Because Mike demanded it...

Disclaimer to Fall!~: This story features Superman and the cast of the Tenchi Muyo! OAV series, which are trademarks of DC Comics and AIC/Pioneer LDC, Inc. You can figure out which bits were whose, I suspect. Anyway, this is an unauthorized work, and no profit is being made on this work by me. This story is copyright of me. Download if you like, but please don't archive it without my permission. As always, don't be shy.

As A Princess I Am Gifted with Beauty, Intelligence, and a Giant Honkin' Continuity Note!: Oh, frick. Do I have to do this noise again? I HATE writing long continuity notes. Look, here's the important thing... Steel's in this one, kids! He has ONE continuity, God love 'im. And this story takes place somewhere between SUPERMAN: THE MAN OF STEEL #'s 108-109. Blah blah blingity blah, Superblah, Tenchi blahdity blah blah... Hypertime, imaginary story, omake, Tenchi continuity isn't supposed to make sense. Yeah, there you go. Hee hee... Steel...

Confidential to Mt. Carmel: Paco does not exist. Zero Hour got him. You know the drill.


Original Tenchi Muyo! concept by Masaki Kajishima and Hiroki Hayashi
Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster
oh, and just once for good luck...
Steel created by Louise Simonson and Jon Bogdanove

... I'll shut up now.


THE INHUMAN CONDTION: 15
INESSENTIAL--THE MAN OF STEEL!

by Mike Smith


He was busy. Very busy. His last tussle with the Cybermoths had left his armor infected with one of their designer virus cocktails, and he was currently trying to clean it out of the system. On top of that, he had to put a coat of paint on his latest pet project to aid Superman in his crime-fighting career, then a round of phone tag with Pat Dugan to make a business proposal that he'd been toying with for a while, then a meeting with Captain Sawyer to discuss upgrading the security net in Stryker's Island Penitentiary, and then Warrior's for drinks with his old college buddy Guy Gardener. Big day, like just about any other since John Henry Irons had created the Steelworks and set up shop in Metropolis.

Oh, and his niece had just entered Workshop #4 with one of the most dangerous people to ever set foot in the city. He made a mental note to push Guy back for next Thursday.

"Hey, Unc!" Natasha shouted. "Unc! You got company. And I don't mean Mr.-Sanchez-From-Across-The-Street-To-Complain-About-The-Noise Company, I'm talkin' about Wear-A-Ballet-Costume-In-Public-Not-That-There's-Anything-Wrong-With-That Company. You listening in there?"

It was a phase she was going through. Natasha was utterly unimpressed with superheroics, to the point of treating his work as Steel like a sketch comedy. Admittedly, he'd been going full throttle since moving back to the Big Apricot, and he hadn't had been able to spend as much "mortal men" time with her--to use her terminology--as he would have liked. But it was one thing to be rude to Superman. The red-haired girl to his right was Professor Washuu, the mad scientist who had gone so far as to alter the skin color of every human being in town. Nat wasn't stupid, and she'd read about Washuu in the papers just like everyone else, but the fact was she was just too jaded to take the her seriously in the flesh. Still no excuse to just bring her inside like this...

"Initiating systems purge. Yes/No?"

Well, he couldn't stop now to deal with it. Mentally commanding the cybernetic interface in his armor to proceed, he balled his fists and suddenly he was bathed in a flash of electrical energy, standing perfectly still as the light danced across his body for a good ten seconds. Finally, once the illumination had subsided, he brought his arms down and tapped his left wrist with one of his massive fingers, and a wave of energy pulsed outward from his body. The four people in the audience instinctively raised their hands to guard against the discharge, but it passed over them harmlessly.

"Anti-viral operations completed," the display in his viewscreen announced. He nodded and tapped his boot to activate a control panel on the platform he was standing on. As it rotated slowly he finally got a view of all of his uninvited onlookers. Besides his niece and Washuu, there was Boris, Natasha's friend from Jersey City who'd come to visit, and a pair of youngsters he'd never seen before. The boy was the first to speak up.

"What was THAT?" he asked.

"Sorry, Nat," he said as his voice was piped from inside his helmet to an external speaker on his armor as the platform stopped and locked into position. John signaled the front of the mask to slide open, revealing his face to them for the first time. He reached into a compartment in his belt and pulled out a pair of spectacles with a spiral pattern on the lenses and placed them onto his head, then wiped the sweat away from his thick black beard. "I was at a critical stage, and I couldn't stop to acknowledge." He stepped down from his stage and approached them. Washuu didn't take her skeptical eyes off him, but her companions seemed a little nervous. Being seven feet tall, he was used to the reaction his imposing figure elicited. Best to play dumb, he decided. "Who's your friends here?" he asked.

"Pish," Natasha muttered. "You're the one wearing a Volkswagen and I'm supposed to know? Unc, why would I bring my friends over here? So they can get zotted with your mad radiation? Please."

"I'm more like a member of the family, actually," Boris said with a wry grin from under the long bangs that obscured most of his face.

"Sorry," John shrugged. "Nothing to worry about, folks. Just a routine anti-viral program I've been using to clean out a data-vole that some of my enemies had attacked me with. It's kind of dramatic, I admit, but Kryptonian technology and the B-13 upgrade don't get along too well. That bit at the end was just to dispel the excess energy from the cleanout. Harmless to organic life." He stopped and put a hand to his chin. "Nat, you DID make sure to have them leave their wristwatches and stuff at the door, right?"

"Uh... So, the Cyber-Moths are causing trouble again, huh?" Natasha asked, desperately changing the subject. "When will evil learn, eh? Must be what makes it so evil, huh?"

"Really, it's no problem, sir," the boy assured. The high pitched whine behind him suddenly informed him that he spoke too soon. They turned to find Washuu kneeling on the floor, cradling a pair of small machines in her arms.

"What did you DO!?" Washuu cried. He recognized those units as sort of mechanical synchophants Washuu used in her tussle with Superman a while back. After a dose of that energy pulse, though, they appeared to be malfunctioning to say the least.

"You're a gee--clik! You're a gee--clik! You're a--clik--!" Shoulderbot "A" warbled.

"Washuu is a GENIUS," Shoulderbot "B" mumbled. "Getting darker... see a light in the distance... it can't end like this..."

"You tin-plated MANIAC!" Washuu scowled. "How could you disable my dolls! Who's gonna tell me I'm a genius now!? Them?" she pointed at the two strangers mockingly. "They SLEEP eight hours a day... Oh, cruel fate!"

He inhaled deeply through his nose and bit his lip. Great, two minutes in and he'd antagonized the supervillain. On the bright side, it seemed maybe Natasha wasn't as ignorant of Washuu's history in Metropolis as she'd let on. Plus, he could kill two birds with one stone. He looked to his niece and pointed a thumb at the fallen machines. "Nat, why don't you take these... er... take them to the repair bay and see if Kelex can't do anything for them," he suggested. "And stay there until I call for you, OK?"

"Yeah, whatever, Unc," Natasha grumbled as she scooped up the two dolls and wandered out the door, dragging Boris along by his shirtsleeve.

"It'll be fine," he said. "It's just that the antiviral tech disrupts foreign programming it hasn't been calibrated to understand. Given a chance to reboot, those machines should be all right... Ms. Washuu."

"You know who we are, sir?" the purple-haired girl asked in shock.

"Please, call me Steel," he replied. "And actually, I'm only familiar with one of you. The professor here made quite a name for herself recently in this town. Disrupted the programming of numerous maintenance robots, mutated specimens in the City Zoo, even turned the entire populace a bright shade of blue. But I wanted to be sure she was who I thought she was before I said anything, and the robots finished the puzzle. And I wanted to get Natasha out of sight before I let on."

"Oh, right. Tenchi Masaki," the boy said, offering his hand carefully to him. He took it gently in his gauntlet and shook it. "And this is Ayeka. Look, we're really sorry that we kinda got off on the wrong foot and all, but--"

"Oh, big deal," Washuu snorted. "If I was gonna start a ruckus I'd have done it by now. Fat lot of good you'd be able to do about it." She waved her hand out at the array of colored lights from the control panels that coated every surface of the workshop. "Maybe throw some of these Lite Brites at me?"

"That was my take," John nodded. He crossed his arms and did his best to look defensive without seeming confrontational. "It didn't seem like your style for the Greatest Scientist in the Universe to humbly request an audience before an Earthman who's barely mastered fire, relatively speaking. My guess is you're not here to start a fight. You're here because no one's seen Superman in days, and I'm the only other guy in town with one of these." He turned around to show off the yellow "S" shield embroidered on the back of the red cape bolted to his armor.

"Yes, I was wondering about that," Ayeka asked. "Who ARE you exactly, Mr. Steel? Are you another Superman like Kal-El is?"

"I TOLD you before," Washuu snapped. "He's his weaponeer. He builds him gadgets and stuff to help him with his daily business."

It was interesting to get a feel for how well they understood Superman's methods and alliances. More like recent acquaintances than enemies, really. Maybe they could work together after all. "Look, it's really not that complicated," he explained. "You know how Superman was dead for a while?"

"Uh-huh," Tenchi nodded. Costume or not, this one had been on Earth for a little while at least.

"No," Ayeka answered. It was plain from the look on her face that she found the very concept rather disturbing.

"Reeeeeallly?" Washuu asked in delight. She pulled out a notepad from her coat and started scribbling onto it. "Tell me more..."

"Ah-hah... well, the point is that I tried to fill in for him while he was gone," John continued slowly. "I invented a suit of armor like this one to approximate his powers, and when he returned, we struck up a sort of partnership. I'm kind of his technical advisor from time to time."

"Hmmph," Washuu snickered. "No wonder he folded like an instruction manual..."

"Washuu!" Tenchi snarled.

"Look, I don't know who the two of you are supposed to be," he sighed, "but if you're in league with Washuu here I'd appreciate it if you'd just start fighting or gloat about your master plan or throw eggs at the door or whatever you people had in mind for Superman. I've got a lot of work to do around here, even if it looks like bricklaying to your superior alien intellects."

"It's not like that, really," Tenchi said. "We need your help. Superman was helping us out with a personal matter and he never returned. We can't find him on our own, so we wanted to get in touch with some friends of his and see if they could show us something we might have missed."

"Helping you?" John asked, raising an eyebrow. "Did I miss the chapter where you and he put aside your differences and battled a common foe? Because I usually don't always get involved in the story until the third act..."

"Long story short," Washuu explained impatiently, "Superman found out where I lived and met up with Tenchi here, who's been letting me crash at his place on the other side of your planet. They got to talking, and agreed to leave well enough alone as long as I stayed indoors for a while. I assume that since you have no idea who Ayeka is that Kal kept his end of the deal and kept our happy little home a secret, eh?"

"Trust me," John said. "I'm more confused that you could ever hope for me to be. But you seem to make the most sense of this bunch, Tenchi. Maybe I'd better let you do all the talking."


Being an engineer meant sifting out the significant information and working from that. For the most part, Tenchi's story was grandiose, but not terribly relevant to the situation. His grandfather was the prince of a interstellar empire and this resulted in five aliens dropping out of the sky to tie up the loose ends from his life before retiring in secret to Japan. Two of those aliens were Washuu and Ayeka, the latter being part of the same royal lineage, and the other three had apparently gotten embroiled in a matter involving the Galactic Tribunal. Of course, he was no stranger to the Tribunal's unfathomable logic, as they had been the same organization who once arrested Superman for destroying his birthworld before he was born. So it certainly made sense that Kal-El would have offered to assist them with their legal troubles. Again, outlandish, but hardly anomalous.

No, the important aspects of this case were the following: First, the Tribunal sent envoys to Earth to apologize for what they termed an "erroneous arrest", which meant that the entire matter had been settled. Second, no one had actually HEARD from Superman & Co. since then, meaning that asking the Tribunal would have been pointless. Third, although it was under the influence of another, Ryoko had a rap sheet a mile long, which meant there was more than enough motivation for some unknown enemy to be behind all of this, perhaps even lashing out at her when the Tribunal refused to take action. All of this led him to request additional information on what precisely this Ryoko was.

Ten minutes of video tape later, he was beginning to wish he hadn't. He sat in his viewing room and did his best not to let on that his skin was crawling.

"Now, in stark contrast to the previous footage," Washuu explained, pointing at the screen, "You see here that instead of just passing out completely, the subject remains alert and active, even straining the harness past recommended tolerances."

John watched as the figure in the harness yanked the restraints wildly, tears in her eyes, screaming something... he'd muted the sound and had no intention of turning it back up. "And you consider this an improvement," he observed darkly.

"I LOVE this guy," she said to the others. "He's so... so... inquisitive! Much potential in him, y'know?"

Ayeka simply hung her head and shook it despondently. "Mr. Steel, I feel I must apologize for this display, and I hope that it won't color your assessment of our problem--"

"Why yes it is a marked improvement, to answer your question, Dr. Irons," Washuu explained. "Circulation's up, emotional output at expected levels, not to mention she's still awake. What's not to love?"

"You do this on a regular basis?" Tenchi asked. "This is... it's just..."

"And tetanus vaccinations have to be administered with needles, Tenchi," Washuu snorted. "At least on THIS planet, anyway. I'll mind my own house if you'll mind your own, thank you. Anything else you'd like to see, Dr. Irons?"

He took the remote control and began fast forwarding the tape. "I was hoping I might pick up something we could use as a clue, but so far all I've managed to establish is that we're not talking about the same Ryoko here." He raised the remote above his head and pointed it to the left, and when he pressed a button a panel on the far wall began to lurch upwards to reveal a containment cell where a phosphorescent green creature was suspended by a series of chains and pulleys. It jerked its head rapidly as sparks flew out of a large cavity in its gut.

Tenchi sighed and put his hands over his face. "The Kryptonite Ryoko doppelganger you sent here," he sighed. "Washuu..."

"It's a fine piece of work," John admitted. "Metropolis's finest sent it over here so I could make sure it was disabled. The four hours I've spent examining its circuitry has changed the way I look at robotics, I'll say that much. But I'm not interested in charging out across the universe to help you pick up your toys. Especially since you strike me as the type who stuffs them in the microwave and sets it to seven minutes to see how fast they melt."

"Now hold on!" Tenchi said defiantly. "Look, maybe you've got a point here, Steel. And maybe we don't deserve your help, but I'm not gonna stand here and listen to you talk about Ryoko that way. She was worth Superman's attention if nothing else--"

"And maybe that was his first mistake, kid," John growled. "Let me make this clear. You want me to take time out from cleaning up your mess so I can help you clean up another one. Well, Superman can take care of himself, so maybe you might give me a little more motivation than I'm getting right now. Because as it stands, for all I know this is all part of some elaborate plot to lure me into the same trap you've got Superman in." He paused, letting the weight of his words sink in. "I'm waiting."

Tenchi clenched his jaw, and then opened his mouth to say something, but Washuu spoke first. "Sit this out, Tenchi. He's got a family, remember? This is a test for something else." She walked over to his seat and picked up his hammer like it was a chew toy. It was supposed to be his primary weapon, a device emanating a complex pattern of magnetic fields including a security grid that fixed it firmly to one spot when anyone else tried to use it. But she simply twirled it about her finger, as if the footage of Ryoko hadn't been enough to undermine her childish appearance. "Tell you what. Back the tape up to the first session. Yeah... yeah, now pause it right there." Once John had frozen the display on a still of her unconscious head, Washuu walked up to the screen and raised his hammer up to a place right above Ryoko's elongated ear.

"I'm impressed you were able to glean that much information off my robot, Dr. Irons. Smart guy. Not in my league, but hey, who is?" She nudged the hammer upward at the screen. "This part was documented... oh, about eight months back. Confronted with sensory deprivation, Ryoko was overwhelmed with an emotional response she couldn't properly express, so she went comatose. Up around here? A little piece of her brain about the size of a gumball. The crude camcorders of your world don't show this, but right here it's sending a little impulse to activate an energy discharge that could wipe out about two average-sized Earth-cities. I affectionately refer to this as 'the panic button.' Now, naturally I had it disabled before the experiment, but the fact is that it's not supposed to go off unless Ryoko wills it, and even then it shouldn't work unless she's been terminally injured. Instead, you turn the lights out and leave the room, and it goes off by itself. You know why?" She stared right through him for a moment and smiled grimly. "Well, I do."

Before he could ask she went on. "I'm not what you'd call a 'people person', Doc. Now put yourself in my shoes. You ever lose something out of this lemonade stand you've got here? Can you imagine the feeling you'd get, knowing delicate, even potentially dangerous equipment might be unaccounted for? And you don't know where it is, or who might have access to it, or even if they realize what it is. Forget the potential loss for life, or any other consequences. Just between a couple of inventors... isn't it really the uncertainty that gets to ya?"

He matched her gaze for a few beats and then looked up at the part of the image she was pointing to. "Engage Martian encryption algorithms," he said calmly. Suddenly the hammer dropped to the ground like it was made of lead, nearly wrenching Washuu's arm with the sudden shift in gravity. Before she could finish her nasal exclamation of surprise, it was already free of her grip and lying still on the floor. "Return," he added, and the hammer flew to his waiting hand.

"Looks like maybe I touched a nerve," Washuu smirked, rubbing her shoulder firmly. "What the hell is a Martian?"

"That would be telling," he replied. John stood up and put the hammer under his cape, locking it to the moorings behind his back. "I think we can work together after all, Professor. But let's make one thing understood. The trust in this room can be cut with a plastic spoon. You cross me, and I may not be able to play in your league, but I'll do everything I can to bloody that cute little twenty thousand year old nose of yours. Make no mistake," he said, pointing back at the Kryptonite machine in the other room. "This 'S' stands for Steel. Radioactive minerals just piss me off."

Tenchi sighed in relief. "I SWEAR it's not gonna come to that. Honestly. Could we just get started? Please?"

"Agreed," John nodded. "For one thing, I noticed something on this footage that looked familiar. Computer, go to frame 3241 and hold." He waited for the recording to advance to the point he'd specified, and then pointed to the screen. "There, that brown thing running around on the floor. Does someone know what that is?"

They all looked at the object in the shadows and finally Ayeka spoke up to answer. "That looks like Ryo-Oh-Ki, wouldn't you say, Lord Tenchi?"

"I suppose so," he agreed. "How does that help?"

"But you know what it is, then?" John asked.

"One of my other early works," Washuu groaned. "A living spaceship that can alter her form. Normally well-behaved, but if she wandered into this production then it throws out a day's worth of testing at LEAST. I gotta get a better door or something... Anyway, what's your point?"

"Maybe nothing," John mused, stroking his beard. "But it just might be a lead. C'mon, I'll show you what I mean."


[interlude two]

"You cannot escape us, Kal-El! You banished us to this endless void, and now providence has delivered you to share our fate!"

In life, Zod came from a pocket dimension where Kryptonians were even more powerful than he was. Superman's only edge back then was the special type of Kryptonite in that universe to which he himself was immune.

Now that Zod was already dead, all Superman could count on was the mad general's love affair with his own voice. "Can the theatrics, Zod!" he shouted back at him. "We both know this isn't the afterlife, otherwise your souls wouldn't be inhabiting Legion's body in the land of the living! I don't know what the four of you hope to accomplish with this, but--"

"Revenge, fool!" Quex-Ul barked, grabbing Superman by the fabric on his chest and then striking him in the jaw with a hand that felt like it had been chilled in liquid nitrogen. "Legion manipulated you and those weak little children you call friends--used our knowledge of your past and your methods to do it--but we only aided him in exchange for a chance to have you all to ourselves!"

Quex-Ul tossed Superman to the ground like a bag of garbage and all he could do was hold his aching chin and wonder how this was even happening. Was this Legion's plan? He'd admitted to arranging for Ryoko to be arrested and tried by the Galactic Tribunal, only to falsify their evidence once her friends had arrived on the scene. And the whole point of this was to ambush them with... some kind of hypnotic effect maybe, then bring him here to this void to be beaten up by a trio of ghosts?

Zaora knelt down and massaged his arm with her icy fingers. "Do you remember how you killed us, Superman? You used gold Kryptonite to rob us of our power, then green Kryptonite to end our lives... slowly... painfully. As I succumbed to the radiation, I begged you to spare me--offered to be your slave--to grant you pleasures beyond imagining..." She quickly stood up and kicked him in the gut. He winced in agony. "I wonder how you might have decided given the chance to do it all over again."

It didn't make sense. If Legion was powerful enough to trap him in such an elaborate illusion as this, then why did he even have to bother luring him away from Earth? For that matter, why was he even toying with him at all? As a favor to his allies? In return for what? Legion only used their knowledge of him in order to manipulate him into battling Washuu in Metropolis, in order to get him to follow Ryoko into outer space, partly as a favor to--

"Tenchi!" he muttered as Zod pulled him back up to his feet.

"Very GOOD, murderer," Zod congratulated him. "You finally understand what Legion meant when he said you were to play a part in his plans. You're not the ends, you're the means. Of course, that I and my compatriots can soften you up for the role is most certainly a welcome wrinkle to our little production. But you of all people should know that justice often strikes from the strangest of places!"

Soften him--? Superman locked eyes with Zod and forced himself to ignore the cold of his knuckles pressing against him as he held him by the collar. "Justice, Zod? You killed a billion people and you have the gall to suggest you represent justice?!" Before any of them could reply, Zod was doused in a blast of infrared radiation from Superman's eyes. The effect was immediate, and Zod released him and stumbled back in pain. Superman quickly looked to either side and hit Quex-Ul and Zaora with more of the same. The coldness of their bodies was a magical effect, no doubt, but it could still be affected by intense heat. Not enough to stop them, but he could slow them down a bit until he could get to the bottom of this.

"I never claimed to be perfect, and I've regretted what I did to you three, but that doesn't mean I'm going to lie here paralyzed with guilt so you can run off and hurt someone else!" He started pounding on the metal floor beneath them. It extended for about ten yards in any direction, and it appeared to be the only other physical thing in the void. If there was a chance it was a way out, he figured he had to take it. Anywhere was better than this place.

As he pounded on the metal sheet with his fists, the three ghosts recovered from the heat vision attack and started to move against him once more. "If you wanted to leave so badly, murderer, you might have said so!" Zaora laughed bitterly.

"Indeed," Zod snarled. "In fact, let us help you!" And in unison they all stomped on the ground, shaking the whole platform. They did it a second time, and on the third, it shattered completely, and Superman found himself tumbling through the hole underneath.

And as the darkness swallowed him up, Superman began to wonder if he was right about anywhere being preferable to the place he'd just left.

[interlude ends]


"Look familiar?"

Tenchi entered the room first and stopped at the threshold when he saw it. A cream-colored animal, almost like a cross between a cat and a rabbit. "Ryo-Oh-Ki?" he asked. "But she's with Superman--"

"You make a better door than a window, Tenchi," Washuu fussed, elbowing him in the butt to force her way around him. "Ah, I see... you found this specimen in the city, Dr. Irons?"

"Believe it or not, halfway phased through the screen of a vending machine," Steel explained. "It was gnawing on a bag of trail mix when the Metropolis Special Crimes Unit contacted me. Took me two hours to whip up a dimensional interface that could get the little guy out of that Plexiglas."

"Oh, I believe it all right," Washuu mused as she approached the newspaper covered area of the floor and held out her hand to the creature. It backed away defensively, but then relented and allowed her to pick it up. She looked into its eyes and frowned. "Not Ryo-Oh-Ki, Tenchi," she corrected him solemnly. "Ken-Oh-Ki is his name. And his master was one of the bounty hunters who abducted Ryoko back in Japan, just as Dr. Irons suspected."

"Wait, so there's TWO of these things now?" Tenchi asked. "Did you create this guy, too?"

"No comment," Washuu replied.

"Ms. Washuu," Ayeka interjected, "I thought you had agreed not to share your procedure for creating Ryo-Oh-Ki with anyone else. If this sort of thing fell into the wrong hands, then Jurai's military would be--"

"NO. COMMENT," Washuu growled. "We'll work this part out later, OK? Right now all we need to know is that Ken-Oh-Ki has all of Ryo-Oh-Ki's abilities, and he must have tracked Ryoko here. Or perhaps more accurately, tracked MYSELF here, and his master must have gotten the rest of the way on her own."

"I had assumed that Snowball here was connected to the two metahumans my instruments picked up recently," Steel explained. "But when I saw this guy's near double on that tape of yours, then I started to wonder if this little fella was a similar model. He's remarkably intelligent, although I've found no evidence of sentience. Navigational skills are uncanny, and ever since we found out he likes carrots, he's gotten pretty creative about acquiring more. Never saw him turn into a spaceship, though."

"That's because he's sick," Washuu replied. "Some kind of toxin in his systems. It's preventing him from altering his form. According to his memory, they left him here to recover on his own while they made the bust on Ryoko. Of course, that all works to our favor if his nose still works."

"His nose?" Ayeka asked.

"'Snowball'--to use Dr. Irons' nomenclature--may no longer be capable of interstellar flight, but his sensors should still be able to track a target just like he could if he were out in the stars." She set Ken-Oh-Ki back on the floor and raised her hands and a translucent black screen appeared in front of her hands. "Oh, yeah... here comes the telemetry now..."

"Telemetry on what, exactly?" Steel asked. "His owner?"

"No, that does us no good," Washuu explained. "Besides, they dropped by our place a while ago to apologize for Ryoko's wrongful arrest, so we have NO idea where she'd be. Interesting that they didn't come for Ken-Oh-Ki. I guess your base is better shielded than it looks, Steel."

"I'll take that as a compliment," Steel shrugged.

"No, I'm scanning for us. The unique 'scents' of me, Ayeka, this city. They should be present to some degree on Superman and Ryoko and Sasami, and it'd be extremely obvious for all of this to be present in outer space. There it is!"

"I'll take your word for it," Steel muttered as he leaned over Washuu's shoulder to see the alien characters flash across the screen.

"OK, great," Tenchi said. "Now how do we get there?"

"Well, I don't suppose it would be too great an imposition for Ms. Washuu to arrange suitable transportation for us," Ayeka suggested. "If it's not too much trouble of course..."

"What am I, your valet?" Washuu scoffed. "Why do you clowns think I CREATED Ryo-Oh-Ki in the first place? Answer: Because I don't have to screw with moving parts that way! It's so much simpler to deal with cross-species genetics and subspace biochambers. I'm a scientist. Not a mechanic."

"Fortunately," Steel interrupted, "I happen to be both. Come with me. I think I have the answer to our problem."

He marched back out of the chamber, his metal boots clanking with each step, and Ayeka cheerfully followed him into the hallway. Tenchi was about to fall behind them, but he looked back to see Washuu standing fast with a pouty look on her face.

"Hey, you said we needed help, right?" Tenchi shrugged. "He's bound to know a few tricks we don't, after all."

She rolled her eyes and let out an irritated gasp. "Fine, let's go see his goofy spaceship then. Probably a golf cart with wings on it or something..."

Tenchi tried his best not to laugh, and as she stepped out the door he hoped he could wipe the smile off his face before anyone could see it.


"I'd misjudged you, Dr. Irons. This isn't what I had expected at all."

"That means a lot to me, Professor," Steel said.

"It's a golf cart with fists on it," Washuu grumbled. "You building a freighter or a prize fighter?"

"A little of both," Steel said without missing a beat. He led them into the hangar and patted the dismal gray hull of the small ship that hung from a network of cables and hooks throughout the chamber. "This is hardly the first time I've had to mount a rescue operation for Superman. A lot of my colleagues have spaceships, but I thought it might be a good idea for me to join the club. Borrowed a lot of hull specs from Martian designs, Kryptonian computer core, the weapons systems I practically built from memory after all the times I've had to repair Orion's battle damaged gear. It'd be nice if New Genesis made their weapons half as sturdy as their warriors, but that's neither here nor there..."

"New Whosits?" Washuu asked.

"A lot has changed since you were trapped in suspended animation five thousand years ago, Little Washuu," Ayeka explained.

"I just want to know what the fists are for," Washuu sighed. "Is that so much to ask?"

"Well, I also wanted to have something on hand that could give Superman an edge in a situation involving Kryptonite," Steel answered. "Unfortunately, this baby wasn't ready when you reared your little head a while back, but it can still get us where we want to go even if I haven't finished installing the lead shielding. It was also scheduled for a paint job, but it's spaceworthy, and it comfortably seats eight people with room to spare for luggage. So does it pass inspection?"

Washuu stared at the craft skeptically, and Tenchi and Ayeka both looked at her with hopeful eyes. Twisted as all this was, John was kind of enjoying this. It was one thing to earn the respect of Superman, or the Justice League, or the Metropolis Special Crimes Unit, but to show off his wares to a fellow gadget-guy of sorts, it made his work seem that much more worthwhile. Then again, the reality of this was that he was asking a little girl to approve of his design for a two-fisted spaceship because her pet cat was sick. He didn't approve of Natasha's attitude, but he could certainly understand where it came from.

"You've worked with Kryptonian technology, and the locals consider you an authority on these matters, Dr. Irons?" Washuu asked.

"Pretty much," he replied.

"Hmmph. You obviously know a few things I don't, that much is obvious," she mused. "All right, we'll rough it! I can always make a few improvements on this rustbucket along the way, and it'll be worth it to confer with my brand new apprentice..."

"Excuse me?" John asked.

Just then Natasha entered with a small golden robot carrying Washuu's shoulder-dolls in either of its long spindly arms. "Well, they'll never play the piano anymore, but I'd say we've done all we could do, Red," she announced.

"You fixed them?" John asked her.

"Oh, we fixed 'em i-ight," Kelex acknowledged, handing the repaired machines back to their owner. John couldn't help but note a certain irony in the robot's tone, but ever since Natasha had reprogrammed the Kryptonian servitor to speak in street talk, he couldn't be sure. At any rate, he was too busy figuring out Washuu's reaction to deal with it.

She skipped around to behind his back and stuffed the dolls behind his cape. When he reached behind his back to find them, they were gone. "What do you mean 'apprentice'?" he demanded. "And what are you doing?"

"I like your enthusiasm, Dr. Irons!" Washuu announced. "There's real potential in what you're doing here. It reminds me of an extremely young me. Or me when I'm plastered, but you get the idea. As an academician, it's my DUTY to guide you as you sober up into the best possible genius you can be!"

With that proclamation, the robots suddenly reappeared atop John's armored shoulders.

"Congratulations, apprentice!" Shoulderbot 'A' shouted.

"Pay attention, now! I don't like to spread this around, but Washuu is a GENIUS!" Shoulderbot 'B' added.

"Uh-HUH..." John grumbled.

"Besides, I can't think of a more ironic turn of events," Washuu explained. "Kal runs off with my daughter and my spaceship, so it's only fitting I grab his weaponeer and the spaceship that was being build for his use. It's perfect, really! So whaddya say?"

"What do I say?" John asked in disbelief. "Who's helping who here--?"

"Uh, just so you understand," Tenchi said, putting a hand to his face to keep Washuu from overhearing, "this is about as close to humility as it gets for her. You might wanna just go with it..."

John sighed and shook his head. Well, if nothing else this would keep Washuu from bothering anyone else for a while. "All right, all right. If that's the way you want it, fine. What the hell? Things were getting kind of slow around here anyway."


NEXT: Elseworlds...

Continue To Chapter Sixteen