Rei closed the door to her old apartment. Ryoga had said that she didn’t have to go back, that he would gladly retrieve all of her possessions... as if he could possibly get there without her. Still, though, he could always carry everything home. He owed her one. She watched as Ryoga walked into the main room. For some reason, he was walking more lightly than normal, almost like he was sneaking around, but nobody was there. She didn’t understand him, or why he did things, or why he said things. Well, some things. He dropped his pack and looked around. "Uh... Rei, what exactly do you want to take?" He gestured at the bed, the drawers, and the small refrigerator. "I mean..." "Here." She stepped in, opened the closet, pulled out four school uniforms. One of the drawers would have her socks and undergarments. She had her shoes on, and school shoes were at school. The bed was too heavy to take, even for Ryoga. What else... She walked over to the drawers, picked up the glasses case. After thinking for a second, she added a small Tokyo Tower to her pile. "That’s it, let’s go." "Wow. I thought I didn’t have much stuff." Why did he look at the pile like that? At least she knew he was uncomfortable, he never scratched the back of his head unless he was uncomfortable. He opened his backpack and shoveled the contents inside. "Anything in the kitchen?" "Just fixtures." Rei suddenly realized that she had NO idea how to cook. It had never been a problem, of course, she just ate at school and at NERV. The first, because everybody else ate, and the second because Gendo got worried when she didn’t eat. "No sweat, then." Ryoga hefted his bag and headed for the door. "Come on, we don’t have all day, you know." She followed him out of the apartment and shut the door behind her. Something else, something... she reached out and removed the paper with her name from the door frame. Well... that was that. --- Paradise Lost, part 10 Fan Fiction by Andy Kent All characters copyright Rumiko Takahashi or Gainax --- Ah... nothing like a relaxing bath. Ryoga sat back in the tub and reflected on the world, and how it might NOT be the worst of all possible things. After all, he was happy, right? He listened, not interested, at the sounds coming from next door. Asuka was making the apartment’s decoration a full-time job, helped by the fact that Rei honestly couldn’t care less about it. It had been what, a week? She still was trying out different pictures and furniture layouts and such. After enjoying the heat and quiet for a few more minutes, he hauled himself up, toweled off, and got dressed. Now, he could... what? School was over for the day. He wasn’t going to see anybody, Rei had something to do at NERV, so he couldn’t go anywhere. He’d given up on the television as a source of entertainment. He could read a book... but he didn’t have any and Misato wasn’t exactly inclined towards that sort of thing. And he couldn’t GO get one either. Argh! This had never been a problem before. One thing about being lost for ninety-five percent of your life, you never got bored. Maybe some martial arts practice? No, the furniture isn’t up to it. Exercise? No, same. Well, he could always twiddle his thumbs for an hour or two... sigh. Wait a minute... He remembered the pounding noises he had heard a few minutes ago. Asuka was home. Ha! Something to do. He opened the apartment door and grabbed his pack. Wait. Why take the pack? Father said never forget your pack. Why not... right, if he went out the door, he might not get back. A mental challenge, then. How could he get next door without getting lost? The map that Misato had drawn him wouldn’t do any good, and besides it looked like something a three-year-old had done. She HAD been pretty drunk, though. He could always tie a bit of string to his door and find his way back that way... no, too risky, with his luck he’d get the string snipped... How did he find ANYTHING? Dumb luck? No, wait, he could get somebody to take him there. But Misato and Rei were at work, and if Asuka were there, he wouldn’t have to go next door. Touji? Kensuke? Nah, they weren’t there either. A penguin waddled between his legs and headed for the apartment to the left. Ha! Penpen could always take him. Of course, that was assuming that Penpen knew the way to the apartment... oh well, it would be better than being bored. He took a few steps toward the penguin. Now it was... pecking, he supposed, at the door to the next apartment. Either it was Asuka’s, or the old curmudgeon next door, who come to think of it would be pretty fun to annoy too. Asuka opened the door, looked down. "Hey, Ryoga." Wait... she was talking to the penguin. "Come in, you moron, I’ve got hot water." HEY! "That’s NOT funny!" He scooted into the door before Asuka could close it. "Since when do I look like that!" "Well, I have seen a short black pig around here somewhere..." She didn’t have to laugh like that. Mocking laughter. Ranma’s laughter. He felt something tighten, curl around itself in him... no, wrong, she’s a girl and you don’t hit girls. He gritted his teeth and resolved to put up with it. "So..." He set down his pack and walked into Asuka’s and Rei’s apartment. It looked much nicer, now that Asuka had added some furnishings. Little tables, recliner, lamps, pictures, a really nice effect overall even if it was a bit Western. "I like the place." "SO glad you approve." She flopped into the recliner, and he sat down on a throw pillow. "What are you doing over here?" "Bored, mostly." "YOU? Bored? Your life is so weird that it shouldn’t be possible for you to get bored, Ryoga." Weird? Well, he didn’t exactly have a reference... it was much more normal than Ranma’s life, for example. "Yeah, yeah, well it is, okay?" She sat back. "Come to think of it, I’m bored too. Well..." Ryoga felt an inexplicable sense of dread come over him. It was exactly the same sense that he got whenever something was about to hit him, or even more like the sense he got whenever he was about to be splashed with cold water in full view of Akane (the thought hurt) except for the fact that it was TOTALLY unlike those two feelings. He didn’t understand it and it frightened him. "Here, you can tell me what the hell is going on around here." And suddenly the sense went away. Normal. What had that meant? "Well, there’s these things called Angels, and..." She threw a pillow at him. "Stupid. I mean the OTHER things." "Well, Misato drinks a lot, and..." Good thing she didn’t have any more pillows to throw... she lifted a glass. "What sort of things?" he asked in a much smaller voice. "I mean, YOU. How come you’re so messed up?" He wasn’t aware that he WAS messed up, thank you very much. "Care to be a bit more specific?" "Okay... Rei told me about the pig thing, she nearly busted a gut laughing about it. I thought she was really cold... although I can’t blame her, it’s funny as hell!" "NO IT’S NOT FUNNY AT ALL. Do you have ANY idea what it’s like being a pig?" He realized how stupid that sounded. "Imagine if somebody took away everything you were, made you into something that by definition could not even BE what you were. In one swoop, everything that makes you a human... except the ability to realize the change. It’s... if I had the water from the pool I fought in, I would pour it on the ground. If I had the cure, I would give it to anybody... even somebody I hated. It’s the most horrible thing that has EVER happened to me." He looked up at her, saw the shock in her eyes. She was looking... at his hand. He glanced down, saw the hand, curled around a chunk of the floor. Didn’t even notice, he thought. Tore up her nice carpet and didn’t even notice. "Um... sorry about that. It’s kind of a sensitive point." Asuka snapped out of her trance. "Right... well, nobody likes being laughed at, I suppose. Well..." She looked at the ceiling for a second, as if she were seeking divine inspiration. "How about getting lost? I mean, why?" "Wish I knew... for some reason, my father, my mother, none of us have any sense of direction. I get lost... THAT I’m used to by now, it’s been going on for so long that it’s all I know how to be." "So, that’s why you carry around the pack and umbrella and everything?" "Er, mostly. The umbrella has another use, which I shall have to hurt you severely if you laugh at again. Plus, when you can’t find your home, you have to take it with you." Asuka got up, disappeared for a second. Headed for the entry, he saw. She came back, dragging his backpack. "Oof. This, Ryoga, is truly heavy. Mind if I take a look?" "Um... no." Of course, he couldn’t imagine why she would want to take a look... and normal paranoia didn’t usually stop him. She flipped back the top, rummaged through the contents. "Hm... clothes, clothes, bathing supplies..." "Of course, given the circumstances..." She nodded absently. "Thermos. Makes sense, I suppose..." She flipped it to him, he caught it with both hands. Carefully, now... he cupped it as if it were porcelain. "Hey, this was a gift, be more careful with it, will you?" "Sure..." She still was paying more attention to the pack than him. "Hot water kettle. Field kit... matches... what’s this?" Oh, the tent. "It’s a tent, dummy." "NO way this is a tent. It must weigh what, two pounds?" Like he cared what it weighed... but it was really small, and that was important. "Western style tent... a couple of campers gave it to me. There was this boar, see..." She started chuckling. "Well, it keeps the rain off, right?" "Heh. Yeah, we all know how important THAT is... first aid kit. Hey, this thing’s never been used, you know." "Well... I don’t know any first aid anyway." HE never needed it. Come to think of it, he didn’t know anybody who knew first aid, except maybe Dr. Tofu. Why? Nobody ever needed it or anything. "I won’t ask... hey, what’s this?" She pulled out a waterproof packet. NO wait, no don’t open it up Asuka you dummy Ryoga can’t believe you let her see... "HEY!" Oh, damn. Asuka’s eyebrows twitched like hummingbird wings. "Exactly what do you have THESE for, anyway?" Think fast, Ryoga, or she’ll be out for blood... "Trade goods." As if she’d believe it. "Not everybody takes yen, you know. I can always find SOMEBODY who’ll swap one of those for a meal and a place to sleep, though." He braced himself. "You’re still a pervert." She slid the photographs back into the pouch. "Isn’t that..." "Uh... yeah." "You know, if I tell her... him about these, he won’t be happy." THAT would be an understatement. "Look, it’s not like I look at the things. Can YOU think of anything that would work better?" "That doesn’t matter!" She chewed her lower lip for a moment, then continued. "Alright, maybe it does matter. Still, it’s perverted." Whew. She still had that glass of water handy, though... "Just put the things away, all right? I’m not proud of them, but I’ve got to eat just like everybody else." "Pervert." She replaced the packet in the bag, continued rooting through its contents. "Ah, now here’s something." She pulled a small leather pouch, opened it. Inside were layers of tissue paper. "Must be important." Well, she would have found it anyway, maybe if he didn’t make a fuss then she would ignore it and go on... Inside the tissue was his picture of Akane. She’d given him one, he couldn’t remember exactly how long ago, it had been school picture day. He still warmed a bit from the thought that he had rated a picture... well, not so much as he used to. The frame was silver, a little something he’d found in Shinjiku one day. It had been worth the cost. Asuka examined the picture, narrowed her eyes. "She means a lot to you, then..." He sighed, and the remaining good mood brought on by his bath left. Nothing left but a cold chill, really. "Everything." No need to say more, how he felt, how he grieved. "Yeah, I saw you two over there." Eep. "Like nobody was going to notice that you went and talked with her at the dojo. Actually, I’m not sure that anybody else DID notice... that Ranma, he’s not too bright, is he? And Rei..." Well, not even Ryoga really could read Rei, so far. "She didn’t SAY anything..." "Well, then, what’s her name? Oh right, Akane, I remember." "Yeah." It was such a lovely name, too. "So, you dating her?" Heh? Mental note: Asuka’s not as good at reading people as she thinks. "No..." Depression laced his voice. "No, she’s getting married pretty soon." "Really? To who?" REALLY not that good at reading people. "Um... Ranma." "WHAT?" Asuka’s face twisted into a horrible, laughing grimace. "HAH hee haa heh hum. Hoo. Oh, wow, now THAT’S something. Can you imagine..." Whatever she was imagining, the thought sent her into another fit of laughter. If she kept it up like that, she’d fall out of her chair. Suddenly, the reference hit him with almost physical force. She couldn’t be thinking THAT... come to think of it, he couldn’t be thinking that either. The very thoughts were repulsive... "And you call ME a pervert! That’s... argh it’s not JUST gross, it’s... Oh, man, I can’t handle this. You..." She snickered for another second or two, then petered out. "Sorry... but it just happened. Mental flash." She actually looked apologetic. "Didn’t mean to rub salt in the wound or anything." Now what was she referring to? No, don’t think about it, it’s probably more perverted... argh! Meditation. That’s what he needed, meditation, that would drive the twisted thoughts from his head. Yeah, he should go and meditate. "Never mind, all right?" "Okay, okay. So, what else? Old girlfriends?" "No, no girlfriends. My lifestyle, it doesn’t exactly suit itself to long relationships." "Well, sure." He forced a grin onto his face. "Your turn, Asuka. Air out the dirty laundry. Boyfriend?" She laughed. "Sure, Kaji, of course." Kaji? Oh, right, that guy. He seemed pretty cool, although Ryoga knew that he was not exactly the best judge of that sort of thing. "He’s old enough to be your dad." Not precisely true... probably. "Moron. I’m not serious, it’s just kind of fun. He is really cool, though, don’t you think? AND he’s a real Renaissance man, too. A little bit of everything." "Really, what?" Hey, this was working... he had successfully changed the subject! He made a mental note to remember the technique. "Well..." Asuka’s eyes were not exactly focusing. "He’s a pilot. Not Eva, of course, but jets. And he writes. AND he’s a master of Kendo." With those muscles? Ryoga knew all of the major schools of martial arts well, and Kaji didn’t have any of the marks of a Kendoist. His walk, his tone, his rhythm were all wrong. He did have some calluses, though. Come to think of it, they didn’t really ring any bells. "Self-styled?" "Yeah... hey, no fair, don’t insult him when he’s not here." Ryoga scratched the back of his head. "Uh, no, I mean is it his own style? As opposed to any of the major schools." Asuka gave him a flat look. "Like I would know? Ask him, if you’re interested, maybe he would teach you." "Hah. Not gonna happen. I don’t need a teacher." "What, are you ‘self-styled’ too?" Come to think of it... "Yeah, I guess so. Dad, he taught me a little, when I was a kid, and every day was like practice, for years. Then, I met Ranma, and we’ve been fighting ever since, so I just sort of picked it up. I seriously doubt there’s a school of umbrella combat out there." "Sure there is, just no students." She stuck her tongue out at him. "Where’d you get that thing, anyway? Not off the rack somewhere." The umbrella? "I met this civil engineering guy a few times. For some reason, I keep bumping in to him... he taught me a lot. Computers. He made the umbrella from some broken tank bits in a scrap pile. Even taught me the Shishi Hokodan." "Say what?" "Uh... did you hear about the fight with the fifth Angel?" She nodded. "Yeah, the big octahedral one. You mean..." He remembered... sorrow like he’d never felt it, power like he’d never dreamed of... "Yeah... THAT was the Shishi Hokodan. Pretty cool, huh?" "Nice trick, right. You got any more?" He grinned. "One or two, maybe." No sense in warning her. "Right, sure you do." She laughed. "You want some lunch?" "Sure, what do you have?" She favored him with a look. "Oh, right, you want ME to cook something. I can’t cook in here, you’ll have to take me home first." "It’s right next door, dummy. Just go and call me when it’s ready." Well... considering what usually happened when he stayed somewhere for a long period... he walked next to the wall, concentrated, paused. "Um... it is this way, right?" No sense in blowing out the exterior wall. "Yeah, but the door’s THAT way, Ryoga." Wonder of wonders. "Good, stand back." He found his center, the fragment of his soul where nothing moved... he felt himself, the floor, Asuka (her aura was jagged, almost spiky), the wall... He drew back, careful not to disrupt his concentration, the flow of awareness... and... now. --- Asuka saw Ryoga standing in front of the wall. "Um... there’s no door connecting the apartments, Ryoga." He wasn’t listening... what was he doing with his hand? It went back, and the forefinger stiffened while the rest curled... he flashed it forward, poked the wall. "Yes, THAT wall, NOT door, stupid." He turned around, grinned. "Really?" And the wall behind him blew outward, dozens of fragments peppering the floor and walls. She didn’t catch any herself, his body blocked them, but some of the paintings would need replacement. "Door." He promptly turned around two times and headed for her bathroom. Immediately, he stuck his head around the corner. "Um... which way did you say it was again?" The dummy. --- Ritsuko stared at her papers. She had seen the results of the pilot ego barrier waveform readings before, noticed the differences between Ryoga and Rei... and promptly chalked them up to age and sex differences. Looking at Asuka’s, though, she had other thoughts. The ego barrier waveform was, for lack of a better descriptive term, a manifestation of the individual’s sense of identity. It didn’t really mean anything, but they looked really scientific and made great wall decorations, so she had kept them around. She looked at Rei’s, Asuka’s, then Ryoga’s. In the first two, a certain topographical component was completely missing... almost like a pie with a single slice removed, but not quite. The regularity was incredible, no two ego barrier waveforms had ANYTHING in common, except for Reis’... but this was different. The same chunk missing, twice. It could be the something that let them pilot an Eva, for all she knew. After all, the act of piloting was sort of like a consensual hallucination of the senses, a transfer of self... maybe Gendo and his "original sin", too. She then flipped to Ryoga’s. It didn’t have the irregular chunk missing. In fact, there was so little on the paper that she’d checked the ink in the printer the first time. What WAS there was an exquisite filigree of lines... an almost insubstantial personality, totally clashing with what she knew of the boy. Heck, even Rei had a nice healthy ego. She matched up the drawings. Yes... nothing on Ryoga’s in that section missing from Rei’s and Asuka’s readings. Whatever had happened to Ryoga, it allowed him to pilot Eva as well. She shook her head. With such a fragile ego barrier, it was a miracle that he maintained a physical form at all... Time to test the hypothesis. Ego barrier waveform patterns were one of the standard data collections kept on NERV personnel. Her own, first... normal, and pretty cool looking, to boot. Misato’s... Maya’s... Aoba’s... Hyuuga’s... Futuyuski’s... everybody’s was different, but no missing pattern in any of them. As a lark, she looked up Gendo’s waveform. [classified] Huh? It didn’t make any sense to classify a waveform, it was an essentially useless piece of data... well, it had been. She tried pulling up a full file on him. Name, residence, physical statistics... the whole thing WAS rather sketchy, come to think of it... standard psychiatric evaluation, missing. No surprise there. Medical data... medical history... known background, damn little. Ego barrier waveform... classified. She shivered, the kind of feeling that you get when somebody walks on your father’s grave. Gendo knew something and hadn’t told her. It was hardly the first time, of course, but she had always known WHY the other times... and did she now? --- "We’re losing her, Gendo. The move, the classes, she’s not the same person." Gendo looked up from his tea. He didn’t get out enough, that was true. And now, with a couple weeks before the schedule really got tight, he was taking the opportunity to relax and recuperate. Nothing like a nice cup of tea to unwind. He had always loved Osaka... the best place in the world to get lost for a week or two. "Um... Gendo?" "Sorry, Futuyuski. You were saying?" Futuyuski sipped his own tea. "Rei. She’s not the same Rei that we’d planned on." "Of course not, moron. Things change, people change, times change. I would be a fool if I didn’t expect her to change, not with what’s happening. The key is to adapt to the changes, use them to reinforce the plan instead of disrupting it." "Yes, but these changes... she’s taking initiative, now. Asking things. Almost demanding things. You will have to take it into account, you know." "I know... she’s a human, isn’t she? I can’t get away with treating her otherwise, not any more. Ah..." He sipped at his tea. Good tea. "We’re all human." Very good tea. Futuyuski opened his mouth, was cut off by his cellular phone. Didn’t the idiots at the office know what he meant when he said that he wasn’t to be disturbed? Damn, now he was tense again, he’d have to visit the onsen after his tea to relax. Eyes. Futuyuski’s eyes NEVER opened like that. Shock. Unexpected shock. Did Ryoga kill Aoba or something? Loose cannon, and dangerous to the Plan, of course, but Gendo was proud of him. Ryoga didn’t take any nonsense, he was truly a man among men. "Gendo... an orbital satellite... they’ve spotted an Angel." He sprayed half of his mouthful of tea onto the table and nearly choked on the other half. "No..." The implications were clear. "Tell Captain Katsuragi to handle it." She should be able to, she was still far short of her stress points and competent as hell to boot, but... "No more trips to Osaka, Futuyuski." "Too bad... I love the tea here." Futuyuski grinned, almost, as he wiped the spray off of his side of the table. He wasn’t good at grinning... --- Misato grabbed at a cup. Coffee. She needed coffee. And quick! Ah... even cold, the caffeine felt good going down. Her nerves were shot. Two hours ago, something had taken out an observational satellite. Pattern blue: an Angel. How could they fight something that was is SPACE? Ritsuko gestured to Aoba, and the screen changed. It showed a projected orbital path, although the whole thing was fuzzy... since that first contact, they hadn’t picked up any sign of the Angel’s presence. The only evidence that it was still there were three meteor impacts. "So, it’s going to bomb us?" She hadn’t planned on this kind of attack, in which close combat skills would be useless. "I suspect not." Ritsuko gestured again, and the image changed to show dozens of calculations. Potential energy played a big role, but most of it was too detailed for Misato’s mind to follow. "The first three drops were probably to familiarize itself with targeting and such. Likely, it will simply fall on top of this command center." Well, that couldn’t be too bad. "So..." "You see that bottom line?" Um... Ritsuko must mean the one with the energy release approximation. "What, only ten thousand joules? That’s not enough to penetrate the first layer of armor." Why was Ritsuko’s eyebrow twitching like that? "Misato, those are terajoules." OH. Now that was a different thing altogether. "I don’t think we could survive that." "I don’t think we can shoot it out of orbit, not without the ability to spot it precisely, anyway." Well, if you can’t shoot it... Misato grinned. "We’ll use Eva to catch it, then." Maya piped in from the sidelines. "Um, Misato, that could seriously damage Eva. Not to mention the difficulty in catching something moving that fast, when we can’t spot it or tell where it’s going to land..." "Work it out, people. Anything’s better than letting the city get leveled, right?" Ritsuko sighed. "I thought you’d try this. All three of the Magi give a success rating of less than one hundredth of one percent, though." "That means it’s over six orders of magnitude more likely than turning Eva on in the first place, and we managed that." Asuka stared at Misato. They were in the central briefing room, her, Misato, Rei, Ryoga. She had to have lost it. Totally crazy. Asuka had suspected, yes, but here was proof. "You mind repeating that?" Misato grinned. "Well, we figure that around eighteen thirty, the Angel will hit somewhere in downtown Tokyo-3. Before that happens, we want you guys to go catch it." Rei blinked, twice. "Using the AT field?" "Yeah, I know, it was designed as a defensive field only, but we really don’t have anything else to do the job." "Where is it going to land?" This time from Ryoga. "Here’s the projected drop zones." Misato thumbed a remote, and a map of Tokyo-3 rezzed into existence on the floor. Over half of it was covered in green. "We don’t know exactly where in this area that it will hit, although we can narrow it down the closer it gets to impact." She was crazy. "So what happens if you guess wrong and it comes down somewhere else?" "Don’t worry, you guys will survive anything in the Eva, near as we can tell." "And if the Eva can’t stop it?" "We’ll be a little put out, then." Very crazy. Asuka edged herself a bit away from Misato in case it was catching or if she went over the edge and tried to bite or something even worse. "And if something goes wrong?" "We’ll be put out in that case as well." "What are the chances that this is going to work?" Misato shrugged. "God only knows." "Um..." She swiveled her head to look at Ryoga. "How am I going to get there? I, uh..." "Don’t worry, Ryoga-kun, we’ve thought of that. Just follow the signs and you’ll make it." Great. The entire plan rested on Ryoga’s sense of direction? "You must be kidding, right Misato?" "No jokes." Misato brightened a bit. "Tell you what... I’ll take you all out for a steak dinner after this, okay?" "Really?" Ryoga... he was virtually slavering. "Well, then, let’s go already!" Misato headed for the door. "We’ve got maybe fifteen minutes. Get ready. Rei, make sure Ryoga doesn’t run off." "Understood." Once Misato had closed the door behind her... "Let’s go already? What’s with that, Ryoga?" The moron. Bribed by food. He put both of his hands up, defensively. "Hey, just trying to make her feel better, that’s all. Besides, I LIKE steak." "Um..." Ryoga didn’t turn around. "Don’t worry, Rei, I’m sure they’ll have something besides meat for you." "But..." "Or we could go somewhere else..." Rei looked directly at Asuka. "Do you know how I can get his attention?" Heh. She’d been waiting for this opportunity. Ever since yesterday, she’d been wondering... did it only work there? Asuka reached behind her, closed her eyes, willed. As soon as she felt the wooden handle, she began a forward arc, her eyes opening in awe as she opened and directed the strike... and fifteen pounds of wooden sledgehammer made an impression on Ryoga’s skull. He went down, hard, with his hands splayed out and making funny warding gestures. "That works for me." Well, now, this could be a useful talent. "HEY! What was THAT for?" Obviously it was going to take another try... "You LIKE hitting people like that, Asuka?" Ryoga rubbed the back of his head from his position on the floor. "Not that it hurts, really, but it’s the idea." "Stupid. Rei wants to ask you something." He started and swiveled around. "Yeah?" Rei stood a few feet back, with a sweatdrop the size of a fist hanging from her short hair. "Do you think you can really find it?" "Uh... not by myself, no. I’m sure Misato figured it out, though." Rei... was she worried? It was hard to tell, her face kind of looked that way all the time... "She hasn’t had to keep up with you." Asuka swore that the corner of Rei’s mouth twitched. Once. A few millimeters. "Why do you ask?" By this time, Ryoga had managed to collect his wits and stand back up. Amazing, how hard one man’s skull could be. Rei pointed to the corner... to the telephone in the corner. "You should tell somebody what you’re doing." "Huh? OH, yeah, right." He wandered over to the door, stopped, then headed to the telephone. He grabbed the receiver off of the handle, dialed eight numbers... --- "Ranma! Telephone!" Kasumi’s voice brought Ranma out of his fighting concentration. He stopped beating on the wrapped pole in the yard and headed inside the dojo. Hm... he couldn’t remember expecting any calls, and almost always they brought bad news, but you never knew. "Thanks, Kasumi." She handed him the handset and left, headed for the kitchen. He could already smell dinner cooking... ah... no, wait, there was a burning odor too. He remembered that Akane was helping with dinner tonight. "Hello?" \"Ranma? Is that you?"/ "RYOGA? Hey! Where are you, man?" That’s funny, Ryoga NEVER called. \"Look, Ranma, you know about what’s going on?"/ "Some kind of evacuation or something... I dunno. Why?" \"Make sure that Akane is all right, okay? This one... it’s going to be close."/ "Sure, no problem, man." Figures. \"No parties or anything, all right?"/ "Got it, no problem, she’ll be fine. Go kick some ass." He could hear Ryoga’s relief over the phone. \"Great! Thanks, Ranma. Look, I’ve got to go, it’s going to happen about six thirty and we’ve got to get ready."/ "Sure thing. Good luck." \"Heh. I’ll need it."/ [click] What had he meant by that? Oh well, he was just being paranoid. Akane stepped out of the kitchen. From the smell, and the fact that she wasn’t still wearing her apron, her culinary masterpiece must have self-destructed early tonight. "One of these days, I’ll figure out what goes wrong with that... who was it, Ranma?" "Um..." Tell her? Ah, why not. "Ryoga. He was just calling and saying to be careful." "He did? How sweet." The way she was looking at him was not her usual "how sweet" expression went... it was more like a "worried" expression. "So, is something really going to happen?" "Yeah..." An idea formed in Ranma’s mind. "HEY! Nabiki!" "You called?" She walked down the stairs. Heh. This would be brilliant. "Bet you five thousand yen that the Angel will attack within twenty minutes." Nabiki’s eyes opened up. "Hey, thanks, Ranma. You’d never even say something like that unless you KNEW it was going to happen... though I can’t begin to guess how... sorry, I have to go, phone calls to make." She turned and went back upstairs, humming something softly. He felt Akane’s hand smack the back of his head, which meant she was only mildly annoyed. "Honestly, you can be so stupid sometimes, Ranma." "Well, sorry." He gestured up. "You want to go watch?" "Sure, why not? We’ve got an hour before dinner." --- Ryoga didn’t notice the acceleration as his Eva was launched... instead, he stared at the map. Oh, great... he still wasn’t sure exactly how he was going to get to the point. Misato was crazy. That was the only explanation. All the beer and Angel attacks had finally addled her senses. Well, if he didn’t make it, that would cease to be a problem. Akane. She’ll be all right, Ranma knows what’s going on and he’ll get her away, so even if he screwed up then she’d still be all right. Ryoga took a deep breath, made deeper by the LCL in his lungs, and tensed. If it was at all possible, he’d like to not screw up. The plan was simple... follow the directions, and use the AT field to catch the Angel. Heh. He stepped Unit 01 forward from the elevator, dropped into a crouch. The timer gave him five minutes of power, which was three more minutes than it would take for the Angel to hit. Plenty of time. Asuka’s face appeared in a communications window. "Think you can handle it, Ryoga?" She wasn’t worried. Not Asuka... heck, she could fire off a nasty Moko Takabisha with that level of confidence. "Um..." Telling the truth was NOT an option here. "Yeah, no problem, it’ll be easy. Dinner, right?" "Of course. Get ready, Ayanami." Rei’s image appeared in another window. "Unit 00 is ready... starting in twenty seconds." Starting... Ryoga looked up, saw the trail of the Angel on its way down. It was pretty... well, kind of pretty. Just fire and a ball at this distance. Ten seconds. He eased back into a crouch, preparing to take off... he mentally reminded himself that jumping on houses like this wouldn’t really do any good and would probably slow him down. Old habits die hard... Two seconds. He hit the power cable release. Misato’s voice came over the intercom. \"GO!"/ Ryoga ran, moving as quickly as he had ever moved. Eva landed one foot after another, destroying sections of pavement on roads. Faster. Straight. Look at the ball of fire... where was the ball of fire? --- "Figures." Misato nodded to Hyuuga. "Go ahead, talk him in." At her cue, Hyuuga attacked his keyboard. With any luck, they’d be able to get Ryoga there in time... especially if he kept running like that. --- "HEY! Which way do I go?" Ryoga didn’t dare to stop running, he had to get there, he just didn’t know where there was... he passed a billboard with a huge arrow pointing to the left. That was weird... an electronic billboard with an arrow? He had passed it in an instant, and this was no time to go back and gawk. Another billboard. This one said, "TURN LEFT." Must be for a truck stop. He vaulted it and kept going. At the speed he was going, he would probably leave Tokyo-3 at this rate, assuming (rightly) that he was going in the wrong direction. Billboard... huh? This one read, "TURN TO YOUR LEFT RYOGA YOU MORON." OH! Hey, now THAT he could follow. He immediately planted his right foot (creating an oddly-shaped pond in front of somebody’s house) and cut left. THERE it was... he kept going, past billboards all saying "GO STRAIGHT DON’T TURN YOU IDIOT." He assumed they all were for him. --- Akane relaxed. Whatever that thing was, it looked beautiful, leaving a trail of fire across the sky. Naturally, she didn’t want to be around when it hit, but it wasn’t every day that Tokyo-3 was treated to a free light show. She leaned back, snugging into Ranma’s side. Thought about it, then decided to remain. He was leaning back, looking toward downtown from their vantage point on the dojo roof. "Hey, this looks pretty cool. Remind me to thank Ryoga next time he gets here..." Ryoga. Had she done the right thing? She still didn’t quite believe that he had loved her, over a year, and hadn’t said a word about it. Well, maybe once or twice. At least now, he could make a new start of it. Besides, he had a job and home to worry about now. Ranma started, swiveled his head. She listened, barely hearing a repeated bass beat. It was way too fast for a car stereo, not that anybody with an ounce of sense would drive their car through Nerima, but much louder than anything that could have come from the dojo. She looked back, saw only the top of the dojo’s roof... "Akane, hang on." Ranma latched an arm around her waist. Hey! Just because they were getting married, Ranma thought that he could do things like that without even asking? She instinctively went for a mallet, and started to swing... ...When the mallet was torn from her hands by the wind. She had an impression, neon purple and neon yellow, and then she was hanging on to Ranma against the wind. He had driven a hand through the roof and grabbed something, and after a second they settled down. "Wha..." She followed Ranma’s gaze to see a robot, the purple one, lope its way toward the central city. It was FAST, faster than Ranma could move, faster than the old pervert Happosai at a lingerie sale, faster than... she couldn’t even follow its run, now. Ranma had let go, stood up and waved his arms. "YEEEAAAAHHHH! GO GET ‘EM, RYOGA!" The robot didn’t turn around, just kept running. "Heh. Watch this, Akane." "Um... Ranma..." She managed to get his attention. "Was that really him? I mean, he’s going straight there." Which, of course, was the last route Ryoga could possibly take. How could he live with getting lost like that? "Dunno... maybe they have something in the robot. Hope it works, whatever it is." For a second, he looked worried. "What, concerned about Ryoga?" Usually, teasing him was a good way to make him forget something, even if it did have the side effect of making him mad. This time, though, he just nodded and waved his arm... which conveniently fell into place on her shoulder. She was too busy watching the retreating form of the robot to notice. --- Asuka ran her Evangelion through the city. Straight run, no obstacles, and it really was coming down dead center over NERV. Predictable. She snorted and spared a bit of her attention from running to glance at the map display. The red dot of Eva 02 was almost to the target point, with almost five seconds to spare. She was going to make it. Rei’s 00 was just behind, but still early enough... and the purple dot of 01... was just entering downtown. Maybe ten seconds behind. She keyed her transmitter on. "Rei, come on, Ryoga’s going to be late, late, LATE!" The jerk, screwing up right when they needed him. She cleared the final hurdle, leaping her Eva over a tangle of power lines, and stood directly below the Angel. At this range, she could see it through the re-entry cloud of fire. Day-glo orange, and one big picture of an eye in the center, with lots of round flanges and things. Hideous, up close. "Come on!" She threw up her Eva’s arms, tripped the switch that activated the modified AT field, and braced herself. A second later, Rei’s blue Eva joined her, doing likewise. The Angel slowed... paused... and kept falling, although what was hundreds of kilometers per hour was now only a few meters per second. It was HEAVY. The weight pressed her down, she had to drop Eva to a knee to keep it upright. Misato had said that it would destroy the city if it had hit... She looked at her auxiliary screen again. "Damn, Ryoga, where ARE you?" --- He saw the Angel strike the AT fields... Ryoga sprinted for the impact site. No chance of getting lost now; he was almost there, and with all three Evas working, they could stop it. Six more seconds... and Unit 02 dropped to one knee, bending under the pressure. Rei started to give... Concentrate. Faster. Ryoga forced away thought, focused his whole existence on moving the Evangelion. He could feel its arms and legs, pumped them like he pumped his own... he could feel the Angel. Feel it with his mind... Inspiration hit Ryoga like a hammer, but he didn’t let it disrupt his movements. Twenty more steps... ten... five... he drew back Unit 01’s right hand, stiffened the index finger, shot it upwards with a scream of "BAKUSAI TENKETSU!" as he touched the center of the Angel’s eye, through the AT fields... --- "WHOA." It had been pretty cool when the Angel had hit the other two robots, Ranma thought, but Ryoga blowing it apart like that was even better. Obviously the Bakusai Tenketsu worked on more than rocks and concrete. Fragments of Angel were flying all over town... including one... that was headed directly for the dojo... "Oh, damn, duck Akane!..." He flung himself over her, cutting off her view of the explosion. The Angel fragment arrowed into the koi pond, sending steam and water flying everywhere. Ranma stood up (wet! Still male! Oh, of course, it was hot water...) and ducked his head over the eaves. "Everybody all right in there?" He saw a drenched Soun Tendo, sitting serenely on the porch of the back yard. "Yes, fine, Ranma-kun... lovely sunset, don’t you think?" Ranma mentally cringed and straightened up. To think he had worried. He turned around, and saw Akane... who had a fair-sized mallet in hand. "Exactly WHAT was that for, huh?" He gestured to the still-smoking orange bit of Angel and shrugged. She blinked, thought about it for a second, and tossed the mallet... well, Ranma supposed that it had gone somewhere. "Oh... Thanks." --- Gendo arrived at NERV’s central office three hours later. Misato intercepted him and Futuyuski on the way to his office. "Have you seen the after-action reports?" Heh. He had indeed. Fairly clever plan, and somebody had thought of an excellent idea with the billboards... and of course, whatever Ryoga had done to the thing to finish it off, it had been effective. Still, Gendo was unhappy. Actually, on reflection, he was enraged. "Yes. I’ll review them with you and Akagi later." From her reaction, he had been not entirely successful in keeping his anger from his voice. He concentrated, attained a center. "Good job, Katsuragi. Keep it up." They walked directly past her, heading for his office. Futuyuski elbowed Gendo and asked, "Keep it up? What is this, the new Gendo?" "Well..." The "Effective Personnel Management" books that kept showing up in his mailbox DID say that occasional praise was very effective. "We’re not dead." He left off the unspoken "yet". The door to his office STILL stuck. With a snarl, he kicked it next to the doorknob, forcing it open. "You know what to do. I’ll try to get back in one piece." "But... without the schedule, something could..." Argh. "That’s what YOU’RE here for, Futuyuski. If trouble occurs, handle it. If the worst happens, you know what to do... but I certainly can’t let them see me like this." He opened the closet (after three tries at the exit and the bathroom, twice) and removed his jacket. Futuyuski sighed. "Whatever." He turned and left, attempting to close the mangled office door behind him. Damn them all. Gendo hated being played the fool more than anything else, for all that he was skilled at doing the same. He clenched his teeth. "You..." Conservative business suit was thrown into a wadded pile at the bottom of the closet, followed by shoes. He pulled out a white gi, freshly starched and smelling slightly of mothballs. Soft tabi for the feet. A pack rested on the closet’s rack, already packed and waiting. He hefted the bag, opened the top pouch. With something approaching reverence, he withdrew a bandana from the pouch. It was yellow, with a random pattern of black rectangles. Yui’s headbands. He tied it around his head, retrieved another and put it on as well. The third he pulled and tied with a single jerk, still loose. He felt the cold fury running through his veins... Time to vent. He hit the door at a run, tearing it off of its hinges and throwing it into the corridor. Even given his horrible sense of direction, he could be clear of NERV in an hour, and of Tokyo-3 in two. A week, he thought. I can afford to be gone for only one week... maybe less. He hoped that the field rations he’d packed were still good. Gendo hated eating roots only slightly less than he hated being used. --- End of part ten Questions, comments, flames go to akent@pdq.net