[Ranma][NGE][HPL][AMG][Fusion][Fanfic] Sic Semper Morituri Chapter 33 -
History is a Nightmare from Which I am Trying to Awake
Disclaimer:
I do not own any of the characters from Ranma 1 / 2, Neon Genesis
Evangelion, Ah My Goddess, or the Lovecraft Cycle involved in these
stories.
C&C , MSTs are welcome
E-mail: dan_s.comments@worldnet.att.net
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per-Morituri
(these are the original versions)
What has gone before:
About Book 11 of the Tankoubon Manga, Akane and Soun Tendo throw Ranma
out of the house. Nabiki, in the guise of a wish, follows him. They meet
EVA pilots Shinji Ikari, Rei Ayanami, Asuka Soryu Langley and Jeffrey
Davis.
All of the pilots react to the disaster surrounding the destruction of
Cthugha and his cult in there own ways. Nabiki retreats, Asuka
investigates, Jeff attacks the SEELE. supporters, Ranma seeks a decisive
battle and is frustrated in this end, Rei and Shinji try to support Nabiki.
One of the SEELE members is killed in Osaka, and Natsumi Matsuda
witnesses the entire event, Jeff and Misato are sent to investigate.
Asuka takes Ranma to Tokyo University, meeting Belldandy and Keiichi.
Then they return to enjoy the carnival set up on the school grounds. The
arrival of an assassin of Nyarlathotep's cult spoils everyone's evening as
attacks the pilots and senior staff, he is destroyed by Asuka in Unit 02.
In the aftermath, Ranma, Rei and Asuka, make efforts to draw Nabiki out of
her shell.
Kaji investigates the facts of recent events, but doesn't realize his
contact is a Mi-Go. Ritsuko, Rei and Jeff discuss their origins and other
facts.
The S2 engines are tested, and NERV Tokyo vanishes. Nabiki and Rei
escape and land outside Roswell, NM., they must deal with the aftermath and
loss at NERV Las Vegas.
NERV Tokyo, in another reality, becomes the battle ground between the
crew and alien invaders.
Toji and Jeff transfer there to aid the fight. With the base is the
Outer God Ghroth, on the Outer God's surface is the device that brought the
base there, the trapped and intermixed spirits of the victims of Angel
Malaise, including Toji's sister.
Ritsuko and Jeff in one EVA and Asuka and Toji in another lead the
initial attack and begin to understand each other better.
Ghroth awakens and takes revenge on the Pilots and especially
Nyarlathotep.
Toji visits an unusual woman's kitchen, and gets a commission.
The other pilots all suffer nightmares.
So if your son and daughter seem too lazy,
sitting there watching bad TV,
just remember you should be quite grateful,
at least they are not making History.
'Cause . . .
History is made by stupid people,
clever people wouldn't even try,
So if you want a place in the history books,
do something dumb before you die.
History is made by Stupid People - The Arrogant Worms
July 6, 1947
A Prophet in Reverse
Gendo looked at the mustard colored sky. He had survived, Ghroth
simply vanished. Gendo would accept he was alive, there were still
possibilities.
"So that's the color of a hangover," Ritsuko stepped up next to him,
"That is the most disgusting green I've ever seen."
"Green?" Gendo asked, "It's not that color."
"Hmmm," Ritsuko stared at the sky, "The pilots are in the med center,
the three of them are deep in the grip of nightmares. We can't wake them,
and I don't know when they'll recover."
"If they recover, if we can get back to the real world," Gendo said
flatly, he felt numb.
"Well, do you have any ideas how to get home?"
"We have to figure out where we are, specifically: what kind of
universe we have found ourselves in."
"How do we go about that? Radar goes on forever, gravity seems a
point to point phenomenon. I don't know what other tests you do on a
universe," Ritsuko admitted.
Gendo mastered himself. "The Hall effect, test other universal
constants, once we discover where it is the same, and where it is
different, then we can make our assumptions about how to attack the
problem."
----------------------------------------
Rei woke suddenly, looked around. White walls, not flames, surrounded
her, she saw Nabiki-kun in the grip of a nightmare, not a tsunami rapidly
approaching. She was in a hospital room, Nabiki-kun was in the bed next to
her. Rei slipped out of the bed and approached the other girl. She was
expecting the scream and the look of horror.
"It was a dream," she said firmly, holding Nabiki-kun's face solidly
between her hands. She repeated herself over and over, as Nabiki-kun's
eyes and attention focused on her.
The troops bursting in were not a concern, compared to Nabiki-kun
painfully gripping her, burying her face in Rei's chest. Rei told them it
was a nightmare, common enough for pilots. Nabiki-kun had relaxed enough
that when the doctor arrived, a sedative was not necessary.
Rei was uncomfortable about the sobbing girl clinging to her, she
understood the reasons for Nabiki-kun's reaction. The dream had disturbed
Rei as well, but she took it as clues to the enemies' motivation. She
could hardly wait to return and tell the Commander.
She was concerned that this dream might have affected the other pilots
as it had Nabiki-kun. She did not know why or how she knew this. However,
even though Nabiki-kun had not confirmed it, Rei was certain that other
pilots had received the same dream. She wondered if this also meant that
the other pilots had survived.
"Be at ease," she told Nabiki-kun, stroking her hair as Nabiki-kun had
done for her, after washing her it. As Shinji-kun had done for her, on
that terrible night when Nabiki-kun had tried to take her own life. Rei
remembered how the sensation had soothed her, she hoped it would have the
same effect on Nabiki-kun.
"Only a dream?" Nabiki-kun said in a small voice, "Only a dream."
"Yes," Rei reassured her. Rei let the other girl relax and fall
asleep again, before she released her, arranging her in the bed.
Rei returned to her own bed and tried to remember all the details of
the actions of Cthulhu, his spawn and what they could possibly have been
doing that would result in such a titanic explosion.
----------------------------------------
Gendo looked over the others in the conference room, then out the
window at the sky. Ritsuko watched him, hoping for some clue to his mood
or his thoughts. The sky bothered her, Gendo said it was mustard-yellow,
she thought it was a bilious green, Captain Ramsey said violet, Maya a pale
pink, everyone had a different opinion. Assuming all of them were telling
the truth, then all they saw and felt was subjective. How could they
develop a solution to their current problems if they literally couldn't
agree on the facts of physical existence?
"The pilots' plans were not wholly successful. The attacks have
stopped," Gendo told the assembled officers, "But we are still here. Dr.
Akagi, pilot status?"
"Asuka, Shinji and Ranma are in the infirmary, under sedation. Unit
00, using the dummy plug, was able to recover units 01, 02 and 04, and lock
them back in the bay. I never expected it could be used for something like
that."
"Will they recover?" Gendo asked.
Ritsuko shook her head, "There's no way to know. We have found no
traces of either Davis or Suzuhara. We don't know if they are in a state
like the others, or if they somehow returned home."
Ramsey glanced around, "What progress has been made in figuring out
how to get home?"
"We aren't sure where we are," Gendo replied, "Until we discover that,
we cannot even attempt to get home."
"Are you going to tell the rest of us what that was all about?" Kaji
asked, "Davis called that thing Ghroth, and Asuka was screaming 'I am not
Nyhar,' or something. Why would two of those things be fighting each
other?"
"Why would they involve us in their battle?" Gendo asked.
Ritsuko remembered what the kids had mentioned, about the pilots being
used as executioners. Ritsuko wasn't sure if the paradigm still held, and
Nyarlathotep had overestimated the pilots.
"Could we reverse the S2 engines, get home that way?" Ramsey asked.
"Which of the hundreds of processes within them do we reverse, or what
combination?" Ritsuko asked in reply.
Gendo said, "Can we fully access the Magi's systems, they might have
some record or analysis that might help us."
Meaning: maybe the Elder Things encountered this before and left
records, Ritsuko thought, Only they might not have installed that
information into the computer system.
"What's our fuel status?" Ramsey asked, "We've been using a lot of
power."
"Our stores are adequate for some time," Gendo replied.
Like for the next 10,000,000 years, Ritsuko thought.
"The stores of food and especially fresh water are more worrisome.
The air seems unaffected by events, as if something is refreshing it
somehow," Gendo continued.
Aoba and Hyuga had been silently absorbing all this, completely out of
their depth. Baker was unwilling to speak up with Ramsey still asking
questions. Maya was lost in thought.
Ritsuko knew that either she and Maya, or Gendo and Fuyutsuki were the
ones who would likely find the answer, if there was one to be found. Until
one group or the other found an answer, they were stuck here.
Ramsey piped up again, "This may be stupid, but what are the walls of
this place? I mean, are we in a finite space or an infinite one?"
"How could we find out?" Gendo asked archly.
"We still have a few Long Toms, we fire them in several directions,
and see what happens."
"What if the shells come back and hit us?" Maya asked worriedly.
That stopped Ramsey for a moment, "What are we going to do otherwise?
We have practice rounds, no explosive warheads."
"One round, just to find out what happens," Gendo ordered, "Then one
to each cardinal direction."
Ramsey nodded to an aide who stood and headed out.
"Are there any other comments, questions, suggestions?" silence
answered Gendo, "Dismissed."
Everyone except Ritsuko and Captain Ramsey filed out.
"What didn't you want the others to hear?" Ramsey asked, in a tone
that suggested he _would_ have an answer from both of the others.
"The EVAs may be able to get us out of here. Their AT fields are
non-dimensional," Ritsuko ignored Gendo's glare and kept speaking, "Our
enemies have the ability to be 'elsewhere' when any attack lands. But not
in an AT field, there is no 'elsewhere'."
"So we encase the base in an AT field?" Ramsey asked.
"Asuka can probably do the manipulations, but she doesn't have the raw
power. Saotome and Ayanami do, but Saotome can't do the math in his head
and Ayanami isn't here."
Outside, a Long Tom 155 mm gun fired. A few seconds later, the sky
changed color.
"Did you see that?" Ramsey asked.
"That may not prove anything," Gendo commented offhandedly, "The shell
may have caused that, or the noise of the gun," he warned.
The sky was returning to normal, to Ritsuko a bilious green.
"But at least we can affect this place," Ramsey countered.
"I assume you want me to wake one of the pilots," Ritsuko said,
"Despite any risk to them?"
"What other alternatives are there?" Gendo asked angrily.
Ritsuko suspected Fuyutsuki was prepping another `suitable candidate`.
She knew that was what was inside the dummy plug that had dragged the other
EVAs inside. She had euthanized the poor misshapen thing after they'd
removed it from the entry plug. `Born` without enough skin to keep
everything, all its bones and organs, inside. And unable to breathe air.
She almost didn't have to kill it, as it was dying before her eyes. Only
the face had been recognizable as Rei. The concoction she'd used was
instantly and painlessly lethal.
The wretched thing had looked so grateful. Ritsuko wasn't eager to
risk the pilots in the same way, but if that's what they needed to get them
home . . . . Ritsuko didn't like the alternatives, she wondered if Shinji
could make it work. She doubted it. Ironically, she needed to talk to
Asuka, perhaps the girl would have some solution they hadn't thought of, or
spark some answer none of them had seen.
----------------------------------------
July 7, 1947
Rei waited in her dreamscape. She had felt them `activate` another
one. Wherever they were, they still had the tanks, so they still had a
large supply of Reis. This time she was going to try something different.
She idly wished Nabiki-kun was a Dreamer, she could have used some help
doing this. But none of the Dreamers were available.
The square was the first thing she remembered about the place when she
first dreamed herself here, she'd collected the 'Baby Wondergirl' the first
Rei, who confirmed that she too had first arrived here. The level of
intimidation and threat Rei had been forced to use, just to get the little
one to pay attention to her long enough to get a coherent answer, amazed
her. It was more than impoliteness or apathy, it was as if the little one
did not believe Rei existed, that all the other Reis were not figments of
her imagination. She would need help from the other Dreamers to confirm
her theory, but each of the other Reis must believe that this was their
private place, that all the others were phantoms.
Or was it more? Rei wondered. She held the little one by both
shoulders, to prevent her from leaving. This new Rei would at least have a
welcoming committee.
The girl appeared, screaming in pain. Rei released the little one.
Rei knew that had happened before, it was 'normal' for the Reis who died to
react that way. What was different was Rei's reaction to the other girl's
distress. Before her experience with Nabiki-kun, she would not have been
brave enough to do this, she would not have known how effective this was.
The girl materialized as a misshapen thing, probably what she actually
looked like, then changed into a girl who looked exactly like Rei.
Rei knelt down and tentatively held the other girl, as she had held
Nabiki-kun, saying nothing, stroking her hair as she had Nabiki-kun's.
Pacifying her. The little one had run away when Rei released her, she
evidently had little loyalty to the others of her `kind`.
Exhaustion finally silenced the girl's cries and Rei held her,
stroking her hair, saying nothing. It was an odd feeling, comforting
herself. She wished she could understand all the changes she was going
through, she wished she could understand if they would help the mission, or
harm it. As she became stronger in some ways, she became more vulnerable
in others.
Depending on the other Children gave her a sense of well-being she had
not had before, but they could also manipulate her or be used to manipulate
her, as Belldandy had. She knew she was `unclean` in the Goddesses' eyes,
her entire race was `unclean`, long fallen.
No, Rei thought, We did not Fall, we rejected Heaven for Earth and the
pleasures there.
She idly stroked the girl's hair, the trusting life in her hands.
Although the girl was another her, she could still kill her with ease. Yet
she would not, there was something seductive about being trusted. Being
stronger, yet not using it against them, having the 'right' to be
vulnerable around the others as well. It was new, disturbing . . . and
very attractive.
She let the girl in her lap sleep, they would have time to talk when
she awoke, then . . . then she did not know what would happen, despite the
theoretical similarity between them.
----------------------------------------
Rei raced through the dreamscapes. The other her, the other `Rei` had
told her what had befallen the pilots. Rei had told her about Sarah,
invited her to explore the new world.
As if someone like I am would not explore every millimeter without
being told to, she remembered all the places Gendo, Yui and Ritsuko had
found her while they were building NERV, until she knew the corridors, pipe
alleys and air shafts better than the architects did.
Then she stopped, and realized she had thought 'someone' instead of
'something'. It was a subtle change in her thinking, as was her desire to
connect with the other Reis as she had connected with the pilots. She
wondered if that was why she had contacted the 'people' she had for help.
She had not tried to contact Sarah, nor recruited the new Rei.
Instead she had gone straight into the Dreamlands, confronted the ones
there, told them the problem and begged on her belly for their help. Only
the last had angered them, during the rest, they had been amused. Now she
raced to Shinji's aid, she could only guess to which the Meliorist and the
Scholarly Dragon would go. It was not important, what was important was
that they went.
----------------------------------------
Ranma ran, he hadn't seen his actual pursuer, but he _heard_ it. A
huge, growling cry that even the 'other' in his head feared. There was no
question about the wisdom of flight, he simply couldn't manage anything
else.
He thought he had opened the gap on it several times, then woods or
rocks or something would slow him down, and it would close again. Once it
had closed enough, he glimpsed it. Round face, tufted ears, and only one
red, slitted eye. It hadn't been looking at him, so he couldn't guess
about the other eye.
Of course if it had been looking _at_ him, he wouldn't be here now.
It yowled again and the same corkscrew sensation went up his backbone,
nearly made him fall again. He didn't waste any breath screaming for help.
It would never come, even if it did, it could never move fast enough to
reach him.
----------------------------------------
And I Quote the Fights Historical
She waited in a small defile, her crossbow at the ready, her
sabre-halberd within easy reach. The Meliorist would have preferred to
rescue Asuka, but the Scholarly Dragon had warned that Asuka's fears might
overwhelm both of them. Both had instantly known that Rei was going after
Spineless, so she was stuck rescuing Horseface from his silly cat-fear.
One day she would find out the whom and the how; and that day, whoever
had done this would live just long enough to know all the fear an expert
could inflict. On that day, someone(s) would spend their last moments in
abject terror, pleading for the mercy of death.
She heard running feet and the sound of a tomcat, a very _large_
tomcat. But not today, she raised the crossbow as she thought, That
doesn't sound like a fighting yowl, that sounds more like . . . Now she
wondered whether Ran_ma_ or Ran_ko_ would appear. Kittens, she thought
that would have been Horseface's ultimate nightmare. She was a little
confused to see the boy run over the ridge and jump over the defile she was
in.
Surprise didn't prevent her from putting the bolt right into the
pursuer's immense eye. She cursed as the mass of the dying thing still
carried it forward. It would probably collapse into the defile with her,
so she scrambled out as quickly as she could. Dignity be hanged. There
were worse things than losing your dignity, not many, but a few.
----------------------------------------
The rock bounced off Asuka's already bloodied hands as she clawed at
the rope. Gripping desperately, as her other hand slipped due to the blood
from earlier wounds that slickened the rope. Her arms were tiring and the
rope was already cutting into her neck. If she couldn't hold on, she'd
slowly strangle to death, no drop to a broken neck as her mother had done.
Another rock bounced off her, as well as a string of curses. Cursed for
things she had done, and also things she'd failed to do. All her sins in
the catalog. She had too little energy to complain about the unfairness of
it all. Things had gone her way when it was important, life had not been
fair, on the whole, she thought she had `won`. But dying in a filthy,
blood-smeared shift, dangling at the end of a rope was not how she wanted
to go. Her arms ached from the effort of holding off that fate, her
fingernails torn and fingers bloodied to buy her a few more minutes, she
accepted those as part of the game. An unseen crowd throwing rocks and
insults didn't help at all.
A rock bouncing off the back of her head nearly cost Asuka her grip on
the rope. She was beginning to wonder if she should concentrate on
repositioning the rope, getting enough height and just . . .
"No!" she croaked.
Not like my mother. Not like my mother! she vowed.
"Not like my mother!" she screamed as the tears came, she couldn't
stop them. She was so tired and hurt, she didn't care about the jeers of
the crowd, the stones they threw. She would survive, no matter what. Not
for her mother, not for them, but for herself.
The sudden drop as the rope broke was unexpected. Now she was
falling, she clawed the rope loose, but as she fell, she started worrying
about the landing.
----------------------------------------
"And will you not forgive yourself, even for that?" the Scholarly
Dragon gently asked the bloody, disheveled girl in his hands, as he swept
them both through this realm of nightmares. "You couldn't have saved her."
"Like I couldn't help Jeff after Samuel died! Like I couldn't save
you!" Asuka snapped back, full of hatred, of herself, "I hate losing. I
don't even know if we succeeded here."
"No, and until we get you out of your nightmare, you will never know."
"Aren't knights supposed to save maidens _from_ dragons?" Asuka asked
archly.
"I can always put you back at the end of your rope," the dragon
offered.
"NO . . . I just wanted to test my memories, see if I retained the old
formulae."
"This is a new age," the dragon banked, searching for a way out that
wouldn't overly traumatize his passenger. There were things about Asuka
and the Meliorist that were, frankly, none of his business. He could
ignore any lesser nightmares. None could match him, and what he once
represented, not even here.
----------------------------------------
Rei swam through the fluid. It was warm, clear, and smelled of blood.
She could also breathe it, like L.C.L., and it conducted sound. The slow
steady booming drew her forward. It sounded like two immense heartbeats,
slightly out of sync. She was not sure of what she would find, but it
seemed like the best place to start.
The lack of the train seemed strange. Shinji-kun had always retreated
to the train in his dreams. Not this time, that worried her.
The sound now got particularly louder as she approached. Despite the
clarity of the liquid, she could only see 50 meters or so. So when she
reached her destination, what she saw amazed her.
A baby in a womb, she thought as she swam closer, A baby as large as
an EVA. But as she swam around the black-haired boy, she could not find
the source of the second heartbeat.
Then it all became clear. Rei fled in terror.
He _cannot_ know! He can't possibly! she thought desperately as she
swam away as fast as she could.
She could not help him, she couldn't do to him what revealing the
truth would do. It was better if he only suspected, or feared.
One of the others will have to do this! Rei screamed in her mind, I
cannot do this! Not to him! Not to the Commander!
Her own fear nearly overwhelmed her before she escaped.
As she stood outside the nightmare, the once warm and inviting liquid
chilling and became slimy on her skin, her body ached from the exertions.
She pulled her legs to her chest and buried her face in her arms. "I
cannot, I cannot, I just cannot."
He will find out, she told herself, Not from _ME_!_ She knew she was
losing control, she was also being `spineless`. But a few facts would
undermine everything, as if the trap had been set for _her_ rather than
him. Then she realized perhaps it had, for Shinji-kun to see her running
away from him in fear was perhaps the thing he feared most, the fear that
hurt him the deepest.
But she could not convince herself to go back, no matter how badly
Shinji-kun needed her.
----------------------------------------
"That's it?!" Ranma was incredulous, "That's what I've been running
from?" Ranma asked the . . . he wasn't even going to try to pronounce her
impossible name, he'd just think of her as Asuka Senior.
"Fear magnifies things," she replied calmly, like Asuka at her
self-satisfied worst.
'It' looked like one of the temple koi with the huge eyes. It had one
eye staring forward instead of two staring up. The rest of the body was a
long-bodied cat. The eye had been perhaps a half-meter across and the body
was less than a meter long.
"I could have taken this myself!" Ranma complained.
"Not with your bare hands you couldn't." The woman tapped the thing
with the back of her odd, ax-bladed nagitana. The corpse rang, like metal.
"You haven't learned much from your earlier experiences?" she asked, "Have
you?"
"What was I supposed to do?!" Ranma asked defensively.
"How about summon an electrical storm? How about shoot it with
something? How about use the sword and scabbard someone gave you?" she
fussed at him, "How about using your brain for something besides keeping
your hair out of your mouth?"
She's Asuka all right, Ranma didn't say, he was aware that the
nagitana was probably sharper than her tongue.
"He taught you all that, why didn't you use it?" she stepped closer,
let Ranma get a good look at how sharp the blade really was. "I expect an
answer."
Ranma uncrossed his eyes, "I was scared - ALL RIGHT, I ADMIT IT! I
was scared!"
"And you think that's something to be ashamed of?" she asked, "Getting
scared, running away from an Outer God? Now you know why Wondergirl didn't
want to fight the inspector. You wouldn't have lasted against it."
Ranma frowned at her, then heard the cries of many cats, "I don't
think we're out of this yet."
----------------------------------------
Ritsuko stood at the door to her medical lab, preventing entrance.
She thought it was strange that normally mousy, dutiful Maya was behind
her, backing her up.
"I heard what you said, Commander, and I said 'It is too dangerous'."
"It is a direct order," Gendo repeated.
"Then I want that order in writing, sir, both your signature and
Captain Ramsey's. In the interim, I will continue using less extreme, and
more effective, methods to awaken them. I don't disagree with your
premise, Commander, but I am the medical expert, and I will decide the
means to achieve those objectives."
Gendo glared, and turned away.
"I'm proud of you, sempai," Maya whispered, she probably didn't expect
Ritsuko to hear.
"Don't be. My objection to electro-shock is that it probably won't
work, and I know the Commander didn't discuss this with Captain Ramsey,"
Ritsuko turned to Maya, "If I thought it would work, and it had the
blessings of the Navy, I wouldn't have hesitated. We have perhaps an hour
to find something else."
Ritsuko ignored Maya's shocked look and returned to her patients.
Chemical stimulants, mild pain, noise, hadn't roused them. Heavy-duty
electro-shock probably wouldn't affect them either. "We need a different
approach."
"Maybe discomfort hasn't reached them. There is an obvious
alternative."
"You aren't suggesting what I think you're suggesting!" Ritsuko
accused.
Maya blushed, "NO! Sempai. Morphine, give them a sense of bliss,
something they can differentiate from their nightmares."
Ritsuko considered. Morphine hadn't quieted Asuka when they first
brought her in, so she wasn't eager to find out what effect it would have
on the others. Nevertheless, she didn't have another solution immediately
available and Maya's plan made sense.
"Okay, doctor, what dosage do we use? A small or a large dose?"
Now that the decisions seemed to be hers, Maya looked a lot less
confident. "I think we'll have to go with the largest dose we dare."
"Then we have to weigh him, then calculate that from his body weight.
Let's also get an idea what the recommended dosage is as well," Ritsuko
said.
----------------------------------------
The Meliorist looked at the tree, at the ring of cats surrounding it,
and at the terrified boy as high up as he could climb, screaming his head
off. His yowls had become particularly catlike, the Meliorist devoutly
hoped it was just her imagination.
The cats ignored her unless she got too close, then they all stared at
her, and their eyes glowed an unearthly blue. At that point she backed up,
reloaded the powerful crossbow, and began picking them off, one at a time.
They didn't react, but that also wasn't helpful, there were too many for
her to kill them this slowly. She knew better than to wade into the middle
of them. They contented themselves with having 'treed' Ranma, and they
weren't even climbing after him. She wasn't sure of the action she would
have to take, she also got the distinct impression Ranma was stuck here
until he faced his nightmare. As satisfying as the thought of shooting him
out of the tree was, she doubted it would have the desired effect. She
sincerely hoped _somebody_ was having better luck than she was.
----------------------------------------
"Left! Left! Left!!" Asuka pointed and shouted.
"What do you think I'm doing?!" the dragon shouted back as he banked
sharply.
Whatever was chasing them was much faster, but nowhere near as
maneuverable or experienced in air-to-air combat. Asuka didn't want to
look behind, the occasional shot from behind, when the dragon ceased his
frantic zigzagging to make a tight maneuver, was all she needed to know
they were still being pursued.
Under a fallen pillar, between two columns, through a 3-D chicane, all
without comment. The dragon hadn't lost a bit of his skill in aerial
maneuvering.
But neither had they lost their pursuers. The enemy was raising a
portcullis across their path, at least she thought it was rising, she
wouldn't have bet money on what was up, down, or sideways right now.
The dragon breathed a bit of jet black material on the heavy wooden
crosspieces, damaging them enough that the portcullus collapsed as they
flew through it and into the clear. They were out, no barricades, no
obstacles.
A bolt of blue fire missed her by centimeters.
"I thought you said once we were out, it was over!" the dragon shouted
as he started a series of frenzied evasive maneuvers.
"Would you let me think?!" she shouted back, "These things are the
last obstacle, we take care of them, we're home free!"
"We?" the dragon asked, "I don't have a lance or a crossbow, and there
are 50 of them."
"Well then, I'll take a nap. I'd hate to interfere in your fun."
Asuka nearly giggled at the stream of grumbling and insults about
'ungrateful humans', as he began a series of maneuvers that would end up as
an attack run. She knew they'd get out, because she'd never seen anything
fly like the Scholarly Dragon. It was like watching a B-29 dogfighting a
Zero, and knowing the Zero didn't have a prayer. She remembered Galland's
word about fighter pilots, she wondered what the General Ace would make of
this 'Spirit of Attack'.
----------------------------------------
Many Cunning Passages, Contrived Corridors
Shinji floated free, he'd been floating for a while, but he had such a
terrible sense of loss, of incompleteness, that he hadn't been able to
enjoy it. Now he was enjoying everything and the earlier feeling didn't
matter. The funny faces hovering over him made him laugh, they looked a
little like Ritsuko and his father, but like weird masks.
"They're going to lock you in a chair and run electricity through
you," Ritsuko-grotesque said.
"Crispy," Shinji laughed at the thought.
----------------------------------------
"And how is this better?" Gendo stared at Ritsuko, as both of them
ignored the inane ramblings of Shinji, who at the moment thought Gendo's
beard was extraordinarily funny.
"He is awake," Ritsuko answered.
"Nooo IIII'mm nooot!!" Shinji taunted.
"We'll use a much smaller dose on Asuka."
"And turn me into a giggling idiot like him?" Asuka sat up painfully,
looked around the room, "I must have done something really bad to wind up
in the same Circle of Hell as you two. Still, Spineless is right about
your beard."
Gendo frowned.
Ritsuko thought he'd order electro-shock treatment for that comment
alone.
"How do you feel?" Maya asked Asuka.
"Like I've been drunk." Asuka moved slowly, as if all of her hurt,
she kept rubbing her neck.
"Hangover?" Maya asked.
"No, swallowed, digested and excreted." Asuka slipped off the bed,
and managed to stay upright only by hanging onto Maya.
"Get her started on the problem, inform me of any progress." Gendo
turned and left.
"His gratitude in this regard is overwhelming," Asuka said, scraping
her tongue on her teeth, "Can we just leave him here? We can tell
Spineless and Wondergirl how honorably he died."
"I'm afraid not," Ritsuko said, "Any other questions?"
"Yes," Asuka scraped her tongue across her teeth again, made a face.
"Why did you let your cats go to the bathroom in my mouth."
----------------------------------------
Asuka felt a little sorry for Spineless, he was still a little loopy,
but he was doing his best to stay in this reality. "I've seen you look
better," she told him.
He glared at her, swaying slightly, neither of his pupils were the
same size.
Asuka suspected he wouldn't be happy tomorrow. She also would put Ice
Princess and Raccoon on the job of watching him, keeping him away from
certain things. She'd seen people lost to morphine after recovering from
injuries. The all-consuming need was all that was left of them.
She found Spineless irritating, but she'd never let someone fall into
that trap. If I can help it, she thought as she smirked at him,
Considering he's looking after our Tactical Officer, he'll probably avoid
it himself. But she would still set those two bloodhounds on his trail
anyway.
"So when do you want us to do this?" Spineless asked, and started to
lean.
"As soon as you are able," Ritsuko told them, pushed Spineless upright
again.
"How much coffee do you have, the stuff Misato brews?" Asuka asked.
"We don't want to mix those."
"Antiparticles?" Asuka asked, then explained when neither understood,
"Antiparticles are the opposite of regular particles, when they meet: POOF!
Just energy left. What's still in his system, plus Misato's coffee - BOOM!
Blow us all the way home," she paused, "Now there's an idea."
"No, I'm afraid he'd dissolve, or turn into a moose, or see the world
as it truly is," Ritsuko said gravely. Unfortunately, Spineless had fallen
asleep again.
"I think you gave him too much."
"Yes, Dr. Asuka, we know that," Ritsuko said crossly.
----------------------------------------
"No, you couldn't be afraid of just ordinary cats!" the Meliorist
shouted at the statue under her arm as she ran, "You have to be afraid of
anything even remotely catlike."
Ranma's only reply was an embarrassed 'meew'.
"Yeah, right!" the Meliorist thought as she ran, I ought to just throw
you at the thing, serve you both right.
She glanced over her shoulder at the lion-headed snake, with the
butterfly wings. It would have been ridiculously cute, except it was 20
meters long, and extremely interested in them. Even that would have made
it ridiculous, until she hit it with enough crossbow bolts that you could
add porcupine to the list of ingredients. Even if she'd missed every vital
spot it had, it shouldn't have been able to get airborne with the
additional weight. It was definitely still alive, and smart enough to
avoid closing with her, although it desperately wanted to get at Ranma, who
had completely flipped out.
She had chased Ranma over all manner of landscape until she caught
him, then he curled up and froze.
Somebody should tell him that catatonic, has nothing to do with cats,
the Meliorist ran, looking for a good spot to make a stand, where she could
bait it with Ranma, and kill it. But a landscape filled with balls of yarn
and flippy cat-toys swaying in the breeze didn't give her many
opportunities. She wondered if the entire landscape was under his control,
including or excluding the monsters chasing them.
Ranma suddenly twisted out of her grip, ran about a hundred meters
ahead, and stopped, standing on all fours. Back arched, his hair all
sticking out, even his pigtail standing straight up and bristling.
The Meliorist prepared to confront whatever had set off the mad boy.
Horse-face, nothing, she thought as she approached slowly, Horse-cat. She
smiled grimly, then more grimly as she saw what Horseface was considering
confronting. She glanced back at the approaching lion-snake.
Oohh! This ought to be good, she thought as she left Ranma apparently
alone to face the creature.
The monster yowled its warcry and dove. Ranma flattened all his hair
and hunkered down. The lion-snake spared a glance at the Meliorist, who
was too far away to intervene, and was ignoring Ranma's plaintive meews.
"'The enemy of my enemy, can usually be eaten in peace,'" the
Meliorist said, "Introducing - "
"_WOOF_!_!_" The huge head of the Scholarly Dragon rocketed out of
the depression, propelled by its massive legs and wings.
The lion-snake's hesitation lasted just long enough for the dragon to
get a solid grip with its teeth, just behind the head. It whipped the
creature up and down, breaking its neck. The Meliorist watched the huge
monster toss the smaller one farther back in its mouth, then the heavy
shearing teeth separated the head from the body. The body disappeared down
the dragon's gullet like a strand of spaghetti.
"If you say it tasted like chicken," the Meliorist threatened as the
head followed the rest of the lion-snake, "I'll slug you."
"Escargot sans armoure, magnifique," the dragon said, then glared
balefully at Ranma, who suddenly took refuge behind her. The boy or cat
couldn't look at the pupilless, glowing, yellow eyes. "Bad kitty!" the
dragon said, with the odd harmonics dragons use when they are truly angry.
The unheard sounds that tell the most primitive part of every brain that
'since you are already dead, playing dead might be a good idea'.
"You have never been good at training animals," the dragon told her,
while Ranma lay with his arms and legs in the air twitching, "The Little
One ran into problems with Ikari, and he left on his own, maybe you should
enlist her help. Your analog escaped, and is no longer available."
The Meliorist grimaced, "She's got even less tolerance of his
foolishness than I do."
The huge creature shrugged, "I have to see a spider about some real
estate, I'll send some help. Good luck."
"I'll settle for an idea of how to get out of this," she complained.
"Only the boy can get you out, evidently the cat can't," he told her
as he spread his immense wings and leapt into the air, "How you do that is
your business."
"If you weren't so much bigger than I am . . . " she shouted and shook
her fist at the dragon, obviously retreating from her in overwhelming
terror. It's laughter not withstanding.
"What happened?" Ranma asked as he stirred, stood up, "I remember a
tree and . . . nothing."
"Ignorance is bliss in this case," she told him, "I'm sure we can get
the marriage annulled. You never managed to consummate it." She ignored
his horrified expression. "I'm just waiting to see the _next_ nightmare
you come up with." She glanced around, the yarn and cat-toys were all
gone. It was flat ground plenty of warning for the approach, good footing
for the fight. "You don't happen to have a couple of 88's buried around
here?"
"What's an 88 supposed to do?" the question mystified Ranma.
She just sighed, "If I explained it, you'd just tell me 'Guns don't
solve anything'. I'd like to put that to the test against the next
nightmare you come up with."
"HEY!" Ranma protested, "It's not like I _want_ to be here!"
"Spineless and Asuka already got out," the Meliorist told him, "You're
the only one still trapped in your own delusion."
Ranma stalked off in a huff.
----------------------------------------
The shivering, blanket-wrapped figure, still in his hat and coat,
would have looked laughable. Except for what he had just told Admiral
Simson and General Tomlinson.
"Davis," the Admiral asked, "What did the tank you saw look like, and
where would you guess it was located in NERV?"
"Near the lowest levels, a huge gray metal, not like steel, more like
lead, no reflectivity, open topped," he told them through chattering teeth,
"Dumped all the pilots or their remains in, all mixed with something else,
huge explosion, big as wiped out dinosaurs. Wall of flame, wave miles
high, hit California, stopped in Kansas City."
"Do you believe this was a prediction, or an explanation?" Tomlinson
asked.
"Explains, why destroy everything, burn down house you're fighting in.
Something else, something else to kill in th' house, something need th'
whole house to kill."
Simson sat back, the dream, if that's what it was, was too accurate to
be anything but a sending. The obvious questions of by whom and why hung
over the questions of accuracy, and what should be done with the
information. "Several of the victims of Angel's Malaise have regained
consciousness. They all report nightmares. Suzuhara's sister Yumiwashi
among them, he was quite upset. This could be your nightmare."
"Then why you two so scared?" Davis managed and shivered, "Maybe I'm
just the carrier, nightmare's yours."
Simson frowned, "Well, NERV Tokyo is not here, and I'm not sending you
back. I'll have the orderly get you a hot . . . make that a warm bath, and
a place to sleep. We'll talk again later."
Davis nodded as the orderly entered and practically had to carry the
boy from the room.
"Suzuhara was right about the fire extinguishers," Tomlinson said,
"Saw a man try to escape from a burning tank, acted just the same. I guess
he really thought he was being incinerated. Not a good way to die."
"The dream," Simson turned and stared at the shipyards and the harbor.
The nagging feeling he should be up at the site wouldn't leave him alone.
He also had another decision to make. "How much do you know about our
enemies?"
"You mean SEELE?" Tomlinson asked, smiled at Simson's confusion. "I
may be a stodgy, old stick-in-the-mud, but I know enough to learn all I can
about our enemy."
"I was surprised you said SEELE and not the Angels," Simson admitted.
"I was in Europe, Admiral, not in the Pacific. There were rumors from
France to Czechoslovakia that Hindenburg and Lenin died neither peacefully
nor accidentally. Amazing coincidence. Two maniacal paranoids achieved
absolute power in two of the most powerful nations in continental Europe,
two countries with a long and glorious history of hating each others'
guts." Tomlinson smiled at the Admiral, "Even I can figure out two plus
two plus two is six."
"What would you say if I knew we had, well allies . . . from the other
side?" Simson asked.
"I'd ask if you ever sat in on a General Staff conference at SHAEF.
Patton, Montgomery, DeGaulle, Bradley . . . damn lucky the Krauts were even
more messed up than we were. With those kinds of `friends`, anything is
possible. What exactly are you trying not to say."
"I get the distinct impression there are a lot of, well people, in the
broadest sense of the word, who are as confused and unhappy about this war
as we are."
"Fine, let them send in a few divisions, or police their own,"
Tomlinson said breezily, "I know that will never happen, but I can - dream
- can't I?"
Simson realized he'd badly underestimated the man. There were ways of
hiding things, and camouflage was one of the best. "Then you can sit in on
Suzuhara's further interrogation, you might find it interesting."
----------------------------------------
The Dread Lord Gendo has once again summoned all his faithful
servants, Kaji thought as Ritsuko and Asuka entered the conference room
where he, Gendo, Fuyutsuki and Ramsey already waited. A few moments later,
Maya bustled in with a stack of files in her arms.
Gendo dispensed with any pleasantries or preface, "The Great White
Space," he intoned, adjusted his glasses, "That is where we are."
"As the senior member here," Ramsey said, "I claim the right to sound
like an idiot, if this is the Great White Space, why do all of us see it as
different colors, and none of us see it as white?"
And why does Gendo suddenly look so suspicious? Kaji noted the swiftly
hidden look on Gendo's face, So, Gendo and Fuyutsuki _aren't_ the only
Mythos experts, Mr. Ramsey, sir, you just made yourself our Dear
Commander's Number One Target. Kaji leaned back to listen to the
explanation.
"Perhaps it is the nature of the effect that brought us here," Gendo
told them, "A disguise, to prevent us from guessing our position and taking
action."
Kaji noted the discussion took on an esoteric bent, and he couldn't
follow a bit of it. Until they mentioned the magnetic rings, then he and
Asuka perked up.
"So we generate a powerful enough magnetic force and we get out?"
Asuka asked, glanced at Ritsuko, rather than Commanders Ikari or Fuyutsuki.
"No," Gendo said, "The best we can hope for is to navigate to the
nearest opening, legends place it in Burma or China. There we can offload
all the critical supplies and equipment, as well as all the personnel who
wish to leave - "
"That's unacceptable," Asuka insisted.
You go get him! Kaji hid his smile, surreptitiously glancing around
the table for any other smiles or signs of approval, Why Ritsuko, you
naughty girl. Why aren't you backing the Commanders' play?
"The magnetic fields required are well beyond anything that can be
generated by the equipment on this base," Ritsuko explained to Asuka, "The
abstract mathematics required for that kind of manipulation are beyond even
the Magi."
"Well, if it's all mathematics," Kaji said, "I guess we are doomed."
Asuka's head came around so fast, Kaji was afraid she'd get whiplash.
Her hurt expression turned to fury as she saw the huge grin that Kaji was
wearing. She glanced around for something to throw.
"You could just leave him here," Ramsey suggested to Asuka in German.
Kaji really didn't like the look Asuka gave him, Davis had given him a
smile like that once. Kaji still had bad dreams about that smile, very
weird, very bad dreams.
"There is also the problem of shielding the base and it's inhabitants
from a magnetic field that strong," Ramsey pointed out.
"Faraday cage," Maya muttered, at a moment of sudden quiet, so
everyone heard her. She turned beet red and tried to sink into her chair
behind Dr. Akagi.
"We certainly have the cable necessary," Fuyutsuki said.
"Make a net large enough to cover the buildings, all of them," Kaji
scoffed.
"Give the job to Horseface," Asuka said in a disgusted tone, "Tell him
it's martial arts netmaking. If he ever wakes up."
Ramsey and Gendo exchanged glances, both seemed satisfied with the
suggestion. Waking Saotome would be the sticking point to the plan.
"Doctor Akagi, see to the awakening."
God, Gendo makes it sound portentous, Kaji thought.
"We will prepare the data, using the Magi's data on this phenomenon,"
Gendo said, then he stared at Asuka, "I expect your best effort."
Asuka had some trouble meeting that stare, "You've always gotten it,"
she replied in Japanese. "Whenever you've bothered to ask," she added
under her breath in German.
"The cable is stored in various locations, it will be assembled and
positioned to speed construction. Are there any questions?"
You mean questions you'd actually give a straight answer to? Kaji
thought, Nope, I thought not. The groups filed out of the room. Kaji
noted a rather strange glance between Ritsuko and Gendo, enigmatic and
swiftly hidden. Once out of the conference room, Ramsey and Ritsuko shared
a nod, Ramsey smiled at Asuka, who was storming away in a huff. Kaji
considered, So, who is playing whom, and for what purpose? Kaji decided to
follow Asuka, she liked to hear herself talk and prove how smart she was,
he could find out a lot from her right now.
----------------------------------------
"Hey wait up," Kaji called to her, as Asuka headed down the corridors.
"You did pretty good in there," he told her as he caught up and draped his
arm around her shoulders, "Standing up to the Commander that way. You saw
how Maya crumbled when she thought they were all paying attention to her."
"You'd better remove that arm," Asuka said, desperately trying to keep
her temper under control, "They'll think you're molesting little girls
now."
And they amputate in cases of frostbite, she didn't add.
"Oh, my reputation is secure," Kaji said breezily.
She wanted to forgive him for how he'd ignored her for the past
months, and all the time he ignored his `fiancee` in the dream, and - and -
, I guess I shouldn't, Asuka realized, But it's easier to be mad at him
when he isn't standing with his arm around you. She shrugged his arm off
her shoulders, concentrated on what she knew about controlling magnetic
fluxes, frequencies, field strengths, and how she was going to use the AT
field to generate it. It all kept coming back to a crazy idea she and
Raccoon had come up with while they were working on the AT field math.
Actually I came up with it, she thought, We just carried it along. A
bomb-pumped AT field, literally using the AT field to shunt all the energy
of a nuclear explosion into the `frequencies` that an AT field operated in,
creating, for a few microseconds, an immensely powerful AT field.
"Saaayyy, Kaaajiii." She smiled and snuggled up to him, smiling her
cutest, "You couldn't get me an atom bomb, could you?"
Kaji looked like she'd just bitten him in a rather sensitive spot.
"Uh - I, uh - why do you want an atom bomb?" Kaji squeaked.
Asuka sighed, turned dejectedly, "If you don't want to help, I
understand," she sniffed, looked at him, her lip trembled and she appeared
on the verge of tears. Then she turned, covered her face and ran down the
corridor. Once she was out of sight, and more important, out of earshot,
she started laughing, laughing so hard her cheeks and her ribs ached.
"Oh, I think I hurt myself, but it was worth it," she laughed
remembering Kaji's expression when he thought she was going to break down
and cry. "I'm just a little girl. A baaaad little girl," Asuka chuckled.
She stood, brushed her dress off and continued to head towards the Magi
level of the control room.
----------------------------------------
Toji sat with his sister, Hikari was there as well, sitting silently.
Yumi's eyes still streamed tears, her lips trembled. Toji didn't know what
he could do, he wanted to hurt the things that had hurt her. Right now he
wanted her to stop crying.
But what am I supposed to tell her about dad and gramps? Toji
wondered. He glanced at Hikari, who smiled encouragingly, but he couldn't
figure out what she was encouraging him to do. He was just glad she was
quiet.
"Mr. Suzuhara?" one of the Admiral's aides stuck his head in, "I'm
afraid I have to interrupt."
"Yumi' I have to go again." He turned to Hikari, "Can you keep an eye
on her?"
"Of course, Suzuhara-san," Hikari said.
Toji let himself be led away, he didn't know what else he could tell
the military.
----------------------------------------
"Is he gone?" Yumiwashi asked. Her plaintive tone and trembling voice
tore at Hikari's heart.
"Yes, I can get him back - " Yumiwashi's raucous laughter interrupted
Hikari.
"He hit Shinji and got beaten up by a _girl_!_" the younger girl
laughed so hard it worried Hikari. "I would have _loved_ to see that!"
"That's terrible!" Hikari chided.
"Like you making a picnic for him every week?" Yumiwashi laughed at
Hikari's embarrassment. "And you never offered me a bite! That's rude!"
"Well, I should check with him, to see if you were always this way,"
Hikari chuckled, it did look very strange, when you looked at it from the
outside.
"After all, if I don't know how you cook and clean house, how can I
ever approve of your marriage. I _am_ the lady of the house."
Hikari giggled at the ridiculousness of it, "Well, I was going to make
_him_ cook, did you hear about the cooking contest he was part of?"
Yumiwashi sat up in her bed, "No, tell me!"
Hikari reproachfully stared at her.
"Please!"
Hikari smiled, "Well Raccoon and Asuka . . . do you know who they
are?"
Yumiwashi nodded.
"Well, they were in class . . . "
----------------------------------------
Ranma looked at the Meliorist and her opponents. The creatures were
like the hybrid form of the were-tigers. They would no longer close with
the Meliorist, because the few who had, had arms, legs, and heads cut off.
They advanced, probed, but would not commit. Ranma felt ashamed, he
couldn't help this woman who was risking life and limb to protect him. He
wanted to rush up and help her, as good as she was, he could help her . . .
if he could shut out the sight, the sound, even the smell of the enemy that
paralyzed him with fear.
He could watch her fight. The sword blade at the end, the ax blade
below it, the end of the haft, her armored boots all were part of the
offense and defense. There was a good deal to learn. Elements of the
economical style Asuka and Raccoon used were there, and other bits he
didn't recognize. Then the enemies started to widen the front she was
forced to defend. A few managed to get blows through her guard without
reply. A few also overcommited and died. He shrank from the killing, no
matter how necessary it might be.
He also realized more of the creatures were appearing, more than
making up the heavy casualties the woman was delivering. What had started
as eight had grown to nearly 40. He could see the pattern the enemy was
taking, keep extending the line in both directions and strengthening it
uniformly, until they could overlap the limits of her defensive line, or
overwhelm her at any point. The armor she wore was taking more hits, he
watched her turn and twist, the armor wasn't simply a metal wall, but an
extension of her. He also knew that the energy of the blows wasn't
disappearing, merely being dissipated over a larger area, holding off the
inevitable.
"Relax, kid," the woman growled, "Help's on the way."
----------------------------------------
The two burly, heavily armed and armored men looked at the battle,
then at each other, and lowered their visors. The Meliorist's two
bodyguard werewolves had a fair share of their own experience in dreams,
and in combat. They were about to charge when someone tapped on their
armor.
The three girls were very similar, two were practically identical, the
third was different only in the black hair and brown eyes. The bodyguards
recognized them.
"You?"
Each girl quirked an eyebrow at the guard's question. Nodded to the
Meliorist who had been knocked down and managed to get back up.
"Me."
"Me."
"Me." They said sequentially.
The guards shrugged, drew their swords as they raised the Roman-style
scutums, "Us too." The quintet charged into the battle.
----------------------------------------
Ranma watched the two men flank the Meliorist to form a line, then
behind them formed a second, more dispersed line of Rei, a second Rei, and
a Rei-like girl who looked more like a normal girl. The six of them stayed
between him and the attackers. He could hear the snarls and cries, smell
the cat odors from the living and the dead, and see those furred faces and
bodies, it all chilled him to the bone.
It doesn't make sense, Ranma thought, Cats make the . . . other - come
out, it's frightened too. Ranma could feel that strange force in his mind
squirming, trying to burrow deeper, avoiding any contact with these
creatures outside. He backed up another pace, tried to concentrate on the
battle. The three armed and armored adults were doing the bulk of the
fighting. But if one enemy got past, one of the Reis would hit it, with
lethal results. He watched the brown-haired one literally knock the head
off one of the catlike attackers, the body staggered a step and then fell.
The numbers had grown to more than a hundred, but they were cowards.
Even a hundred Shinjis would have overwhelmed the defense, once he got into
the screaming straight ahead charge he did when he got mad at an enemy.
They seemed to be intent on tearing through the defenders before they came
after him, like the were-tigers only worse. He could only stand there and
do nothing, he was the martial artist, he was supposed to protect the
others. Not cower behind them. His defenders' lack of condemnation was
worse than any accusation. He couldn't protect them, he couldn't even
protect himself, so they had to. It had been better when Asuka Senior was
insulting him for his fears.
The attackers suddenly parted, and a team hurled a rock the size of a
man at them. It exploded violently on some unseen barrier.
Rei's AT field, Ranma realized. But the shock was enough, the
attackers surged forward in a wave, they would overbear the woman and her
friends, then the Reis.
The blast covered the first wave with something black as tar, but
where it landed, nothing remained. Attackers hesitated glanced over, and
were struck from the other side by an absolute shower of blue-white
lightning bolts. No enemy within 10 meters of the tight knot of defenders
survived, they weren't just dead, they were _gone_.
Ranma glanced left, and saw the Scholarly Dragon, smiling. Even
though the monster was on his side, Ranma felt a chill at that smile. To
the right was a smaller silver dragon smiling the same smile. Ranma
actually felt sorry for the catlike attackers, facing these two monsters.
With the oddest war cry Ranma had ever heard, the two dragons
attacked. 'Lunch' echoed over the field as the two tore into the pack.
Legs, tails, wings smashed great swathes of the enemy. The more human
defenders pulled back, taking a breather. But Ranma saw the reinforcements
pouring in, dozens became hundreds. Even these two whirlwinds of
destruction would be overwhelmed.
The old woman who gripped his face was a surprise. She wasn't there,
then she was. She turned his head one way, then another, her long fingers
gripping his chin and jaw firmly. Then she turned him to face the
attackers, holding his head to force him to watch. One finger brushed
Ranma's pulse, which was racing. Then she yanked his gaze away, forcing
him to stare at her.
"Well, it isn't the cats that are the nightmare," she released him and
considered, "You don't like depending on others. That's a terrible
weakness."
Ranma bit back his automatic retort, there was something scary in her
eyes, he'd seen the same thing in the Scholarly Dragon, in Asuka and in
Raccoon. "Yeah, so what?"
"So, you are causing all this."
He wanted to deny that, but it made sense. He'd been able to see how
the enemy was wearing down any defense he could put together. The others
interposing themselves were the worst. He knew they'd be torn down and
destroyed, that somehow _he_ should be able to solve this, without anyone
else's help or interference.
"Consider that _asking_ for expert help is not weakness, isn't that
why you seek out a teacher," the woman smiled at him, "Someone who can do
what you can't?"
"Oh all right . . . I'm asking."
----------------------------------------
People and Governments Never Learned
"Pull back!" Altara commanded.
The Meliorist looked at the ancient dragon in her old woman form, as
Horseface stumbled towards them. She could hardly believe her ears, even
the three Wondergirls were confused. As Horseface walked past them, hand
out as if he'd gone suddenly blind.
The two dragons, Alwyk and the Scholarly Dragon, launched themselves
into the air, leaving the bloody field and a few dozen of the attackers to
Horseface. They surged over him throwing him to the ground. Only the hand
on her shoulder kept her from throwing herself forward. She looked over
her shoulder at Altara, who held her back.
"We should be ready to go," Altara, the dragon in woman form glanced
at the sky where the Scholarly Dragon and her husband Alwyk circled.
----------------------------------------
Ranma felt his face pushed into the dirt by the weight of the bodies
piled on top of him. He heard the sounds, but they could have been
anything, he could detect there wasn't enough light to see, but nothing
else, he couldn't even smell the tightly packed bodies, or the blood
wetting the ground. Dozens of tiny scratches and bites from his attackers
drew a little blood, but it was hardly more serious than falling badly on
the roof of Ritsuko's apartment.
His thoughts were elsewhere, protecting the others was _his_ job, it
was his vow and duty. Not to leave it to the others, not depend on others
to defend _him_, and make no effort to reciprocate. The outrage built
within him, he focused on it feeding chi into it, until he couldn't hold it
within him anymore.
----------------------------------------
The blast scattered the pieces of the attackers far and wide. From
her perch in the Scholarly Dragon's claw, the Meliorist looked down at the
exhausted boy in the center of the crater. "Pick him up," she ordered.
"Yes, Mistress," the Scholarly Dragon said as he banked and reached
out. A moment later he climbed, Horseface firmly in hand. "Should I leave
now?"
"You don't want to stayyyyyyyyyyy?" the Meliorist shouted as the
dragon closed his fists slightly, and accelerated to full speed.
----------------------------------------
Ranma opened his eyes, focused on the light fixture on the ceiling.
He could see and smell and hear again! The spell was broken! There were
no cats around him, but there was a person. He sat up and looked over at
Asuka. She was peering at him. She was worried about him!
"Hey Spineless, I think Horseface is awake," she announced, "As awake
as he ever is."
They're alive! Ranma thought, overjoyed that the others had escaped
the trials he'd suffered.
"Asuka," he said as he extended his arms suddenly, completely ignoring
her apprehension, "I'm so glad you're - "
WHHHHAPPP!
----------------------------------------
Maya carefully placed the icebag on the side of Ranma's face, covering
the purple, hand-shaped bruise. "I don't think she minded the hug, Ranma,"
she explained, "She's just tired and you surprised her."
"You're leaving out where he put his hands to hug her," Shinji giggled
at him.
"Was wi' h'm?" Ranma mumbled.
"We kind of drugged him," Maya admitted, she glared at Shinji, "But he
should be over it by now."
"I'mmmm nooottt," Shinji smiled.
"Lik'm bet'r glum," Ranma mumbled.
"Well, you rest, we'll need your help in a little while," Maya said as
she left the med lab, Shinji trailed after. "I know very well you should
be back to normal."
"I know," Shinji frowned, "I just wish I could have felt like that for
a while longer. I just quit worrying, about everything."
"I know," Maya said, "But you have to live life like the rest of us."
Shinji smirked, "Like you and Ritsuko?"
Maya blushed, wanted to run away. It was so embarrassing, why did all
the pilots seem to know how Maya felt, and nothing she dared do told her
sempai how she felt.
She entered the conference room, sempai, Asuka and the technical staff
had the table and walls covered with diagrams and equations.
"Will he survive?" sempai asked.
"I didn't hit him that hard!" Asuka protested, frowned at the smiles
of the adults around her.
"I'm sure he didn't mean anything by it," Ritsuko said in a soothing
tone.
"You're never going to let me off the hook for you and Raccoon, are
you?" Asuka asked morosely.
"Not in this lifetime," Ritsuko replied with a smile.
Maya looked at the diagram of the base and the line drawn around it.
"You've made progress."
"We are investigating a sinusoidal or coil pattern," Asuka said in a
detached manner, "Getting the AT field synchronized is going to be the real
problem."
"Maybe if you explain it, to a couple of dummies," Shinji suggested,
sitting next to Asuka.
She looked tiredly at him, sighed. "Oversimplified, a change in an
electric current creates a magnetic field, a change in a magnetic field
induces an electric field. That's how the coil in a car's ignition works,
turning 12 volts into hundreds of volts, for a short time. That's why we
need a sinusoidal curve or a coil. Following so far?"
Maya watched Shinji nod, Asuka sighed and continued. Maya walked
behind sempai and sat down, watching sempai's face while she watched the
two pilots.
"If we can create a powerful enough magnetic field, and intersect it
with two AT fields all mutually orthogonal - "
"Mutually orthogonal?" Shinji asked.
"All perpendicular to each other," Asuka said, "The problem is the
only way to generate the field is with multiple sets of EVA batteries and
tether cable, and you know what happens if you intersect two different AT
fields."
"They knock each other down," Shinji agreed, "So we need the magnetic
field, and the AT fields all to occur at once. But all of them won't
last."
"The magnetic peak will last less than 0.023 seconds, the AT fields
only a little longer," Ritsuko said, "That's too precise to be under human
control."
"Isn't there a way to . . . like the weave of a basket? With the AT
fields?" Shinji asked.
"No, the fields have to be of a particular set of frequencies and
uniform throughout. There's no way to interweave them that way," Asuka
said tiredly, gestured at the pages of equations.
"Maybe you should all get some sleep," Maya suggested to sempai, "Get
a fresh start in the morning?"
Sempai nodded, "Okay let's all get something to eat and some rest. We
aren't going to solve this by running ourselves into the ground."
There was some grumbling, but even Asuka simply stood and walked off.
Shinji followed her, leaving Maya and Ritsuko alone.
"You should rest too, sempai," Maya said.
"I don't need a mother," Ritsuko said.
"Without you, we can't make it home," Maya said softly, "I want to go
home, if that means tomorrow, I can wait until tomorrow, or the next day."
Ritsuko turned and frowned at her. Maya wilted a little, but held
firm.
"Are you going to tuck me in?" sempai teased.
Maya blushed.
----------------------------------------
CLICK. Ranma glanced from the paper from the conference room to the
`screen` that the nerve clip on his head produced. CLICK, another key
stroke and a glance from the paper to the screen. CLICK. Ranma ignored
Gendo entering, picking up his own nerve clip and then peering at the text
on the screen. CLICK.
"What are you doing Mister Saotome?" Gendo asked.
CLICK. "Raccoon showed me a tool in here." He jerked his thumb at
the Magi. CLICK. "If I can put this math in there." CLICK. "Then all
they have to do is check it."
"Do you even know what those equations mean?" Gendo asked, amused by
Ranma's efforts.
"No, all I have to do is make them look the same." CLICK, glance up
glance down. "At least my fingers work."
"You are supposedly able to learn movements just by watching?" Gendo
asked.
"Yeah - "
"Then watch," Gendo commanded, summoned a keyboard of his own and
began typing. The words appeared on the screen faster than Ranma could
read them.
Ranma began touching the keys as Gendo was doing, he saw the patterns,
areas for each finger, just like precise strikes with his fingers on exact
targets.
----------------------------------------
Asuka thought Horseface was incredibly smug about his latest triumph.
She wasn't sure if she was hoping Ritsuko would find a mistake in the
formulae he'd typed in, or if she wouldn't. The worst part was that he was
looking as anxious as everyone else, instead of hopping around crowing
about martial arts typing or martial arts secretary or some other such
nonsense.
"This doesn't solve all the problems," Ritsuko removed the nerve clip,
ran a hand through her hair. "But at least we can see what the two
interlocking fields actually look like."
Horseface smiled, preened and postured as he accepted the
congratulations from the technical staff.
"Unfortunately," Ritsuko said and Horseface froze, "This will give you
nothing to do."
Horseface looked around with a stricken expression.
"Only Asuka could manipulate these equations," Ritsuko said.
Asuka gave Horseface a cute and demur smile. Got a frown in return.
"I think we can reduce this to one set of equations," Ritsuko said,
"There should be no problem holding the necessary single resulting AT
field, then Asuka can switch the electrical field on to generate the
magnetic pulse."
"Don't worry, Horseface, you can still weave the Faraday cages," Asuka
said in her most sympathetic voice, "Protecting all these people is very
important." She couldn't figure out why he just nodded.
That's no fun, Asuka complained inwardly.
"Very well, Mr. Saotome get whichever unit you need to speed the
manufacture," Gendo said, "Miss Langley, you and Dr. Akagi finalize the
calculations. Very good." He walked away.
"What happened to him?" Asuka asked.
"'That he is alone, abandoned on Earth in the midst of his infinite
responsibilities,'" Horseface quoted Sartre, in Japanese.
Asuka stared at Horseface, kept staring as he started to sweat. Kept
staring at him, moving slowly forward, step by step, each step narrowing
her gaze as he tried mightily to avoid her eye.
"All right!" Horseface backed away making a warding gesture, "It's
part of something Raccoon told the EVAs. Leave me alone!"
"HA!" Asuka snapped her fingers under his nose and walked off.
----------------------------------------
Ranma had threaded the nets together, using Unit 04's multiple arms,
with the speed Asuka had predicted. Asuka was going over all the
calculations, for the third time. Captain Ramsey was out with the team
checking the cable placement, the connectors and all the welds. Gendo was
standing on the Commander's level of the control deck, surveying his domain
like a god well-pleased with the devotions of his worshipers. Maya, Hyuga,
Aoba and Baker were all checking and rechecking all the systems in
preparation for - Cue ominous music, The Return, Ritsuko thought.
And here I stand, utterly useless, and scared to death, Ritsuko
thought as she checked the survey reports versus their calculated values.
There is absolutely no reason for these fears. She caught herself, the
last time she'd had this crawling sensation of wrongness, she had been
correct, if she'd listened _then_, they wouldn't be in this mess.
She walked out of the command deck, trying to decipher whatever her
mind was trying to tell her. She entered the Commander's level, Fuyutsuki
and Gendo were there, talking privately. She paused, waited to be
acknowledged.
"Doctor?" Fuyutsuki asked, "Is there a problem?"
"I think so, but I can find no data to support my supposition."
"A hunch?" Gendo said dismissively.
"I had a similar 'hunch' when we began testing the S2 engines. Shinji
had a similar hunch when . . . " She saw the pained look on Gendo's face.
'Mommy don't go,' Shinji had told Yui, on that fateful day, she was
beginning to wonder if he'd actually known something, something he couldn't
put into words.
"Why would Nyarlathotep have brought us here?" Ritsuko asked.
"To battle Ghroth?" Fuyutsuki glanced between the two, he hadn't been
at NERV at the time of the accident, but he had seen the effects, as had
everyone else.
"The Inspector knew we wouldn't have a prayer," Ritsuko countered.
"But another Outer God . . . would," Gendo said thoughtfully, he
looked up at Ritsuko, "I think you know what to check now, Doctor, see to
it, immediately!"
Ritsuko nodded and headed out, the power core was her first stop, then
the L.C.L. manufacturing plant. She silently thanked whatever had been
nagging her for the warning. She could imagine the possibilities, if the
main component of _that_ reacted badly to the transition. "Make 65 million
years ago look like a firecracker."
----------------------------------------
Dame Exaltee et Menteuse [Excitable Lying Old Lady]
Misato pulled back.
"Bitch, you think you can escape me?"
She swung her fist at her tormentor, missing by inches. His hand
closed around her throat, his longer reach giving him the advantage, a
thumb and finger closed her carotid arteries which fed blood to her brain,
he was trying to knock her out or kill her. She lashed out with both legs,
all she succeeded in doing was positioning herself so his free hand could
rip her skirt and panties down around her knees. "Damitsu! Don't do
this!"
The boy smiled at her, ran his tongue across his teeth, "Afraid of a
little sex, huh? All the propositions and leers were just talk, eh . . .
?"
She knew rape was about power, not sex or violence, and she knew she
was powerless to stop him. He reared back, it struck her that the motions
were exactly like the knife training she'd been given in basic, the
underhand stab.
"Now, Captain." He thrust in painfully, as his teeth pierced her
breast. She screamed.
----------------------------------------
"Captain. _Captain_!_"
She woke, opened her eyes. Looked around the cabin of the crashed
airplane where she was lying. Crashed in the mountains, she remembered,
winced at the pain in her head.
"It's all right, it was just a dream. Are you all right?" Daifitsu
asked from some 5 meters away, as far as you could get in the ruined C-46.
He had the two handie-talkies and pack radio disassembled, working on them
in the dim light coming in through the frost covered windows.
"Fine." She tried to smile, "Bad dreams. I thought you said you
couldn't repair the transmitter."
"Yes, I guessed about the dreams. With the schematic, it occurred to
me that I might get a receiver working, then at least we'd know when the
help was on the way. By the way, who or what is Dai Mitsu, you kept
screaming that, I'm surprised it didn't start an avalanche."
"Trying to get a little hope?" she teased. He ignored her. "Sorry
about that." She smiled, he ignored it, "What do you want? A formal,
written apology?"
"I want it to be something more than empty words. You're sorry, but
in twenty minutes you'll do it again. Saotome's sorry, but he doesn't see
that what he did was wrong. Langley's sorry, but turn around and she's
doing it again. You people don't grow because you won't change, I'm
through excusing bad behavior. You and Asuka complain about Shinji's
'Gomen, gomen, gomen!' but it's as empty as from the rest of you," he
paused.
She looked at him with his coat collar turned up and his tie wrapped
around his mouth and throat like a muffler, a patch of frost on the front
over his mouth. She was going to ask where his blanket was, when she
realized she had both of them, the only two that survived the crash. "It
was nothing, really."
"It sounded like you were being assaulted." He bent low over the
radios, examining the jury-rigging closely. Not giving any sign the cold
affected him.
Misato jerked, then realized he might have meant beaten up. "Yes,
something like that. Actually, Dafitsu was you."
He paused, looked her over once, "Don't worry about that, Captain. It
will never happen."
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" she threw off the blankets,
intent on marching over there. The cold knifed through her sweat-soaked
clothes, she rewrapped herself in the blankets instantly, shivering and
teeth chattering from the short exposure.
"You will give yourself hypothermia if you do that again. Sweaty
clothes and cold killed and injured a lot of bomber crews." He started
turning the crank of the pack radio's generator, while with the other hand
tuning the makeshift radio.
"I thought I told you to get some sleep," Misato said angrily. Anger
at him and at herself.
"Actually you ordered, 'Get some sleep dammit!' But, between your
snoring and screaming in nightmares, that hasn't been possible. So I
figured I'd get this radio working."
"I don't snore!" She couldn't deny the nightmares. "You didn't have
to give me both blankets. It must be cold."
"Rules of the game, Captain." He was only getting static and
occasional unintelligible squeaks from the radio. "Ayanami-san is right
about one thing, if we pilots die, you officers can replace us, it may take
a while, but it can be done. That does not seem to apply to the senior
officers and staff, so I'm expendable, you aren't."
"What makes you say that?" Misato was getting angry, again.
"Your behavior, the Commanders', the pilots are treated as expendable
robots. I can live with that. There aren't any powerful transmitters
close enough, but it works." He quit cranking the generator. "Since it
works, I'll make this a little more rugged. Then either one of us can use
it."
"You really think of us that way? Some privileged class?" Misato said
bitterly, "Like some feudal lord of old?"
"The feudal lords usually led from the front, putting themselves at
risk with their troops. You and the Commanders are like the Chateau
Generals of the First World War. Too far removed to be affected by the
fighting, or to have an accurate view of the field. The pilots put life,
limb and sanity on the line, all you and the Commanders face are paper
cuts, bureaucratic infighting and lost sleep."
"If you fail we all die!" Misato shouted back.
"_WE_ pilots can all die, and still not fail, it doesn't wash,
Captain, sir," Demitsu replied calmly. "Well, that should get things
running."
"If you feel that way, why don't you just quit?" Misato asked.
"Captain, I'm sorry for shocking you, but the world doesn't revolve
around you and the Commanders, and your pitiful, private crusades." He
started cranking and tuning the radio, getting the same squeaks and static,
"Some of us are working to save the world."
Misato grumbled and stared at him as he carefully tried to tune in any
of the squeaks to make sense of them.
"Well at least you tried. Get something to eat. Is there any food
left?" she asked.
"A little, I stashed it."
"Why?"
"You ate the last of the C-rations last night."
"Don't you have anything else in your pack? I thought you were a Boy
Scout, 'Be Prepared'!"
"I was never a Boy Scout," he said coldly, "I'm not going to show you
where I have my food stashed, I will parcel it out to both of us when I
can."
"And that means, what? You think I'm going to gobble up all the
food?"
"We have to conserve what we have, it may take several days to find
us."
"A human being can survive for weeks without food," she told him.
"Not at 15 below zero. I don't think your jungle survival skills
apply while buried in snow above the tree line. I've had practical
experience, in Wyoming."
"So you know everything? That is refreshing, what do we do about
food?" Misato asked, realized she was taking the wrong tack if they were
going to be stuck together in cramped conditions, perhaps for a week.
"Conserve what we have, if necessary I can hunt something up. I'm not
getting anything, I'll try again in half an hour." He let out a long
breath, a cloud of fog forming in front of him.
"Then I'll stay awake and let you sleep. I don't snore when I'm
awake."
She stopped, softened her tone, "You could come closer, we can share
the blankets and body heat. I don't bite you know." After her dream she
was half-afraid he'd accept. She noticed how stiff he got when she
broached the subject.
"Considering your nightmares, Captain, that is not a good idea." He
dropped his hat over his face hugging himself tightly.
"I guess I should be flattered," Defitsu said, "You're very beautiful,
Captain . . . on the outside. Inside, you are only death and the dead.
Your anger and their pyres may keep you warm, but there's nothing there for
anybody else."
"What is your problem?" she demanded.
He lifted his hat up and looked at her cooly, shook his head, letting
his wall of reserve smother the flash of anger she'd seen. "Just trying to
follow orders, Captain, remember."
"Call me Misato," she told him, "We're alone up here, nobody but us to
worry about proprieties or rank."
"Being alone would increase the need for proprieties I would think,
Captain. Let me tell you a little story. Misato is the name of a
beautiful woman. She had hopes and dreams: family, peace, maybe children
of her own someday. She loved to be, she loved to talk and she loved to be
loved. Ritsuko-chan and Kaji-san have told us all stories about her. Some
funny, some touching, some ribald tales. I will not repeat them, because
one does not speak ill of the dead. I do not know who to send flowers to,
I do not know where to place a bowl of rice and offer prayers for a brief
light in a darkening world. Why she had to die? I do not know. But I
have seen the thing that killed her.
"Gendo's little tin-god. Empty except for the thoughts he puts there.
Carved indelibly on its carapace are its watchwords: 'Victory' and 'Death',
although I suspect the order is irrelevant. Sometimes I have watched it,
it will put on a smile, sexy clothes, use soft words, to fabricate an
ill-fitting parody of life. But under that shell, thin and fragile as rice
paper, is a crocodile. One ill-considered step and _SNAP_." He slapped
his hands together. "No, that's not completely true. I have seen it smile
of its own accord. When an enemy has died, or it has crushed someone
weaker into obedience. Something destroyed, something forced to feel its
emptiness. A little pain transferred to another, then it will smile, and
you'll see a bit of the fire, the lonely hatred that drives it. A
simulation of warmth."
"Is that what you think of me?" Misato asked, "Something more inhuman
than the monsters we fight."
"I was only telling a story, and I don't think of you, Captain.
Ranma-san is right about that, if you're walking a tightrope, you do as
you're told and don't think . . . you pay a penalty, for thinking."
She clenched her fists in frustration, "In case you haven't noticed,
we're trapped in here, alone, you might want to unbend a little!"
"Unbend." Again Misato almost broke through, but the wall of reserve
came down again. "Captain, are you going to let me carry out your last
order before you went to sleep, or are you going to rescind it? I can't
very well carry it out under these circumstances."
She muttered about his stubbornness, and turned away from him, she
wanted to march across the distance and slap him, he deserved it. But the
cold was still cutting into her through the blankets. Instead she let the
anger add to the little knot in her guts, let it keep her warm.
----------------------------------------
Misato woke suddenly as the radio crackled, Deimitsu tuned in the
voices, they were unintelligible to Misato. But she wasn't the linguist he
was.
He listened intently, she kept silent despite a burning desire to
demand answers, explanations, to take action that would assist in their
rescue.
But once the transmission ended, Daimisu merely hung his head. "Well,
someone knows approximately where we are, and have search parties looking
for us."
"That's great," she brightened, "We'll launch a flare, or start a fire
or - !"
"No," he interrupted, "They are hunting us down to kill us. There are
at least eight search parties with orders to locate and destroy us."
"What do we do?" Misato asked, more to herself than anyone else.
"Check your hand weapons, and hope somebody sees the search parties
and realizes they aren't ours."
"What languages were they using?" she asked.
"Chinese. Cantonese specifically."
Misato nodded, the cold was biting into her and she stayed under the
blankets while she checked her pistol and waited. Now every creak and
groan of the plane became the enemy closing in. She couldn't shut it out
as she had before. She wondered if they had enough ammunition. She
wondered if there were any other weapons aboard the plane. The pilot's
compartment was smashed, all the cargo was available to them, but it was
technical gear. She had her 7mm 'Baby Nambu' and two extra clips, Damitsu
probably had his .45 and three clips. That wasn't enough.
----------------------------------------
The sudden attack of nausea had her ready to throw up. Damisu had
suddenly stood up, pistol in hand and was looking around for something.
The hatch opened slightly and a man wormed through the impossibly small
gap. He leapt at her with a knife, she barely got her gun up and fired
before he slammed into her, bashing her head against the aircraft's
framing. She noted Dafisu was fighting another man, their pistols knocked
from their hands, Damitsu hit him with his cane. She wondered if her
bullet had killed her unknown foe as everything went dark.
----------------------------------------
A quiet argument was going on as Misato opened her eyes. The plane
was much warmer. Someone piled several heavy coats on her, and wrapped a
bandage around her head. Her clothes were still damp from her earlier
sweat.
She looked at the bench across from her. The head of a huge
rattlesnake glanced at her, nodded, then settled back down, someone had
covered it too, with coats and one of the blankets.
She glanced at Daimitsu for an explanation. He was sitting next to a
fire with a large cooking pot a top it. He was locked in an argument with
another man-sized rattlesnake.
Despite the alien `guests`, the smell of food made her mouth water,
"Dafisu!" she said, immediately regretted it as her head started aching,
more quietly, "Why are you arguing with a giant rattlesnake?" she thought
she was going mad, a hallucination from her head injury.
"Because he can't cook any better than you can." Daitsu glared at the
creature, who stared back. It surprised Misato that the snake looked away
first.
"Who would have thought a hot-blood could fix Kirsensishi."
"I studied." Damitsu ladled out a bowl, "Captain can you hold this
bowl for him?"
Damisu handed her the bowl, the warmth felt good in her hands. Her
stomach growled at the scent. "When can I get some? It smells terrific."
"Never," the boy replied.
"What?" she held the bowl so the prone rattlesnake could drink it up.
"Cannibalism is contraindicated," the creature said between sips.
Misato felt sick.
Damitsu shrugged, "We took their coats, their radios, and their
equipment. I wasn't about to waste anything. By the way, you owe your
life to Siphil here." Daifitu pointed at the rattlesnake across the fire
from him. "Pistasta owes me," he pointed at the snake she was feeding, "So
the species debt is balanced."
"You killed them," she said, it wasn't as warm in here as it had been.
"We," Siphil said.
"Evidently we were shot down close to a secret operation. Two
commandos were left behind to sanitize the area. They learned that the
Chinese shot us down, and they are working for an enemy sorcerer group. We
called a truce."
"We are cold-blooded, not optimized for cold weather, and you aren't
our real enemies," Pistasta told her, "Good shot by the way."
Misato put the now empty bowl aside. Staring at the other three, not
sure which of the three was the most incomprehensible.
Siphil carefully handed Misato a large bowl of rice, meat and
vegetable lumps, with sauce on it, "We took it from them, it should be
safe. You've had monkey I assume?"
Misato was about to refuse when her stomach complained loudly.
Daibitsu chuckled, the other two made ululating hisses, their form of
laughter.
"He did properly cook it," Siphil assured her.
"There's no wrong way to eat a Rhesus," Daibisu added.
She ate eagerly after watching Demitsu eat also, the two rattlesnakes
finished off their grisly soup.
"So what do we do?" Misato wasn't eager to remain.
"I thought we'd discuss it," Pistasta said, "They aren't coming back
for us."
"And NERV is in the area," Deifitsu said, "I couldn't hear clearly,
but it was on NERV SAR frequencies."
"Can we evade their patrols?" Misato asked.
More ululating hisses.
"Captain," Damitsu explained patiently, "Humans radiate a great deal
of heat, for them it would be like evading searchlights in the dark."
"Then we head down the mountain," Misato insisted, "They can get to
the town and, I don't know, slip away." She was worried that the pilot
seemed more at ease with these - creatures, than with her.
"We'd never survive the cold," Siphil said, "Not at night."
"Captain, I don't think you would either," Damisu added, "Surviving
isn't the same as healthy. Either Siphil or I would have to carry you."
Misato was not eager to be carried by a giant snake, despite his
civilized behavior, "We should be ready to move at a moment's notice."
"Agreed," Siphil said, "In an emergency, I will carry you, your
subordinate will take Pistasta. We'll need your body heat to survive."
"So you get to play constrictor to the pit viper." Dafitsu seemed to
find it amusing.
"In the morning we will move, agreed?" Siphil's unblinking stare swept
the room, "We'll be rested, fed, and have a better idea where your allies
are."
Misato agreed.
Defisu shrugged and prepared some more food for each group. Misato's
stomach churned at the thought of the meat he was using to feed these
creatures, but they had helped them, and humans were trying to kill all of
them. Misato wondered about the weird web of conflicts among their enemies
and the humans that made this kind of alliance possible.
----------------------------------------
The first enemy mortar rounds blew up the plane, and detonated the
charges Misato and Pistasta had set, which started an avalanche that buried
the screaming attackers under tons of snow.
Misato noted the grim approval on the three other faces, how it
matched her own, an enemy tried to kill them, and died in the attempt.
They at least had that in common.
"The beaten path will be our best path," she said as they stuffed
Misato into the rattlesnake's makeshift overcoats while Davis situated the
other one in his cold-weather gear, and they started walking.
To keep from thinking what she was in close proximity to her, Misato
dozed during the trip. The body was soon warm enough she didn't mind,
although the smell she would never get used to.
The assassins had tried to get troops into the debris field of the
avalanche. Dafitsu moved ahead in `sprint and drift` mode. Moving rapidly
forward, then stopping to listen and examine the territory. He proved as
much a marksman with the Rattlesnakes' silent rifles as with his pistol.
None of the enemy ever spotted Siphil or her.
They had been walking downhill for almost two hours when they spotted
a small village just inside the NERV SAR patrol area. They transferred
`parcels`, Siphil and Pistasta disappearing in the distance as Damisu
carried her at a smooth jog towards NERV SAR HQ.
----------------------------------------
Misato felt a soft pillow under her head and the warm blanket over
her.
"Welcome back to the land of the living, Captain. I was afraid you'd
sleep until we got all the way back to Tokyo," Dabisu leaned over her in an
ambulance.
"What happened?"
"The team who mortared our plane ran into some heavy opposition, the
rest evaporated. We can talk about the whole thing at the debriefing, but
I need to check on a few things." He stepped out of her field of vision,
there was a blast of cold air as he left the vehicle, a slamming door and a
moment later the vehicle drove off.
Misato closed her eyes again, determined to give a full account of
what she saw and what happened. Damisu's divided loyalties were now a fact
she could prove, not a mere suspicion.
----------------------------------------
Misato sat back, after relating her tale to Admiral Simson and General
Tomlinson. Dafitsu had been nervous and fidgety the entire time. She
stared at him triumphantly.
"Is there anything you'd like to add?" Simson asked, matching the
intensity of Gendo's stare.
Under the withering glare, Damisu squirmed, "The description of the
crash, and our conversation in the ambulance was an excellent rendition.
But, Major Katsuragi, you were unconscious after we crashed, and you woke
up when I put you in the ambulance. I talked to you about what I was
doing, and I heard you saying things. The plane _did_ get mortared, I
_did_ kill a couple of enemy commandos to steal their jackets, food,
radios, et cetera. But, I was never able to wake you . . . and talking,
giant rattlesnakes . . . ?" he shrugged.
"Are you saying I dreamed it all?!" Misato rose from her chair.
"No, Major, I believe you are reporting exactly what you remember,"
Damitsu said, backing away and making placating gestures, "But I don't
remember what you're reporting. Sorry." He smirked, "'Cannibalism is
contraindicated', that does sound like me. But I'd never talk about my
fellow pilots that way."
And 'Gendo's Little Tin God'? You'd never say that either, I bet.
Not a high class gentleman like you, 'It just isn't done', Misato fumed
inwardly, I didn't _imagine_ all that! She sat back in her chair, glared
at Daibitsu.
"We will debrief both of you under truth serum," Tomlinson said,
glanced at Simson, who agreed.
Misato didn't like it, but didn't object. Damitsu shrugged.
----------------------------------------
The History of a Soldier's Wound Beguiles the Pain
"Repairs are complete," Ritsuko reported to Gendo, "Containment will
more than handle the magnetic surge and any impact."
"Very good, Doctor," Gendo replied into the phone, "Get back up here,
we are going through the final checks." Gendo hung up the phone.
"No more jokes about feminine intuition," Fuyutsuki commented.
"True." He raised a phone, "Captain Ramsey, how are the nets coming?"
"Saotome has them strung, SAR teams are making sure they are all
thoroughly grounded. I am not comfortable risking all the batteries and
the tethers on a single attempt."
Gendo considered the Captain's arguments, they were using all nine
available EVA external batteries, and all the tether cabling except the
small amount still needed to operate Units 04 and 02. "You are aware of
the chances of success of using half that amount. This operation gives us
the greatest chance of success."
"Just voicing my concerns," Ramsey replied over the field phone, "If I
have anything concrete, I'll say so."
"Let us know, immediately," Gendo waited to hang up the phone,
technically Ramsey outranked him.
Gendo hung up the phone, "Is everything secure?"
Fuyutsuki nodded, "All the critical components, dangerous chemicals
and fragile samples are all prepared." Fuyutsuki smiled, "Unless you drop
us from too far."
"The major worry is that we arrive back exactly from where we left."
Fuyutsuki smiled grimly, "Yes, considering how far the planet, even
the entire galaxy will have moved, I wonder if we'll even be in the same
star system."
"I hope that the magnetic ring will bring us in correctly," Gendo
looked over the workers beneath him. The phone rang again.
"Commander, all stations report ready," Maya reported, "Standing by."
"Very good." He hung up, picked up the 1-MC, they would hear his
voice over the entire base. "We are preparing for transition, secure all
stations, brace for impact. Pilot Unit 02."
"Langley here." Asuka's voice came back.
"Stand by," Gendo told her. He wasn't about to offer any prayers, he
trusted nothing that might answer them. "Miss Langley, now."
----------------------------------------
Asuka let the equations fill her mind, let them alter her AT field.
It _hurt_ to stretch her field that far, over the entire `island`. She
couldn't see or feel the shape of the AT fields that surrounded the base,
she had to depend on her understanding of the mathematics to define it.
Once she was sure of it, she closed the huge knife switch that released the
electricity held in the batteries. The only clue that power flowed was the
cables bursting into flame, covering the area with smoke. Horseface had
his AT field protecting her from the immense magnetic flux. The Faraday
cages sparked a little, but that was all that was obvious.
The blue of the sky hadn't changed a bit, Asuka felt exhausted and
hurt, as she left her field fade. She let the EVA sink down to its knees.
She wanted to sleep, she really hurt to much to care if it worked or not.
There were no calls that it had worked or it hadn't.
----------------------------------------
The man burst in on them. Nabiki looked up from her poker hand. Rei
glanced at him, then returned her attention to the cards.
"We just got the confirmation, this is absolutely official, NERV Tokyo
is back where it was. All the pilots and senior staff aboard, safe and
sound. Major Katsuragi and Pilot Davis are there too."
"Thank you," Nabiki said, "You can go." She concentrated on the
cards.
He obviously expected a greater reaction, "Don't you understand?
They're alive and well."
"Until and unless they transfer us back, it's just information, thank
you," Nabiki told him, inside she was terrified that this was just a dream.
The stunned man turned and left the girls' room.
Nabiki had seen the panicked reaction on Rei's face, although you'd
have to be an expert to see it. Nabiki didn't tease the other girl as she
tried to concentrate as first one tear, then another crept down Rei's face.
"I am happy," Rei said, "Why are there tears?"
Nabiki smiled at Rei's embarrassment. "Because you _are_ happy." Rei
stared in confusion at Nabiki, the occasional tear traveling down her
cheek. Nabiki couldn't help laughing, Rei looked almost comically tragic.
Nabiki gave the other girl a hug, caught one of the tears with her finger.
"They're salty," Nabiki explained while she waited for Rei to
carefully lick the tear off her finger.
"What does that have to do with the others?" Rei asked.
"Nothing. You just looked so sad."
"I did not feel sad," Rei told her, "You did. Have you not noticed
you also are crying?"
Nabiki wiped her face and found her hand came away wet. "No, I
didn't. I guess I'm happy too."
Rei caught one of Nabiki's tears, and held it out, as Nabiki had done
for her.
----------------------------------------
"Show off," Simson commented as the fire fighting teams extinguished
the flaming cables. Another team was checking for radiation, while the
third was trying to make physical contact with the people within.
The initial screaming, cheering crowds had sobered, they were waiting
for news of the survival of the crew and the EVAs. The energy, the raw
anticipation, was palpable.
The landing had been almost perfect, the base had rotated some 0.25
degrees, otherwise perfect. The smoke had been a seemingly theatrical
touch.
Davis and Tomlinson were there, waiting with the same veneer of
patience Simson himself wore. Simson wondered what they'd find in the
base, he hoped they could explain what had happened and prevent it from
happening again. The radio messages had been clear, they had some wounded,
but could handle them internally, once power, water, etc. were restored to
the med center. Admiral Simson had dispatched doctors and medics,
helicopters were waiting to evacuate any serious casualties to the base
hospital.
The vibration came up through the ground, a rhythmic pounding. The
crowd was unsure, murmurs ran through the crowd. Simson and his party
recognized the tread of an EVA, so they stood firm and confident. The huge
red EVA walked out of the dissipating smoke with one hand outstretched and
several reels of cable paying out behind it. It walked without speaking
toward the high-tension towers, depositing the work crew atop it, to
reconnect NERV to the main power grid.
"Langley must be playing to a script," Davis whispered as the red EVA
stood quietly, taking directions from the tech team who were restoring the
electrical connections.
"Reconnection complete, please restore power," Asuka's voice came from
the EVA, cool and businesslike. The cheering from the crowds blanked out
anything else the EVA's loudspeakers could produce.
"Restore power," Simson ordered, "We'll have to get engineers out here
to relay the sewer and water lines."
"And the telephones," Tomlinson added, "I have engineers standing by,
and a few people to hold the Seabees' hands."
Simson could wait for the official word, but the crowd was sure the
danger was over. The celebrations will be going on all night, we're going
to have to deploy a lot more troops in case the celebration gets out of
hand.
----------------------------------------
Misato looked at the world through the glass of beer. Truth serum
hadn't revealed anything new to her story, or Damitsu's. She'd been
humiliated by the little bastard, calling her crazy, implying she'd lie.
Especially when she knew what she saw.
Damn Americans stick together, she thought angrily as she drained the
beer and signaled for another, she wondered if she should have worn her
NERV uniform. If she had, she probably wouldn't have had to pay for her
drinks. She'd heard the parades and fireworks since the sun went down.
The city hadn't seen a party like this since they announced Pearl Harbor,
they'd sunk the U.S. Navy. She'd made sure Shinji and the others were all
right. Then she'd decided to drown her shame.
The new beer arrived, the new beer disappeared. She wasn't even
tasting them now, so far they'd failed to make her feel better. Her
depression was fuzzier, but it was still there. She stared at the empty
glass and signaled for another.
----------------------------------------
Shinji could barely stand upright. All the eager young faces, all the
hands trying to touch him. Asuka had insisted he go to one of the parties,
the orphans were the people whom he was comfortable with. The adults there
were as amazed as the kids that he wanted to be _here_ when he could have
been _any_where. Raccoon had come with, bringing food and drink for a
party.
They fired questions at him too fast and too loud to answer
individually. He told them what he could about what had happened, some
parts were still classified, the battle, and how scared he and the others
were. When he started talking all of the kids fell silent and listened
with rapt attention. He was actually more scared of that, than facing the
Outer God. He glanced up at Raccoon for help, the other boy shook his head
'no', and went back to serving food and drinks.
Thanks a _lot_, Raccoon, Shinji thought. He was looking forward to
seeing Rei-chan again. The report was, she was on her way back by express
aircraft. He didn't want to wait, but he would have to.
----------------------------------------
Shinji wasn't the only one who would have preferred to be facing the
Outer God again. Ranma looked at Sammi and Ritsuko who had been staring
angrily at him for a few minutes. He knew he shouldn't have tried to
explain 'Just what did you think you were doing?' Now he knew, a little
late.
It was better when Sammi had been pacing, and suggesting appropriate
punishments when she got close to Ritsuko. She'd said them just loud
enough for Ranma to pick them up. From spanking, to being forbidden
martial arts for a month, he would have preferred the spanking. Ritsuko
had sat there, quietly tearing eight newspapers in half. Not one at a
time, and not holding one hand down and lifting with the other. She had
all eight in her hands, and pulled outward, slowly tearing them in half.
Ranma knew _he_ couldn't have done that particular trick.
In the end, Ritsuko had told Sammi it was not the guard's decision, it
was his guardian's. She'd looked at Ranma and said, 'I am very
disappointed in you', and fell silent. He would have preferred the
spanking, or being denied martial arts, rather than that look of hurt on
Rit-chan's face.
He suspected he was supposed to figure out _what_ he had done wrong,
and apologize for it. Instead he was completely bewildered, everything he
had done would have been worst if he hadn't acted. The things would have
damaged the Magi, which meant no going home, he thought, She couldn't be
mad about typing in the formulae? I was under orders to make the nets and
protect Asuka . . . what did I do wrong?!
----------------------------------------
"Eye-on-ahmee-sahn?" the voice drew Rei out of her reverie, staring
out the window, watching the ocean going by. The copilot continued when
Rei looked at him, "We're about 20 hours out, but we have to stop on Guam
to refuel."
Rei nodded, she didn't know what else he expected her to do. She
could hardly protest, if the plane needed fuel, it needed fuel. She
returned to staring out the window.
Shinji-kun is alive, the Commander is alive, she thought desperately,
wondering if some cruel fate would separate them once again. She had heard
others say 'I just couldn't stand it.' She thought that was ridiculous,
losing the Commander and Shinji-kun would hurt more than anything she had
ever known. Nevertheless, she would carry on, the Commander's vision would
survive him, if she had anything to say about it. She could finally trust
the others with it, letting them see the grand design, and understand the
terrible weight he bore.
She wished she could tell someone about it, perhaps Roku-kun or the
Second would understand its scope and genius. Perhaps even Nabiki-kun
would see it. Until then, it was hers alone of all the pilots.
The ocean and the tiny lights far below were the only clue that there
was anything beyond the plane.
----------------------------------------
The Twelfth-Night Duke's Question
'I shouldn't have shut you up. I should have asked for your help,'
Ranma had finally figured it out. Sammi had been despairing he'd ever get
it, it seemed you needed a star drill and explosives to get anything
through that skull of his. She wondered how he'd react to the rest of the
news that he'd be staying with Sammi and Asuka while Ritsuko, Maya, Nabiki
and Jeff headed out to the Azores, for a month.
He'll probably think he's being punished, she thought as she unlocked
the door to her apartment, she really wasn't in the mood for any of the
parties going on all over the city.
"I'll let _Major_ Katsuragi celebrate for all of us," she said
disparagingly. She also knew Shinji and Jeff were out celebrating, that
she would have considered an impossibility, "Maybe Gendo's out dancing the
night away too." She had a hard time even imagining the dour man doing
anything even remotely fun, even curling up with a good book.
The sound in Asuka's bedroom drew her instant attention. "It never
ends," she said to herself, put on a happy face and opened the door. "I
would have thought you'd be out there, soaking up your share of the
limelight. Even Shinji is out there celebrating."
Asuka sat on her bed, chin on her knees, staring at the wall. She
hadn't reacted to Sammi invading her privacy.
This is worse than I thought, Sammi thought as she sat on the edge of
the bed, when Asuka didn't react Sammi ran her fingers through the other
girl's long hair. Still no reaction? Sammi thought worriedly.
"I don't feel like a hero," Asuka said quietly, "I just feel tired."
"Well, it has been a stressful couple of days," Sammi said soothingly,
"It's only natural that - "
"No," Asuka quietly cut her off, "This place, the people . . . all of
it. Let Horseface and Spineless play the hero, I didn't do anything."
Sammi was about to protest when she remembered the cries in the
street, the 'hometown heroes' had been getting most of the credit. Asuka
was feeling left out and put upon, even Jeff and Shinji had taken off
without her.
"Well, are you going to let people determine how you feel?" Sammi
asked quietly, she suspected Misato would shame or jolly the girl out of
her depression.
One of the reason she's _here_ and not in Katsuragi's `care` anymore,
Sammi thought as she stood up and selected a brush and the finest comb from
Asuka's dresser. She carefully ran the comb through Asuka's hair, pausing
at any tangle.
"You are being very magnanimous," Sammi told her, "Letting them take
credit for your work. No one can ever say that Asuka Soryu Langley isn't
generous to those lesser lights around her." Sammi switched to the brush,
she had expected some reaction to that, and hadn't gotten one.
The only sound for a few moments was the long, steady strokes of the
brush through Asuka's hair.
"I heard that Rei will be returning soon, Nabiki will be flying in
with the new and improved Sonic Glaives." More silence, the long strokes
continued. "It's all right to feel out of place, homesick."
"It's not that," Asuka said quietly, her eyelids drooping, "I was safe
in Germany, even when the Russians were hunting us. Even when the British
captured me. Never here. Idiots out there celebrating a disaster
avoided." Asuka's head drooped, "We d'n't win. We survived. Used luck
inst'd of skill. Luck runs out. What'll we do th'n? Who'll save us then?
God? We're abom'nations, jus' too stupid to realize it yet." Asuka
snorted, "Used to hate Wondergirl, little monster robot. What am I now?"
"I don't think you're a monster," Sammi said soothingly, was shocked
by the intensity of Asuka's stare.
"Who cares with _you_ think?" Asuka said coldly, her voice full of
desperation rather than anger or venom, "They don't care about us, they
don't notice us because we're so far beneath them. We're unimportant in
the grand scheme of things." The calm of her tone cracked, letting a
glimpse of the hysteria beneath show through. "But they noticed us, they
reached into our minds and found what we were _really_ afraid of. Not just
me, but Spineless, Wondergirl, Horseface, even Raccoon and Ice Princess."
She was screaming now, "They know us! They see us! What does that make
us? We can't be human! Not anymore! When are you going to have to put us
down? Shoot us in the street? Have us kill one another to save humanity?"
The tears came, and Asuka made no attempt to hide them. "We're supposed to
protect people, how can we do that if we're becoming monsters too? When
should I look at my friends and just blow their brains out? When should I
ask the same of them? Could Spineless or Horseface do it? Does Ice
Princess have the guts? Misato doesn't! Does Stoneface even know how?
Have any of you ever considered that?! Huh? What if Wondergirl and
Raccoon go first?! Who'll protect the rest of you from - me? Could you?
Can you just kill? Look past the child and just kill? See through all my
tricks and kill me?"
Asuka took a deep breath, regained a little control. "Those idiots
are out there celebrating raising a pack of monsters to fight other
monsters. They should be terrified, trying to drive us out of town, have
us locked away from normal people, from decent people." Asuka stood up,
backing away from Sammi. "How can you even stand to look at me, to touch
me? You know what I am, you've seen those things!"
"If you are, why are you worried about the rest of us?" Sammi asked,
she hadn't moved, she felt like she was coaxing Asuka off a ledge. "Why
are you so torn up inside that you might hurt someone by accident? Doesn't
that mean - "
"WHEN! WHEN! Not NOW!" Asuka shouted, pounding her fist on the wall,
"Not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon."
Sammi stood up, walked over to the girl, "And you'll change so much
between now and then? You'll just wake up and decide to eat someone off
the street for breakfast. That the rest of us will ignore all of that,
that the others will?"
"As long as I CAN STILL PILOT . . . they won't care." Asuka slumped
to the floor, "They won't care." Still softer, "They won't care."
Sammi sat next to the sobbing girl. "Like 'Wondergirl' and
'Spineless' looking after 'Ice Princess'. Like you going with Shinji to
look after Rei? Like all the times you've looked after Ranma and Ranko, no
matter how mad Saotome made you? That isn't going to switch off suddenly,
you'll notice it, and so will the others." She grasped Asuka's chin
tilting her head up to face her. "I know you Asuka, I know you, maybe
better than you know yourself. If you were really vulnerable to that, it
wouldn't worry you so much now." Sammi ran her hand over Asuka's hair.
"If being human didn't mean so much to you, it wouldn't bother you to
surrender even the slightest bit without a fight." Sammi leaned close,
"You see I know your most shameful secret, you actually love these people.
No matter how stupid the rest of us are, you will never walk away from us,
never let us be without your opinion and advice. You could no more do
that, than you could exist without breathing."
Sammi could see the tired resignation on Asuka's face. The girl was
spent, her outburst had taken whatever strength the day's events had left
her. She collected Asuka and put her in bed. "We can talk about this more
in the morning." Sammi smiled. "Maybe 'Raccoon' can talk sense to you."
Asuka fell into an exhausted sleep. Sammi stayed up to watch her.
Monsters huh? Samantha Kraznyzamok thought about the irony of that,
You don't know monsters, Akagi: Red Castle, Krazny - Zamok: Red Castle, so
who was the real monster, Dr. Frankenstein who dabbled with Creation, or
his benighted creation? The desperate monster masquerading as a woman who
built a fortress, for her human charges, out of other monsters, or the
humans who drove her to it? She idly stroked Asuka's hair, Sammi loved the
pilots, all of them. She didn't have any choice in the matter, and would
have chosen to be the way she was even if she had one. She also knew that
they might be doomed, as Asuka feared, just not the way the girl feared.
Sammi didn't know how, but she knew the powers that swirled around the
darker reaches of NERV would never allow Asuka's nightmare scenario to come
to pass. They were investing these fragile Children with all the weight
and stress they could, so they could break them at the right moment.
But what do you do with a broken god? Sammi asked herself, not for the
first time. She had some theories, and in their own way, they were worst
than what Asuka feared.
----------------------------------------
July 8, 1947
Shinji dragged himself into Misato's apartment, it was nearly morning.
The party and the clean up had gone on through the night. There were still
revelers out when the MPs picked him up and drove him home. He was glad of
the ride, and also glad that his voice had given out. The MPs had been as
curious as everyone else about the disappearance/reappearance of NERV. But
the loudest squeak he could manage was barely audible over the road noise.
So he didn't have to talk about it - _AGAIN_!_
Penpen popped out of his refrigerator, walked pointedly to his bowl
and stared at it.
Shinji realized the bird hadn't been fed in days, and started
searching for something, anything, to tide Penpen over until he could get
some much needed sleep. He managed to find some sausage and a few
leftovers that were acceptable. As well as a few that probably could have
been used to good effect against the Angels. Those he disposed of. He
also found several empty plates, the obvious answer was that Penpen could
actually open the refrigerator door. If he couldn't . . . Shinji didn't
want to think about that. Wondering about Misato-san's cooking was
worrying enough.
The knock on the door brought him back from idle speculation about the
fate of the contents of the fridge. A glance through the peephole in the
door gave him a look at Misato's backside.
"And how much has she been drinking?" Shinji muttered as he opened the
door.
The man carrying Misato-san over his shoulder was a surprise. He
ignored Shinji, spared Penpen only a glance, as he carried Misato-san to
the dining room table and poured her onto a chair.
"There you go Captain, safe and sound." The man was round, not
spherical, but no sharp angles, round face, round body, pudgy hands, he
looked like one of the better fed Buddhas.
"Ma-jURP!" Misato belched at him.
Shinji smirked as the man straightened up suddenly from the blast of
beer breath, or tried to as Misato grabbed his tie. She lifted herself up
on it and dragged him down, until she was staring him owlishly in the face.
"Whoooo, 're yoooou?" Misato demanded, as she lost her grip and slid
back into the chair.
"Hiro Takemono." He bowed to Shinji. "I'm the one who found you."
He turned to Shinji. "I couldn't let her get stepped on anymore, or run
over. I - "
Misato's laughter interrupted Shinji's thanks. "How can a hero be a
bakemonoooo, ha aha ha?" A moment later she put her head on the table.
Hiro was trying to keep his temper, "That was funny," adding quietly,
"The first 10,000 times."
Shinji had seen the man smiling when he'd entered, now that he had a
chance to look closer, he saw the scar across his cheeks and under his
nose. It pulled the ends of his mouth up, making him look like he was
perpetually smiling.
"Thank you, TA-kemono-san," Shinji said, bowed, hoping Misato-san
would take the hint, or at least stop laughing before she threw up.
"Shinji!" Misato stood up. "We should go to bed!"
Shinji stood there transfixed, a glance confirmed that both Hiro and
Penpen were staring at him, and Misato-san was expecting an answer. He
could feel the sweat crawling down his back. An immediate refusal came to
mind, but he also knew what a mean drunk Misato-san could be, and she
wouldn't take 'no' for an answer. What he really wanted was rest and some
quiet.
"He seems awfully young, Captain, but you NERV people do what you have
to," Hiro said offhandedly, as he turned to leave.
For a shining instant, sobriety infused Misato, as she realized what
she'd said. "I didn't mean _THAT_!_" she shouted, pursuing him.
"It's not my place to judge," Hiro replied, increasing his speed to
the exit.
Shinji took the opportunity and headed for his bedroom, he could get a
shower after Misato-san was snoring.
'You can't think I'd do that!' Shinji heard Misato shout, then the
sound of running feet.
A few moments later, he heard a knock on the door. He returned to the
door and again saw Misato's backside through the peephole. Again Hiro
carried her over his shoulder to the dining room table and put her in the
chair.
"I'm going to get out of here before she wakes up," Hiro said, "Don't
give her too hard a time, no matter how bad you want to. She's just
lonely." For a moment the smile vanished, he bowed to Shinji and left.
Shinji stared at his commanding officer, already snoring like a
bandsaw. A plan was forming in his mind. He knew he could get Asuka's
help, she was mad at Kaji for some reason. Ritsuko-sensei would help, just
to bother Misato. He was smiling as he went to take his shower.
----------------------------------------
Nabiki had seen big boats, she'd seen big planes. She'd _never_ seen
a plane this big, not a plane that was also a boat. She sat in the
motorized whaleboat and let them take her under the massive wing. The
officer with her was chattering about the government helping complete this
huge plane to give them the ability to transport EVA equipment anywhere in
the world there was a body of water. It seemed amazing to Nabiki that with
eight massive engines and this huge wing, that this machine couldn't carry
an EVA.
The other thing that had her excited was that HE was going to be on
board, the plane's billionaire creator. She was afraid to even think his
name in case she jinxed her chance to meet him. She knew he'd eventually
become a demented recluse, but that was decades in the future. If she
could meet him, if she could _talk_ to him, it was a contact that would be
worth her weight in gold. She didn't know much about planes, but what she
did, could help the two of them make a vast fortune.
The officer helped her aboard while he went to oversee the securing of
the new sonic glaives. Nabiki saw the immense EVA weapons looking small in
the cavernous space of the huge cargo bay.
"This is a plane," she said, looking around.
"It certainly is," a man she didn't recognize said, "Would you like to
see where your berth is?"
"Berth?" she asked.
"Yes, we can't let a VIP like you sit in the cheap seats like the rest
of us," the man said as he smiled, "Also you might like to see the flight
deck and meet the crew. The first hop is the short one, here to Hawaii."
Nabiki followed the man, the berth was plain, but it was private.
There was a bathroom, and a galley, those weren't private. Nabiki could
hardly contain herself as she was led onto the flight deck. Not only was
the view spectacular, but HE was there.
Nabiki introduced herself, shaking the man's hand. She told him how
much she admired his work, how much she admired his airplane. The man's
expression went from friendly, to slightly panicked. She suddenly realized
she had been babbling like an idiot for several minutes, shaking the man's
hand during the entire time. Completely mortified, she let go, apologized,
and ran from the room.
----------------------------------------
Nabiki was in her berth, the covers over her head. The only reason
she was still alive was she hadn't decided if hanging herself with the
sheets, or throwing herself out of the plane to drown would be less
embarrassing to the others aboard. I blew it, she lamented silently, I
blew it, I blew it, I blew it!
"I'm an IDIOT!" she shouted to the covers.
"Knock, knock." She recognized the voice.
She pulled the covers down and saw Brother Jonathan sitting next to
her berth.
"You're a priest, maybe you can give me Last Rites." She covered her
head again.
Brother Jonathan pulled the blankets and sheets off her head. "You
didn't do too badly."
"I was a gibbering idiot, I couldn't even remember to let go of the
man's hand!" Nabiki lamented, "I wanted to make a memorable first
impression. I did sure make one. He probably thinks I'm a complete
psychotic, not just a blithering idiot. And you know what, he's right!"
"Oh, you're lookin' at it all wrong," the man said in his 'aw-shucks'
folksy tone. "Pretty girl meets him, gets all flustered. She's obviously
enthusiastic about the plane, she's obviously enthusiastic about him.
There's worse first impressions to give a man. Especially a man like him."
Nabiki felt marginally better, she smiled.
"In fact, I know he wants to talk to you again," Brother Jonathan told
her with a reassuring smile.
"He does?" Nabiki suddenly saw avenues reopening, a chance at
redemption and wealth.
"Yep, he wants a translation of what you actually said, see he's never
met a Japanese-talkin' chipmunk before."
Nabiki draped the covers over her head and moaned in despair.
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