Preface; Or, How What Follows Came to be Written, and Whom You Should
Blame for It.

	A certain person recently wrote that those who were trying to cross
Evangelion with Ranma were engaging in folly.  He was largely ignored, and
chastised for his comments.  He has since apologized.

	However, Rod M. agreed with him in principle.

	And that gave me furiously to think.

	And I came to the conclusion that Rod M. was right.  But I also
realized that there was a certain series that *could* be effectively
combined with Evangelion.  So, I sat down, typed for a while, and here we
are.

	So what follows is all Rod M.'s fault, yes, Rod M. should be
blamed for what you want to do after reading this.  Go get 'im.

	[This is for the "Beyond the Sea" thing, Rod.  Revenge is best
served cold, and this has been out on the counter so long it's *really*
cold.  And *moldy*, too.]

	[Ahem.]

				*   *   *

	It was a typical day in Tokyo-3.

	Which meant that there was an Angel attack, natch.

	Katsuragi Misato stared at the monitor image of the large, vaguely
ellipsoid creature from the darkest, deepest reaches of space -- the
scourge of the Twenty-First century.

	Her personal nemesis.

	This week, anyway.

	"He vexes me ... he vexes me, and I shall have him!" she muttered,
causing Hyuuga Makoto, the most literate of NERV's trio of bridge bunnies,
to start slowly edging away from her.

	"Shinji-kun," Misato then barked, "when you, Ayanami, and Asuka
engage the Angel, you have the point!"

	"Sure," came the voice from the intercom, avoiding the obvious
straight line.  "Whatever."

	"Attaboy, Shinji!  Enthusiasm is the key!"

	<I knew it was a mistake to switch her Yebisu for Dr. Pepper,>
Shinji sighed as his lungs filled with LCL.  <Nobody should have that much
caffeine in their body ...>

	"EVA Unit 01 -- HA--"

	It was at that moment that the little white flag popped out of the
top of the Angel, and began waving furiously.

	Everyone stared.

	Misato recovered first.  "--SHIIN!"

	The Evangelion unit failed to launch.  Everyone else was still
staring at the little white flag.

	"What are you waiting for?" Misato yelled at the bridge bunnies.
"Launch the big ugly robot already!"

	"Uh ... Major, isn't that a flag of surrender?" Ibuki Maya asked
quietly.

	"They're aliens!" Misato hissed.  "Launch the EVA!  For all we
know, waving a white flag means, `We've come to eat your kids!'"

	The irony of the statement was lost on everyone present, with one
possible exception.  That exception now said, in a quiet voice, "Don't
launch the EVA."

	Everyone turned to look up at the Commander, seated high on his
throne, gazing over the lenses of his dark-lensed spectacles and his
folded hands.  "Start scanning the radio frequencies."

	Fuyutsuki turned to stare at his superior officer in shock.
"Ikari ... you can't mean ..."

	Behind his hands, Ikari Gendou smiled.  "It's all going according
to schedule."

	The fact that Fuyutsuki Kouzou had, earlier this week, seen Gendou
march into NERV's commissary, gaze at the menu, and murmur "Ah, beef
wellington.  It's all going according to schedule," meant that this
statement gave him rather less comfort than it might.

	Which wasn't saying much in the first place.

	Let's face it, the schedule sucks.

	Anyway, Aoba Shigeru was listening intently to the radio
frequencies.  "I don't believe it!  All we're getting on all the channels
is ... is ..."

	"What?  What?" asked virtually everyone else.

	"I think it's music from Close Encounters Of The Third Kind."

	After the massive face fault which ensued, the maker of that forty
year old movie was hauled out of the Wells-like seclusion in which  he had
spent his years since the Second Impact, and made to translate the musical
signals from the alien, after the traditional NERV psychological pressure
was applied.  Spielberg caved when a heavily bandaged Rei was wheeled out
in front of him, having no way of knowing that she was quite fine and that
this was all a head game.

	But then, when wasn't it?

	In any event, the message from the Angel was translated, and
censored, as follows.

	"Dear Earth People,

		Okay, we can tell that you're not going to let us
	get at <censored> without a fight.  Even though <censored>.
	Even though <censored>.  Even after you idiots <censored>.
	Fine.  Be that way.  We'll do this the hard way.

		If your champion, whom we have determined to be
	one --

	("They mean Ayanami Rei," Gendou interrupted during the
translation.

	"Uh, no, those tones correspond to the syllables --"

	"No, they *mean* --"

	"Look, you asshole, if you think I'm going to let you send that
poor wounded girl up to do some sort of fighting in an ugly robot that 
doesn't even look as good as a Zaku when some slob with a dumb name like
Ikari Shinji can do it, you're crazy!" said the aging filmmaker.

	<Hoist by my own petard,> Gendou thought.  <Doesn't matter.  It's
all going according to schedule.>]

	-- Ikari Shinji, can compete with our champion in the
	traditional game of our kind, we'll let your species go
	on its merry self-destructive way.

		If he can't win, well then we'll just <censored>
	and we'll <censored> and we'll <censored> the <censored> 
	down, do what we came here to do, and get the hell out
	of this backwater system.

		Chiao!

					The Last Angel."


	"Ne, Sempai, what's the traditional game of the Angels?" Maya
asked Ritsuko after the contents of the "letter" were made public.

	"Who cares?  TAKE ME NOW YOU SHORT HAIRED DEMON OF LUST!" Ritsuko
screamed, and a whole lot of naughtiness started to the accompaniment of
the throbbing beat of another, less well-known movie of the 1970s.

	"-- or possibly Go ... it's hard to say.  It's bound to be
something intellectual and -- Maya?  Maya, are you listening to me
lecture?" Ritsuko asked, staring at her protege's dazed eyes.

	"Huh?" Maya asked, as she was jolted out of her fantasy.  <Dammit
dammit dammit!> she raged inwardly, giving off as much angst as ... well,
as one of the Children on a "good" day.

	"Ahem.  As I was *saying*, it could be Chess, or --"

	It was at that point that the image of the Angel's champion
appeared on the monitor, and waved, stopping all conversation.

	Maya was silent for a long moment, then turned to Ritsuko.  "You
lose, babe," she said calmly.

	"What?  I mean -- are you the --" Ritsuko floundered.

	"Yes," said the five-feet-and-a-bit, tiger striped bikinied,
green-haired, short-horned, decidedly female -- *wonderfully* female, in
the opinion of all three bridge bunnies -- figure on the screen. "I'm here
to play tag, datcha!"

	Inside the Entry Plug, Shinji felt a feeling of doom descending on
his shoulders.

	Moreso than usual.

	A bit.	

                              Shito Yatsura:
                          Those Obnoxious Angels

                      "Suki yo!  Suki yo!  Suki yo!"
                                  meets
                            "Sucks to be you!"

                            More Coming Soon!!

Chris Davies, Advocate for Darkness, Part-Time Champion of Light.
"Damn it all, how am I supposed to sit here and wallow in self-pity and
disgust with all this racket going on?" -- Yuusaku Godai, Maison Ikkoku.
http://www.ualberta.ca/~cdavies/hmpage.html