Ryoga threw his backpack over his shoulders, grabbed his umbrella. It had been a long week... school could really, really get boring. Monotonous. Even lost, Ryoga had always had a lot of things to look at. The same desk, day after day, just didn’t do anything for him. At least on Sunday, he could kick back and relax. He turned around. "I’ll be back tonight, Misato." As soon as Rei got there, he could go. For a second, he thought about leaving anyway. Nah. He’d just end up wandering around for a while. Probably wouldn’t even get to Nerima before somebody or other rounded him up. Besides, an Angel might show up. Rei being a pilot was all well and good, but she wasn’t really good at fighting. He heard a knock on the door and punched the "open" button. There was Rei, in school uniform. Did she even own any other clothes? Well, yes, but that plug suit might raise a few questions. And eyebrows, come to think of it. "Where are we going today, Hibiki-kun?" "As if you have to ask." Ryoga still wasn’t used to the idea of getting where you left to go, and was taking advantage of the situation to the fullest. He could see Akane on a regular basis. Odd, but nice. "Let’s go. I’ll bring him back tonight, Misato." A hand waved from the other room. "All right, guys. See you later. Stay out of trouble, Ryoga!" Easier said than done, right? Ryoga stepped out and closed the door behind him. He adjusted his bandana and smiled. "We’re off." --- Paradise Lost, part 5 Fan Fiction by Andy Kent All characters copyright Rumiko Takahashi or Gainax --- This time, Rei knew where she was headed. It wasn’t really hard to find, and the traffic was absurdly light. For some reason, everybody took off on Sundays. It didn’t make much sense, which indicated to Rei that it was probably true. Rei glanced behind her. Ryoga was still there, still smiling. A full- time job, keeping up with Ryoga. He would wander off at the least chance... not that he was trying. He just had a lousy sense of direction. How could you have a lousy sense of direction? Well, Gendo did. What was he so happy about? She decided to try asking him. It didn’t usually work (more confusing than clarifying, usually) but it was better than guesswork. "You’re happy today." "Well, yeah. No school and now this." "This?" Obviously he was talking about heading to see his friends. He gestured, up, around, at everything. "Yeah, you know, this. All this." Okay, that was interesting. Everything wasn’t making him happy, that much was obvious. Just generally happy? No reason in particular? It looked fun. She’d have to try it, sometime. "Why do you always go to the same place?" "Always? It’s only the second time. Besides, I usually can’t do that. It’s a nice change of pace, going to the same place regularly." And she thought he hated school. "Why, do you have a better idea?" Actually, she was hungry. And thirsty. When she had awakened that morning, her water beaker had something growing in it. It had smelled pretty bad too, so she tossed it in the sink and left. "I could eat." She wondered how he would take that. He nodded to himself. "Yeah, whatever breakfast was supposed to be this morning, I couldn’t eat it. You want to go to Ucchan’s again?" That would be the brown-haired girl. Nice, but a little bit on the strange side. Whatever she had talked about with Ryoga, he’d been surprised. "What are my choices?" My, but she was in a talkative mood today. "Well, we could always eat at Ranma’s. Normally Kasumi does all the cooking, and it’s really good. Or..." He paused, looked ahead of her. Somebody was pedaling a bike. On the top rail of the fence. Compared to that, her purple hair seemed ordinary. "I haven’t been to the Nekohanten in a while. Feel like noodles?" Well, noodles were ordinary. "Fine, noodles. Where?" "Follow her." "What, on the fence?" "Rei, that was almost a joke." Hey, he had noticed. She revised her evaluation of his intelligence up a little bit. A very small bit. "Whatever, let’s go." --- Cologne didn’t turn as her daughter came in the door. Her ki was all through the Nekohanten anyway, it wouldn’t interfere with anything. Shampoo stopped only long enough to grab six more bowls of ramen before leaving again. Took her six seconds; she was getting too slow. Ramen got cold, you know. At another entrance, she did turn her head. Well, well. Ryoga hadn’t found his way to her restaurant in quite some time. Of course, he never really had any reason to come in, and she suspected that he still blamed her for that little pig-cooking accident. His fault for falling in a cursed pool, but would he listen? Nooooo. And he had somebody with him... Cologne turned around completely. Even three hundred years of experience couldn’t let her leave her back undefended, not when there was a newcomer. She noted the red irises as interesting. Blue hair as irrelevant. School uniform, fairly mundane. She had a weapon concealed under the jacket, though. Modern firearm, small, and something counterbalancing it on the other side. Bullets? Probably. You could learn a lot from cop shows. Ryoga sat down at the counter. "Two ramen, baasan. For here." The girl spoke softly. "No meat in mine, please." Meat in a plain order of ramen? Not likely. "Go away, Ryoga. I’m running a business here." Even if nobody was around this early. "I’m not a charity." The fool started to scratch the back of his head. "Hey, is it impossible for a guy to pay for something here?" How did he get any money? It’s not like he could hold down a job. What was that in his hand? A thousand-yen bill. Well, paying customers were always welcome. Whoever the girl was, she was looking at Ryoga too. Surprised? "Where did you get that money, Hibiki-kun?" Cologne wouldn’t have asked, she didn’t really care, but the answer would be fairly interesting. Life was so entertaining since she had come from China, that was sure. "I asked Misato whether or not there was a salary attached. Turns out there is, a nice one. Hazard pay." What had he revealed? He’s employed. It’s dangerous. His employer is named Misato. Whatever he’s doing, it might NOT be a paid position, or he wouldn’t have had to ask. Probably, since he was a little stupid. Shouldn’t have rammed his head into so many rocks, she supposed. Now what was that girl doing? It looked like anger, only a little. Annoyance. Very little annoyance. Huh? "Well, well. Two orders coming up." This could be very interesting. "So, young man, just where did you wander off to this time? And who’s your little friend?" Banter was always a great tool to find out information, and it passed the time while cooking. "She’s Rei Ayanami. Rei, meet baasan. I mean Cologne. Sorry. She runs this place." "Nice to meet you." More interesting by the second. Ryoga knew Rei well enough to use her first name without her getting angry. Not "Rei-chan", though. Rei nodded back. Quiet, too. An odd pair, these two. "Here’s your ramen. Eat up." Ryoga talked around a mouthful of noodles. "Hey, how’s things been going?" She’d expected that; it took a lot of doing to keep up with local events even when one was there all the time. She wondered what to tell him first. "Well, I assume you’ve heard about Kodachi." He nodded. And his face changed, just for a second. Oho! "They still don’t know anything about it. Nobody’s really looking, of course." "Why not?" Rei seemed to be enjoying hers as well, but it was difficult to tell; she was VERY hard to read. "You don’t know Kodachi, young girl. She was crazy, completely insane. She even thought that she could have my young son-in-law." As if Cologne would permit THAT. "Not even her brother mourned her. Such a pity; she was so easy to manipulate." Ryoga had finished already. She always wondered where he had learned to eat so quickly. A useful skill, one she possessed herself. "You’re not still thinking of getting Ranma to marry Shampoo, are you, baasan?" Cologne laughed. "Of course, silly fool. He can’t win against thousands of years of tradition. It’s just taking a while, that’s all." Too long, of course. Her fault? Maybe, she did enjoy Japan much more than the old village. "Besides, don’t you want me to succeed? I know how you feel about the Tendo girl, after all." Pale to scarlet in one second. Remarkable circulation, that boy. And the girl was surprised too (was she? Wide eyes, but it didn’t reach the rest of her face.) "You should be helping me." Ryoga managed to compose himself, a little. "We tried that once. It didn’t work, if I remember correctly." Ungrateful child. "I taught you the bakusai tenketsu technique perfectly, in only a week. That’s invaluable knowledge, and you’re a much stronger fighter now. It was your fault that you lost." "You could have told me how to use it, you know. Oh well. That was what, two years ago?" "Just about... you haven’t been trying very hard since then, either. You didn’t give up, did you?" He couldn’t have, not with that reaction, but his response would answer more questions. And Rei’s response, if there was one. This time, Ryoga answered almost calmly. "Yeah, well, that approach wasn’t working. I’ll think of something." He had already thought of something, but he didn’t think it would work either. This new job of his? "Perhaps finding a cure for your condition should be your first concern, young pig." A little more cutting, this time. He looked at Cologne, eyes steady. "That was low, baasan." Rei was... chuckling. She obviously knew about Ryoga’s curse, then. This was great entertainment, but Cologne didn’t want to push it. She could feel his battle aura, quiet but present now, and she knew how he fought. He couldn’t win, not in a hundred years, but there was no point in releasing the bull in THIS Chinese shop. "I’ll take it back, then. Good luck to you in your efforts." She handed him back slightly more change than the bill indicated. Cologne believed fully in offering an interesting-customer discount, and he’d given her a whole day of thought with his business. He looked at the pile of change. "Hey, thanks, no problem." She noted that he did not return her wish. Shampoo had never managed to get along with Ryoga, and he had caught the fallout of a couple of their schemes. Not bad blood, but honest dislike. It was refreshing. "Rei, you done?" "Yes. Let’s go." At least she had enjoyed her ramen. Cologne believed in doing everything well. She had left the bowl half-full, though. Made sense... she couldn’t be more than half Ryoga’s mass, and there wasn’t a small ramen bowl on the menu. Red irises. Hm. That was a new one. --- Ryoga was more than a little steamed. Sure, baasan hadn’t let anything out of the bag... although it would have been trouble if Rei hadn’t already known. Surely baasan couldn’t have known that Rei knew. Right? He knew that she was much smarter than him. Maybe wisdom does come with age. Anyway, no big deal. "What’s this about you liking the Tendo girl, Hibiki-kun?" Right! THAT’S what he was angry about. Just telling Rei like that! It didn’t help that she was right, didn’t help that she had a good reason to see Ryoga succeed. What a jackass! Oh, yes, he was unhappy. "Nothing, really. She was joking around." Did it work? No. Rei wasn’t buying any today. "You didn’t laugh. You blushed. That means you were embarrassed. That means it had to be at least partly true. Right?" Well, more like perfectly dead center. "Well, yeah." Rei looked puzzled. "It’s that Akane, then, right? Or the older one?" Kasumi? That WAS funny. The only person in all of Nerima that had ever been attracted to Kasumi, as far as he knew, was Dr. Tofu. "There’s another one, you know. You didn’t ever meet Nabiki." Not a bad thing, that. "You don’t like Nabiki or you wouldn’t have said her name like that." Oops. He was being obvious. "You’re jumping to conclusions." "No, I’m not. You like Akane." "Prove it." Maybe, just maybe, he could find a way to convince her that she was wrong. Hard, but possible. "You ate that... thing that Akane cooked, right?" "Well, yeah. I wanted to make her feel better." It had worked, too. Where was Rei going with this? "You don’t eat Misato’s lousy cooking. Therefore, something’s different about Misato and Akane." "Misato’s cooking is nothing like Akane’s." True, it was not at all toxic, just lousy. But he was eating the toxic one... "I’ve tasted Misato’s cooking. It was bad enough. It can’t be that you just think Akane is cute, because people say that Misato’s cute as well." "No way!" Well, she was quite attractive, but for some reason even THINKING of Misato that way gave him a cold shudder. Nothing he could put a finger on, though. "Cut it out!" "And it’s not because she needed you to make her feel better, because that Ranma person was eating it too." She would remind him of that. "Ranma is Akane’s fiancé. That’s why he was eating it." That slowed her down for a second. "Even better. He must love her to do that. Therefore, you doing that must mean that you at least like her. And that old woman just proved it." She didn’t have to look so smug about it! Well, Rei had figured him out. This day had started so well, too... And Kuno stepped from around the corner. He had his sword, a bouquet of roses, and a goofy expression on his face. "Hi, Kuno. Off to see Akane again?" "Well met, wanderer. Yes, again I set forth to woo the noble Akane Tendo. Her beauty is unmatched among all of the world’s women..." "Except for one, right?" It was SO fun to bait Kuno. "Ah, yes, the pig-tailed girl. I will free her from the clutches of the evil Saotome forthwith. Will you aid me, prodigal warrior?" Good, an opportunity to work out aggression. "No chance. You’re not getting within a mile of the dojo today, bokken boy." --- Rei stepped back as the odd guy leveled his sword at Ryoga. Why would somebody carry a WOODEN sword around? She was still a little confused about the whole Akane thing, even if she did think that she had guessed right. The "Kuno" person spoke. "If you attempt to delay me from the arms of my beloved, you will become my enemy." Ryoga tossed his pack aside (it made a crater!) and brandished his umbrella. "Come on then. I could use a good fight!" "Cretin I shall smite thee! Strike!" Oh, well, why not carry a wooden sword if it could go through concrete? Although Ryoga wasn’t there anymore... he’d jumped in time. The Kuno guy was fast with his sword. When Ryoga landed, he attacked, faster than Rei could follow, hitting Ryoga again and again. Mostly chest hits, straight jabs, the kind that would really bruise too. He finished the attack with a swing to the head. "Heh. My turn!" Ryoga gripped his weapon like a golf club, swung a shallow arc, down to up. Up into Kuno. And up again, with Kuno. Hey! Kuno’s still going up. And up. And up. At that rate, he’d make low orbit. "Feh. Won’t he ever quit?" Ryoga picked up his pack, turned to keep walking. Turned the wrong way. "Over here, Hibiki-kun." She looked at the fallen roses. "What was that all about? You know him?" "Oh, that was just Kuno. Looks dangerous, but he’s harmless." "And all of those sword swings?" "Nothing. Just like taking a shower. He’s got one technique, that’s it." Well, it LOOKED to be impressive. "Let’s go." Ring. Huh? Ring. What rings in the middle of the street? Ring. OH, right, the pocket phone. Rei fished it out of her vest. "Yes?" "Rei, this is Fuyutsuki. We need you and Ryoga, right now. Where are you?" Rei fiddled with the controls on the GPS system for a second, then read off a set of coordinates to Fuyutsuki. "Thanks, Rei. We’ll send a helicopter. WAIT right there, okay?" "Yes, right here." Rei hung up the phone. "Ryoga, we have to wait for the helicopter here." He looked a bit confused. "Helicopter? What? Here? Why?" "Probably an Angel. Why else?" Well, her second lesson in Anything Goes Martial Arts would just have to wait. With luck, she wouldn’t need it, anyway. "Great. This day just gets better and better." --- Well, now, THAT was interesting. A helicopter, not more than ten blocks away. And it had picked up both Ryoga and the Rei girl. Obviously, Cologne thought to herself, there’s even MORE going on than I suspected. And a NERV helicopter at that. Cologne had seen the sign before, you couldn’t go six feet in Tokyo-3 without seeing it somewhere, but this was different. Ryoga’s new job. He worked for NERV? What in Hades could a massive organization want with a short-tempered and eternally lost boy like Ryoga? Cologne set out the "Closed" sign and secured her shutters. When NERV starts moving around, she knew, something was about to happen. Well, one thing, and twice so far, but close enough for caution. With luck, Shampoo would be back soon. And Mousse, useless as he was. Not even he deserved to get caught in something like this. She hopped up to the roof and waited... it should be quite a show. --- Misato ushered the two into the locker room. "Okay, guys, suit up. Ryoga, you’re going out there first. Rei, we’ll use you as backup." It had to be done. Until Ritsuko managed to track down that feedback error, it would be suicide for Rei to engage in hand-to-hand combat with an Angel. "How come, Misato? It’s always easier two-on-one." "Yeah, Ryoga-kun, but her Eva’s still not working right. If it got hurt while fighting, it would really pound Rei." Ryoga paused at that. "What, you mean worse than normal?" "Yeah, lots worse." "That’d kill Rei. Almost kills me." He hadn’t ever put it that way before. "That’s why you’ve got to go." "All right. What do you know about it?" Rei was being quiet, wasn’t she? Except she was laughing. No, it had to just look like she was laughing, because she didn’t laugh. Besides, it’s more of a twitch of the lips and a cough anyway. Right? "It’s an octahedron. Eight-sided figure, right? Blue. Definitely an Angel. That’s all we can tell from just looking." "How many arms? Legs? What else?" "Nothing, just the body. Shouldn’t be too bad." "Right. I’m ready. See you later, Rei." "Goodbye, Hibiki-kun." God, but Misato couldn’t stand how Rei always did that. Like she’d never see you again. No way to talk to Ryoga right before a fight. "Yeah, go kick some butt for me, Ryoga." "Right." He left for the Eva cage. --- Ryoga tensed. How was a big geometric shape going to fight? Nothing to hit him with. Maybe it’d try to ram him? That would be great. Nice, easy, one-shot kill there. As near as they could tell, its core was at the exact center. He hadn’t understood why the others had that core hanging out where anybody could hurt it. \"Launch the Eva."/ He grunted as the Evangelion launched. He’d try to take it on just outside of Tokyo-3’s core. Shouldn’t be too much property damage, that way. It was BIG, a couple hundred meters in dimension. He felt sorry for whoever owned what it would fall on. One hundred meters to surface. \"High energy reaction detected in the target’s core!"/ That was Hyuuga. What did that mean? Fifty meters to surface. The blast doors were open by now (or he was going to have a major headache, he thought) and the rails should be out. He heard some static through his commlink, something like, "no!" Couldn’t have been. Surface. He looked up... and a beam of light came at him. It started at the Angel’s surface, went through a building (it was melting the building!) and right... Ryoga’s world dissolved into pain. --- Ranma nudged Akane. "Bet they didn’t plan on THAT." Man, but these fights were fun to watch. Free entertainment, and it was real, too! Too bad that everybody in town couldn’t watch. Of course, they’d get flattened. It was really cool how that building had melted. "I hope that the robot’s okay." Of course the robot was okay, the robot always won these things. "Well, there it goes back down. They’ll fix it and we’ll catch Round Two." She nodded. "Well, all right. Let’s go have some lunch." Great idea, that. Lunch was never a bad thing... "I’ve got a recipe to try." Or was it? Eep. --- Misato caught up with Ritsuko in the hallway. "What just happened there? Is Ryoga..." Ritsuko looked worried. "He’s alive. Not by much, though. It might have fried some neurons, so we’ve got to keep him under for a couple of hours. That should minimize the damage." "Thank God." That was good; the big lug could use all the spare neurons he had. "What about Eva?" Without the pilot, the Eva wouldn’t move; without the robot, Ryoga couldn’t fight. At least not that. "Damage was fairly bad. Melted through most of the chest armor. Good thing you pulled him out when you did; it would have melted through in another second or so. It should have melted through anyway." Another puzzled look. Well, if the Eva was all right, then they could still fight the Angel. "What’s our time limit?" "That drill should get into the Geofront just after midnight." The Angel was poised directly over NERV headquarters. If it made it into the Geofront... NERV was armored, a little, but it wouldn’t last long against that particle cannon. "You remember the plan?" "Please." Ritsuko blinked. "Although I’m still not sure it’ll work. Running all the power in Japan through a prototype cannon? It’ll fry the fuses. We might be able to rig something up, however..." "We only need one shot." "You mean you SHOULD only need one shot. Last time I checked, Ryoga was a bit twitchy with guns." She hadn’t thought of that. "Well, then we’ll have Rei shoot it. Her Eva’s working again, right?" "Yes, but there’s some kind of feedback error still in the connections. It’ll throw her accuracy off by a good percentage. And it still kicks into her sensorium WAY too much. She’ll be hurting if it shoots back." So it would have to be Ryoga, after all. "Well, we’ll shoot with Ryoga, then. I’ll get Rei to wake him up in an hour." "Great. I’ll take care of this end. Er, you did get permission from Gendo for all this, right?" "Yeah, he said okay." Well, he had just gestured a bit, and done that thing with his hands, and angled his glasses just so to catch the light, but she supposed that qualified as permission. --- Ryoga fuzzed back into consciousness. Man, but that had hurt. Like getting hit in the chest with a pickaxe. Or eating Akane’s leftovers, but more so. He looked over, found Rei. She was standing next to a cart. "Hibiki-kun, are you awake?" As if his eyes normally opened in his sleep. "Yeah, sort of. What happened?" "You were shot by the Angel." Figured. If it couldn’t hit him, it probably had some kind of energy thing. "Misato’s got an idea. She sent me here to brief you." "Brief me?" An idea. Well, whatever. "Let’s hear it." "At 1730, pilots Hibiki and Ayanami will..." "Give me the short version." "At midnight, you’re going to shoot the Angel. Misato and Ritsuko are rigging up a big gun, a particle acceleration cannon. It should have enough power to go through the AT field and destroy the Angel. You get to play sniper." Great. "And you?" "I don’t know the word. You’ve watched American football, right?" Well, he’d seen some of it. Heck, he’d seen a game live. Good timing on his "trip" to Hawaii that year. "Sure." "What do you call the person between the guy with the ball and the other team?" She must not watch much football; she doesn’t seem to know what a quarterback is either. "Lineman. Blocker. Wait a minute..." "That’s it." Now that was stupid. "Block what?" "It might shoot back." Really stupid. "Then won’t you get shot?" Rei grinned, just a little. "Ritsuko’s got something else in mind. Big shield." Well, Misato always said that Ritsuko knew everything. "Well, that could work. What’s that?" "Your lunch. Eat something." He sat up, reached for the cart. Realized that he wasn’t wearing anything under his sheet. "Why are you turning red, Hibiki-kun?" As if she didn’t know. She tossed a package to him. "New plug suit. Don’t show up looking like that." Yes, now she was definitely smiling. "Quit teasing me, it’s not fair." "I’ll see you at the Eva cage when you’re ready. Goodbye." She closed the door behind her. --- "Thank you, General." Kensuke slid his glasses back up on his nose. Now, thanks to a certain leak, he knew about the NERV plan for the evening. And had permission to watch. He grabbed two spare tape batteries from the quick-charger and turned off all of his computer equipment. The power outage would knock it all out anyway. --- "So, why aren’t they here yet, Kensuke?" "Can it, Touji. They’ll be here. Just a... there they are." "Hey, yeah!" The Evangelion robot was really cool. Huge, walking piles of metal. Even with Ryoga as a pilot, it was impressive. "Hey, there’s two of them!" Touji had heard that Rei was a pilot too... but not that she had her own Evangelion. "Bright orange?" Kensuke already had his camera rolling. "I guess they’re not worried about camouflage. I’m so envious!" --- Misato sat down in the portable command trailer. So far, so good. The rifle was ready, and Ryoga had it in position. There were four fuses, each one good for one shot only. Of course, they’d never get four shots off, but better to have extra ammunition. The power trucks were also in place. In minutes, every watt produced by every nuclear reactor and coal and oil plant in Japan would run through those cables and into the gun. Then, into the Angel. Again, the cooling system would only hold it together for a few shots. It would be enough. Ritsuko had even patched up a targeting system for Ryoga. The beam didn’t fire straight, for a lot of odd technical reasons that Misato didn’t understand. With the little doodad in Ryoga’s cockpit, though, he’d only have to wait for the target to converge and pull the trigger. The computer would aim for him. If the Angel shot back, they’d be ready. Unit 00 was equipped with a shield, something they’d scavenged from an old space vehicle. It was large enough to cover an Eva, and she’d said that it would hold under seventeen seconds of fire. Maybe two shots worth, if they were lucky. Better if it wasn’t needed. Ryoga and Rei were out by their loading platforms, waiting for the order to start. This one would be quick. --- Ryoga looked out over Tokyo-3. The whole town was dark. The only light came from the Angel, which was lit up like a neon sign. He was still a bit worried... but it sounded easy enough. Just don’t miss, Misato had said. He wouldn’t miss. "Hey, Rei, why do you pilot Eva?" It wasn’t important, but it would pass the time. She looked at the sky. "It’s a bond. It makes me feel closer..." "To who?" "Everybody." Well, that was cool. He adjusted his headband. "It’s about time." "Don’t worry, Hibiki-kun. I’ll protect you." He started to laugh. Rei, who couldn’t weigh more than ninety pounds soaking wet, who couldn’t out-fight Gosunkugi, probably, protecting him, Ryoga the Immortal? Well, the thing HAD laid him out once already today. "Every little bit helps." He jumped up to the waiting entry plug. She followed suit, in hers. --- "Hey, quit crowding, everybody! There’s plenty of room on the roof here." Ranma groaned. Of course, Nabiki would have rented out the roof of the tallest building in Nerima. And, of course, she would charge a fee to everybody who wanted to watch. She had said that the next attack would come at midnight. Ranma wasn’t sure, but he wagered that she really did know. He had asked her, and she had referred to some "Ensign" guy who owed her a favor. No surprise that she was all through the military, too. Well, at least she had picked a good spot. You could see everything here, from the Angel on the one side, to the mountain on the other side. NERV was going to do its thing from Mt. Fukoma, which was fairly close to Nerima. Not a straight line, thank goodness. There were already enough problems without fallout from this, too. Everybody had decided to come and watch. It was a regular carnival, the way it was whenever he fought somebody. This time, he could sit back and watch. Even Soun and Pop were there, playing shogi by flashlight in the corner. Too bad that the lights were out. What were they going to do? --- "Ready, Ryoga?" Misato looked at the control boards. Everything was green and go. \"Yeah, it’s ready."/ "All right. We’re charging the gun. Fire when you get a target." The power links came online, block by block, until over two hundred megawatts of power were available. Aoba checked off each as it was reported ready. "Gun charged, Captain Katsuragi. It’s ready." Maya shouted from her terminal. "High energy reading from the target!" "No, not now!" It couldn’t beat Ryoga to the trigger. It couldn’t! --- Everybody looked at the two beams of energy. The blue one, from the Angel, fired a split second after the golden one from the robot. The two neared each other. Here, Ranma thought, was where the cool part would happen. Two energy beams hitting each other would produce a really big explosion... hey, they weren’t going straight. What was happening? The blue beam bent, twisted around the gold. It hit, down near the base of the mountain. And the gold one wavered, hit... "Hey, isn’t that the high school?" Akane had it right! By some really, really fortunate quirk, the beam had plowed into the third floor of Furinkan High School. That would blow the HELL out of all of Ranma’s unfinished homework. A cheer went up from the watching crowd. --- Ryoga looked at the beam in horror. Nothing could have survived that. It had hit the classroom, almost dead on. Ukyou was gone. Ranma was gone. Akane... \"Damn it, Ryoga, change the fuse!"/ In a fog, he threw back the lever, prepared for another shot. He watched the targeting reticule through blurred eyes. It was made worse by the light from the Angel’s second shot. Rei was managing to block it, but she wouldn’t last much longer... he looked at the charging status. It was almost ready. --- "Ryoga! Fire as soon as it’s charged!" Damn! Misato had known that something like this would happen. "Damage report, somebody!" Maya responded. "Its first shot hit the cooling trucks. The cables are going to go." Almost in response to this, the lights in the command trailer flickered. "We’re losing the lines to the cannon! Charging can’t proceed!" Aoba was punching at his console frantically, trying to route power through the circuits that still functioned. --- The gun wasn’t charging. It had stopped charging. Ryoga watched in horror as Rei’s Evangelion fell. For some reason, the Angel sensed that they weren’t a danger anymore. Its skin was melted, like somebody had taken a blowtorch to the entire Eva. He punched the button for contact. "Rei? Answer me. Rei?" No response. All for nothing. The Angel was alive. It had killed Rei. It had killed everybody. HE had killed everybody. How had he missed? Ritsuko had said to let the computer line up the shot. How had he missed so badly? He moved the Eva, threw away the useless gun. And screamed. --- Nabiki stood up. "Round two goes to the Angel. Come on folks, pay up." Ranma looked back at the mountain. There were a couple of fires, and it had been pretty obvious that one of the robots had been hit, but they had only fired the one shot. How come? Wait. Something else was going on, there. A green glow. A really big, bright green glow. There! He could see the outline of one of the robots as it stood up. It threw away its gun (huh?) and threw its hands in front of it. "Yes, Daddy, you have to pay up" Nabiki’s words were lost in a roar. The robot fired a blast, dark green. It stretched from the mountain to the Angel, hit the barrier. Kept going. Came out the other side of the Angel. That was a ki blast! And HUGE! And familiar... Oh God. That was a Shishi Hokodan attack. He’d only seen it done by two people, and he was one. That meant... And the high school... And how come it was still glowing? Even brighter this time... Oh no. Ranma jumped off the roof, started running. If he was right... --- "What the hell was that? Ryoga-kun!" "No response on the radio." Misato stared at Unit 01. It was still glowing, still getting brighter. "Did the Angel do it? What’s going on?" Hyuuga reported from his station. "It’s not the energy core, its output is stable." "Well, then what’s doing it?" Whatever it was, it had taken out the Angel. In one shot. That was one hell of a surprise. "Power source is from inside Eva." That was Aoba. "From... from inside the entry plug!!" Misato turned around, looked at the screen. "You mean, that was RYOGA?" "No response from the pilot readings." Maya, that time. "Maya, eject the entry plug!" "It’s not working! The signal’s not being received." Ritsuko opened the door to the trailer. "What’s going on, Misato?" "We don’t know yet. Blow the power cable!" "Power cable detached." Well, that gave the Eva five minutes to finish doing whatever it was doing. "How’s Rei?" "She’s alive, but unconscious. Eva 00 is seriously damaged and not operational." --- Ranma was running towards the mountain. That aura was Ryoga’s battle aura. It was charging for a Complete Shishi Hokodan attack. The energy bolt from the sky would ordinarily level a house. If it was as much bigger as that first blast, however... it would flatten the city. Only one thing could get Ryoga depressed enough to use that attack. He had to think that Akane was hurt, maybe even dead. Stupid of him to think that she’d be in class at midnight on Sunday, but then again, it was Ryoga. He didn’t always think in straight lines. At this rate, he would never make it in time. He still had a couple of minutes before Ryoga cut loose, but it was too far on foot. He’d have to take a car. Of course, he didn’t have a car. That meant he’d have to just take one. In fact, that car looked like a good idea. Parked by the side of the road, and nobody was around. He smashed the window, unlocked the door. Brushed broken glass out of the seat. Slid in. Shut the door. Reached to turn on the motor... There was no key. How do you start a car without a key? Ranma didn’t know too much about car stealing. You could always hot-wire the car, but he didn’t know how. What else... he remembered some movies. There, the keys were always in the car somewhere. He checked the visor. There they were. He shoved the key into the ignition and turned it. Well, that turned the radio on. How about the other way? There it goes. Now how do you drive this thing? Left pedal stops. Right goes. Turn the wheel to steer. First, put it into gear. He moved the letter from "P" to "D"... --- Ritsuko looked outside of the trailer. They had most of the fires under control, and the Angel was definitely dead. Eva, however, was still active, and it still had two minutes of power remaining. Ryoga had turned off his radio and wasn’t moving. It was glowing, though, enough to cast shadows by now. Why was it glowing? Something was moving on the access road. A light. Two lights, headlights to a car. They weren’t moving in a straight line. She looked closer, saw the car. It had once been red, but now, there wasn’t any paint on the sides, which were battered like they’d been in a few wrecks. Both fenders were crushed. As she watched, the car hit the side of an embankment, flipped. It skidded to a stop and started burning. The driver was still moving, though. The door opened and a blur shot out, something with red hair and red shirt and black pants. Two technicians moved to stop it. It didn’t slow down, but both the techs crumpled like they’d been poleaxed. She moved to intercept it, only to have it jump, at her. The last coherent thought Ritsuko had that night, before its feet hit her face, was that nothing should be able to jump that far, that fast... Ranma jumped off the blonde and kept going. She would have picked a car with an open mug of water inside. It was a miracle that she’d arrived in one piece. More or less. Obviously, driving took a lot more practice than it seemed. She made it to the robots. One was down, and it looked like it had been melted. The other one, Ryoga’s robot, was still glowing. From the battle aura, Ranma guessed that she had less than thirty seconds to stop Ryoga. Or at least make sure that he took himself out with everybody... "Hey! Ryoga! Down here!" --- Ryoga heard something, penetrated the fog of his despair. He had killed them, killed the Angel, but they were still dead. What was that? Ranma. Female. Alive. How could he have survived? It didn’t matter. She was dead. With her dead, it didn’t matter anymore. What was he saying? He was saying... "Stop it." Something like that. Ryoga hit the external speaker switch with a snarl. "I killed her! I’m sorry, Ranma. I killed everybody! I killed Akane!" He was yelling now. "What’re you talking about? It’s MIDNIGHT, you moron. Nobody was there. Akane’s okay!" What? Hey, it was midnight. Akane was okay? Hey, yeah, it was midnight, he didn’t shoot Akane, she was okay? "Really? She’s okay?" He was laughing now, and crying. "She’s okay!! Hah hah! She’s okay!" Everybody was fine, Akane, Ranma, Rei... oh God, Rei. Ryoga hit the manual ejection switch. The entry plug spiraled out of his Eva, which slumped to the ground. He punched the hatch without waiting to drain the LCL, and flowed out to the ground. "Hey, Ranma, give me a hand! I’ve got to check on Rei!" "Rei? What’s she doing here? What’re YOU doing here, Ryoga?" "It doesn’t matter. I’ll explain later. Come on!" He was still laughing. Maybe it WAS good to be alive. The blast had knocked the armored plate off of Eva 00’s pilot compartment. Ranma grabbed the hatch handles, then snatched his hands back. "Oww hot!" "Weakling." Ryoga grabbed the handles, barely feeling the heat of the metal. He twisted them around, then looked inside through the flow of LCL. Rei was there... she was moving. "Rei! Are you all right?" "I’m all right." "Thank God. So, goodbye, is it?" He was still happy. "Why are you crying, Hibiki-kun?" He didn’t know. "I just am, that’s all." She smiled, just a little. "Dummy." Ryoga looked up, saw the approaching technicians, and Misato. "Look, Ranma, thanks for coming and all, but you’d better go." Ranma nodded. "Yeah, I don’t think they’ll be glad to see me. Next time, Ryoga, aim for Kuno’s will ya?" With that, Ranma started to jump down the mountain. --- "Ranma, whatever happened to you? Let me get some bandages for your hand. And some hot water." "Thanks, Kasumi." What in heck were Ryoga and Rei doing piloting the robots? This was very weird, even for Ranma. He had better kick back for the night, though. Now he knew why people used seat belts. And it really hurt to break a window out with your fist. Next time, he’d use a brick or something. --- Cologne balanced on the end of her staff, looking over the city at the mountain. That had truly been a ki attack, one of incredible potency. And, judging from the source... Ah, life was so interesting. Suddenly, she felt better about having fed Ryoga some ground-up Phoenix Pill in his ramen. It was just an experiment, true, she had dozens of the things that she didn’t need. You just couldn’t trust Jusenkyo Magical Spring Products to get an order right any more. He seemed to enjoy it, though. That girl, Rei, too. --- End of part five Questions, comments, flames go to akent@pdq.net