."
    "Right..."
    "And since Tathers *is* suspected of unleashing Kain, being the only
one at headquarters to survive that incident..."
    "Get on with it!"
    "AND, since we both know Kiyone would be better as the captain in
charge of headquarters, which she deserves to be after years of putting up
with Mihoshi..."
    "I SAID, SPILL IT!!"
    "How would you like to kill three proverbial birds with one
proverbial stone?"
    "I'm listening."
    Washu laid out her plan for Nagi.  She invisioned it all in her head.
    <Hello grin.  Welcome back>

    On the deck of a patrolling Galaxy Police ship, the Taskiko, a blip
made it's way into radar range.  It's pilot, Detective Dsawn Pencer ordered
a
life scan on the object.  She had the results back in a matter of seconds.
The object was an escape pod, unknown model which implied it came from a
specialized ship, with one occupant.  <Must be a criminal, that explains the
obscure design.  But so close to H.Q.?>.  Dsawn pulled it in and opened the
hatch.  Inside was a fellow detective, wrapped in a fetal possition, sucking
her thumb.  There was a small crab shaped brand on her temples, right where
the straps on Washu's helmet were.  Washu had been meaning to fix that for
some time now.  Her ID pen said her name was Mitsuki.  <Oh boy, the guys
back
at
the station are not gonna believe *this one*>.

    But, this was not the most unusual event of the evening.  It was more
unusual when Dsawn unloaded the pod, not wanting to move Mitsuki, just in
case.  As soon as the pod touched the floor, just as doctors were about to
load the woman onto a strecher, she uncurled herself and got up.  Without a
word, she walked off.  Dsawn, the doctors, and the group that had assembled
to see what was going on all stared at her as she left.  They would never
forget this.  Least of all her eyes.  Even while she wove her way between
them, even though she seemed to know where everything in her way was, her
eyes never opened.
    But, this was not the most unusaul event of the evening.  Not by far.

    Mitsuki calmly walked past Tathers secretary and into his office.  He
looked up and smiled at her.  "Ah, Mitsuki, good to see you.  Did you find
our ship then?  Where's Mihoshi?  ...Um, Mitsuki, why are you just standing
there?  Can you hear me?  Open your eyes, look at me!  What is wro-"
    "They want you to sign this."
    "What?  Sign what, who wants me to-?"
    Mitsuki crossed her arms in front of her.  With the left, she brought
out a slip of paper from her right inner uniform pocket.  With the right,
she
pulled her standard issue blaster out of it's holster and aimed it square
between the captain's eyes.  She still hadn't opened her own.
    "They want you to sign this."
    "Alright, I'll sign, just tell me who wan-"
    "THEY WANT YOU TO *SIGN* THIS, OR I WILL SHOOT YOU!"
    Tathers reached into his desk and pulled out a pen, as well as a
small control pad.  He swiftly dropped the pad down his sleeve as he
raised his hand back onto the desk.  He signed the paper.  Mitsuki nodded.
    "Now, they want you to put your tie on the paper."
    Tathers pulled his tie out of his uniform.  Puzzled, he started to
undo the knot.  Mitsuki knocked his hand aside with her gun.
    "They didn't want you to take the tie off.  They just want you to put
it on the paper."  Tathers did as he was told.
    Mitsuki's hand shot out, grabbed a letter opener shaped like the
Tenchi-ken, and used it to pin Tahers and the paper to the desk.  She used
the butt of her blaster to hammer it in deeper.  Then, she raised the gun
and
leveled it at his face again.
    "You said you wouldn't shoot me!"
    "They didn't want me to shoot *you*.  They said it was too cliche."
With that said, Mitsuki raised the gun slightly, activated the magna-boots
she was wearing, and shot out the back window.
    The force of the vacuum pulled Tathers out of his seat, but he didn't
get too far.  As he was sucked closer to the window, his tie got tighter,
and
soon he couldn't breath.  Mitsuki was held firm to the floor by the powerful
magnets in her footwear, and altough she was facing him, as her eyes were
still closed, she didn't see Tathers pull out his control pad and hit the
single button on it's face.  After thirty seconds, metal panels dropped over
the windows.  This was a new precaution, installed after Nagi's break-in.
These were automatic, and had nothing to do with the control.  They were
designed to make sure nobody else flew out into space.  Sadly, being new and
poorly tested due to lack of time, they had a thirty second delay.  Just
long
enough for Tathers to die.  Mitsuki reached out and picked up his phone.
    "Hello, this is Mitsuki in Tathers's office.  They thought I should
tell you, he just signed a promotion for Detective First Class Kiyone to be
his second in command.  Anyway, he's dead now, so I guess she's in charge
now.  What's that?  How?  ...No, nothing natural.  In fact, HIGHLY
unnatural.
See, I used the vacuum of space to strangle him with his own tie.  Hmm?  Oh,
don't bother hurrying to come up.  They wanted me to shoot myself, so you
don't need to arrest me.  Buh-bye now, Mr. Security officer."
    She set the phone down, not hanging it up (they wanted security to
hear this, don't ask why though), and shot herself.  As the hypnosis wore
off at the moment of death, her eyes popped open.  Where there had once been
an ordinary pupil, a crab now stood in the center of each eye.

    And now, another fire side chat with Royal Advicer, Victor Toumbes:

    Hello people.  I'm glad to see you came back for the second of my
chapters.  As I write this, I have yet to even post the first, so I still
have no clue what you think of my writing.  However, the first has gone over
well with those that read it so far.  First, of course, was Aubinimty, as it
was only right.  Next, I sent a copy to my first editor, Jenn out there in
Ohio, though I'm not sure if she's gotten around to reading it yet.  Oh
well.
However, I've been refered to Literary Eagle, Aubinimty's editor, who
enjoyed
Chapter 20.
    One error she caught, which I noticed soon after writing it but never
got around to changing, and don't plan to at this point: I described the OVA
Kagato, not the Universe one.  Maybe you picked that up to.  Let me just say
from the start, I am more familiar with the OVA series.
    Notes on this writing: Not many, but there were a few more pieces of
my life inserted in this story.  Taskiko; This is my friend Mike's nick-name
for his girlfriend, though I'm sure I got it wrong.  Sorry about that Mike.
Also, the pilot's name was another of these inside jokes.  Dsawn Pencer is
an
anagram of Taskiko's real name, Dawn Spencer.  Hey, I didn't say it was a
cleverly disguised name.  By the way, hope you don't mind Dawn.  If so, I'm
sorry in advance.
    That's about it for now, just one last thing on the subject of my
little slip up about Kagato.  If I make another of these context slips,
point
it out, let me know somebody is reading this, but please *tell* me as
opposed
to insulting me for it.  I'm more then likely to do something like this in
the future.  After all, I'm only Juraian.

        ~V.M. Toumbes