Halcyon: Ryoko vs Z

This scene was written with intent to be used for Halcyon but when the story died a death it got discarded also. The aftermath of Ryoko and Z’s first fight J

"Oww, my head."

Ryoko struggled into a sitting position, raising her hand to her brow as she glanced blankly around at her surroundings. "Where in hell am I, anyway? What happened? I was fighting that guy, and then..."

She faltered, light flickering from her fingers as she sought to discover precisely where she was. Stumbling to her feet, she brought her hands together, now clearly able to see that she was aboard some kind of derelict space station, long since decomissioned and left floating in space.

A low groan from across the chamber made her turn, tensing as she prepared herself for another round of battle. Her foe stirred from where he lay prone on the floor, pulling himself into a sitting position with some difficulty as he buried his head in his hands. Ryoko eyed him cautiously for a moment, then took a hesitant step forwards.

At the sound of her steps, the man glanced up, and one look into his odd coloured eyes told Ryoko that there would be no further fighting that day. She pursed her lips, approaching him carefully.

"You're lucky you're still alive." She said off-handedly. "I pack a mean punch. But you're not bad yourself, when it comes to it."

"I should be better." The man said thickly, gazing at her guardedly. "Are you going to kill me, now?"

"No." Ryoko shook her head. "I don't do that. I'm not a killer."

"Well, that makes one of us." The man sounded bitter. "Who are you, anyway? What were you doing, stalking me around the Academy like that?"

"Since I clearly have the upper hand right now, I think you can answer my questions first." Ryoko said flatly. "Why were you stalking Washu Hakubi?"

"That's none of your concern."

"I think it is."

"Then we're at a stalemate, aren't we?" The man offered her a twisted smile. "I won't answer you and you won't answer me."

"I can wait." Ryoko pushed her hands together, creating a glittering amber forcefield as she gently lifted the wounded man up off the ground. He started, then glared at her, bringing his own fingertips together as white sparks sought to crack through the outer shell. It was to no avail, however, and Ryoko shook her head.

"I'm not going to kill you." She repeated. "I just want to know what you want. That's all. Who you are and where you came from."

"Answer my question, and I'll answer yours." The man shot back, and Ryoko sighed, rolling her eyes.

"My name is Ryoko." She said quietly. "And Washu Hakubi is my mother."

"Ryoko?" Recognition flitted across the man's bicolour eyes and he stared at her in shock. "You're Ryoko?"

"You've heard of me?" It was Ryoko's turn to be startled, and the man smirked.

"You don't know, then?" He asked frankly. "You and I, we have something in common. We're both puppets created by people trying to play God. I saw what was left of your file, Ryoko. I know that you were created, just as I was. Not born. Built...for some twisted purpose of those who considered themselves above us."

Ryoko drew her brows together, gently setting him down on the floor of the satellite as the forcefield flickered and faded.

"I was born." She said quietly. "Machines are built, and I've never been anyone's machine. I don't know what anyone's told you, but I'm a space pirate. I don't take orders from anyone."

"A space pirate?" The man frowned. "No. You're like me, I know you are. Your memories have been altered, that's all. You think you're something that you're not - I've been there. Been treated. Been discarded and recreated as something else. The truth is right there though, Ryoko. You are as I was. You were born in a lab unit. We should not be fighting. We are the same."

Ryoko was silent for a moment, then she leant up against the panelling of the satellite, folding her arms across her chest.

"Noone has messed with my memories in a long time." She said quietly. "And I don't think you've kept your half of the deal. Your name, please. Who are you?"

"My name is Z."

"Thats not a name, it's a letter."

"I'm not a person. I'm someone's weapon." Her companion said flatly. Ryoko snorted, shaking her head.

"Don't give me that. What is your real name? Truly?"

"Z-0001332536893."

"I said, your real name!"

Ryoko grabbed him, lifting him up above the ground. "Or do you really believe that you're just someone else's machine, huh? Have you no identity of your own? Because objects have serial numbers. Not people. And if you're nothing but an object, I'm not going to waste any more of my time on you. You're wrong if you think we're alike. I'm Ryoko Hakubi. I'm not a stupid serial number from a lab unit or computer file."

The man eyed her thoughtfully for a moment, then he sighed.

"I was known, once, as Zakari." He said slowly. "Zakari Kure."

"Zakari." Ryoko pursed her lips, releasing her grip on him and allowing him to flicker out of her reach. "All right. That's progress. And where are you from, Zakari?"

"I told you. I was created to be someone's weapon."

"All right, this isn't getting us anywhere." Ryoko sighed, shaking her head. "I don't want to have to beat the truth out of you, but I will if I have to. I don't have a lot of time to waste prying information from idiots who have a chip on their shoulder. Why did you come back to this time to hurt Washu Hakubi?"

"Back to...?" Zakari stared at her. Then he shook his head.

"No, you have it wrong." He said frankly. "I have no interest in hurting Washu-sensei. Quite the opposite. I sought her help. Not to hurt her."

"But..." Ryoko frowned. "But you are the creature who came back in time and changed the timeline. Aren't you?"

"Yes." Zakari agreed. "I came back in time to ensure that noone could ever make the huge mistake of creating a monster like me, that's all. So I decided one death in this time would be better than countless others in my own time. The planet Heiwa...that was my home, Ryoko. The place where I found family for the first time, and where I was happy. But I wasn't like them, dammit! And because of it, their whole world was destroyed. So I had to come here. I had to put it right."

"You were the one who blew up that planet?" Ryoko stared. "So it was connected. Washu was right all along - when she sent us back!"

"I'm not the only one acting outside of time and space, then, am I?"

"You need to tell me why you did come back. Who did you come here to kill?" Ryoko asked him urgently. "Because in the present, Zakari, planets are disappearing, one by one. Populated planets. And my mother can't leave her sub-space lab without bad things happening to her. We assumed someone had tried to kill her in the past - and succeeded, too. But if you didn't come here to kill her, what did you come here to do?"

"Disappearing?" Zakari stared at her. "But I don't understand. I came here to eliminate the man who created me, kept me in a cage to study and then abandoned me to starve in the cold of a dying planet when I was four years old. He wiped my memories, but I regained them, bit by bit. I didn't want to kill the people on Heiwa. I didn't want to hurt my family. But my biology is unstable - it's breaking down. And I'm dangerous. I'm operating to a tight schedule, also...I need to complete my mission before I haven't the energy to do anything, and before I hurt anyone else."

He glanced at his hands ruefully.

"Once I would have put up a better fight against one such as you." He added. "You are very strong, Ryoko. But I would have matched you, once."

"This man who created you...what was his name?" Ryoko asked softly, a cold dread settling in her heart at his words.

"Clay." Zakari said flatly, confirming her worst suspicions in a heartbeat. "Dr Clay."

"Washu's nemesis." Ryoko muttered. "I should have guessed. Washu did say he stole files from her on me, once. And he had access to a lot of her work. He knew about her secret lab, even, at one point. He must have tried his best to create his own version of me...but Clay was never as good a scientist as Washu is. He screwed up, didn't he?"

Zakari nodded his head.

"Big time." He agreed darkly. "So I came here to kill him."

"Clay is still alive, though. You failed."

"I know." Zakari swallowed. "I'm unstable, I told you. I have moments where weakness and exhaustion overpowers me, and other times when my magic overwhelms me and is beyond my control. I wasn't able to finish the job. He still lives, and while he does, people are still in danger."

"Hm." Ryoko shook her head. "I don't think so. Clay is dead in our time too, you know. Is that why you came back in time to kill him?"

"I wanted a time before I was born." Zakari said frankly. "And a time in which he knew Washu Hakubi seemed as good a time as any. The woman is legendary in scientific circles, and also infamous as being more than a little unbalanced. I thought I could swing her to my cause - I know she's some kind of witch and I thought that even if my own power failed, I might be able to harness hers and bring her over to my way of thinking."

"You wanted to turn my mother into a scapegoat, in fact?" Rage coursed through Ryoko's veins, and Zakari snorted.

"Why do you call her that?" He demanded. "You're deluding yourself. If what you said is true - if Washu Hakubi built you just as sure as Clay built me, then why do you consider her anything to you except the woman who enslaved you and made you into what you are? When I first discovered traces of your file on Clay's computer system, I thought you were his creation,  like me. Clearly I was wrong. Washu-sensei is less of a friend than I thought...she's been involved in this kind of dabbling, too. No wonder she wouldn't help me! She's just as guilty of playing God with DNA!"

"Maybe I like who and what I am." Ryoko bristled. "Besides, we don't all have hang-ups about our pasts. I'm sorry that you do, but I told you, I don't follow anyone's orders. I've always made my own choices and lived my own life. I was a space pirate - one of the most successful and notorious ever to roam the galaxy. I made my own rules, Zakari, and I have my own life. I have a man who loves me and a world to which I belong. I am not a machine - I have never been a machine. I'm a person, with feelings and ideas of my own."

Zakari was silent for a moment, and Ryoko could see he was turning this over in his own mind. At length he raised his gaze to hers.

"Don't you ever get angry?" He asked softly. "Don't you ever want to know what gave someone the right to dictate your DNA that way?"

"Yes, I'm often angry at her." Ryoko agreed absently. "But she's Washu and that's all that can be said about it. In her own weird way, she is my mother. I don't know what Clay did to you - I'm sorry for whatever it was that made you so warped and bitter. But in truth, all Washu ever did to me was create me. Yes, with a purpose in mind, but at the end of the day, she acknowledges my right to a life and a happiness of my own. And even if she didn't, I wouldn't let her stand in my way. I know what I want from my life and I'm not afraid to take it. That's all any of us can do in the final analysis. Live the life we're given for as long as we're given it. If you sit and fret over a life you didn't have, or a background you hate...well, there's not much point in even being alive in the first place."

"And now you come round to my way of thinking." Zakari said blackly, white light glittering around him as he spoke. "I have accepted my mortality - I am a failed experiment doomed to death as soon as my biology breaks down beyond my body's inferior ability to heal. That is my fate, and I can't escape it. But if I can take Clay with me, I will. Then he will never create me at all."

Ryoko frowned.

"What if you do kill Clay?" She challenged him. "What then? You cease to be? What about all the other things that might affect? I told you, in our time, planets are disappearing. It's getting worse, too. By killing Clay, some time between now and then, you're dooming countless planets to the fate you want to protect your world from. Is it worth it? People will still die."

"I don't understand why that would be." Zakari admitted helplessly, sinking back against the wall of the satellite as Ryoko's words sank in. "Clay is an evil man, isn't he? One who should be stopped?"

"He's a jerk." Ryoko agreed succinctly. "And I don't like him any, either. But I don't think that you're seeing the whole picture. Odious as Clay is and bad as the things he's going to do are, obviously he's somehow the reason that all those worlds aren't destroyed. That being the case, I can't let you kill him. The timeline has to be as it was before...otherwise our time is doomed. It won't just be you expiring. The rest of us might also be done for."

"I can't believe that Clay could be protecting innocent people by just existing." Zakari ran his fingers through his spiked hair. "It makes no logical sense!"

Ryoko eyed him hesitantly for a moment.

"Did you convince Washu to use her magic to hurt Clay?" She asked softly. Zakari shook his head.

"She said she wasn't the type to kill." He said quietly. "I don't know. I was hoping I'd persuade her, but she seems..."

"Stubborn? Unreasonable? Inflexible?" Ryoko suggested. "Sounds like our Washu, all right."

"Perhaps she is as dangerous as he is, all things being equal." Zakari sighed. "Maybe I've chosen to slay the wrong being, after all."

"You are not going to try and kill Washu, now!" Ryoko glanced at him sharply, and Zakari shrugged.

"Well, if Clay's death means all those worlds die, what threat does Washu pose to the Universe?" He demanded.

"None." Ryoko shook her head impatiently. "In a short space of time she'll be up in front of the Academy elders, sealed into a capsule and sent into the depths of space for the next several years."

"None of this makes any sense at all." Zakari rubbed his temples. "I thought that I was doing a good thing, and now..."

"Come back with me." Ryoko suggested. "To the Academy. Tenchi and Yume will wonder where I am, anyway. And Yume might be able to make better sense of this than I can."

"Yume? Tenchi?" Zakari looked blank, and Ryoko nodded.

"Tenchi is my fiance." She said evenly. "And Yume...well, I guess, if Clay created you, Yume is your sister."

"My...sister?" Zakari blinked, and Ryoko grinned.

"Yume is a shape-shifting robot." She said simply. "Clay built her using technology he plagiarised from Washu. In that respect, she and you have something in common."

Zakari was silent for a moment. Then he nodded his head.

"All right." He said quietly. "I will come with you. But I'm still not sure that what you say makes any kind of sense. Clay is a bad man and I can't believe he is responsible for protecting all those planets you mentioned. I haven't ruled out killing him, so be aware."