Chapter 1: Another Fine Mess
Chapter Text
It was a pleasant fall evening at the old temple. Keiichi Morisato sat on the veranda, sipping a cup of green tea, his short legs stretched out in front of him. The sun sank slowly behind the cityscape, casting long shadows across the temple grounds. There was the everpresent sound of traffic, but it didn’t take away from the moment: it provided an oddly appropriate undercurrent of noise to the birds chirping.
The best part of all, Keiichi thought, was the warm body next to him. Belldandy leaned against his shoulder, and the sweet smell of her long hair filled the air. He wanted to put his arm around her, but Keiichi did not quite have the courage to do that just yet. Still, just having her next to him was good enough, an impossible romance betweeen a mortal human like himself and an immortal demigoddess like her.
“Keiichi?” Belldandy murmured. “Do you know what would make this sunset even more wonderful?”
“What’s that, Belldandy?”
“Watermelon. I picked up some in the market today—would you like a slice?”
He grinned at her. “I’d love one!”
Belldandy got up and smoothed her skirt. “I’ll be right back.”
Not realizing that that line was a setup for utter disaster, Belldandy got up and walked into the temple, sliding the shoji panel shut behind her. The house was fairly quiet tonight, considering it was home to two other demigoddesses. Skuld was busy in her workshop working on yet another of her projects--which Belldandy hoped did not involve high explosives--while Urd was immersed in American-rules football, her latest obsession. Belldandy blushed as Urd unleashed a flood of obscenities in several languages: loosely translated, Urd was highly disappointed in the referees, who were not only visually impaired, but whose parents had never married. She smothered a giggle: Urd would never change. Belldandy walked into the kitchen, and decided it couldn’t hurt to get her sisters a slice of watermelon too.
In another universe, next Sunday AD, another house was enjoying a quiet evening. This house was also in the nation of Japan, though further north and deeper in the mountains; no one ever seemed to ask why Japan seemed to be the nexus of so many strange arrivals. In this house, there was also a single young man who had found himself also surrounded by incredibly beautiful females…who, like Keiichi, occasionally and accidentally tried to kill him.
Keiichi had Belldandy: while Urd and Skuld did occasionally voice opposition to the two being together (violently), neither sister competed with Belldandy for the affections of Keiichi—one, because neither wanted him, and two, because it would upset their beloved sister. Tenchi Masaki, on the other hand, would have given every possession he owned for such a situation. The women he was surrounded with would cheerfully kill each other for a chance to be with him: Tenchi, through no fault of his own, was squarely between Ryoko, space pirate, and Ayeka, Princess of Jurai. Both women loved him, both women wanted him, and the only thing they agreed on was that one of them would just have to leave, or die screaming.
Tonight, however, the Masaki residence was absent its usual level of casual violence, which tended to make Tenchi’s life a sometimes comedic and sometimes terrifying combination of soap opera and Omaha Beach. Ryoko and Ayeka had achieved a shaky ceasefire that would have won Tenchi a Nobel Peace Prize, if that august committee knew about it, so he was able to get some studying done for some upcoming exams. However, all work and no play make Tenchi a dull boy, so he took a break and went downstairs for a quick snack. He waved a greeting to Sasami, Ayeka’s young sister who served as cook, maid, and general peacekeeper, and his grandfather Yosho; both were playing a game of shogi.
Tenchi passed a door in the hallway and paused, just for a moment, as there was the briefest flash of light from beneath it. He stepped back, because behind that door was a pocket dimension that held the lab of Washu. Though she (usually) appeared as a child, Washu was in fact millennia old and a mad scientist to boot. It had been awhile since she had blown half the house up, and she was due for another explosion.
Then Tenchi had another idea. Nonwithstanding her penchant for building weapons of mass destruction, Washu was indeed the genius that she often loudly claimed to be. Tenchi was stuck on a math problem at the moment, and what better person to help him solve it than Washu? Of course, she too had expressed a desire for Tenchi on occasion, but lately she seemed to have given up on seducing him—which, in Washu’s mind, meant tying him up and extracting “samples” from him, either orally or digitally. In any case, Tenchi hoped she’d given up. With a little trepidation, he opened the door and walked into Washu’s lab.
Inside, in the middle of her cluttered lab, Washu was intently welding on a steel sphere. She was short with a shock of unruly red hair that spread upwards and then down, over her back, like an enraged crimson porcupine, but even Tenchi had to admit that she was remarkably cute for someone pushing twenty thousand years old. Tenchi stopped, however, when he recognized the sphere: it was Washu’s temporal travel device—the infamous, if not inventively named, Time-Space Machine.
Tenchi decided it was time to leave; the math problem could wait. The last time the Time-Space Machine had been used (or, more properly, abused), it had sent Tenchi and his friends and family across time and space—it did work as advertised. Most of those adventures involved Ryoko and Ayeka fighing over Tenchi, which was several adventures he could do without. He noticed that the control leads were hooked up, which meant Washu was welding on a dangerous machine that was switched on.
“Hi, Tenchi,” Washu said in her nasal voice, without looking up.
He froze. “Uh, hi, Washu.” Tenchi was afraid to distract her for even a second.
“What did you need?” She stopped welding and straightened up to her not-impressive height, removing the welding goggles from her face.
“Uh, nothing—”
Washu gave him a sardonic smile. “Come on, Tenchi. I was born at night, but not last night.”
There was nothing for it but the truth. “Well…I’m stumped on a math problem. It’s probably too much trouble—”
Washu smiled. “It’s not! I’ll be right with you. Let me finish doing these spot welds on the ol’ Time-Space Machine.” She saw him go pale, and waved it off. “Oh, please. You worry too much. I’ve installed safeguards since the last time.” She pulled down the goggles and went back to welding. “Give me a few moments and don’t distract me, okay?” Tenchi nodded. He remained where he was: he had learned from painful experience that it was a poor idea to touch, mess with, or even lean against anything in Washu’s laboratory.
Unfortunately, despite plenty of painful experience on her part, Ryoko had not learned that lesson. Seeing Tenchi standing just inside the lab through the still-open door, she was seized with the sudden and ill-advised urge to grab her would-be lover. Worse, she faded from sight before she did, because in Ryoko’s somewhat twisted mind, scaring the bejesus out of Tenchi was romantic. Invisibly, she crept up behind an oblivious Tenchi, reached forward, and hugged him, while simutaneously running one leg up his and sticking her tongue in his ear.
Rarely does disaster just happen: nearly every one is the end result of a chain of events usually involving human error (or alien, in this case), miscalculation, and occasionally just plain stupidity. Ryoko’s actions counted as all three. Tenchi, not expecting a pair of soft breasts being thrust into his back and a wet tongue trying to locate his eardrum, screamed. The sudden noise caused Washu to jump and her welding torch to score a long scorch mark across the sphere’s surface.
Tenchi whirled as Ryoko reappeared. “Ryoko, don’t do that!”
“Oh, did I scare my widdle Tenchi?” Ryoko cooed. “I’m sorry.” Her eyes smoldered. “You can spank me later, if you like.” Tenchi went beet red.
“Hey!” Washu shouted, pulling off the welding goggles and throwing them at Ryoko. “You two idiots nearly made me ruin this thing!” She switched off the torch and inspected the damage. “Well…lucky for you my matchless reflexes are intact, otherwise I might have damaged it.” She ran her fingers over it and shrugged. “Oh well. I was getting bored anyway.” She put the torch away and wiped her greasy fingers on a rag. “Let’s look at that problem, Tenchi.”
“Oh, you have a problem?” Ryoko purred. She took one of an increasingly flustered Tenchi’s hands and put it between her legs. “So do I, and you can solve it with your big—”
“Ryoko?” Washu said, and there was a threat there.
Ryoko noticed the rage in the scientist’s eyes, and stepped away from Tenchi. “Y…yes…mommy?” She clasped her hands together in supplication, hoping using that word might deflect Washu’s wrath somewhat. Washu was Ryoko’s biological mother, though it wasn’t often that Ryoko actually admitted it.
Washu pointed at Ryoko like she was aiming a gun. “Bang.” Ryoko disappeared with a pop of displaced air, only to reappear over the nearby lake, where gravity did the rest. She fell in with an oath. Washu sighed and followed Tenchi out of her lab. Behind her the sphere lay dormant.
Until there was the tiniest of sparks.
Belldandy thought she felt something on the wind, but then dismissed it as Urd once more began to shout something about the inefficiency of the American school system and its effect on National Football League referees. As she neared the kitchen, she walked past a full-length mirror.
Washu’s Time-Space Machine affected dimensional travel as well as time, and the sudden spark had closed a circuit. This sent out a signal that cut across dimensions, somehow missing a girl standing near a magical well, and a young man holding a video game and walking past a tractor. The signal found the mirror, which activated Belldandy’s own means of extradimensional travel—through mirrors. How this was possible could not have been answered by Belldandy or Washu, but it was science fact, and you should really just relax. It wasn’t important. What was important was that Belldandy was suddenly wrenched off her feet and pulled into the mirror. She was caught completely by surprise, but with one herculean effort, she caught herself with one hand and kept her head just free of the dimensional gate. “Keiichi!” she screamed once, then was gone. The mirror reformed itself to its normal benign appearance.
Keiichi was on his feet and through the door before he even realized it. “Belldandy?” He looked around frantically as Urd stuck her head out of her room. “Belldandy?”
Behind him, the tea cup had fallen to the ground and shattered.
Dr. Ritsuko Akagi was bored out of her mind.
She wouldn’t have admitted it under torture, but it was true. She leaned back in her chair, trying to stifle a yawn and keep her usual expression of concentrated interest. Of course, there wasn’t much for her to really do at the moment but watch various screens, instruments and other multifunction displays for signs of trouble.
There were times, Ritsuko thought, that she wondered if Gendo Ikari ordered synchronization tests of the Evangelion pilots to give his staff at NERV something to do. The tests were useful, allowing Ritsuko to run diagnostics on the delicate biomechanical systems that ran the Eva mecha, as well as keep a running tabulation on the skills of the mecha’s pilots. For those reasons, it was wise not to simply ignore Gendo’s request for the sync tests. Still, it wasn’t the most interesting thing to do in Tokyo-3 on a warm, otherwise pleasant summer evening.
Maya Ibuki read the sync rates in a monotone, sounding as bored as Ritsuko felt. All the pilots were on the largest monitor of all, suspended in hologram before the command bridge. The three pilots on it—Rei Ayanami, Shinji Ikari, and Asuka Langley-Soryu—seemed to be asleep, and Ritsuko found herself envying them. She checked the chronometer above the monitor. Ten minutes to go, then she could pull the entry plugs out of the Evas, get the pilots out, give them a quick debrief, and then write up the results of the test. Once that was done, she could return to her apartment and engage in her true passion at the moment. She swore to herself that she, Dr. Ritsuko Akagi, would beat Final Fantasy XI if it took Third Impact to pull it off.
Ritsuko was just composing an excuse to end the test early when suddenly, it seemed every alarm that NERV possessed went off. She was instantly alert and her feet, her eyes roving the monitors for the problem. Her three primary techs—Maya, Shigeru Aoba and Makoto Hyuga—also sat up and checked their instruments. Behind them, there was a sudden yelp, crash of an overturned chair, and a spate of sulphurous Japanese curses—Misato Katsuragi was awake. “What in the actual hell is going on?” she shouted.
Ritsuko ignored her. “It doesn’t look like the pilots.” The alarms suddenly ceased. They all looked at each other, then they went off again. “What the hell is going on?” Ritsuko echoed Misato as the alarms once more shut off before clamoring back to life.
“The pilots are fine, ma’am.” Makoto’s fingers flew across his keyboard. “Okay, we’ve got a Blue Signature Alert. We’ve got an Angel on our hands.”
“Yeah, but the signal’s weird,” Shigeru said. “Keeps fading in and out. That’s why the alarms keep cycling.”
“Shut them off,” Ritsuko ordered; she was starting to get a headache. “Contact Commander Ikari and notify Tokyo-3 JSSDF command, Maya. Where is the signature emanating from?”
The alarms ceased, but Shigeru shook his head. “Signal’s still fuzzy, ma’am. Give me a minute.”
Misato was back on her feet, mumbling maledictions, but seemed alert enough. She grabbed a headset and put it on. “Pilots, stand by. We’re ending the sync test. Looks like we’ve got an Angel here. Stand by to deploy.” She glanced at Ritsuko. “Good thing the test was done with the Evas today, or we’d be in trouble.” Ritsuko nodded absently, and Misato turned back to the pilots. “Check in, pilots.”
“EVA-00, ready.” Rei’s reply was delivered in a flat voice, as usual. Misato was thankful for that; if Rei ever sounded excited or rattled, it would probably signify Third Impact.
“EVA-01, ready.” Shinji’s voice was also in its usual tone—one step below panic. He had made it clear that he hated piloting his Eva, but did it because it was his duty.
“EVA-02, up and ready!” Asuka sounded more excited, but she looked forward to days like this—and on days like this, Misato appreciated the fiery redhead’s enthusiasm.
“Okay. We’re moving you to launch positions. We don’t know what we’re facing yet or where it is. We’ll let you know as soon as we know.” Misato now looked at Makato, who shook his head, his expression one of frustration. “This hasn’t happened before, has it, Rits?” she whispered to Ritsuko. The doctor paused, then gave a shake of the head.
Vice-Commander Kozo Fuyutsuki walked quickly into Gendo Ikari’s office, which was dark as usual, aside from the hellishly red diagrams etched into the floor and ceiling. He noticed Gendo was getting to his feet, straightening his tunic and glasses; next to him was his chair, overturned and on the floor. “Commander, the situation is—Gendo, were you asleep?”
“Of course not,” Gendo snapped. “My chair slipped out from under me.”
Kozo doubted that, but there was more pressing matters. “Commander, we have a possible Angel attack underway. Central Dogma is still trying to pinpoint where and what it is.”
Gendo stopped brushing at his shirt. “What did you say?”
“An Angel attack. The problem is, we can’t fix its location. It keeps fading in and out.”
Gendo shook his head. “That’s impossible, Fuyutsuki,” he said, dropping his voice. “The timing is wrong.”
“I know.”
Gendo exchanged a worried glance with his former mentor, and walked out onto the command bridge, above and behind Akagi’s control center. “Akagi!” he shouted. “What is going on down there?”
Finally, Ritsuko thought. You’d think he was asleep or something. “Commander, we have a Blue Signature reading, but we haven’t pinpointed it yet—”
“Got it!” Shigeru exclaimed. “We’ve got a solid location. Still fading in and out, but we’ve got it. Getting the coordinates now.”
Misato checked the monitor: all three Evas were in launch position. “Evas, launch!” she shouted. All three of the giant machines were locked into titanic clamps attached to elevators; all three were shot upwards, through a mile of steel and earth to where they would appear in the city of Tokyo-3.
“Get the buildings down, Maya,” Ritsuko ordered.
“No point in that now, ma’am,” Maya sighed. She brought up the coordinates on a map projected onto the main monitor. “MAGI confirms. The Angel is already in Tokyo-3.”
“What?” Ritsuko, Misato, and Gendo said at the same time, which was an extremely strange sound.
“Still can’t get a definite fix,” Shigeru informed them, “but it’s within this eight block radius.”
“Boost the power,” Gendo ordered.
“No can do, sir,” Makoto reported. “We’re at full strength just to get this.”
"Activate reserve power. Use life support if you have to."
An alarm sounded briefly, telling them that the three Evas had reached the surface. “Pilots, the coordinates are on your tactical displays,” Misato told the three teenagers. “Collect weapons, form up into combat formation, and surround that sector. Report in when you have a visual—” Misato paused. “Hey, wait a minute, how come we don’t have a visual on this thing?”
“Can’t find one,” Shigeru told her.
“Angels are a hundred feet tall and look weird as hell!” Misato yelled. “And we can’t see this one?”
Shigeru gave her a shrug. “I call ‘em like I see ‘em, Major—and I’m not seeing this one. Neither is anyone else. JSSDF has helicopters up, and they don’t see anything either.”
“Shit,” Misato breathed. “That’s not good.”
You’d think we hadn’t done this before, Asuka sighed to herself, as she found one of several false buildings in the Tokyo-3 skyline and opened it, revealing a gigantic assault rifle, the length of a destroyer but with double the firepower. Oh, ja, I have been a very good girl this year. EVA-02 easily hefted its weight, and Asuka turned. The sensors placed in EVA-02’s quadruple eyes scanned the city, and saw nothing. “Misato, where is it?”
“I can’t see it either,” Shinji reported. Asuka saw that his EVA-01 had collected a similar rifle. He turned the mecha in a circle, like a horribly deformed ballerina; Asuka bit back a comment, because the movement was fluid and flawless, even with the huge power cord still attached.
“No visual contact,” Rei chimed in. Her EVA-00 had a rather odd looking sniper rifle.
“Be advised, the Angel might be invisible,” Misato radioed them.
Wunderbar, Asuka groused. “I’ll take point,” she said.
“I have point,” Rei countered.
“Dammit, Wondergirl, I have point—”
“Quiet!” Misato cleared the channel. “Okay, we’ve got a solid fix now. The Angel is apparently much smaller than the ones we’ve engaged in the past. It may even be human sized.” Human-sized? Asuka snorted derisively. That’s no damn threat. “Still, it should look much different, so identify the target before you open up on it.” A new diagram came up on Asuka’s Heads-Up Display, projected on the artificial windscreen ahead of her that showed the outside. “Converge on the target.”
Wait, Asuka thought. That neighborhood looks really familiar.
Misato watched the huge monitor. The Angel was apparently on top of or in a building. A collapsing triangle was shown on the display. Shinji was on the western end of the zone, with Asuka on the east. They were converging from either end, flushing the Angel into the open; Rei took up position at the apex of the triangle, on a hill that still had an Evangelion-sized divot on it from a last battle. She was on overwatch and would fire the moment the Angel showed itself. They were all silent as they waited for contact.
“Major,” Shigeru said, “we’ve got a solid signal now, even if MAGI is using everything it’s got, including reserve power.” The lights had dimmed noticeably in Central Dogma. “The Angel is definitely human-sized.”
Misato relayed that information to the pilots. “Well, at least there won’t be a big mess to clean up. Do we have a better fix?”
“Here’s a switch,” Shigeru chuckled. “I can give you an address.”
“We’re about to pay someone's insurance policy,” she mused. “What’s the address?” Shigeru read it off, then froze. All of them did. Slowly, they all looked at Misato. “Oh shit,” she repeated. “That’s my address.”
Belldandy groaned as her eyelids fluttered open. She blinked to focus her eyes, and found herself staring at a rather unfamiliar ceiling. She was lying on something soft, and as she sat up, realized she was in someone’s bed. She checked herself; she wasn’t hurt, and nothing felt broken. “Keiichi?” she said aloud, then with more fear, “Keiichi? Urd? Skuld?” In mounting panic, she realized she could not feel the man she had pledged her life to. That was terrifying: Belldandy knew she should always feel the connection to Keiichi, to say nothing of her sisters; only the Almighty could break that. Even if she was on the other side of the world, she should feel that, and there was nothing.
Belldandy fought down the panic. She was alive, and if she was alive, there was hope. She took a deep breath and stood. She felt a little unsteady, but got her bearings. The room was small but well-kept, if a bit spartan. She touched the desk’s surface; it was real. A quick check of the room’s furnishings and items—there was a tape player on the desk—told her that wherever she was, the technology level was roughly the same as where she had come from. If I have been thrown through time, it is not very much.
Belldandy opened the door to the bedroom and walked out into a fair-sized apartment’s living room; she could tell that there were two other bedrooms and a bathroom. There was an attached kitchen, and a magazine left on it; it was in Japanese. Not another land. That’s good. There was the distinct smell of beer in the air. Finally, she spotted the phone. Touch tone. Good. She walked to it only to nearly stumble over a penguin. It tottered back in surprise. “Wark!” it exclaimed.
“Oh, hello,” Belldandy greeted the penguin. She knelt. “I won’t hurt you.”
“Wark?”
Belldandy straightened and bowed to the penguin. “My name is Belldandy.” The penguin pointed with its flipper to a chain around its neck. “Pen-Pen? Well, that’s a cute name.” She patted Pen-Pen’s head, and the penguin leaned into her hand. It let off a few more quacks—at least, she supposed that was what penguin speech was called. “I’m afraid not,” she answered Pen-Pen. “I don’t know what I’m doing here. To be honest, I don’t know where here is. Do you live here alone?” She had never heard of a place with sentient waterfowl, but it was an infinite universe.
Pen-Pen shook his head. “Wark. Wark, wark wark, wark wark wark wark…wark.”
Belldandy’s eyebrows came together in confusion. “You live with a wimp, a banshee, and a beerhound? I don’t understand.” She looked around. “They seem to keep the place clean enough. Do you mind if I use your phone?” Pen-Pen shrugged. “Thank you.” Belldandy gave him a small bow and picked up the phone.
She was just about to dial when the door to the apartment suddenly burst open. Two heavily armored humans in battlearmor leveled assault rifles at her head, followed by a woman in a red beret, matching jacket, and with an extremely hostile expression. She pointed a pistol at Belldandy. “Drop the phone, step away from the penguin, or I will turn your damn head into a canoe.”
Belldandy did as instructed, raising her hands. “Oh my.”
Chapter 2: The Angel That Shouted Recipes at the End of the World
Summary:
As Keiichi, Urd and Skuld frantically search for Belldandy, they get help from an unexpected source. The question is, do they really want Washu's help?
Meanwhile, NERV interrogates Belldandy. Can she survive being questioned by Rei, Asuka, and...Shinji?
Notes:
Here's the next chapter! This one gets surprisingly serious in parts, but never fear, this is a comedy story.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Tokyo (Goddess Timeline)
Keiichi’s scream had brought Urd and Skuld running. “Whrf ong, Keifi?” Urd said around a mouthful of chips.
Luckily Keiichi was used to Urd’s somewhat uncouth eating habits. “Belldandy screamed, and I don’t see her anywhere. Didn’t you hear her?”
“I was in the garage…I heard you, that’s all. I was drilling.” Skuld looked worried. “Where is she?”
Urd shrugged. “I’ve got two hundred on the Dolphins, so I was watching TV. Figured you two were having some fun, so I didn’t think much of it until I heard you yell twice.” Keiichi and Skuld realized at the same time what Urd was implying, and while Keiichi blushed and coughed, Skuld bared her teeth and reached into her coverall for something highly explosive. Urd’s next words brought her up short. “I…I don’t feel her in the temple.” Now Urd looked worried.
“She said she was going into the kitchen for watermelon…” Keiichi walked into the kitchen, but there was no watermelon on the counter.
Skuld swallowed audibly, paler than usual. “I’ll get Banpei! He can do a radar search!” She dashed off.
Urd gave a hasty nod. “I’ll do a spirit imprint. If she never made it to the kitchen, there might be something in the hallway.” She winked at Keiichi. “Don’t worry, Keiichi. She’s disappeared before. We’ll find her just like last time.”
Keiichi waited as the two goddesses went to work. Skuld brought Banpei out of the garage and set the robot up on the veranda, while Urd brought a container of what Keiichi thought was flour. When she scattered it, however, it glittered as it fell. She knelt to watch. He did as well, and thought he saw the outline of footprints appear. There were actually several pairs—the hallway to the kitchen was well-used—but he noticed that the more recent one glowed brighter.
Skuld came back into the hallway, now with an expression of terror on her face. “Banpei…he can’t find her. His radar’s only got a radius of a few blocks, but…there’s nothing.”
“Fancy robots and cool tech are no match for a good magical powder at your side.” Urd traced a set of footprints that glowed brightest of all. “Behold, kiddos—Bell’s footprints.” She pointed forward. “Looks like she was moving towards the kitchen and got in front of the mirror…and the prints stop.” Urd conjured a magnifying glass from her sleeve. “There’s a partial toe print here…Bell dragged her feet.”
Keiichi looked at the mirror. “Something pulled her through, maybe?”
Urd nodded. “Stands to reason.”
Skuld had a patented Skuld Bomb in her hand. “Stand back. I’ll blow her out of there.”
“Hold on before you blow up the house.” Urd pushed past her fuming little sister and put a hand on the mirror. There was a brief purple glow on it. “No, she’s not sealed in there.”
“Mara?” Keiichi touched the mirror too, as if he could feel Belldandy through it.
“Nah, she’s not going to be around for awhile.” Urd grinned at him. “I beat her at Tetris. We had a bet. She has to stay away from here for six months.”
“What did you bet?” Keiichi asked.
“Your head.”
“What?!”
Urd waved it off. “Relax. I didn’t bet your neck, did I? Besides, Mara sucks at Tetris. Now if it was Twisted Metal, that might’ve been scary.”
“Who cares?” Skuld shrilled. “She’s gone, Urd!”
“Relax, kid,” Urd reassured her, though Keiichi thought he saw worry on the goddess’ face. “I’ll just call Peorth. Yggdrasil should be able to track down Belldandy, no problem.” She winked at him. “Though ol’ Keiichi here might have to…persuade ol' Peorth…”
“Gross!” Skuld exclaimed, and grabbed the phone. “Just call her and quit making it weird.”
Outside Tokyo (Tenchi Universe)
Washu returned to her lab an hour later, feeling immensely satisfied with herself. Solving Tenchi’s math problem had been child’s play, naturally. She had watched Sasami’s and Yosho’s shogi game, and stepped in to save the young Juriaian by using the Second Ithmar Defense. After that, she helped Mihoshi put out a microwave fire, lectured the blonde that aluminum foil does not make food heat faster, and snacked on three of Sasami’s delicious blue tarts. Somewhere in there, she had airily ignored a sopping wet Ryoko’s promise of imminent violence on Washu’s being. All in all, it was shaping up to be a wonderful evening.
She went back to the Time-Space Machine, promising herself more of those tarts, when she noticed the long scorch mark across it. She peered at it closely, and saw that the torch had actually penetrated the sphere’s skin. “That’s not good. Computer!” she snapped.
There was a chirping noise, and the computer spoke in a female voice not unlike her own. “Yes, O Washu, the Great and Powerful, the Genius of the Multiverse, Scientist Extraord—”
“Never mind that now. Replay Tape AAA-144-6969.” Luckily, Washu had cameras scattered through the lab to record everything she did for posterity. The computer fawningly complied, and a holographic screen appeared in front of her. Instantly noise blasted from hidden speakers. “Ahhh! Oh, yes, Mecha-Tenchi, that’s it, harder! Harder! Stick it right up my—”
“Eek!” Washu squeaked. “Computer, cancel!” The screaming stopped and the image stopped. She looked around to see if anyone else had wandered into the lab. “Er…I mean, Computer, replay Tape AAA-144-6996.” This time, the image showed Tenchi waiting patiently as Washu welded the sphere, from earlier. She saw Ryoko float in—her invisibility was no match for Washu’s technology—and surprise Tenchi. She waited as she saw herself yell at Ryoko, teleport her away, then leave with Tenchi. “Computer, hold!" Washu ordered. “Enhance image, top left.”
Then she saw it. “Oh, shit.” Washu flexed her fingers, and a holographic keyboard appeared in front of her fingers. “Damn. It sent out a signal…well, it should be okay as long as it didn’t hit anyone in the surrounding universes.” She studied the results that appeared on the screen. “Which it did, of course.” Washu sighed. “It was shaping up to be a nice night, too…oh.” She peered closer. “The signal snagged…an angel of some kind? No…a goddess.” Washu let out a longer sigh and rubbed her eyes. “Oh, hell. Now I have to find that phone number.”
Heaven (Goddess Universe)
Peorth was having a good day, if a boring one. As Chief Programmer for Yggdrasil, the eternal and universal computer, it was her job to ensure it ran smoothly. It was, and it was about time for her lunch break. Her fingers drummed on the armrest as she watched the clock. “You would think that time would run faster around here,” she sighed.
“Miss Peorth?” One of the lesser goddesses who served to screen any calls that came in looked up at her, where Peorth floated above and behind them. “Call for you, ma’am. It’s Urd.”
Peorth closed her eyes. “Oh, no. What’s she done now?” She put up a hand. “Fine, whatever…put her through. At least it passes the time, oui?” She put on a headset. “Peorth speaking. Bonjour, Urd.”
“Peorth, how the heaven are you?” Urd sounded annoyingly cheerful.
“Urd…the Almighty has infinite patience, but I don’t. If you’re calling just to ask me if my refrigerator is running again, I swear to Tezuka I’m going to—”
“Hush, or I’ll tell Kami-sama about the time you got shitfaced and spilled your guts to Nostradamus.” Peorth’s eyes widened in fear. “Okay,” Urd continued, “now that I’ve got your attention, we’ve got a teensy little problem of a lost goddess.”
“Which one?” Peorth sighed. That Morisato human just hunted trouble.
“Belldandy. We sort of lost her.”
“You lost her?”
“Yeah,” Urd said. “She screamed, got pulled into a mirror, and disappeared. We can’t find her anywhere...and we can’t feel her, either.” Peorth gave a start at that; the sisters usually could sense each other. “It’s not a seal mirror, and it’s not Mara. So your guess is as good as mine.”
Peorth nodded. “All right, hold on.” She yelled at the programmers to run a trace on Belldandy. “We’re working on it. Give us about twelve hours.”
In the background of the call, Peorth heard Keiichi scream “Twelve hours?!”
“Yes,” Peorth answered him, “twelve hours. If you want to know why, look around you. There should be a short, young goddess who likes to invent things. If she was up here, we might not have to have debugging programs running and taking up processing speed. Instead she’s eating ice cream like a hog and inventing useless crap.” She heard Skuld scream back something that was very obscene, and it gave Peorth great pleasure to cut her off. “Oh, desole, Skuld, I have another call coming in. Let me put you on hold.” She punched the blinking call waiting button. “Chief Programmer Peorth.”
“Hi, Peorth! Is your refrigerator running?”
Peorth instantly recognized the nasal voice, even if she hadn’t heard it in decades. “Washu Hakubi. How did you get this number?”
“Might be the whole universe’s greatest genius thing—”
“Kami-sama, please give me strength,” Peorth sighed. “What do you want, Washu? If you’re selling something, we don’t want it. The last time you sold us something, you caused the Tunguska Blast of 1908.”
“Cry harder,” Washu snickered. “Actually, this time…I might be able to help you.”
“We don’t want your help, Washu, whatever it is that you want to help us with. Babi Yaga is still upset at you, and that almost broke the treaty we have with the demons! Now go away, you pirate!”
“Oh. Terribly sorry.” Washu let out an elaborate sigh. “I guess you can find your missing goddess on your own, then—”
Peorth came out of her chair. “What? C’est quoi ca?!”
“Oh ho.” Washu sounded insufferably smug. “So you are missing someone. Who is it this time? Holo? Rissa? Urd?”
Peorth sat back down, wondering what she had ever done to deserve this. “Belldandy.”
“Her? That’s odd…I wouldn’t have guessed Bell.”
“Never mind that, Washu…how do you—” Peorth paused. “Wait, I’m putting you on a conference call with Urd, Skuld and Belldandy’s human…er…friend, Keiichi.” She touched a couple of buttons, and reluctantly introduced Washu, knowing what would happen next. First there was Washu’s attempt to claim she was the greatest mind in the universe, only for Skuld to interrupt and call her a hack. Urd then tried to start a story where she and Washu had gotten drunk and burned down London in 1666, but Keiichi finally shouted for all of them to shut up. “Merci, Keiichi,” Peorth smiled. “Washu, you said you had information. I suggest you share it, oui?”
“Right, okay.” There was what writers would call a pregnant pause, and then Washu cleared her throat. “Well…you see…it was a total accident. I accidentally activated my Time-Space Machine because my idiot daughter sort of distracted me, and—”
“Ha!” Skuld snorted. “You mean it blew up in your face—”
“Skuld, enough, or I swear I’ll put you on debugging duty for the next millennium,” Peorth threatened. “I’m not surprised. You made the mess, Washu, so you can help us clean it up.”
“Well…sure. But only because Belldandy’s so nice to people. Unlike some people,” Washu grumped. “I’ll just upload my search program to Yggdrasil—”
“Non!” Peorth shouted, so loudly that every head in the immense chamber turned, as did a few outside. She wasn’t about to let Washu anywhere near Yggdrasil; Armageddon could result. “Just tell me what to enter, Washu. I am the Chief Programmer around here.” Peorth jotted down some notes, then nodded again. “I see where you’re going with this. This will cut down on the time considerably. Merci beaucoup, Washu.” Peorth cut off Washu’s next words by stabbing a button on her chair, hard.
Washu looked at the phone. “Yeah, you’re welcome.” She sighed and snapped her fingers; the phone disappeared. “Peorth always was wound too tight. Needed champagne and a guy or two to get her to be fun. Urd, on the other hand.” She sat down and stared at the Time-Space Machine. “Well…I always wondered if I could invent something I wish I could disinvent.” Washu cackled. “As if! I’m a genius. Everything will be fine!”
Washu leapt to her feet and headed for the door to the lab. “I suppose I should let Tenchi know I might be gone for a few hours, or days…months, whatever. I’ll need to pack, too—oh, and I’ll need more of those delicious blue tarts.” She paused. “Hmm. I’ll have to build an aura suppressor too. If my calculations are correct—and they always are—they might just think I’m an Angel or something.”
Tokyo-3 (Evangelion Universe)
Ritsuko Akagi walked into the room with her sixth cup of coffee. This little-used room in NERV’s vast underground complex was kept dark, mainly so the technicians inside could watch the monitors. All four of them were hooked to their own camera, and all four focused on a single, windowless and featureless room. Inside the room was one table, bolted to the floor, and two chairs. NERV had never used its interrogation room until now. “Anything, Maya?”
“Not yet, ma’am.” Maya Ibuki shrugged. She had been on monitor duty for an hour now. “She’s just sitting there.”
“Has she said anything?”
“She’s hummed to herself a few times. Oh, and she turned and waved at me once.”
Ritsuko took a drink of the coffee. This is very strange. An Angel in human form is to be planned for, even expected, but not one that’s so…nice? The Angel in question inside the interrogation room had surrendered peacefully in Misato’s apartment, and said nothing other than asking the handcuffs not be applied so tightly. Against Ritsuko’s advice—and common sense, she thought—the Angel had been brought to NERV and locked in the room. That Ritsuko found curious, and frightening: Gendo was letting an Angel this close to Terminal Dogma. Unlike almost all of NERV’s personnel, she knew what the complex was for, and what it protected—and imprisoned.
The door opened to admit Kaji Ryoji, an unlit cigarette in his mouth, typically dishelved looking and unshaven. He set down a cup of coffee for Maya and held one for himself. “Evening, Ritsuko.”
“Kaji, is there a reason why you’re here?” Unlike Misato, Ritsuko didn’t mind the presence of Kaji; then again, she knew, she didn’t have the emotional baggage that her friend had with this man. All the same, the presence of this Angel was a closely guarded secret…but Kaji had a way of finding such secrets.
“Beats me,” he shrugged. “Director Ikari told me to help you with this…” He motioned at the monitors. “Whoever this is.” He pulled a lighter out of his pocket.
“Don’t you dare smoke around my computers.” Ritsuko gave him a look that promised a lingering, painful death.
“Fine, fine.” Kaji took the cigarette out of his mouth and put it in a pocket. He peered closer at the monitors. “Pretty little thing, isn’t she?”
“She might be taking that form to put us off our guard,” Ritsuko warned.
“Or maybe she’s not an Angel.” Kaji gave another shrug. “Hell, why don’t we just try talking to her?”
Ritsuko regarded him over the top of her coffee mug. “Talk. To an Angel.”
“Why not? We’ve never tried that before, have we?” Kaji snickered. “Usually we just let them come in and cause billions of yen worth of destruction, come up with some ridiculous plan that somehow works, blast ‘em a few times, and they blow up.” Another nod towards the monitors. “This one doesn’t show any signs of killing anyone or blowing up, so why not talk?”
Just as Kaji finished her sentence, the door opened to admit Misato and Gendo Ikari himself. Misato barked a humorless laugh. “Oh yeah, great plan, Kaji. Let’s go talk with the Angel! And that’s got nothing to do with her being a cute girl, huh?” She crossed her arms across her chest and rolled her eyes. “We should hang her up by her thumbs somewhere. Or make her watch Battle Skipper. That’ll break anyone.”
“Whoa, hostility!” Kaji laughed. “Aunt Flo in town, Misato? What’s with the third degree?”
Misato’s eyes blazed. “Why, you dirty, stupid—”
“Enough!” Gendo snapped. The two quieted down. “As much as it pains me to admit it, Dr. Akagi, Kaji is correct. This approach is getting us nowhere. We must find out what the Angel knows.” He put his hands behind his back, because putting them in front of his mouth while he was standing looked foolish. “Send in Pilot Ayanami.”
Belldandy wished she could lean back in the chair, but it was designed not to allow that. She knew she was being watched, and knew who was watching her—not their names, but that there were five of them, and that they were getting frustrated with her lack of reaction. What a strange place, and group of people. So violent. So devoid of hope. So sad. Perhaps I am in the 1970s. She sighed. Poor Keiichi, and Urd and Skuld. They must be worried sick about me.
The door suddenly opened, startling her, and a young girl, younger than Keiichi, walked in. She wore a strange, body-hugging white suit; her face was pleasant enough, though she wore no expression, and had powder-blue hair. Belldandy sensed a slight nervousness, so she slowly got to her feet and bowed deeply to the girl. “Good evening. My name is Belldandy. What is your name?”
The girl looked a little quizzical for a moment, then hesitatingly returned the bow, just as deeply. “I am called Rei Ayanami.”
“Pleased to meet you.” Belldandy motioned to the other chair. “Please, won’t you sit down?”
Rei, for her part, was actually quite confused. The Commander had ordered her to talk to this creature, a suspected Angel, which to Rei seemed a very dangerous idea. It was also a strange one, since talking was something Rei was not good at. Nonetheless, it would be impolite to leave a stranger standing there, so Rei took the offered seat. Belldandy waited until Rei sat before doing so herself.
Rei waited a few minutes in silence, then finally asked, “Why were you in Major Katsuragi’s apartment?”
“Was she the angry one with the pistol?” Rei gave a single nod. “Ah, I see. I don’t know, Miss Ayanami. I’m afraid I’m here quite by accident. I was pulled through a mirror and woke up in the apartment.” It never occurred to Belldandy to lie. She could feel the magic in the air here—ancient magic, not necessarily good—and assumed, incorrectly, that these people knew what they were doing. “I mean no harm.”
Rei blinked, which for her was a violent show of emotion. She wasn’t sure how to respond, so she did what she thought Director Ikari would do. “I do not believe you.” She leaned forward and steepled her hands in front of her.
“I am not lying. I don’t lie,” Belldandy reassured them.
“Where was this mirror located?” Rei asked.
“In my home. It is an old temple…I live there with my sisters Urd and Skuld, and my best, dearest friend Keiichi Morisato.” Belldandy knew that this Tokyo she was in now was not the one she lived in, but she needed to make a connection with this girl. In her mind’s eye, she saw her sisters and Keiichi—my friend? Belldandy asked herself. Or something far more? The thought made her look down at her shoes. They had been bought by Keiichi with hard-earned money. She could have easily bought them herself, or simply conjured them, but it was a gift. She felt tears in her eyes, and rubbed them. “I’m sorry. I miss them very much.”
“Oh, she’s good,” Misato commented.
Maya sniffled. “It’s kind of sad! An Angel with a family, and a human friend that she loves!” She wiped away a tear of her own. Everyone looked at her with varying degrees of measuring Maya for a straitjacket, so she quickly went back to monitor duty. Everyone’s attention returned to watching the monitors as well. The room was getting warm, with five people in it.
“Dr. Akagi,” Gendo growled at Ritsuko, squeezed in uncomfortably to his left.
“Yes?” Ritsuko replied, not in a friendly tone.
“I’ll thank you to remove your hand from my posterior.”
Ritsuko gave him a glacierlike stare. “My hands are nowhere near your posterior, Commander.”
Gendo then turned to his right, and felt the hand quickly move away. Kaji coughed. “Sorry, sir. Thought you were Misato, sir.”
“If I could move,” Misato hissed, “I would kill you.”
“What is your purpose in coming here?” Rei asked.
“Do you mean here, as in this room, or here, in this world?” Belldandy wanted to know.
“The world,” Rei clarified, after a moment of hesitation.
“Oh. That is hard to answer without getting philosophical, but I’ll try.” She gave Rei a warm smile. “You see, I work at a place that is…very hard to explain. One day my friend Keiichi called me on the Goddess Help Line. It was quite the accident!” Belldandy laughed. “Nonetheless, anyone who calls the line gets a wish, of course, and he wished for me to stay with him forever.” She spread her hands. “Now perhaps that seems strange, even…gross, perhaps? But it was the will of the Almighty, so his wish was granted. I was a little taken aback at first, but Keiichi treated me as a true gentleman. We have lived together ever since. He is a good man, so his wish was a wonderful one…and I am the better for it.”
Belldandy’s words touched something deep in Rei Ayanami’s soul, or what passed for it. She did have feelings; they were simply buried. The heartfelt sentiment stirred Rei’s heart, and to her surprise, she felt such strong emotion, that she too sniffled once. Then twice. And then Rei started to cry.
Belldandy leapt to her feet and ran around the table, enfolding the blubbering girl in her arms. “Oh no, I am so sorry! I didn’t mean to make you cry! You poor dear!”
Gendo’s features darkened into actual rage. “Major. Get Rei out of there, now. This Angel is simply insidious.” Misato managed to squeeze past all of them and left, but not before kicking Kaji in the shin.
“This isn’t going to be easy,” Ritsuko commented. “We shouldn’t have sent in Rei, Commander. She’s simply not equipped to deal with this sort of threat.”
“Correct,” Gendo agreed. “We have tried ice. Now we shall try fire.”
Belldandy did not anger easily, but when the Misato person had led a weeping Rei from the room, the raven-haired woman had once more pointed a pistol at Belldandy’s head and threatened to turn it into postmodernist sculpture. The door remained open, so Belldandy walked towards it, only to be stopped by another young girl, wearing the same odd bodysuit—this one bright red, which was appropriate, since its wearer was a redhead herself. “Back off, witch!” she snarled. “Go sit down.”
“I am Bellda—”
“I don’t care.” The girl kicked the door shut, pushed towards Belldandy until the goddess finally had to sit or fall over. “My name’s Asuka. That’s all you need to know about me.” She gave Belldandy a contemptous sniff, then sat on the edge of the table, just out of arm’s length. “I may not like Rei all that much, but it’ll be a cold day in hell before I let one of your kind get the better of one of us!”
“My kind?” Belldandy kept her voice even. She recognized this technique from one of Urd’s bad police procedurals—good cop, bad cop. This was the bad cop.
“Angels.” Asuka looked down her nose at Belldandy. “So…Belldandy, or whatever your stupid name is, what should we talk about?”
“Is it so necessary to be so impolite?” Belldandy asked.
“It sure is,” Asuka replied. “I should warn you that I’ve killed three Angels already.”
Belldandy knew that was a lie, but also knew that calling this young firebrand out on her lie would be counterproductive. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. What is an Angel?” She wondered if they could mean someone like Holy Bell, Belldandy’s own personal angel. No, that’s not…but what if in this world, they have that power? For the first time, Belldandy felt a pang of fear.
“Don’t try that!” Asuka warned, clearly enjoying herself and getting into the part. “If you know what’s good for you, you'll cooperate. We have ways of making you talk!” She leaned forward. “Why were you in Major Katsuragi’s apartment?”
“As I told Miss Ayanami—” Belldandy began.
Asuka jumped down from the table and got into the goddess’ face. “Liar! You expect us to believe that story? Well, you got Rei to cry, but I don’t cry! Ever!” she shouted. “How dumb do you think we are around here?”
“Well, um—”
“Don’t answer that!” Asuka stepped back. “I grow tired of asking this question, Angel Belldandy. For the last time…why were you in Major Katsuragi’s apartment?” Before Belldandy could answer that—again—Asuka shrilled, “Don’t wait for the translation! Answer now!”
Goddess Help Line operators had to have near-infinite patience, and Belldandy had more than most. Not all contacts were as mannerly as Keiichi. Yet even Belldandy had her limits. Her eyes narrowed and she looked directly into Asuka’s green eyes. “Your mother would be very ashamed of you, young lady.”
It stopped Asuka’s next tirade before it even began. “My...mother?” she whispered.
“Yes. You suffered a great tragedy when you were a child, but that is no excuse for you to be treating a stranger like you are doing now. You dishonor your mother’s memory and her name.”
Asuka swallowed, took a step back, and her lower lip began to tremble. “Mama…she…how did you…”
Seeing that she had gotten her point across, Belldandy softened her voice. “It was not your fault, Asuka Langley-Soryu.” She reached out and gently touched Asuka’s leg. “It was not your fault.”
“My God,” Kaji whispered. “We’re really up against a tough one this time.”
“Indeed,” Gendo agreed. “Perhaps our most dangerous foe yet. She knew Asuka’s weakness and turned it against her, and forced Rei into discovering emotions.” He nodded. “Very well. It seems we have no choice.”
“You don’t mean—” Ritsuko gasped.
“Yes. Send in Pilot Ikari.”
Shinji walked down the hallway, passing a bawling Asuka and an enraged Misato, who was waving her pistol around without much thought to gun safety. He hurried past her, stopped at the door, and swallowed. Musn’t run away. Even if Father is sending me to probably get killed. An Angel that had broken Rei and Asuka in ten minutes combined was not something he could remotely expect to survive. All the same, Shinji summoned up what courage he had, and walked into the room, closing the door behind him. “H-H-Hello,” he stammered.
The Angel looked up at him. To his surprise, her eyes seemed a little red too, like she had been crying along with Asuka. “My name is Belldandy,” she said quietly. “I don’t know why I was in Major Katsuragi’s apartment. I don’t know how I got here.”
“Um…okay.” Shinji took the other chair. “Shinji is name. My name.” He quickly put his hands beneath the table, so Belldandy wouldn’t see them shaking. “So, uh…let’s not talk about Misa…I mean, Major Katsuragi. Let’s talk about something else.”
“All right,” Belldandy replied. She folded her hands on the table. “What would you like to talk about?”
“Er…” To Shinji’s horror, he realized his mind had gone blank. He couldn’t think of anything. Belldandy waited patiently. “Let’s talk about…um…food.” It was the first thing that had popped into Shinji’s head. Oh no, he thought, if the Angel doesn’t kill me, Father will.
“Food? Of course.” Belldandy smiled. There was something about this Shinji that she liked; he reminded her of Keiichi. “What do you like? I for one quite enjoy ramen bowls, with shrimp.”
“Really?” Shinji had been waiting for some sort of psychic attack, but this was a pleasant surprise. He liked to talk about food; one of Shinji’s few passions was cooking. “I like those too. I, um…well, I don’t eat ramen that often. I like to cook.”
Belldandy’s face lit up like the sun rising. “So do I! What is your favorite to make?”
“Kuroge beef, probably.” Shinji chuckled. “Asuka likes me to make hambagu.”
“Hamburgers! Yes, I like those as well. I do think Kobe beef is slightly superior, though,” Belldandy said. “More tender, and easier to prepare.”
Shinji nodded. “That’s true.” He smiled, and his heart thudded when she smiled back. Wow, she’s really pretty. “An Angel that likes to cook,” he mused aloud.
“I don’t understand,” Belldandy told him. “I’m not an Angel.” Realization dawned. “Is that what you think I am?”
“Well, um…aren’t you?”
Belldandy laughed. “No, no…not at all. I can see why you might think so, but no, I’m not an Angel.”
“Then what are you—if you don’t mind me asking?” Shinji added the last part hastily; there was no reason to anger this woman, after all.
Belldandy looked cutely confused. “I’m a Goddess.”
Dead silence reigned in the monitor room. Maya looked over her shoulder at a very pale Ritsuko as Gendo ran out the door, as fast as anyone had seen him move. “Um…is that bad?”
Notes:
Everything still going according to the scenario there, Gendo?
Chapter 3: Winter Dreams
Summary:
As NERV frantically tries to figure out who and what Belldandy is, they have to find a place for her to stay.
And then Washu shows up.
Notes:
Next chapter. In the original, there was a scene where Rei meets Ruri Hoshino, but it didn't contribute anything to the story, so Ruri got axed.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Tokyo-3 (Evangelion Universe)
Gendo Ikari reached his office, and practically dived into his chair. He grabbed his desk with one hand to scoot himself forward while his other typed in his password. Once in his computer, he brought up his copy of the Dead Sea Scrolls. He knew it by heart now, but just in case, he did a search for something like Belldandy…and came up with nothing. “What does it mean?” he asked in equal parts horror and wonder. “What does it mean?”
Kozo Fuyutsuki reached Gendo’s office ten minutes later: he was an old man who was too old to run. Even then, entering the office, he was panting heavily. “Director, what is going on?” He and Gendo alone knew what NERV actually existed for, and what the Angels wanted.
“There’s nothing in the Scrolls about a goddess. Nothing at all. The closest thing would be Lilith herself…” His voice trailed off. “And that can’t be.”
“Because we’d all be dead?”
Gendo leaned back in his chair, rubbing his beard in thought. “As much as it pains me to admit it, Professor—” he called Fuyutsuki by his old title “—I don’t know what this means. It may be nothing—a brush with the supernatural, an extraterrestial being, a mad self-insert. Or it could be everything: someone never mentioned in the Dead Sea Scrolls or any other religious document. Someone so insidious that the ancient peoples of our world did not dare mention her by name, for they would name their destructor if they did.”
Fuyutsuki leaned against the desk. There were times he wondered if Gendo made a lot of his plans up as they went along. It was disconcerting, however, to hear Gendo say that he didn’t know something. “Then what should we do? Shinji can’t keep her occupied forever with his Martha Stewart impression, and we have to contact SEELE at some point.”
“I’m not worried about the old men just yet.” Gendo thought for a moment. “If Belldandy is indeed some sort of ancient being, having her this close to Terminal Dogma is dangerous. She may not know of Lilith, or she may be playing her cards close to her chest. We cannot allow her to intiate Third Impact, even accidentally.” At least, not yet, Gendo added to himself. Belldandy could be very useful to his own ends if he could figure out how to control her. “So, we should observe her…but not here at NERV.”
“We can’t put her in one of our safehouses, or with Rei,” Fuyutsuki told him. “SEELE would find her very quickly. If they sent one of their hit teams after her in panic…”
“They would either kill Belldandy, or she would obliterate them. You’re right, Professor; we cannot risk it.” His fingers drummed on the desk. “What is safe…what is secure…”
“He can’t be serious.” Misato Katsuragi said in disbelief. “He’s putting her in my place? She’ll have to sleep on the couch!”
“All the same, that is what Commander Ikari has ordered,” Fuyutsuki told her, fervently wishing he had never left teaching college.
Misato leaned against the wall and thunked her head against it. “This is just a bad idea, Subcommander. She’s already screwed up Rei and Asuka. Rei’s been asking Ritsuko all kinds of strange questions, and Asuka’s in one of the guest rooms, curled up and crying for her teddy bear.”
“How is Shinji doing?” Fuyutsuki asked.
“Doing great,” Maya Ibuki answered. “They’re exchanging recipes.” She consulted a clipboard. “Recipes on ramen, miso soup—can’t wait to try that one—”
“I mean besides that,” Fuyutsuki said.
“No, sir.” Maya set the clipboard down. “We ran a check through MAGI for anyone in Tokyo-3 named Keiichi Morisato…but while there’s 20 Keiichis, there’s no Morisato. We’re going to run a search across Japan next, but that will take some time.”
Ritsuko Akagi walked in. Misato pushed off the wall. “Rits, they’re putting this Belldandy idiot into my apartment! Do something!”
“Why, that’s an excellent idea,” Ritsuko mused, and Misato started tearing at her hair. “Misato, think. She doesn’t seem evil. If she’s as powerful as she seems, she could have killed Asuka. Instead, she just gave her a stern talking to. If she stays with you for awhile, maybe we get her on our side. It would be nice to have a powerful supernatural being on our side, for once against the Angels.”
“Yeah, unless she is an Angel and bullshitting us!” Misato slid down the wall. “Fine, whatever…I need a beer. NERV is footing the bill for this.” Both Ritsuko and Fuyutsuki nodded. Misato got back to her feet and looked at the clipboard. “Well…I guess she can cook.”
Elsewhere, Japan’s national weather service noted some strange weather patterns, with snow around Tokyo-3 and a drop in temperature—though not a severe one, and the snow wasn’t sticking. This was highly unusual for the perpetual summer that Japan found itself with after Second Impact, but not unknown; the weather could be chaotic. The weather service attempted to notify NERV, got an answering machine, and settled for issuing a travel advisory for Tokyo-3 and the surrounding regions; the staff at the weather service decided that if NERV wanted to know about the snow, they could damn well open a window. There was also a report of ball lightning north of town, but thundersnow was a thing, and this was dismissed as nothing important as well.
It was just as well. Had NERV or the Japanese government decided to investigate the ball lightning, they would have found exactly nothing. The Greatest Scientist in the Universe had long ago learned how to cover her tracks.
Washu walked to the highway leading into Tokyo-3, and wondered if she caused the snow. She reached the side of the road and stuck her thumb out, trying not to shiver. She wasn’t exactly dressed for the cold.
Luckily, a truck driver spotted her and pulled over a few minutes later. He was an older man with a cowboy hat perched weirdly on his head. “Hey there, little lady,” he smiled. “Aren’t you a bit young to be out here all alone?”
Washu opened her eyes as wide as they could, assuming her Awfully Cute pose, and didn’t consider that this was how several horror movies started. “I’m sorry, kind sir, but I’m hitchhiking my way south to visit my sick grandmother in Tokyo. Can you give me a lift into town? I’ve got money; I can pay.”
“Aw, don’t worry about it, miss. Hop on in; it’s only a bit down the road to town.” Washu nodded, carefully placed her backpack on the floorboard, climbed in and shut the door. The driver pulled back onto the highway. It wasn’t long before they passed a sign that read in English and Japanese: WELCOME TO TOKYO-3, HOME OF NERV. GOD’S IN HIS HEAVEN, AND YOU ARE HERE. Tokyo-3, Washu mused. That’s right, they had that Second Impact thing here. Though it’s weird…an asteroid strike that size should’ve killed everyone.
Washu put that question aside for a different date; she needed to address the present problem first. She had the driver drop her off at a WcDonald’s, then—after a bite to eat—she found an abandoned building. The snow had stopped, and it was a little cold, but Washu broke out her portable nuclear fusion reactor and hooked up a heated sleeping bag. After making sure the Time-Space Machine was safe in its carrier, she called up her computer. There was a great deal of interference, so she had trouble finding Belldandy’s spiritual signature. Peorth is getting my help whether she likes it or not. She saw that it was getting late, so after setting out her all-purpose mini-fridge for food and her remote laser defense system (which would annihilate anything that entered the warehouse), Washu settled in for the night. She reached into the fridge to see what Sasami had stocked. “Pocky? Ah, Sasami, you’re my favorite.”
Misato had driven all three of them home, scaring the bejesus out of all three of them, even Belldandy. When the latter asked Misato to slow down due to the snow, Misato told her to shut up; she had never wrecked yet. Belldandy knew this was a lie, which didn’t exactly take goddess powers: not with the dents, scratches and duct tape on the Renault Alpine.
Misato continued her mulish resentment of Belldandy as they reached the apartment. Under normal circumstances, Misato would have apologized for the mess in her apartment, but one, Belldandy had already been there, and two, she didn’t care. Normally, Shinji cleaned the apartment as a courtesy to Misato—Asuka found ways to pawn off her chores on him—but he had been busy. His room, the kitchen, and Asuka’s area was clean, but the living room looked like EVA-01 had walked through, dropped to all fours, and rolled around like a dog in it. As for Misato’s room, the less said the better.
Misato tossed her keys on the kitchen table, reached into the refrigerator, patted Pen-Pen’s head, and grabbed a Yebisu Super Dry beer. She straightened and fixed Belldandy with a homicidal glare. “There are some rules in my home,” she growled. “First: attempt to hurt me, Asuka, Shinji and especially Pen-Pen, and I’ll shoot you. Second: leave the apartment and I’ll hunt you down to shoot you. Third: don’t drink any of my beer or I’ll strongly consider shooting you. Fourth: quit smiling or I will definitely shoot you. Fifth…” Misato paused. “Well, I can’t think of a fifth right now, but I’ll let you know when I do. Plop down anywhere you can find six vacant feet.” With that, Misato popped the top off her beer, walked into her room, and slammed the door.
Asuka, for her part, also glared at Belldandy with murderous intent, gave a sniff of derision, and walked into her room and slammed the door. It left the goddess alone with Shinji, who looked very embarrassed.
Belldandy sat down at the table. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“I am too. Asuka…” Shinji remembered Asuka’s hearing, which seemed to activate whenever Shinji was talking about her. “Asuka’s Asuka. Misato’s being really impolite, though. She’s not usually like this.”
“I am imposing on her…and these Angels must be truly terrible for everyone to fear me like they do.”
“They are,” Shinji told her. “Um…how about something to eat?”
“That would be lovely,” Belldandy smiled, and Shinji felt like his knees had turned to jelly. She’s so beautiful, he thought. Misato had warned him that Belldandy might be using her beauty as a weapon, but she did not feel at all threatening. If she was an Angel, she was very good at disguising it. Then she got up. “Let me prepare it. It’s the least I can do.”
“It’s all right,” Shinji insisted. “I like to cook. I’m used to making something quick.”
Belldandy relaxed. “All right.” She looked over at the counter. “May…may I use your phone?”
“Uh, sure—”
Misato stuck her head out of her bedroom, dressed only in her underwear, holding her beer. “Fifth: touch the phone, and I shoot you.”
Belldandy was getting a little annoyed at the suspicion, but if she let Misato know exactly what she thought of the other woman’s boorishness, that might confirm NERV’s fear that she was one of these Angel things. “Major Katsuragi, I assure you—”
“I mean it!” Misato shouted, and slammed the door.
Belldandy sighed heavily. She had to contact Peorth somehow. She did not want to risk Misato’s wrath or NERV’s, but it had to be done. Despite it going against her convictions, Belldandy decided to wait until everyone was asleep and try then.
“Shinji,” she spoke.
“Uh, yes? What is it?” Shinji was pulling some ramen out, along with fresh vegetables. “I don’t have any meat thawed, so no hambagu tonight…I hope a ramen bowl is good enough.”
“Oh, certainly. But may I ask a question?”
“Sure,” Shinji said.
“What are the Angels?”
Shinji was quiet for a few moments, but as he began to prepare the ramen, he began telling Belldandy everything that he knew, which was largely confined to events that had happened since he came to Tokyo-3. He served the ramen as Asuka came out of her room, demanding that Shinji better tell her side of the story as well…but mainly to eat some ramen. Asuka warmed to her story, and between the two of them, over ramen and green tea, they told Belldandy their story.
“That’s awful,” Belldandy said when they finished. “I feel so sorry for you.”
“Ha!” Asuka snorted. “Don’t feel sorry for me! I’m right where I’m supposed to be. I was born for this. In fact, most of the time, Shinji and Rei kind of hold me back.”
Belldandy let that one go past; she could tell Asuka was compensating for hidden fears. She had delved too deep into Asuka’s past as it was, and it was a tragic one. She’s trying to make her mother proud, Belldandy thought. Poor thing. “Nonetheless, you’re teenagers.” She almost said they were children, but knew Asuka would take that as an insult. “A war is not something you should be forced to fight.”
“Well,” Shinji said hesitantly, “we all have our destiny, I guess.”
“In any case, I can assure you,” Belldandy said, “that those are like no Angels that I know of. And they’re certainly not like me. If I did one-tenth of that, my license would be revoked and I would be severely rebuked!”
“So…so you’re not here to destroy Tokyo-3?” Shinji asked.
“Of course not!” Belldandy was aghast at the question. “I wouldn’t think of it…I’m not even sure I am capable of it.” She knew that she actually was capable of it—Belldandy could level Tokyo-3 if she felt like it, but she could not anticipate a situation where she would even consider doing so.
“Then maybe you could help us,” Asuka said.
Belldandy hesitated. She knew she shouldn’t interfere, but these were children being forced to fight a war. “I can try.”
Back at NERV, it was quiet. The “first crew” had gone home for the night, leaving only Ritsuko and Gendo on duty from the day. Gendo, for his part, was on his fifth can of Red Bull and on his fourth read-through of the Dead Sea Scrolls. He had still found nothing that remotely pertaining to Belldandy, and that posed a considerable dilemma. Gendo’s position depended on looking like he was in control of the scenario, and usually he was. When he was not, he fell back on hard-learned lessons from college: he looked busy. SEELE had already called twice, and he had no idea what to tell them; the truth would either get Gendo committed to a mental hospital (where some thought he should be to begin with), or get Belldandy cloned and mass-produced. He made a mental note that, if Third Impact went wrong, he would find Keel Lorenz in hell and kick his ass.
Ritsuko should have been doing research as well, but she was too busy playing Final Fantasy instead, so it fell to the nightwatch crew, as usual, to deal with the problem with alarms going off in the middle of the night. After prying themselves from the ceiling and picking themselves off the floor, NERV’s intrepid nightwatch determined that it was a blue pattern Angel alert—for about five seconds.
Ritsuko threw down her controller, said something very foul and blasphemous, and strode out of her office to Central Dogma. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing, ma’am,” the technician reported.
“What do you mean, nothing? The alarms went off!”
“I know, ma’am. But the alarm shut off almost as soon as it sounded.” He brought up the location on the holographic screen. “It was just south of Tokyo-3.”
Ritsuko pondered the location. MAGI could only pinpoint within a fifteen-kilometer radius. The blue pattern had only lasted a few seconds. Normally, Ritsuko would put it down to a false alarm—MAGI did that on occasion—but after the events of the day, she couldn’t be sure.
“Should we call in the pilots, Dr. Akagi?” the technician prompted.
Ritsuko chewed on her bottom lip in thought. “No…notify JSSDF and have them run a recon over the target area. If they see anything suspicious, we’ll go on alert. For now, keep monitoring. And stay awake!” Ritsuko yelled. “You’re not getting paid fifty yen an hour to sleep!”
Shinji Ikari stepped into the darkened room. He had to find out NERV’s secret, what they were hiding in the place called Terminal Dogma. He was standing over a pool of LCL, and the room smelled of blood. The stairs he stood on glowed orange from the fluid below. He took a step forward, and stopped. Shinji saw a figure step from the shadows. He could not see its face and could only hear its breathing. The way it pushed the mask into place over its face, however, left no doubt to its identity.
“The Force is with you, young Ikari,” Gendo Ikari said. “But you are not an Eva pilot yet.” Shinji drew his Progressive Knife, which glowed purple in the eerie, hellish light. Gendo drew his own, which glowed red. “Shinji…I am your father.”
“Um…I knew that,” Shinji replied.
“Oh. Well, in that case, check this out.” Gendo threw back his black cape to reveal Rei, dressed in a long flowing red robe and wearing kabuki makeup.
“I am your mother,” Rei intoned.
Shinji remembered laying on top of a naked Rei and nearly threw up. “No!” Shinji screamed. “It can’t be…that’s impossible!”
“Search your feelings, Shinji,” Rei said, “you know it to be true.”
Gendo pulled off the mask and threw back his head. “Do you smelllll what the Gendo is cooking!”
Shinji woke up. Something actually did smell good. “Someone’s cooking breakfast?” He rolled over and looked at his clock. “It’s Saturday, so it’s Misato’s turn…but it’s too early.” He swung out of bed and began to get dressed.
She swept into the room, her red dress billowing around her. With a flourish, she took off her sunglasses and pinned them between her breasts.
It was a classy place, the Casino Royale…but she was used to such class. She could move with the high and powerful, but she could also kill them without breaking a sweat. She could feel the Walther PPK strapped to the inside of her left thigh.
“Ah, mademoiselle,” the maitre’d said, bowing to her. “It is always a pleasure. Your usual table tonight?”
“Of course. And a vokdka martini—”
“—straight up with a twist. Certainly, mademoiselle.” He bowed again and moved off as she walked to the baccarat table. Men and women parted before her like the Red Sea. Every step was a poem. She took a seat, and the dealer looked across the table, her red eyes taking in the new arrival. “I see we have an old friend with us tonight.”
“Old wine. New skin,” she replied, with a smile. Oh, you’re no baccarat dealer, Rei Blofeld, she thought. But you know where Agent Kaji is, so we’ll play your little game for now. “Deal me in.”
Rei began pulling cards from the shoe. “What did you say your name was again, mademoiselle?”
She lit a cigarette. “Soryu…Asuka Langley-Soryu.”
“Would you like something to eat first?” Rei asked. “We are serving waffles.”
Asuka’s eyes flew open. “Dammit! Just when it was getting good.” The waffle smell was real, however, and her stomach growled. “Hmm…Shinji’s up early.” She yawned and stretched. “Well…I suppose I should see what Baka Shinji has made for me.”
Misato did not have any dreams worth recounting; the one with Kaji, a kiddy pool, and six tons of green Jello cannot be recounted because this story has a G rating on AO3. She groaned and woke up, the smell of food not causing her stomach to growl, but to turn over dangerously: for a hungover Misato, food was a four-letter word. “Oh, Goddd…” she moaned. “Why did I drink so much last night…” She managed to roll off the bed onto the floor, somehow not landing on several crumpled beer cans. “Gotta get the hair of the dog,” she mumbled, because talking hurt. She managed to pull on some shorts and a tank top and stumbled out the door…and stopped cold.
Shinji was a good housekeeper, but not even he was capable of this. The room fairly sparkled. The table was set perfectly, without a trace of dust or dirt anywhere—even the walls were spotless. Stepping onto the carpet with bare feet seemed like blasphemy. Asuka, Shinji and Pen-Pen were lined up in the hallway, equally thunderstruck.
Belldandy bowed to them. “Ohayo. Would you like breakfast?”
“I could eat,” Asuka admitted, and headed straight to the table. Shinji nodded and followed, with Pen-Pen waddling behind.
“Misato-san? Some food?” Belldandy asked.
“Don’t use such foul language around me,” Misato mumbled, although her nose told her that it did smell very good. Her brain managed to string together another thought, that her apartment had not been this clean since she bought it. Obviously, Belldandy had gotten up early, cleaned the place, and cooked breakfast. An Angel, even one trying to worm its way into someone’s confidence, would probably not do that. Misato started to wonder if perhaps she had been wrong. “Maybe later,” she said. “Jus’ let me through…need a piece of what bit me.”
Misato opened the refrigerator and reached in. It took a moment to register, only after her head had closed on a bottle of herbal tea. She gasped and began to tremble in utter terror. It was the worst thing she had ever seen, and Misato had witnessed Second Impact firsthand.
Her beer was gone.
Misato slowly turned to face Belldandy. “Where. Is. My. Beer.” Asuka, Shinji and Pen-Pen prepared to run out the front door. A beer-deprived Misato was simply not human.
Belldandy stood her ground. “Alcohol, in moderation, is not a bad thing,” she said. “But from what I have discovered in cleaning this morning, Major, you drink far too much. I unfortunately threw out all of your beer. I am very sorry, but it is for you own good.”
Misato’s eyes rolled back in her head and she passed out.
Notes:
What hath Belldandy done?
Chapter 4: Do Not Anger a Goddess, For You Are Crunchy
Summary:
Urd, Skuld, and Keiichi arrive in Tokyo-3, and the Goddesses look frantically for her sister. Belldandy, however, has been returned to NERV, where she prepares to confront Gendo Ikari himself.
It's time for Belldandy to...bake cookies?
Notes:
Almost forgot to update this week! A somewhat short chapter, but this is a good cliffhanger spot...and I do love those.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The snow had come and gone, and the ground was almost dry underneath Japan’s now typical blue skies and sunshine. In the hills south of Tokyo-3, the JSSDF had dutifully run a reconnaissance helicopter over the area and found nothing, so Ritsuko had written it off as a false alarm. Neither she nor the JSSDF could have known that Skuld planned for such contingencies. The Thermal Bubble Mark VI came with both internal radar spoofing equipment and light-refractive camouflage; the only way the JSSDF would have found Keiichi, Urd and Skuld was if someone had tripped over the bubble. It had also meant that the three of them had to share a bed—Urd didn’t seem to mind, but Skuld warned Keiichi in no uncertain terms that if he even thought about touching her inappropriately, she would blow him into such small pieces that local authorities would need DNA to identify him. Keiichi had no intention of doing anything to Skuld, appropriately or inappropriately, but she gave him murderous looks all the same. She also had brought Banpei the robot with her, and set it to guard—against the people of this dimension or Keiichi himself, he wasn’t sure.
Now it was morning, and once everyone was up, fed a little breakfast (slightly burned by the Skuld Easy-Bake Oven Mark VII), and dressed, it was time to find Belldandy. With the data provided by Washu and programmed into Yggdrasil, the magical computer had taken very little time to find Belldandy’s mystical signature through the various multiverses. It had taken a little bit of sweat and a lot of magic to send the three of them through time and space, but Peorth had managed it.
The problem was that, while Yggdrasil had told them where and when Belldandy was, it could not exactly fix her location more than a few dozen miles. Neither Urd’s spells nor the Skuld All-Purpose Bellandy Locator Mark II could get better than half that. “I don’t get it,” Skuld grumbled. “There’s a lot of interference that shouldn’t be here.” She cracked her knuckles. “I hate to do it, but I could overclock the powerplant to get more power—”
“And you’ll blow it and us up,” Urd interrupted. "And we won't be any closer to finding Bell, because my spells aren't finding her either...and they're a lot more powerful than your junk."
Skuld said something unprintable to that, but Keiichi intervened before the sisters could go to war. “Besides, Skuld, we might get detected if you send out a signal that powerful. Remember, Peorth said we couldn’t leave a trace.” She mumbled more maledictions and pouted, but didn’t try to modify the SAPBEL-II. Keiichi shaded his eyes from the morning sun. “We’ll have to go into the city, I guess.” He pointed to the top of the tallest building. “Skuld, what about up there?”
The youngest goddess looked. “That should be okay.” She was slightly mollified now.
“I’ll scout ahead. My spells always work,” Urd lied. “Meet you at the top.” She disappeared with a crack of displaced air.
Skuld tapped Banpei on the flared samurai-like helmet. “Banpei, motorcycle mode.” The robot obediently transformed into a rather strange motorbike. Keiichi climbed on, with Skuld riding behind him; whatever Skuld might think about Keiichi otherwise, she acknowledged him as the motorcycle expert. “Let’s hope they don’t have a helmet law here,” he remarked, and they sped off the mountain.
At NERV, the first team was back on duty. Shigeru Aoba was humming to himself as he went through the normal morning routine—only to have that routine shattered by MAGI, as the Angel detection system abruptly came to life. Once more, it lasted only a second and then stopped, not even long enough for Shigeru to check location. As he began to see if he could pinpoint the issue, Ritsuko ran in. Shigeru wondered if the doctor ate or slept. “What was it?”
“Not sure, Dr. Akagi,” he replied. “Another blue pattern, just for a second…just like the nightwatch reported.”
Ritsuko peered over his shoulder. “JSSDF didn’t find anything last night, so we have to assume the problem is with MAGI itself.” She sighed, rubbing her eyes. “I didn’t want to do this, but we don’t have a choice. We’ll have to run a full diagnostic.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Shigeru said. “I’ll let Commander Ikari know.”
Ritsuko’s cellphone went off, and she pulled it out of the pocket of her smock. “Akagi.”
“Rits, this is Kaji. I’m coming in with the pilots and Belldandy. We have two problems.”
“What is it?” Ritsuko detected more than a little concern in Kaji’s voice, which was worrisome. Not much rattled him.
“Rei’s…well, I guess she’s all right, but…Commander Ikari might want to talk to her. It’s…hell, you’ll have to see it to believe it.”
Ritsuko wondered just what that meant. “Where’s Misato?”
“That’s the other problem. She’s out cold. She fainted.”
Instantly Ritsuko’s finger went towards the alarm button. “What happened? Was it Belldandy?”
“Kind of.” Kaji maddeningly paused for a moment. “Belldandy threw out all of Misato’s beer. She said it was bad for her.”
“Oh, dear God,” Ritsuko breathed. She didn’t noticed Shigeru begin the diagnostic on MAGI.
Washu woke up in mid-snore as a beep sounded in the darkness of the warehouse. She clapped the lights on and brought up her computer. “Oh, perfect!” she grinned. “I was hoping for something like this.” One hand flew across the shadowy keyboard as Washu donned a set of goggles with the other. A new pattern coalesced on her screen. “What’s this? A security program? A firewall?” Washu gushed with mock concern. “An advanced one, too. How quaint.” She cracked her knuckles. “Should take me about ten minutes to crack this sucker.”
Urd appeared at the top of the building and floated gently to the ground. She leaned over the top, looking down the side of the building to the street a hundred stories below. “That’s weird,” she said. The windows were fakes, mirrored glass attached to the building, but clear decals pasted on to give the impression that there were offices inside. “False front, huh? Wonder what they’re hiding in here.” Then Urd had other things to worry about, because she felt her sister—Belldandy, not Skuld. Urd closed her eyes and whispered a few words, then turned in place and opened her eyes. Her gaze went right to the opening of an underground garage in a building across the street. A blue sportscar was pulling into it. She noticed two guards checking the identification of the driver and passengers. “So that’s where you are,” she remarked. “Better not teleport, though…” Instead, she simply stepped over the side and ran down the side of the building.
“I am truly sorry,” Belldandy apologized, for the fifth time since they had left Misato’s apartment. “I didn’t realize it would have that effect on Miss Katsuragi.” She was sitting in the front passenger’s seat; an unconscious Misato lay sprawled between Asuka, Rei and Shinji in the back, which made for a tight squeeze. Shinji looked distinctly uncomfortable to be that close to Rei, while Asuka grimaced at Misato’s breath. The guards waved them through into the main part of the garage, and Kaji drove the Alpine into the car escalator. “I hope you’re not angry, Mr. Kaji.”
“For the fourth time, I’m not, Miss Belldandy.” Kaji stubbed out his cigarette. “Misato just…she has a thing for beer. Seeing all of her Yebisu gone was too much of a shock to her system. She’ll come out of it eventually.” He shrugged. “Of course, I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes when she does come to.”
“Huh!” Asuka snorted. “I think it was overdue, personally. Misato drinks way too much.”
“Though we haven’t seen her actually get drunk in awhile,” Shinji said. “Last night was the first time in awhile.”
“Still a drunk, Baka Shinji.” Asuka was about to add more, but one look at Rei and she was speechless again. Instead, she glanced at Shinji, who spread his hands helplessly. Rei seemed oblivious to the reaction her appearance gave the other pilots. The car began its descent into NERV.
Several stories behind and above them, the two security guards began to prepare to shut the hidden garage door, marked with NERV’s trademark fig leaf. Urd floated across unseen between the two buildings, and stared down two stories. "Two guards and some cameras," she mused. "Man, they need to upgrade their security around here. A good special forces team could get through here easy.” With a gesture of her hand, Urd’s clothes changed from her slightly risque street fashion to something more appropriate to a strip club, and a rather seedy one at that. A whispered spell, and the cameras reset themselves into a continuous loop.
She landed half a block away and called out, “Hold, please!” Instinctively, the NERV guards stopped rolling down the door, turned in her direction, and stopped cold. Urd sauntered to the door like a queen entering her castle. The guards, picked for unwavering loyalty, ability to think quickly, and an eager willingness to use their assault rifles, were stunned by the sight approaching them.
“H-H-Halt!” one guard managed to stammer out. He brought up his rifle. “Who…who are you?”
“Uh, yeah!” the other guard shouted, too loudly. “Let’s see your goodies—I mean, your identification!”
Urd smiled at them with all the seductiveness of a succubus. “Boys,” she breathed, nonchalantly pulling down one strap of a bra that was already barely winning the battle against her breasts, “you don’t need to see my identification.”
One guard simply collapsed in a dead faint and a bad nosebleed. The other guard managed to hold his ground. “But we…” Urd took a deep breath, and the bra nearly failed. “We don’t need to see your identification,” the guard said, seeing plenty of her identification.
“I can go about my business.” Urd’s fingers traced the barrel of the assault rifle like it was a phallic object.
“You…you can go about your business…”
“Move along.” Urd leaned forward and kissed him.
“Move along!” The guard gave a silly grin, swiped his card through the security reader that opened the escalator, and joined the other guard in blissful unconsciousness.
Urd stepped over the bodies, shut the garage door, and shook her head. “You took all the fun out of that. I risk a lawsuit with Disney and you conk out on me.” She contemptously turned her back and got on the escalator, going down.
Ritsuko gently shook Misato as she leaned into the backseat of the Alpine. “Misato, can you hear me?”
“Mhhrrmm…” Misato moaned softly. “No beer…no more boom…boom gone…”
Ritsuko got out of the car and motioned some NERV paramedics forward. “Make her comfortable and get an IV started,” she ordered them. As they pulled an unresisting Misato from the car, she turned to Kaji. “Escort Miss Belldandy to Subcommander Fuyutsuki’s office for now. Asuka, Shinji—go and get suited up.”
“Not another sync test,” Asuka groaned.
“Not this time. We’ve got MAGI partially down for a diagnostic, and until it comes back fully online, I think we’ll put the Evas on patrol—just in case. Rei, you—” Ritsuko caught sight of Rei for the first time, and she blinked in amazement.
“Is there a problem, Dr. Akagi?” Rei asked, in her normal soft tone of voice.
“Er…no, no problem. You’re to report to Commander Ikari.”
“Very well.” Rei began walking towards Gendo’s office; she knew the way by heart.
Ritsuko wiped her eyes. “That’s it; no more all night Final Fantasy sessions.”
It didn’t take long for Rei to reach Gendo’s office. She pressed a pale finger on the intercom button. “Pilot Ayanami here.”
“Come in, Rei,” Gendo said. For his part, he had been able to get a few hours sleep and felt refreshed. Seeing Rei always brightened his day, and if Ritsuko had sounded worried when she relayed Kaji’s news, Gendo commanded himself to not be concerned. What others would find odd about Rei, he would find perfectly normal. After all, he knew the truth about her. So did Ritsuko, but not in the way that Gendo did. He steepled his hands on his desk and pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose.
As Rei came into the light, Gendo nearly poked himself in the eye in the process. She was wearing her school uniform, which was not surprising, but she had evidently taken it in a little, because it now ended above her knees rather than below it. The string bowtie that was normally on the uniform had been replaced by a much larger one, in a bright blue. Most arresting of all was Rei’s hair: it was still its normal powder blue color, but it was pulled into two pigtails. The problem was that her hair just was not long enough, and the result was that Rei now looked like Pippi Longstocking or the Wendy’s girl gone punk.
“Rei?” Gendo asked.
“Yes, sir?” Rei answered.
“Why are you dressed like that?”
Rei inspected her reflection in the ceiling of Gendo’s office. “I did alter my attire last night. Is there something wrong with it?”
“No…but why?”
“I asked Technician Ibuki questions regarding the concept of romantic love, as Miss Belldandy had brought up that subject to me. Technician Ibuki gave me a series of DVDs called Sailor Moon. I reviewed all of them last night and decided this was a look I wished to try. The series itself made very little sense to me, but the appearance of the main character…” Rei gave a small shrug. “I rather liked it, sir.”
“An experiment,” Gendo stated, still in disbelief.
“Yes, Commander. An experiment.” Another shrug. “It did seem to have an impression on Pilots Ikari and Soryu this morning, as well as Mr. Kaji and Miss Belldandy.”
“Oh?” Gendo now felt a strange curiosity, like watching a multiple car pileup on a busy highway.
“Yes. Mr. Kaji mentioned something about the need to quit smoking. Miss Belldandy said I looked pretty. Pilot Soryu seemed to have problems with the motor functions of her jaw, while Pilot Ikari has apparently forgotten how to speak when seeing me. I was not able to observe Major Katsuragi, who had passed out after Miss Belldandy destroyed all of her beer.”
“I see.” Gendo pushed his glasses back into place. “Rei, for now, go and suit up and prepare for your patrol of Tokyo-3. After you’ve returned, we will discuss what you saw in those DVDs. All right?”
“Yes, sir.” Rei bowed and walked out. She hid a small smile from Gendo as she did. For all of his loss of speech and flustered appearance, one thing was certain about Shinji Ikari: he had liked how she was dressed. And Rei kind of liked that.
Gendo pressed a button on his desk after Rei had departed. “Technician Ibuki.”
“Commander?” Maya Ibuki was now in Central Dogma, helping the staff with the diagnostic.
“Is Dr. Akagi there and reviewing MAGI?”
“Yes, sir. Did you need to speak with her?”
“No. But you need to go and clean the load pan bays. Now.” Gendo put steel in his voice.
Maya sounded frightened. “Um, sir?”
“That is an order, Technician. Next time, you clear it with me when loaning anime to Pilot Ayanami.” He clicked off the line and shook his head. Otaku. If the Angels don’t get us, they will. He next called Fuyutsuki. “Professor, is Miss Belldandy there?”
“Yes, she is. Did you want to see her?”
“Not at the moment. I will make her wait awhile." I command this facility, Belldandy, Gendo thought. Not you.
“Commander, there’s something you should know.” Fuyutsuki sounded hesitant, unsure.
“What?”
“She made cookies for us, sir. And…well…they’re quite good.”
“I see. Thank you. Bring one up here for analysis, please.” Gendo clicked off that connection as well and sat back in his chair. “Baking cookies. Comparing recipes. Destroying Misato’s beer. Inspiring Rei to dress strangely. This Belldandy may not be an Angel, but she still is the most insidious threat we have ever faced.”
Urd had gotten down the first hall about halfway when a door slid open, and more guards headed in her direction. She was in the shadows, but that would change when they got closer. She couldn’t seduce them all—she could, but Urd needed to stick with her objective, and that sort of thing got loud. “Well, then,” she whispered with a smirk, “time to use my secret weapon. My other one. This looks like a job for…Mini-Urd!” With a raised finger and a pop, Urd shrank to only a few inches tall.
The guards passed her, never noticing the tiny figure. Urd silently leapt up and grabbed the guard’s radio pack, and rode that to a bank of elevators. Kodama’s got nothin’ on me.
Gendo Ikari drummed his fingers on the desk. Examining—and undoubtedly eating—one of Belldandy’s cookies was a calcuated risk, but he was confident that he could resist any of her charms. In fact, the more Gendo thought about it, the angrier he got at the so-called goddess. She had mentally damaged Asuka and Rei; the effects of the latter were only now becoming apparent. Major Katsuragi had been crippled. Gendo had once thought about removing the beer from Misato’s apartment himself to dry her out, but thought better at the mental image of a berserk Misato roaming NERV with a baseball bat. He would first make Belldandy wait, to make her summon up all kinds of terrible scenarios, so that when she finally faced Gendo, she would fear him. The image of EVA-01 popping Belldandy’s head off like a Pez dispenser was one scenario he particularly liked.
Fuyutsuki opened the door to Gendo’s office and stood to one side to let a squad of guards pass. He turned as the last man went by and walked in. Urd, unseen, dropped from the guard’s pack and dashed in behind the old professor before the door closed, then cloaked herself in the shadows. She smelled the cookie that Fuyutsuki carried and instantly recognized Belldandy’s handiwork.
“Here you are, Commander,” Fuyutsuki said, handing Gendo a paper plate. On it was a chocolate chip cookie, a lemon cookie, and a peanut butter one. “I think the chocolate chips are best.”
“Are you feeling any adverse effects?” Gendo inquired.
“Not at all.” Fuyutsuki stepped back. “Commander…you should consider that Belldandy is actually no threat, that what we see is what we get. She is no Angel—not like the ones we’ve faced, in any case.”
“Possibly,” Gendo conceded. “It could also be that she is lulling us into a false state of confidence, then she will make her move. Has she made any attempts to escape?”
“None.”
“What is she doing now?”
“Waiting for you.” Fuyutsuki paused. “Oh, and cleaning up the break room. She said it needed it.”
“I agree with her there.” Gendo watched the old professor closely, but could detect nothing overtly wrong with him, other than he did seem happier than usual. That made Gendo angrier. Being happy was not authorized at NERV. “I will see her in fifteen minutes.” Gendo held up a finger. “Make it thirty. I think that king crab that Misato brought back a year ago is still in the break room refrigerator. She’ll need to clean that out; it may be sentient by now.” He motioned to the cookies, and his stomach audibly rumbled. “I shall analyze these.”
“I’m sure you will,” Fuyutsuki smiled.
Gendo graced him with one of his icier stares, and Fuyutsuki knew when he was being dismissed. He bowed and left, leaving Gendo alone with the cookies.
He stared at them over his hands. What do these cookies mean? Are they merely cookies, or something more? Gendo picked one up and felt a sudden compulsion to devour it. He set the cookie down, closed his eyes, and slowly counted to ten until the urge passed. He opened them, but now he had more than a cookie to worry about.
The woman that stood there was tall, perhaps taller than he was—or maybe it seemed that way, because most of her height was in the long, sinous brown legs. Her waist was thin, her breasts large, though not overly so. Her face was stunningly beautiful, framed in gossamer strands of silvery white hair, a natural color rather than one of age, though the woman was somehow both young and old at the same time. She was dressed in black leather than blended with the shadows, cut daringly to her navel, while the skirt ended well above her knees; another inch and Gendo would know if the woman wore underwear. Gendo was rendered mute, but then he saw the markings below her eyes and between them. They were differently shaped than Belldandy’s, but the resemblance was unmistakable—and not just the markings, but her features. This was either a mother, a daughter, or a sister.
Gendo moved faster than he had in his entire life. He jerked open a drawer of his desk and pulled out a revolver. He stood, sliding his chair back, leveled the pistol between her exotic eyes like a Turkish Olympian, and pulled the trigger thrice. The report of the pistol sounded like artillery in the confines of his office.
The woman put out a hand. The bullets slowed and stopped a foot from her face, and she casually flicked them aside to land harmlessly on the floor. She then made a come-hither motion, and the gun flew out of Gendo’s gloved hands to hers. She tossed the pistol over her shoulder and advanced on the desk.
Gendo was not easily rattled. He put his hands behind his back and regarded her cooly. “And you are?”
“Some call me Urd,” she said. “Others call me…” Urd looked confused for a moment. “Urd. Damn, I had something for that."
“I would like to say it is a pleasure…Urd. I am Gendo Ikari, the Commander of this facility.” He tried not to be distracted by the sway of her hips or the slight bounce of her bosom, and mentally ran through the list of known Angels. There were none named Urd, but there weren’t any named Belldandy, either. “You are here for Belldandy, correct?”
“Yes,” Urd replied, and now there was a threat in her voice. “Tell me where she is.”
“And if I do not?”
“Things will go very, very badly for you.” Her smile held all the warmth of the coldest tundra.
Gendo’s eyebrows rose slightly. So, he thought to himself. I have risked the life of Asuka, the daughter of one of the most brilliant women I have ever known. I have risked the life of Rei, the repository of all I have left. And I have risked the life of Shinji, my own son. Now it is time that I, Gendo Ikari, make the sacrifice I have asked of others. So be it. He faced her without fear as she stalked around the desk. “Then I suggest you do your worst, Miss Urd. You will find that I am no easy prey.”
Notes:
Tune in next week for what horrible torture Urd plans for Gendo. This may be the most terrifying chapter yet!
Or not.
Chapter 5: Love is in the Air (Along With Evas)
Summary:
Keiichi and Skuld find themselves face to face with the Evas. Will they rescue Belldandy, or get blasted by Asuka?
And will Gendo resist the cruel torture of Urd, or will she succeed in finding the location of her sister after all?
Notes:
Whew...running a bit late on this one, but had to take a bit of a break. Trying to do three fanfics at once wasn't as much fun as it sounds. Anyway, next chapter.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Tokyo-3 (Evangelion Universe)
Had anyone seen Washu’s face, they would have backed away, because the ancient scientist wore a demented grin. It was the expression Washu got when she was faced with a genuine challenge. Hacking was a pastime of Washu—firewalls were nothing to her, though she rarely did anything genuinely harmful--not after that time she almost unleashed a nuclear war, but that was only twice. NERV’s firewall, however, was proving most challenging. She realized she was not facing one computer, but three, each with their own security system and their own ways of dealing with intruders. Momentarily stymied, she withdrew her virtual probes and pondered just what to do next. She also knew she was on borrowed time: NERV was undoubtedly running a trace on her, and they might be able to pinpoint her location.
Washu got up and began to pace. “The best thing I can do,” she said aloud, as if she was teaching Tenchi, “is to analyze their attack pattern. The first computer trapped my probes in logic puzzles. The second computer simply annihilated them. And the third…” Washu paused. “The third scolded them into failing, which is weird.” Washu stopped and faced the imaginary Tenchi. “So, what would you do, Tenchi?”
She pitched her voice lower, trying to imitate Tenchi. “Gee, Washu, I don’t know. You’re so much smarter than me.”
Washu returned her voice to its normal high, nasal pitch. “It’s okay, Tenchi—you’re not a genius like me, though you are very cute. So. If I attack one at a time, then the others will attack me from my flanks, and eventually I’ll be discovered. If I attack all at once, then I might be spread too thin to resist a counterstrike. He who defends everything defends nothing. So I must succeed in a single, devastating strike.” She sat down again and regarded the schematic she had drawn of her opponent. "Let's see what I can do."
Skuld was pacing too, up and down the tall building’s roof. “Where is she?” She stomped her foot. “Urd is so dumb! I knew she’d go wandering off! Probably got distracted and is getting blasted on sake somewhere!”
Keiichi was ignoring Skuld’s rantings for the most part, but he heard a distant, rhythmic rumbling. “Skuld, do you hear that?”
“Not now, Keiichi.” Skuld sat down and assembled the Skuld All-Purpose Belldandy Locator. She knew Belldandy was close—she could feel her sister’s presence—but not exactly where. Now she could feel the rumbling, but it didn’t concern her. Probably a small earthquake or something. Now If I can just adjust this dumb thing…
“Skuld?” Keiichi sounded worried.
Skuld almost yelled at him to be quiet, but then stopped herself. As much as Skuld hated to admit it to herself, Keiichi was just as worried about Belldandy as she was—maybe more so. He did love her, after all, and Keiichi Morisato had proven himself to be a good man. Skuld forced down her irritation. “It’ll be okay,” she said evenly. “My SAPBEL should work even better than before this close. We’ll get her back—you have my word as a goddess!”
“Uh, Skuld…”
The rumbling got louder, enough to shake the building, but then it abruptly stopped. “Keiichi, it’s just a stupid earthquake! Now please, I’m busy. These adjustments I have to make are pinpoint!” She was so intent on the SAPBEL that she didn’t even look around her. “They could detect us if I don’t get it just right.”
“I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.”
Skuld couldn’t hold down her irritation any longer, good man or not. “Keiichi, stop being dense! We goddesses have very strict protocol against people finding out what we really are, you know that!”
“I don’t think that’s a problem either.”
Skuld jumped to her feet, grabbing her hammer, intent on getting her point across one way or the other. “Dammit—” Then she stopped, open-mouthed, as she stared down the barrel of the largest gun she had ever seen. Guns did tend to look bigger when they were pointed directly at someone’s head, but this one looked like she could crawl into the bore with room to spare. Mainly because she could crawl into the bore, stand up, and bring Keiichi with her. Skuld was torn between fear and utter fascination, because the gun looked pretty cool. It was carried by a gigantic red and white mecha, with high shoulders and a hideous face that seemed to be covered with eyes. It also seemed to be grinning hungrily at both of them.
“Guten tag,” a voice boomed, one that sounded female through the speakers. “Don’t you know that this is a restricted building and there’s a curfew on?”
Skuld courageously and rather foolishly withdrew a Skuld Bomb from her tunic. “Don’t you know that I can stuff this down that cannon cracker before you can pull the trigger?”
“Oh really, shorty? Let’s find out!”
Keiichi waved his hands frantically. “Wait, no! We surrender!”
“The hell we do!” Skuld shouted. “Don’t worry, Keiichi! I’ll blow that ugly piece of garbage into the next prefecture!” She raised the bomb to throw.
“Ugly?” the voice shrilled. “That’s it—eat Gauss slug!”
Suddenly a purple mecha charged into view—neither Skuld nor Keiichi had noticed it, being distracted by the giant gun in their faces—and grabbed the red mecha’s arm. “Asuka, hold your fire!” Skuld tried to toss the bomb while she had a chance, but Keiichi grabbed her arm.
“Dammit, Shinji!” Asuka yelled. “Get your hands off my weapon!”
“Asuka, they’re just civilians who didn’t hear the alarm—” The new voice came from the purple mecha, over its speakers as well, and was male.
“The hell they are, Shinji! Use what little brains you have and turn up the magnification on your damn visual scanner! Look at that little shit with the bomb! She looks like Belldandy—same tats on her face and everything! She might be an Angel—I mean, maybe!” Asuka’s voice suddenly didn’t sound as sure, but the gun barrel didn’t waver. She also kept her external speakers on, so her words were booming all over Tokyo-3, but she didn’t care, operational security be damned.
“Belldandy? You know Belldandy?” Keiichi let go of Skuld and began jumping up and down, waving his arms again. “Hey—hey in there! We’re friends of Belldandy!”
“Who are you calling a little shit?” Skuld pulled out another bomb. “Come out of that robot, bitch! I’ll see if this can fit up your ass!” Keiichi was a little surprised at her language, but Skuld was surprisingly filthy-mouthed for someone who appeared to be thirteen--he had heard her in her workshop.
Asuka tried to wrench the gun out of Shinji’s grasp. “Let go of my gun, baka!”
“Asuka, think!” Shinji said, with surprising firmness. “You think if Belldandy was an Angel, she would’ve cleaned up the house and baked cookies?”
“That’s definitely her,” Keiichi said, and began doing everything but interpretive dance to get the mecha pilots’ attention. “I’ll tell you everything! Just take me to Belldandy!”
“Shinji, I’m not going tell you to let go again! I don’t care how good those cookies were, or the cinnamon toast this morning—”
“Banpei, stand by,” Skuld said. The little robot was already facing the mecha, and though he was small, Banpei could do considerable damage. “Keiichi, get ready to run.”
Keiichi finally had enough. “Dammit!” He cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted at the top of his lungs: “Listen to me! I love Belldandy! I LOVE HER!”
Silence suddenly descended over Tokyo-3, as Keiichi’s shout echoed through the artificial canyons between the buildings.
“Asuka, this is Rei. Stand down. I have notified NERV security and they are en route.”
Asuka switched off her external speakers and moved EVA-02 back a few steps, though she kept the rifle ready. “Wondergirl, I’m not going to fool around with you too.”
“Didn’t you hear him?” Rei pointed at Keiichi. “He is the one Belldandy has been speaking of. He clearly is telling the truth that he loves her.”
“Oh great.” Asuka rolled her eyes. “What the hell do you know about love, Rei?”
“What do you know of it, Asuka?” Rei countered.
Asuka opened her mouth to say something, thought better of it, and didn’t reply on the channel. “I liked her better when she was an emotionless doll,” Asuka murmured to herself. She lowered the rifle, then reached forward and switched the speakers back on. “Okay, you two. Security’s on its way up here, and if you want to see Belldandy alive, you’ll cooperate. Got it? No lip and no blowing them up with those little firecrackers.” She saw the girl’s face darken in rage, but Keiichi put out a hand to stop her, and she put the bombs away. Asuka zoomed in on the little robot. “Hey, that’s a cute little robot you have there.”
“It’s not cute!” the girl shouted angrily. “It’s a weapon of utter destruction!”
“Uh-huh,” Asuka smirked. She stepped back a few more feet and accidentally kicked a car behind her. “Verdammt!” The car crashed into an old warehouse, and Asuka sighed. “Sorry about that.”
Washu had noticed the tremors, but dismissed it as an earthquake as well; because she had her earphones on and was blasting J-pop, she didn’t hear the shouted conversation. She did hear the car crash into the building, however. Intent on her hacking, Washu only said, “Ryoko, knock it off!” out of habit. “Don’t bother your mommy!"
Then Washu stopped. She leaned back from the holographic computer and switched off the music. “Of course,” she whispered. “Of course. I scold Ryoko because she’s annoying—and this computer scolded my probes. So therefore, this computer is a real mother.” A pause. “Not that kind of mother—an actual one. Somehow, they programmed this computer to act like a mother!” Washu grinned. “Of course! It’s not just programmed like a mother, it was programmed by a mother! A smart one, too—almost as smart as me.” She rubbed her hands together. “So that’s how I beat you!” A loud cackle of triumph echoed through the building as Washu’s ability to leap logic in a single bound paid off.
Gendo felt the sweat running off his brow. His glasses were further down his nose again, but his hands were pinned to either side by a powerful force, just like the rest of him. Closing his eyes or trying to concentrate on the Seraphic Tree on his office ceiling was no good, because his vision was filled with the Angel that held him down—or rather, her magnificent breasts. The rest of her was holding him down with hands and supple thighs.
And Gendo had to admit there were worse ways to die.
Still, he had to resist. He tried to wrench his arms free of the magic that held him in place, but no avail. “Awww,” Urd cooed, leaning forward. “Do you want to get loose? Why’s that, Gendo Ikari? So you can use those hands to fight me…or do something else with them?” She leaned backwards, far backwards, which not only gave Gendo an even better look at Urd’s body, but also threatened to free her breasts from the black leather that barely hid them.
“Never,” Gendo growled.
“Mmm. Your mouth says that, but your body is a different story.” She was leaning nearly full length against his legs, and the leather was tight enough that Gendo, with an audible gulp, could tell that Urd was indifferent to underwear. He felt his shoes being taken off and heard them thrown to one side. “I don’t want to do this,” she said breathily, “but you leave me no choice.” She started removing his socks.
“I will not yield!” Gendo exclaimed, though truth to tell, yielding sounded pretty good at the moment.
Urd sat up, pouting. “That’s too bad, Gendo-chan. You force me to use…this.” She conjured a long, thin, white object.
Gendo stared daggers at her. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Oh, this is just the beginning of what I’ll do.” Urd licked her lips. “One chance left, Gendo-chan. Where is Belldandy?”
Gendo’s fists clenched and he braced himself. “Do your worst, Angel.”
“I intend to.”
Keiichi had submitted to the NERV guards’ search silently and without incident; he had nothing to hide. Skuld was a different story. She thought that one guard’s hands had gotten a little too fresh and objected violently. One Skuld Bomb explosion and one unconscious guard later, and Skuld was screaming threats and curses as the guards pounced on her and hogtied her—at the guards, at Keiichi for just standing there, and at Urd for getting her into this.
Ritsuko and a somewhat recovered Misato watched from a monitor as the guards escorted Keiichi and dragged Skuld towards the long elevator to Central Dogma. “There’s no doubt she’s related to Belldandy,” Ritsuko mused. “The markings on her face are nearly identical, and there’s a family resemblance, despite the differently colored hair. A cousin or a younger sister, perhaps. Her powers seemed to be somewhat limited, however, in comparison.”
Misato took another drink of Yebisu. The beer had restored her internal equilibrium, at least; it was her second. “You think she’s an Angel?”
Ritsuko heard the disbelief in Misato’s voice. “You don’t think she is?”
“They’re sending kids at us now? The Angels must really be desperate.”
“Why not?” Ritsuko replied. “We are.” She turned to Shigeru. “Contact Commander Ikari and tell him we have two more of Belldandy’s people—one human, one possible Angel or goddess or whatever.” She winked at Misato. “After what Rei did to her hair, this should make his day.”
“Rei did something to her hair?”
Ritsuko was about to explain when Shigeru reported, “No answer, Doctor.”
“Still?” She had tried calling Gendo when this Keiichi and Skuld had surrendered.
“Still no answer, ma’am,” Shigeru confirmed.
“Very well…contact Subcommander Fuyutsuki instead. We’ll bring Belldandy down here and hope for the best.”
“I’ll go get Gendo, Rits,” Misato said, finishing the beer and tossing it into the garbage. “I could use the exercise.”
“Be my guest.”
Misato left the command bridge and headed for the elevator. She needed some mental exercise to go with the physical. One part of her wanted to find Belldandy and see what color her liver was. No one touched her beer and lived, much less in her own home. Another part of her, however, was a bit more rational. Belldandy, for her mistake in throwing out the beer, hadn’t been malicious; indeed, she had cleaned the apartment to near spotlessness, then apologized to Kaji several times for accidentally putting Misato into a near-coma, then baked cookies for the entire command staff. Good ones, too. Angels, Misato was sure, didn’t include cleaning and baking among their usual death and destruction, and they never said sorry. If Belldandy wasn’t an Angel, then she was indeed a goddess—and that meant Misato had treated her badly and unfairly.
Misato reached Gendo’s office and stopped when she got within earshot. She quickly put her ear to the steel door and listened, her expression becoming very confused.
Gendo was laughing. Hysterically laughing.
Misato keyed in her command override on the door lock; theoretically, she wasn’t supposed to be able to do that, but there was a lot of things she wasn’t supposed to be able to do. The door slid open, and Misato froze again, in complete shock for the second time in as many minutes.
Gendo Ikari was spreadeagled on the floor, screaming in laughter. A beautiful, well-endowed woman with tanned skin and white hair, dressed in black leather—if what little she wore could be called clothing—was kneeling at his feet. She was grinning at Gendo as she tickled his feet with a white feather. “Give up?” she laughed. “If you don’t tell me where Belldandy is, I’m gonna bring out the oven mitts!”
“I—I yield!” Gendo struggled out between laughs. “Belldandy is…is…” Both of them realized they were not alone, and turned as one to face Misato.
“What in the actual hell?” Misato breathed.
“Uh…this is not what it looks like?” Urd said hesitantly. Her concentration was broken for a moment, and Gendo felt the magical restraints loosen. With a herculean effort, he sat up, grabbed Urd, and threw her to the floor, then jumped on top of her. “Torment me, you slut—” Then he stopped again, as the leather finally lost the battle to keep Urd’s bosom contained.
Urd snickered. “I may be a slut, but you’re the one staring at my tits.”
At that moment, Fuyutsuki and Belldandy walked by, because of course they did. Fuyutsuki craned his head to see past a stupefied Misato, saw Gendo and Urd, and sighed. “I don’t want to know.”
Belldandy saw past Misato as well, and her smile became so huge that Fuyutsuki wondered if her face would split open. “Urd? Urd?!” She gently pushed Misato aside, who shook her head and wondered if a third beer wasn’t a bad idea; maybe even a fourth.
Urd looked over Gendo’s shoulder and waved. “Hey, Bell!” She then slapped Gendo across the face, knocking his glasses off. As he fell to one side and tried to find them, she stood and zipped up her blouse. “Hmpf! I’m not that kind of girl.” She then strode towards Belldandy, her arms outstretched, only for Misato to stand in the way. “Do not block me, mortal,” Urd thundered. “You are meddling with dark powers you cannot understand.”
“Oh, I think I understand your powers.” Misato pointed to Urd’s chest. The two were about the same size.
“Urd, Miss Katsuragi, please.” Belldandy stepped around the major. “Miss Katsuragi, this is my sister, Urd. She really means no harm.” Urd’s expression showed that she just might mean some.
“Oh, great.” Misato was about out of cares to give. “There’s three of them.” Gendo had gotten his glasses and back to his feet, so Misato thumbed nonchalantly in the general direction of Central Dogma. “We captured these two’s kid sister or something. She said her name was Skoal.”
“Skuld,” Urd corrected her. “That dumb kid! How many of your men did she blow up?”
Before Misato could answer, Belldandy hugged her sister. “Oh, no. You came for me? All of you?” She stepped back, her eyes shining with tears. “Keiichi’s here too, isn’t he? Oh, I thought I could feel the connection again!”
“Duh,” Urd grinned.
Misato decided that in for a penny, in for a pound. “Yeah, your loverboy is downstairs. He convinced Asuka not to shoot him by screaming that he loved you.”
Belldandy whirled. “Oh, please, Miss Katsuragi! You have to take me to him!”
“Yeah, yeah. Young love.” Misato snorted. “Follow me.” She led Belldandy out of the office, past Fuyutsuki, who was using every ounce of willpower not to laugh.
Gendo picked up the feather and walked to Urd, handing it back to her. She scratched the back of her head in embarrassment and took the feather. “What were you planning on doing with the oven mitts?” he asked coldly.
Urd smiled sweetly. “That’s for me to know and you to—” She yelped as Gendo slapped her on her leather-clad bottom. “Why, you old bastard! I’ll reduce you to protoplasmic slime, you—”
“But won’t your sister be upset if you hurt a human?” Gendo strode past her and walked towards Central Dogma. Fuyutsuki fell in behind him as a fuming Urd brought up the rear. “What are you smirking at, Professor?” Gendo asked.
“Nothing, Commander…other than perhaps you have a heart after all.”
“Bite me,” Gendo snarled.
They actually met along the main catwalk in the Eva holding chamber, as Ritsuko wanted the pilots present as well. Shinji, Rei and Asuka stood in small puddles of LCL fluid, as Ritsuko and Kaji joined them—MAGI was almost finished with its diagnostic, though Maya had reported some odd power fluctuations. Skuld was turned loose, glaring at the guards with a silent promise of screaming death, then got distracted by the huge mecha. She had left Banpei in rest mode on the roof; Keiichi had lied to the guards and said the robot was harmless so NERV wouldn’t try to tamper with it. Confronted with the full majesty of the Evas for the first time, Skuld wondered if she might need to upgrade Banpei quite a bit. Keiichi tried not to be impatient; the Evas didn’t remotely interest him. He only wanted to see Belldandy.
The door to the elevator opened, admitting Gendo, Misato, Fuyutsuki, Urd—and Belldandy. Her face lit up. “Keiichi!” She ran forward.
“Belldandy!” It was cliché, Keiichi knew, but he didn’t care: he dashed forward to embrace her. No one tried to keep them away from each other. They met in the middle, Keiichi actually lifting Belldandy off her feet and spinning her around, then kissed her. Not even Skuld tried to stop that; Keiichi had certainly earned the right.
An invisible wave of magic spread from the two of them, and for an instant, everyone in Tokyo-3 was touched by it. Everyone smiled no matter what they were doing, the weight of their lives lifted for a moment as they felt indescribably happy.
In NERV, Shinji shyly reached out to take Rei’s hand, and found his other hand being taken just as gently by Asuka; a single tear drifted down the German girl’s face, and she whispered mama so quietly Shinji was the only one to hear it. Misato and Kaji, across the long catwalk, smiled at each other, the smile of lovers remembering better times. Ritsuko marveled at the wonder of humanity, while Fuyutsuki brushed his eyes with a hand, remembering a day when he was a young man. Even Gendo’s hard features softened, and he felt a strange warmth; he looked up and would nearly swear that EVA-01 was looking at him. In Central Dogma, all three technicians embraced each other in a group hug. Skuld couldn’t help but laugh a little at how silly Keiichi and Belldandy were being, but felt a pang of envy for them; Urd just sighed wistfully and put her head on Fuyutsuki’s shoulder; he gently patted her white hair.
Of course, that could not last. MAGI came online, the diagnostic completed—but then all of the screens suddenly changed from readouts to the face of a young, pink-haired woman. “All your base belong to me! Mine!” she shouted. “Mine! MINE! ALL MINE!”
The voice made everyone jump in surprise. Maya reached forward and rapidly typed in commands, but she might as well have not even bothered. Nothing happened. Shigeru and Makoto did the same with equally fruitless results. Maya grabbed a microphone as the woman continued to cackle madly. “Commander Ikari, Dr. Akagi—oh hell, everyone get up here!”
Everyone ran for the elevator and somehow all squeezed in, which left Shinji with his face directly in Urd’s chest. As Rei and Asuka were squeezed up against Gendo and Misato, they didn’t notice. Shinji looked up at the goddess helplessly, and Urd just wiggled her eyebrows at him. "Like father, like son?" Luckily, the other two pilots didn’t notice when everyone piled out of the elevator and rushed onto the command bridge—in the confusion, no one really thought to ask the three goddesses plus Keiichi to leave. Skuld saw the huge bank of computers and let out a sigh of pure love.
She was the only one so distracted, however. Gendo pointed at the face splashed across the huge holographic display in front of Central Dogma’s command bridge. “What is that?”
Urd gave a start of recognition. “Hey, I know her! That’s Washu!”
“Who?” everyone but Skuld and Belldandy asked.
“It is I!” Washu’s voice boomed across NERV. “Washu the Magnificent! Washu the Great! Washu, the finest scientist in all of creation!” She paused and glanced at both shoulders. “Poop, left them back home. Oh well, I don’t need my puppets! For I am Washu, first lady of science! Daughter of a demon lover, empress of the interface!”
“And just a bit modest,” Asuka quipped. An electrical charge shot out of the nearest socket and shocked her. “Ow! Dammit!”
“And that’s the least you’ll get if you interrupt me again! For I am Washu the Terrible! Washu the—”
“Washu, what’s going on?” Belldandy asked, her quiet voice stopping the peans.
“Oh, hi, Belldandy!” Washu did a double-take, then looked disappointed and sighed. “Well, damn. I went to all of this trouble taking over this supercomputer, and Keiichi and Urd and Skuld already found you.”
Ritsuko’s mouth fell open. “Take over MAGI? That’s impossible!”
Washu snorted. “Maybe for you, Dr. Ritsuko Akagi, but it was mere child’s play for one such as I!” She gave a shrug as she reconsidered. “Fine…okay, I’ll admit that you gave me the best challenge I’ve had in a few months, and that’s pretty good for such primitive technology.”
“Primitive?” Ritsuko screamed.
Gendo massaged his temples, wondering if this was Third Impact, and if so, why it was the stupid timeline. “Washu—”
“That’s Washu the Great to you, boy!”
“Washu…sama,” Gendo amended. “We would very much like if you would return control of MAGI back to us. It is a very vital piece of equipment, one that NERV needs to defend the world from a terrible threat. Now that you have found Belldandy, your intrusion is no longer necessary.”
“Ha! As if…” Washu’s voice trailed off as Belldandy gave her a very stern look. “Oh, all right. I suppose. How are you, Belldandy? You all right?”
Belldandy smiled and nodded. “I am now, Miss Washu.”
“Well…it’s kind of my fault. And my doltish daughter’s. I really am sorry for the inconvenience.” Washu smiled back. “The least I can do is offer you a ride home.”
“Thank you, Washu-sama.” Belldandy bowed deeply.
Washu gave a shrug. “Easy come, easy go. Okay, Dr. Akagi, I’ll give you back your computer. You really do need to upgrade your antivirus and firewall, but—” She was cut off by an alarm. She looked down, then back up. “I didn’t do it. It wasn’t me.” They saw her peering close to the screen, an expression of growing confusion on her face. “Er…this really hurts to admit this, but, um…I...I don’t know what this is.”
“What what is?” Ritsuko asked.
“A blue pattern.”
The monitors in Central Dogma—aside from the holodisplay, which continued to show Washu—returned to their normal pattern, and now alarms were going off all over NERV. The technicians were instantly leaning forward. “Blue pattern confirmed,” Maya said. “Steady this time…and big.”
“Got any more relatives?” Misato asked Urd.
“Not that I know of.” Urd abruptly remembered Hild, the Queen of Hell and Urd’s mother, but Hild wouldn’t travel to Tokyo-3 because her daughter had disappeared from her base realm. Or would she?
“No, this reads like an Angel. Just like the ones we’ve had before,” Shigeru confirmed. “Steady and solid…and like Maya said, big.” He turned in his chair to face them. “It’s the largest we’ve ever seen.”
Gendo and Fuyutsuki shared a look. There were Angels that would give that large of a signal, but this wasn’t the time foretold in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Then again, the Scrolls hadn’t foretold three goddesses visiting, either. “Washu,” Gendo said quickly, “I need you to patch into the JSSDF satellite feed, immediately. We need a visual."
“All right.” Washu didn’t argue for once; the palpable fear on the faces of the NERV personnel was enough to convince her. It only took a few seconds—far faster than usual, Gendo thought, but then he had other things on his mind.
At first, the satellite feed only showed the verdant hills west of Tokyo-3. Then Washu patched in several traffic cameras, and they had a composite view. A black wave then entered the picture, a shadow crawling across the hill, spreading outwards. Behind, it left dead trees and grass. Washu zoomed in, and everyone wished she hadn’t. Belldandy’s hands went to her mouth in shock: animals fled before the wave, but some didn’t make it, and died instantly where they stood when the darkness touched them. The wave suddenly stopped, and rose upwards, as if it knew it could be seen and was being watched. Two glowing red eyes appeared, narrowed, and the wave collapsed again into pure darkness, spreading outwards. Such was the menace that it gave off, even through the camera feed, that even Urd and Skuld took a step backwards.
Everyone did, except Gendo. He put his hands behind his back. “Azrael,” he said calmly. “The Angel of Death.”
Washu’s eyebrows went up. “That’s bad, isn’t it?”
Notes:
Yes, that's bad.
Next chapter: can the combined powers of the three goddesses, NERV, Washu and the Evas stop the Angel of Death itself? No one said this fic had to have a happy ending, after all...
Chapter 6: The Black Death
Summary:
Azrael, the Angel of Death, has arrived at Tokyo-3. It's up to Shinji, Asuka and Rei to stop it.
Luckily, they're going to get some help from their new friends.
Notes:
Somewhat short chapter tonight, but I have an early wakeup tomorrow. Enjoy a good ol' fashioned punch up between Evas and an Angel, with a little bit (a lot of, actually) goddess magic.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Well, here we go again, Shinji Ikari thought as the plug filled with LCL. He had long ago learned not to try and keep from letting it fill his lungs, but there was still that moment of panic where it felt like he was drowning. He would never quite get used to it. One thing that he was getting used to, apparently, was going out and fighting something that more than likely was going to end his young life. It wasn’t boring by any stretch, and Shinji would never find it remotely exciting, but there was none of the terror he had suffered the first time out. There was just the knowledge that it had to be done, and if he died in the process, life wasn’t all that much fun anyway.
“Pilots,” Misato said over the radio, “here’s the DL on Azrael. It’s not called the Angel of Death for nothing. According to Belldandy, it has a lot of powers, including the ability to manipulate shadows.”
“And kill things with a touch,” Asuka added.
“Yeah, that too. However, it doesn’t seem to be able to destroy inanimate objects, so your Evas should be able to keep you safe.”
“Do we know that for sure?” Shinji asked.
There was a pause. “We sure don’t,” Misato replied. “Anyway, that’s just added incentive to try not to fight this bastard hand-to-hand. Hit it with ranged attacks. It may be able to assume a humanoid form, but don’t let that sucker you into a close-range fight. Hear me, Asuka?”
“Yeah, yeah. Can we go now?” Asuka sounded bored, but Shinji suspected it was an act.
“Okay, we’re transporting you to the launch bay.” Shinji felt the huge platform EVA-01 stood on beginning to move. “Shinji, you and Asuka will hit Azrael from medium range. Rei, you’re on sniper duty—nail Azrael from long-range. Watch your tacticals.”
“We have done this before, Misato,” Asuka said with a tinge of contempt.
“Yeah? So why do you keep getting your ass kicked?” Misato let that barb sink in for a moment, then continued. “I do have some good news. You’ll get some backup this time, and not from the JSSDF.”
“That’s something, anyway,” Shinji said hopefully. “Who is it?” The platform slid into place below the launch tube, and the shoulder plastrons locked into place. The Eva was now ready for launch.
“The Goddesses and that Keiichi guy, apparently.”
“Oh, wonderful!” Asuka complained. “What’s Belldandy going to do—bake cookies for it?”
“Some help is better than nothing,” Misato replied. “Launch Evas.”
Asuka’s retort was lost as the catapult fired, sending all three mecha upwards at high speed.
“Commander Ikari, we don’t know if we were the ones that triggered this Azrael’s arrival, and in any case, I personally feel bad about what has happened. If there’s any way we can make amends…” Belldandy looked very contrite, her expression one that could melt the coldest heart.
Gendo Ikari indeed had one of those, but he was also an intelligent man and accepted help when offered—if the person offering it was an extremely powerful supernatural being. “What did you have in mind?”
“Azrael is a formidable foe in any universe,” Belldandy told him. “Your pilots will have more than some difficulty seeing him off. We goddesses are not without magical ability, of course—”
“We hadn’t noticed,” Misato deadpanned. “Look, Belldandy—bygones are bygones. I’m not mad about the beer. But Asuka's got a point--a smartass one, but a point all the same. I’m not sure the ability to clean an apartment or bake cookies is going to faze that thing.” She pointed at the huge holographic display, which showed Azrael’s inexorable advance on Tokyo-3.
Belldandy was about to reply when Urd stepped forward. “Look, I can put the hurt on ol' Azrael. Bet on that.”
“Oh? And what are you going to do, seduce it?” Misato snickered.
Urd turned towards Misato, and her eyes flashed red. Misato’s snark disappeared instantly as she got a look at what was behind those eyes. “Do not take me for some conjurer of tricks, Misato Katsuragi!” Urd thundered—literally; her voice echoed through Central Dogma. “I have far more weapons at my disposal than those of Eros!”
“Well…er…since you put it t-that way…” Misato stammered.
“I’d like to help too,” Keiichi put in. “Not sure what I can do, but I’m handy with a radio. Maybe I can help guide the Evas in or something.”
Skuld had finally recovered from drooling over NERV’s computer suite and walked over. “I’ve got a better idea, Keiichi! There’s something I’ve been saving for just such an occasion.” She gave a quick outline of what she had in mind.
“You’re kidding,” Ritsuko said when Skuld had finished. “In that short of time? Impossible.”
“Please tell me it’s impossible,” Keiichi begged.
“Hey!” All of them turned at Washu’s voice. She had given up the main display, but her face was still on two of the monitors. “I can’t help but have overheard, Skuld! Let me get over there and I’ll help!”
“We don’t really have time for you to walk over—” Skuld began, but a sudden whine filled the air, followed by the appearance of a glowing blue column of phosphors, with concentric waves of energy around it. Everyone moved away, but the column faded and Washu stood there, with a backpack thrown over one shoulder. She was shorter than everyone but Skuld and Keiichi. “Hi there!”
“How—how did you do that?” Makoto asked in shock.
“Oh, that?” Washu waved it off. “That’s easy. Don’t you recognize…oh, wait, I guess you don’t. This timeline doesn’t have the transporter. Such a simple invention, really…but that’s for another day.” Washu gave an elaborate bow. “Washu the Great, at your service.” She then bowed again, to Skuld. “Young goddess, it would be an honor to work with you.”
“Uh, sure.” Skuld returned the bow.
Washu took a deep breath and smiled. “Well, let’s get to work! Dr. Akagi, we’ll need the Eva bays as a workspace, okay? We’ll clean up our mess, promise.” Ritsuko dumbly nodded, having already had too many shocks for one morning.
Skuld cracked her knuckles. “Let’s do this. C’mon, Keiichi; you’ll need to suit up.”
“Oh, no,” Keiichi groaned.
"I'll help you," Belldandy said.
“And I’ll go help the kiddos kick some Angel ass.” Urd grinned savagely. “I don’t want to risk teleporting into a wall or something, so could someone show me a quick way to the surface?”
Instantly, every man within earshot stood up or began to walk over to help her, but Gendo froze them in place with a glare. “I shall help you find the exit, Miss Urd.”
Shinji ran a quick diagnostic on his pulse rifle. “EVA-01, in position.”
Asuka had selected two huge pistols and spun them in her mecha’s fingers. “EVA-02, ready.”
Rei was further back, her enormous sniper rifle braced on one of Tokyo-3’s lower buildings. “EVA-00 in position.”
“Okay,” Maya told them. “You should have a visual in ten seconds.”
Asuka took up position behind a high-rise, and peered around the corner. There was a low ridge on the outskirts of the city, and as she watched, black tendrils slid over the top of it like a sinister fog, then the rest of the Angel rolled over the top of it. There was a bump atop the roiling shadow, and those two horrible, glowing red eyes. The Angel stopped, and the bump rose higher and higher, while its body seemed to expand to two kilometers long and wide. Despite her bluster, Asuka felt real fear in the pit of her stomach. “Look at the size of that thing!” she exclaimed without thinking.
“Cut the chatter, EVA-02,” Misato instructed. “Fire when ready.”
Asuka fought down the fear and rolled out from behind the building. Azrael’s eyes were instantly focused on her. “Smile, you son of a bitch!” she yelled, and opened fire. While her pistols looked like simple oversized Desert Eagles, in reality each fired a rocket-propelled 60 millimeter mortar shell like a bullet. She fired twice, and both shots struck Azrael at the base of its neck. Asuka quickly adjusted her fire and put the next two between its eyes.
Azrael’s head flopped backwards, and for a moment Asuka thought she had blown its head off. Then the head reformed, and this time, there weren’t just the glowing red eyes, but a mouth the size of a small canyon and fangs the size of redwoods. It grinned at her. “Well, crap,” Asuka sighed. “I don’t know if I hurt him, but I sure as hell made him mad.”
Shinji saw an opening and broke cover himself, firing his rifle, which let fly with rapid-fire 105 millimeter shells. These shots tore into Azrael and exploded, which seemed to stagger the Angel. It reformed again, but this time facing Shinji, and it was no longer smiling. A fusillade of black spears shot from Azrael’s body; Shinji threw EVA-01 away from them and dodged most, which smashed through a building behind him, but enough hit to knock him down. The spears then coalesced and flowed back towards Azrael, forming tendrils that tightened around EVA-01’s limbs. Shinji instinctively jerked the mecha backwards, and Azrael seemed surprised by that: the Angel jerked forwards, off-balance for just a moment.
It was all Rei needed. Azrael had been pulled directly into her reticle, which pulsed red as the sniper rifle locked on. “Target acquired,” she said flatly. “Firing.” She braced the Eva against the recoil of the huge rifle—not quite the size of the positronic rifle she had used months before, but still quite large. The energy blast sent a blue lightning bolt down the street with enough force to short out the lights and blow out windows, then struck Azrael. It blew a hole straight through the Angel, but it began reforming almost immediately—but slowly. “Shot 50 percent ineffective,” Rei reported. “Adjusting aim. Firing.” Rei pulled the trigger again, but this time, nothing happened. Her eyes went to her control panel. “Misfire. Recalibrating.” She quickly thumbed a row of switches on and off.
“Hurry, Rei!” Shinji yelled. Azrael still had EVA-01 held.
Rei brought the sight up on her virtual display. “Target reacquired, firing.” Once more nothing happened. “Misfire. My rifle may be out of action.”
“Oh, as usual I’ve got to save Baka Shinji’s ass!” Asuka had ducked out of Rei’s line of fire, but now she stepped back into the open and fired again, holding down the triggers until the pistols clicked empty. She marched the shots across Azrael, but it didn’t seem to faze it this time: while none of their shots had been blocked by the characteristic AT field that Angels usually had, none of them seemed to do much than temporarily stun it. It was like fighting mist. Azrael flung EVA-01 into the nearest building, which collapsed on Shinji, let its tendrils fade, and moved forward towards Asuka. “It absorbed my fire and that’s not fair!” Asuka shrilled. “Rei, shoot the bastard!”
“I would,” Rei replied, unflustered, “but my rifle is inoperative. I’m trying to reboot my systems.”
“Screw that and get another damn gun!” Asuka snapped. “Do I gotta think of everything around here? Misato, I’m dry—I need more guns! Shinji, quit slacking off and engage, dammit!”
“Shinji’s not responding,” Misato reported, with a lot more calm than Asuka felt. “Asuka, fall back—there’s a weapons building behind you, 500 yards!”
“Got it!” Asuka turned and ran for the building. Azrael followed, gliding above the ground, then shot tendrils forward to wrap up EVA-02’s legs. Asuka went down hard, but rolled with the impact, coming up on her back. Azrael started to drag her towards it, but she dug the mecha’s left hand into the street, leaving five trenches in the pavement, then reached for the Eva’s Progressive Knife with her right. Azrael added more tendrils, trapping EVA-02’s right arm against its chest. “Oh, shit! It’s got me!” Asuka yelled.
Urd roared down the deserted streets on her borrowed motorscooter, Gendo’s last words to her when he showed her the ventilation shaft burning in her ears. She had been tempted to slap him down for impertience unbecoming a mere mortal, but she had stayed her hand. I guess he has a point—I do kinda owe him one. The tickle torture was a bit much. She smiled. Besides, he’s not bad looking for an older man, and those middle-aged guys tend to know their way around a woman. The beard’s nice…reminds me of Ulysses…
Her view ahead and her increasingly lusty thoughts were obscured by the sight of EVA-02 being dragged across the intersection in front of her, and Urd hit the brakes, skidding to a halt. “Wow, I don’t remember Azrael being this much of an asshole...or so gropey,” Urd murmured, then adjusted the borrowed headset she wore. “Hey, Asuka—you hear me, kiddo?”
“Who the hell is this?” Asuka demanded. “I’m a bit busy getting dragged to my doom here!”
“It’s just your friendly neighborhood Urd. I’m over here on the street to your left. Looks like he’s got you.”
“No shit!” Asuka shot back. “He’s going to kill me! Do you mind doing something about that, if you can?”
“’If I can,’” Urd snorted. She got off the bike and jogged forward, deciding Asuka needed to be taken down a peg or two. “Relax, Asuka! He’s not going to kill you.”
“He’s the Angel of Death! What’s he going to do, hug me?” EVA-02’s feet were nearly at Azrael’s bulk, and the black maw of silvery teeth were grinning at her again with murderous glee.
“Well, if he’s anything like the Azrael that I know, he’s into redheads,” Urd lied. “So he’s probably going to do a lot more than hug you with those tentacles.”
“Oh God!” Asuka screamed. “I’ve seen enough hentai to know—”
“Relax,” Urd said, sounding like it was a normal day for her—which wasn’t that much of an exaggeration. “I’ve got the bastard.” She floated into place behind and above EVA-02’s head, and cast a spell to make her voice resound like the blast of horns. “HEY, AZRAEL!” The tendrils stopped dragging Asuka, the eyes looked up, and the grin faded. “YEAH, THAT’S RIGHT, JERK! FACE SOMEONE WHO IS YOUR EQUAL!” Instantly, Azrael pulled back from Asuka and reared upwards like an angry cobra, towering over the buildings as gigantic arms formed on either side, to smash Urd between their shapeless hands. “That’s right, step right up,” Urd smiled. “Today’s flavor of asskicking is a little something I call—Super Urd Bolt!”
Thunder boomed and lightning crackled down from the heavens. The bolts sizzled into Azrael, tearing the shadow to pieces. The Angel stopped, shook itself, then began to reform. It indeed looked upset now. “Not bad,” Urd admitted. “So you can shrug off my normal Super Urd Bolts. Even Mara can do that on a good day. Let’s see if you can handle—Ultra Urd Bolt Lightning Balls!”
This time, Urd’s balls giant balls huge globes of lightning tore out of the clouds to hurtle into the Angel, slicing Azrael in half. The outstretched arms fizzled into nothingness, but as Asuka scrambled to get EVA-02 out of the way, Azrael seemed to, for a minute, become two Angels. Then it fused itself back together to a single one, and looked distinctly angry. “Okay,” Urd said with a little trepidation, “so you’re tough. You force me to pull out the stops, big guy.” Urd’s eyes crackled with energy as she raised her hands high, glowing with pure power. “Super…”
Azrael paused as even the wind seemed to stand still. “Urd…”
Pieces of pavement tore free from where EVA-02 had been and hurtled upwards as Urd’s hair billowed out into a silvery nimbus, glowing like Chernobyl after a failed test. “Crushing…”
Her eyes were now an unholy swirl of blue and black. Azrael actually drew back, trying to retreat as it suddenly realized that it truly was up against an equal.
“TACNUKE!”
In Central Dogma, Ritsuko, Misato and everyone else on the bridge turned away from the viewscreen as the flash of detonation temporarily overloaded MAGI’s ability to compensate. It cleared and then derezzed into static. “Lost visual,” Maya reported. “Rebooting to nearest cameras!”
“Electromagnetic pulse,” reported Makato. “Spreading outwards. It’s probably going to knock out a lot of electronics in the city, temporarily anyway. No radiation detected, but from the overpressure, we’re going to have massive property damage for at least half a kilometer around ground zero.” They felt the shockwave even far below the city.
“What else is new?” Misato sighed. “Another bill I have to deal with…”
“My God,” Ritsuko groaned. “If we wanted that, we might as well have detonated a N2 mine on the damn thing.”
“But a N2 mine is nonmagical.” They turned as Gendo walked onto the bridge. “The property damage is minimal, compared to destroying the target.”
“All local cameras offline due to the EMP surge,” Maya said, her fingers flying across her keyboard. “No damage to NERV itself. I’m rerouting the video feed through EVA-02’s sensors.”
“Good idea,” Ritsuko said. “The Evas are EMP hardened.” She checked the lifesigns monitor—all three pilots were still alive, though Shinji looked to be unconscious.
At first, the display still only showed static. Asuka’s voice faded in. “…the hell were you thinking, Urd! I was damn near at ground zero!”
“Bitch, bitch, bitch.” Urd’s disembodied voice came into the transmission. “I destroyed the stupid Angel, didn’t I? And Skuld can fix your little robot there, no problem.”
“I’m fine, dammit! Damage is limited to my armor. Ow.” The visual cleared to white, then finally the red chest of EVA-02 came into view—though it was more black than red, where the paint had blistered off and the armor beneath had been singed. “You could’ve warned me, you know!”
“Oh, like my Gokuesque casting wasn’t warning enough?” Urd coughed. “Well, I can’t see anything through all this smoke. You got anything, anyone?”
“This is Rei. The smoke is clearing from my end. Heavy damage, but no known civilian casualties.” A pause. “Tokyo-3 Central Bank will need, if I may quote from Major Katsuragi’s favorite movie, a shitload of screen doors. I am boosting visual feed.”
“Reroute to EVA-00,” Gendo ordered.
The feed shimmered for a moment, then cleared. There was a mushroom cloud spreading above Tokyo-3, but it was already beginning to collapse and dissipate. They could see EVA-02 where it had been slammed into a building, while one foot of EVA-01 was visible under a huge pile of rubble. A slight glow from inside the smoke marked where Urd still floated.
Suddenly a black shadow surged out of the mushroom cloud. Azrael’s eyes still glowed, and it still grinned. “Oh God,” Maya breathed. “Target remains. Target...remains!”
“We are in very deep trouble,” Misato intoned.
As they watched, helpless to intervene, Azrael took on a far more humanoid appearance, shrinking in size to that of twice the size of an Eva, growing discernible muscles, arms, fingers, legs and feet. Its face remained a shapeless blob of red eyes and white teeth. Asuka tried for the Progressive Knife again, but Azrael shot its right arm forward twice its length to knock it out of her mecha’s hand. The left reached out and grabbed Urd, who was too weak from casting the Tacnuke to get away.
A mortal would have instantly died. Goddesses were made of sterner stuff, but Urd still screamed in agony as unbelievable cold leached into her body. She tried to get free, but her strength was waning by the second, and she saw the darkness of unconsciousness close around her vision.
Suddenly, that vision was cut off as a blur of blue armor charged into Azrael’s side. Taken by surprise, the Angel’s feet tore huge divots of ground out of the blasted remains of the street as it was sent into a row of ruined buildings, collapsing them. The black fist disappeared and Urd fell slowly to the ground. Rei and EVA-00 stood over the fallen Angel.
“Never thought I’d say this,” Asuka yelled, “but you go, Wondergirl!”
As Azrael tried to get up, Rei stomped it, smashing the Angel downwards into a basement. Now it was Rei who drew her Progressive Knife, the serrated blade extending from its sheath. “In the name of NERV,” Rei snarled, “I shall punish you.” She stabbed the knife downwards towards Azrael’s heart, if that entity even had one.
Two arms suddenly appeared out of Azrael’s chest and stopped the knife a foot short of its goal. Rei bared her teeth in a very uncharacteristic show of rage and pushed the control columns downwards, inching the knife closer. But more tendrils appeared, wrapping around EVA-00’s wrists. Suddenly, they twisted upwards, pulling the mecha off its feet and sending it flying into the ridge Azrael had come over a few minutes before. Rei managed to roll with the impact as Asuka had, but the power cable snapped. Alarms blasted through the cockpit of EVA-00, announcing she only had a few minutes of internal battery power as a countdown filled her screen. Rei ignored it, getting up and balling her fists to charge. There was something about this Angel that she wanted to utterly destroy.
Azrael was back on its feet, turning to take her charge head-on, but suddenly tripped and stumbled forward as Asuka scythed her legs through the Angel's. “I’m not dead yet, dummkopf! Don’t you turn your back on me!” Her own power cable had snapped as well somewhere along the line, and she only had two minutes of power left. It would have to be enough.
Rei took advantage of the distraction and pummeled Azrael with a flurry of blows. The Angel took the hits and then smashed EVA-00 with a haymaker back across the ridge. Asuka tried to rise to deliver her own last punch, but Azrael simply kicked her back into the building. Deeming neither Eva nor Urd to be any longer a threat, Azrael seemed to remember what it had come to Tokyo-3 for, and began striding towards NERV.
Notes:
Well, it can't get worse...can it?
Chapter 7: When Darkness Falls
Summary:
Rei and Urd are down. Asuka's just hanging on. The battle isn't over yet, though: Shinji and EVA-01 are still in the fight, and so is Keiichi, armed with the combined might of Washu and Skuld.
But will it be enough to stop the Angel of Death?
Notes:
Kind of short chapter, but it's getting late and I hit a good stopping point. Next week should finish up the story.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Tokyo-3, Japan
Evangelion Universe
Wake up, Shinji.
The voice penetrated the fog of Shinji Ikari’s consciousness. He knew he had to get up and move, but it seemed so much more comfortable to just lay where he was, and do nothing. Doing nothing had worked often in his life, and Shinji, feeling very tired, saw no reason to change that now.
You have to get up, Shinji. You have to wake up. Your friends need you. I need you to wake up.
Finally, Shinji opened his eyes. “Mom?” he murmured.
“Shinji!” The voice over the radio was shrill, and abruptly—as Shinji became more or less fully awake—he realized it had been Misato yelling at him to get up, not his long-dead mother. Wow, he thought as he tested his limbs. That was so real! “Shinji, wake the hell—”
“I’m awake, Misato!” Shinji exclaimed. The systems of EVA-01 flickered and came back online as well.
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah…I think so.” He tried moving the Eva’s limbs; they did so, but slowly. “I’m in a lot of wreckage. I think a building collapsed on me.” He pushed outwards with his hands, and EVA-01 began shoving away rubble.
“Get out of there, Shinji,” Misato ordered. “Hurry. Rei and Asuka are down, and so’s Urd. Azrael’s kicking our ass. You’re about all that’s between us and it.”
Shinji shook his head to clear the last of the cobwebs. With renewed energy, he began climbing out of the debris. “I’m on my way.”
In the Eva launch bays, Keiichi Morisato stared down at himself and turned red with embarrassment. “You have got to be kidding.” Belldandy, despite herself, started giggling. “Bell. Not helping.”
“I’m sorry, Keiichi, but…you look so…cute!” Keiichi sighed. He could handle it if Belldandy called him handsome, even though he didn’t feel handsome in the best of times, let alone now. To be called cute struck at what masculinity he had left.
Washu made an appreciative noise. “Mmm! I have to admit, he is kind of attractive. Good back, nice legs…not bad.” Belldandy’s laughter trailed off, and Washu giggled a little herself at the goddess clearly fighting a wave of jealousy. “Relax, Belldandy. He just reminds me of someone I know.”
Skuld was turning red too. When she had first seen Keiichi, she hadn’t given any thought to how he looked; he was just Keiichi. Washu’s words made her look at him in another way, and it confused her why she kind of agreed with the scientist that her sister's boyfriend wasn't bad looking at all. She hastily turned away from him. “Whatever! Look, we don’t have time to ogle Keiichi! Eww!” Skuld grabbed one of his hands and started dragging him the length of the launch bay.
“Wait, wait!” Keiichi pleaded. “Why am I dressed like this? Or half-dressed like this?”
“It’s simple, Keiichi,” Washu said, following behind. “Banpei runs off of nickel-cadmium batteries, and he has a lot of microcomputers running at the same time in his head and body. That generates a lot of heat.”
“Just like your computer when you run all those programs Belldandy isn’t supposed to know about.” Keiichi’s eyes widened at Skuld’s jibe, though Belldandy only looked cutely confused. “Oh, did I say that out loud?” she said with a savage grin. “Anyways, in Banpei’s new form, he gives off even more heat.”
“Several hundred degrees Kelvin,” Washu added helpfully.
At Keiichi’s growing alarm about being parboiled, Skuld waved off his concerns. “It’s all good, K1! We insulated the cockpit, of course, but it’s gonna get hot in there anyway. Since we don’t want you passing out, Washu said you needed to be dressed appropriately. She got the idea out of some sci-fi game.” Skuld gave a derisive snort. “It’s gross, but we had to do it!” Privately, Washu mused that Skuld was protesting just a bit too much.
“Yeah, but…this?” Keiichi wrenched free of Skuld and stopped to look down at himself again. He wore his racing gloves, but they now had wires attached all over them. He wore a vest made of soft fabric, with tubing filled with ice water glued to the front of it, slippers with more wires, and a pair of Speedos. That was all.
“Afraid so,” Washu nodded. “You’re going to be sweating a lot in there.”
“In where?” Keiichi asked.
“In there!” Skuld pointed, and Keiichi followed her finger with his eyes. He nearly fell off the catwalk. “Behold! The Skuld-Washu Joint Anti-Angel Destroyer Mecha Mark VI—King Banpei!” It was Banpei, certainly, but Banpei was now four stories tall, about half the size of an Eva. The robot still looked the same, resembling a skeletal art body of a feudal Japanese ashigaru soldier, which made it all the stranger.
“Oh my!” Belldandy exclaimed. “I’m very impressed, Skuld.”
“Thanks, sis!” Skuld beamed. “Though to be honest, I couldn’t have done it without Washu. It’s nice having someone as smart as me around! We figured out how to make Banpei larger and more powerful…plus we had to figure out the improved motive system…then we had to put in a cockpit—luckily Keiichi’s short—”
“But how?” Keiichi shouted. “You had maybe thirty minutes!”
Washu only laughed. “Aww, Keiichi, don’t worry about that and other science facts!” She patted his shoulder. “You should really just relax.”
“But not right now.” Ritsuko’s voice boomed out of the bay’s loudspeakers. “Rei’s out of power, and though Asuka’s slowing it down a little, Azrael will still be here in seven minutes. Get that…thing out of my hangar bay and get it into action. If nothing else, maybe it’ll kill Azrael with laughter.”
“What?” Skuld screamed. “I’ll have you know that King Banpei is an instrument of pure destruction—”
Washu shoved Keiichi forward. “C’mon, kid! Get a move on. The cockpit’s up in Banpei’s head. Just hop in the lift and climb in. The cockpit is configured like a motorcycle, and Skuld tells me you’re a pretty fair rider!”
Keiichi got into the lift, feeling optimistic for the first time since he had been reunited with Belldandy. “Fair? Just fair?” He grinned. If there was anything in the universe he was good at, it was motorcycles. “Yeah, I’m pretty fair.”
“Then get to it!” Washu threw him a thumbs-up.
Keiichi started the lift up, only for Belldandy to grab the railing, dart forward, and kiss him. “Come back to me,” she whispered. He saw the concern in her eyes, and the fear. Belldandy wanted to clutch him to herself, protect him, not let him go.
“I will,” he told her softly. “Besides, I don’t have a choice, remember? The Ultimate Force?”
Belldandy kissed him again. “Of course. Good luck.” She floated with him to the top, helped him put on a modified motorcycle helmet, and remained until Keiichi had dogged the hatch behind him.
Skuld glanced at Washu. “What are you smiling at?”
“Oh, nothing,” Washu sighed, watching Belldandy. “Just thinking that some women have all the luck. Oh well.” She flexed her fingers, and the holographic keyboard sprang to life. Skuld pulled on a radio headset as the lift and Belldandy descended. “You ready, Keiichi?”
“Yeah—just getting strapped in. This setup isn’t too bad!” Keiichi said, his voice crackling over the headset. “Just like a Yamaha YZR500!”
“Is it? Wow, what a coincidence.” Skuld had actually dismantled two YZR500 motorcycles in NERV’s garage, and didn’t want that to be public knowledge just yet. Or that the motive system and fusion reactor that was now powering King Banpei had come from what appeared to be some kind of Evangelion prototype. “Anyway, Keiichi, to move forward, move the control bar forward. Speed is controlled by the throttle and brake, just like on a bike. To move the arms, use your hands—the wire in the gloves acts as transmitters. You have jumpjets; just kick the pedals by your feet. You’ve got weapons that are listed on the dashboard—on the sticky note. The buttons are on the control bar. We had to install the weapons really fast, so, uh, make sure you yell really loud what weapons you’re using so Banpei understands the command.”
Washu stared at Skuld. “We didn’t install voice-activated weapons—”
“Shh!” Skuld hissed. “Let me have some fun.”
Misato watched as King Banpei was launched. “Just when I thought I’d seen everything at this job.”
“Desperate times require desperate measures,” Ritsuko said. “Let’s just hope this works. With two Evas and that…whatever it is…Azrael will have to deal with three threats at once.” Ritsuko smiled grimly. “This will be interesting.”
Shinji had finally gotten free of the debris and looked around for Azrael. He didn’t see the Angel, though he did see Rei’s powered down EVA-00 and Urd’s unconscious form on the sidewalk. His radio crackled faintly. “Hey, uh, Pilot Ikari? Can you hear me?”
Shinji turned up the gain on his radio. “I can hear you. Is this Keiichi?”
“Yeah. I just came out of one of those fake buildings about a block from NERV. I can see Azrael. He’s coming down this four-lane avenue…and he’s dragging a big red mecha. Is that Asuka?”
Shinji immediately brought up a window on his forward display. Asuka appeared, looking disheveled and angry. “Asuka, you okay?”
“Oh, I’m fine!” Asuka snarled. “You dummkopf! I’m being dragged down the street by a big ugly angel with about three minutes of power left! I’m doing fucking great!”
Misato popped up on the screen. “Okay, listen up. Asuka, I need you to slow it down a bit more.”
“How the hell do I do that? Harsh language?”
“You’re the one with the college degree—figure it out!” Misato snapped. “Keiichi, once she’s got that thing slowed down, you nail Azrael with a…oh God, I don’t believe I’m saying this…”
“Rocket Punch!” Skuld yelled over the line.
“Yes, that. It should knock Azrael down. Shinji, you charge in and stab the son of a bitch to death with your Prog Knife. Aim for the heart. When Rei attacked it, Azrael seemed to try and protect itself there. That should kill the Angel.”
“What happens if it doesn’t?” Shinji ran EVA-01 down cross streets to get into position.
“It better, because if it doesn’t, we’re screwed.” Misato took a deep breath. “Okay, Asuka, do your worst.”
Asuka tried two things in quick succession. First, she tried to twist Azrael’s right ankle off. The shadows oozed around EVA-02’s hands, preventing her from getting a good enough grip. The Angel seemed to be just ignoring her. Second, she dug in her feet, trying to drag it down. Once more, Azrael barely slowed. With one minute of power left, Asuka decided it was time for the nuclear option. She dug in EVA-02’s knees, then with every erg of power her mecha had left, she rammed the Eva’s head into Azrael’s groin.
The Angel stopped cold. Asuka had hoped it would let out some kind of unearthly howl or grip itself with a titanic mecha getting slammed into whatever the Angel used as genitalia, but no such thing happened. She had, however, certainly gotten its attention. “That’s right!” Asuka shouted for no one’s edification but her own. “Payback’s a bitch and so am I!” Then the power countdown hit zero, and the lights went out in her cockpit.
Keiichi lurched around a corner and King Banpei nearly fell. It was not just like riding a motorcycle: though Keiichi had ridden a myriad of stock, prototype and kitbashed motorcycles, none were forty feet high with possibly magical-yet-squirrely microprocessors fighting a poor center of balance to keep it upright. He hit the brakes and skidded to a halt, just as Azrael stepped back and delivered a solid kick to EVA-02, smashing it through a row of warehouses. It wasn’t paying attention to him, so Keiichi licked his lips, aimed the crosshairs projected on the windscreen that was King Banpei’s eyes, and raised the mecha’s right arm. “Here goes nothing,” he muttered, then hit the button. “Rocket PUNCH!”
King Banpei’s right fist, true to its name, rocketed off the mecha’s wrist. It roared down the street at near supersonic speed and hit Azrael full on the chest. The Angel hurtled backwards and landed hard on the avenue, even as the fist sprang backwards on reverse thrust and snapped back into place on King Banpei.
As Azrael staggered back to its feet, Shinji struck. He shoulder-charged the Angel, sending it back to the pavement, then stabbed downwards with the knife. It tore through Azrael’s shadowy skin with only slight resistance and ripped into the pavement below. Azrael shuddered once and was still. Shinji scuttled backwards--Angels tended to explode when killed—but this one just lay there, slowly melting into the street.
“I got him!” Shinji exclaimed, half in surprise. “Thanks, Keiichi! You too, Asuka!”
“Hey, yeah!” Keiichi raised King Banpei’s fists in victory. "We did it!"
There was no response from Asuka. Shinji turned to look. EVA-02 was sprawled bonelessly in the remains of two warehouses. “Asuka?”
“Wheee!” Asuka slurred. “That was fun!” Her voice trailed off into barely understandable German singing.
“I think Asuka’s concussed,” Misato informed them. “But nice…work…” Her voice now was the one to trail off. “Oh, shit.”
Shinji spun back around. Azrael was no longer melting, but reforming, and as he watched in horror, the Angel sat up and grinned at him. “I didn’t get him!”
“Stab him again, Shinji!” Misato shouted. “Make sure you hit the heart this time!”
“I hit the heart last time!” Shinji braced himself for another attack as Azrael didn’t so much stand as simply rise upwards to its feet.
Keiichi might have been smart to stay out of the fight for now and let Shinji make another stab at the Angel, but one could hardly be faulted for wanting to help. King Banpei reached up and pulled off its flared hat. “HURRICANE HAT!” Keiichi yelled, and the mecha threw the hat like a frisbee towards Azrael, the sunlight reflecting off the razor-sharp sides of the hat, capable of cutting a building in half. Azrael, however, merely slapped the hat aside—right into EVA-01.
Luckily, the hat did not slice the Eva open, but hit flat. Unluckily, it hit flat right in EVA-01’s head. The purple mecha fell like a boxer hit with a hard right, and didn’t move. Azrael gave it a boot as well for good measure, then turned and advanced on King Banpei.
Keiichi frantically screamed out more attacks until he was hoarse, hitting Azrael with Rocket Punches and God Arrows, but though he would knock the Angel back a few steps with the punches, the Angel simply ignored the arrows. “I’m in trouble!” Keiichi yelled. “Uh, help!”
Belldandy stared at the monitors in horror. The plan had failed, and when Azrael caught up to King Banpei, Keiichi would die. The slapdash mecha didn’t have armor. “It can’t end this way,” she whispered. “It can’t.”
“Keiichi’s giving that bastard everything Banpei’s got, but it’s not stopping him!” Skuld shrilled.
“All Evas down!” Misato’s voice echoed through the empty bay.
Skuld stomped her feet. “Come on! We’ve got to try something!”
Washu left off her keyboard and grabbed Belldandy’s hand. “Listen to me. Peorth told me about you once. Of all the goddesses, you’re not just the most pure, you’re the most powerful.” She stabbed a finger upwards. “You’re the last hope we’ve got.”
“You don’t understand,” Belldandy told her. “Yes, I am the most powerful, but if I unleash my full power…I won’t just kill Azrael. I’ll kill Keiichi, you, everyone in the city, maybe even Japan. That’s why I’ve been holding back!” Tears shined in her eyes. “I’m scared of what I might do! What if I…what if I kill everyone? What if I…” She shuddered. “What if I like the power, Washu? What if I like it too much?”
“Belldandy,” Washu said, “I got a peek into what NERV is guarding here when I was loose in their computer. If Azrael gets through to it—to her—then the whole planet will be destroyed! Maybe even this whole universe!” She smiled up at the goddess. “Kami-sama trusts you with that power, Belldandy. Maybe you should trust yourself.”
Belldandy stared at her for a moment, then her mouth set. Skuld looked over at her sister and swallowed involuntarily, in fear at what she saw in the elder goddess' eyes. Belldandy’s expression changed from one of fear to one of grim determination. Her hands balled into fists. “You’re right, Washu. It's time I joined the fight. Past time."
Washu winked. “Then go save the world, kiddo.”
Belldandy gave a hard nod, and disappeared.
Ritsuko sagged into a chair. “Dammit. Dammit to hell. We knew this could happen, but…never really thought it would.”
“That’s it?” Shigeru said. “There has to be something we can do!”
Maya was pale with terror. “What if we sealed off NERV completely—”
“It would just ooze through the ground and around any barriers,” Ritsuko sighed.
“Shit.” Makoto leaned back in his chair. He looked at his hands, which were steady. “Well…at least I’m not panicking about my imminent, horrible death…”
“It will probably be quick, if that’s any consolation,” Ritsuko told him.
Misato tore the top off of a Yebisu Super Dry. “If I’m gonna die, I’m not going to glory sober.” She tipped the can back, then stopped. “Wait a second. Rits, look at the monitors. In front of that Banpei thing.”
Ritsuko sat up. “What…that’s Belldandy!” She jumped out the chair and leaned over Maya’s shoulder. “What in God’s name can she do?”
“That may be an apt term.” They all turned as Gendo strode onto the bridge, pushing up his glasses. “Now we trust an angel to defeat one.”
Notes:
Belldandy vs. Azrael. Only one's walking away from this one...or maybe neither are. Bell's just angry enough to settle for mutually assured destruction.
Keiichi's "suit" is pretty much what MechWarriors used to wear in Battletech, except for the control wires; it seems that Washu was playing the game back in the 80s and 90s. (The game has since switched to more practical cooling suits, rather than having the guys walk around in banana hammocks and the girls essentially in their panties.)
Chapter 8: The End, or The Goddess That Screamed at the End of the World
Summary:
Belldandy is all that stands between Azrael and NERV. Can she stop the Angel of Death?
And if she does, might everyone's wishes come true?
Notes:
Whew! Finally finished this. I apologize for it being late, but work was rough this week (short weeks are always the worst), and I needed to clear out some backlog before getting to this one.
Anyway, this concludes "Oh My Evangelion." Will I ever come back to any of these universes? Probably not, but who knows where the muse will take us.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Tokyo-3
Evangelion Universe
Keiichi Morisato’s frantic retreat had reached an end—mainly because he had taken a wrong turn and ended up on a dead-end street. He realized that he was close to where he and Skuld had been captured. Now he was out of weapons, out of luck, and out of time. In one last desperate effort, he threw a left hook at Azrael’s head. The Angel grabbed King Banpei’s fist with one hand and grabbed the mecha's head with the other. Keiichi was fairly certain the Angel was grinning at him even wider, and alarms went off as Azrael began to squeeze King Banpei’s head like a zit—and Keiichi was pretty sure the end result would be the same.
“AZRAEL!”
The Angel stopped, and its head rotated 360 degrees as Belldandy appeared behind it. “Face me,” she demanded, in an angry tone of voice Keiichi didn’t think she was capable of. Azrael casually flung King Banpei to the ground and turned towards Belldandy, who floated upwards. “I will give you one last chance. Leave, now. Return from whence you came or the nearest convenient parallel dimension. If you do not leave, you will be destroyed.” Azrael’s grin didn’t fade. Instead, it brought both hands together to smash Belldandy like a bug. To its surprise, the hands stopped short, halted by a force no one could see. “Very well,” she said. “You have made your choice. Now I make mine.” Belldandy reached up and pulled off both earrings. Her casual clothes instantly vanished, replaced by dazzling white and blue plate armor; her eyes glowed with pure, righteous fury.
Power flowed through her, power that no mortal could comprehend, that little in the universe could survive. It was glorious, it was wonderful, and Belldandy marveled at it, at the same time she feared it. The power could not destroy her, but it could destroy everything else around her. She found herself afraid—not of Azrael, which was still trying to crush her, but of herself. She gazed at the Angel’s red eyes, and saw nothing there. This can’t be the Azrael that I know, she thought. The Azrael I know is kind and gentle, bringing souls to the afterlife. He does not hate what he does, but he finds no joy in it either. This creature is insane. It lives only for destruction, of all. It is darkness.
And Belldandy knew how to destroy Azrael.
Despite her power and shields, the Angel was still trying to crush her, and the abyssal hands grew closer and closer, until she could feel the death-giving cold, the wrongness of this world’s Azrael, if indeed that was what it was. She could hear Keiichi screaming for her, feel Skuld trying to reach for her, even the feeble and disjointed thoughts of Urd and Asuka as they struggled back to consciousness. Only Rei’s thoughts seemed to be calm, as if the girl had accepted her fate and merely waited to be snuffed out. Belldandy closed her eyes and shut all of it out. Instead, she thought of only Keiichi.
She remembered the first time they had met, the very confused young man seeing her materialize out of his dorm room mirror. She remembered tending him through his fever after he had worked so hard to take care of her. She remembered the first sunset they had watched together, and the hesitant but loving hand seeking her own. She remembered how he had risked everything to give her a ring, even the wrath of Kami-sama. Suddenly it wasn’t cold any longer, but warm; the darkness faded, replaced by light.
The crowd gathered in Central Dogma was silent; no one dared to speak. They could see the darkness of Azrael reaching for the tiny figure in blue that was the only barrier that remained between the Angel and NERV. Even her glow seemed pitifully small compared to Azrael.
Skuld’s hands were clenched so tight on the back of Maya’s chair that her knuckles were bone-white and she was leaving impressions in it. For her part, Maya and the other two technicians were gripping the arms of their chairs as if they were afraid of flying out of them. Misato’s hand slowly crumpled the beer can, and some of it slopped onto her hand, but she barely noticed. Ritsuko was shaking, something that her friends could attest never happened to the scientist. Washu was outwardly calm, but she was prepared to use the Time-Space Machine to get out of the timeline before Azrael won. Only Gendo seemed completely unaffected.
Suddenly the glow began to increase in intensity, blotting out Azrael’s hands. Skuld realized what it was. “Close your eyes!” she shouted. “Don’t look!”
It was too late. The image in the holoprojection disappeared as NERV’s cameras were overloaded with pure, white light. Even MAGI’s internal dampeners, designed to stop the flash of a nuclear weapon, couldn’t compensate. Everyone in the control room instinctively threw up their hands or arms to ward off the blinding light.
Except Gendo. The light only reflected from his glasses, and he smiled. “Let there be light,” he murmured, and there was.
Above Tokyo-3, the skies opened and a single white cone of light, so bright that it registered on instruments on Earth’s nightside, flashed downwards to center on Belldandy. It expanded until it covered the entire city. There was no boom of an explosion, no shockwave that flattened buildings: it was entirely silent.
In the face of such light, darkness of any kind stood no chance. Azrael finally drew back, but it was far too late even to run. The Angel was not torn apart or blown up: it simply ceased to exist, vanishing under the onslaught of pure light.
After a moment that seemed both shorter than a second and longer than a lifetime, the light contracted on itself, back into a cone, then into a single thin line centered on Belldandy’s forehead. Then that too faded, and she gently floated back to the ground, to stand there. Her hands shook as she replaced the earrings, then she staggered and almost fell.
Keiichi was out of King Banpei and down to the ground in what was probably the quickest he had ever moved in his life. He reached her side just as she collapsed, and held her up. “Belldandy! Bell! Are you okay?”
She looked up at him, her eyes bright with exhaustion. “Are you?”
“I’m fine! You…you did it.” He smiled at her. “You did it.” Slowly they dropped to their knees. “You did it,” he whispered.
“I’m glad. Please make sure the others are all right.” She slid out of his grasp to rest her head on his lap. “I think…I’ll sleep a little.” Her eyelids fluttered shut. Keiichi felt utter terror that had nothing to do with Angels as he checked her pulse, then let out a breath. It was steady. Belldandy was just asleep. He held her close, not caring if anyone saw him cry.
Eventually, the birds began to chirp again, the people came out of their shelters, and NERV vehicles and personnel left their bunker to recover the Evas and began cleaning up. Once no one’s injuries were determined to keep them in the hospital, the party went into full swing at Misato’s apartment.
Misato was happily drunk, but for once she did not drink alone: Urd was already halfway there, and even the normally reserved Ritsuko was tipping back more than a few. Asuka was allowed one beer, despite her insistence that she was German and therefore had drunk beer since childhood. Washu and Skuld, for their part, ignored the party, bent over the table and engrossed in blueprints that would make King Banpei even more effective. Rei and Maya were discussing the merits and flaws of Tuxedo Mask—though Maya was doing most of the talking.
Belldandy had slept for a few hours, then awoke refreshed and back to her normal dress. She did not drink—not because there was any risk of getting drunk, as only caffeine made her tipsy—but because she didn’t really like the taste of beer. She stuck with tea. Keiichi and Shinji were washing the dishes, having lost the toss to Urd and Misato; neither were aware that Urd had used a double-headed coin.
After enjoying the revelry for awhile, Belldandy walked out onto Misato’s balcony to watch the sunset. It was indeed a beautiful one, and she hoped everyone was as happy to see it as she was. It had come so close to never taking place. She turned as someone joined her, and she was mildly surprised to see it was Shinji. “Keiichi’s in the bathroom,” he explained. “He’ll be out in a few minutes.”
“That’s all right,” Belldandy said. She sensed his nervousness. “I’m honored to watch the sunset with you, Shinji. You are a brave young man.”
“Me?” Shinji laughed. “Whatever the opposite of brave is, that’s me. Besides, you defeated Azrael. None of us did.”
“That may be true, but I was not here when the other Angels were defeated. From what Ritsuko has told me, that was you, Rei and Asuka…but you deserve the lion’s share of the credit.” She paused. “And I will not be there to defeat future Angels, but I know you will be the first out to fight them.”
“I don't know about that. I’m scared of them,” Shinji admitted.
“Only a fool wouldn’t be, and you’re not a fool,” Belldandy told him. “Besides, as someone once said, courage is fear holding on a minute longer.”
“So you’re not staying after all,” Shinji sighed.
“We can’t,” Belldandy replied, touching his shoulder. “The longer we stay, the more problems could develop. Azrael, I don’t think, was supposed to ever appear in this plane of existence—but he did, and that was nearly the end of all of us. Keiichi, me, Skuld, Urd, even Washu don’t belong here. Sooner or later, reality itself might not be able to compensate for us being here…and a far worse fate might happen than even Azrael.” She smiled sadly. “I don’t like it, Shinji…but we have to leave. Washu has promised to help us.”
“I wish you could stay forever,” Shinji said.
Belldandy laughed softly. “Someone already asked me that.” She leaned forward and kissed him on the forehead. “Shinji, I can’t see the future—it’s always in motion—but I can sense what could happen. For you, I think there will be some good and some bad…but in the end, there will be great and wonderful things in the future for you.” She knew that there would also be much pain for Shinji Ikari—pain that no human should have to withstand. Yet she sensed that there was a toughness there that no one, not even Shinji himself, realized. He would hurt, but he would make the right decision in the end. At least, Belldandy thought, she hoped he would. There were some fates even goddesses could not change.
Shinji blushed. “I-I sure hope so.” He turned back towards the sunset to cover his own embarrassment. Belldandy did the same. “How exactly did you defeat Azrael? I mean, I get the whole light thing, but…”
Belldandy’s smile only widened. “Give light, and darkness will go on its own.”
“That simple?”
“Sometimes life is very simple, Shinji Ikari.” They heard Keiichi call out her name, and she turned to leave, then stopped. “Oh my! I almost forgot.” She clasped her hands together. “Part of what happened here was our fault, my sisters and I—and Washu. We’d like to make up for it.”
“You don’t have to,” Shinji told her.
“No, but we will all the same.” Her smile was no longer sad, but warm. “So what is your wish, Shinji?”
EPILOGUE
Tokyo-3
Evangelion Universe
Three days later, Shinji walked out of the Eva launch bays, headed for the changing room, wanting nothing more than to change out of his plugsuit and get a shower. No matter how hard he tried, he still hated the smell of LCL. He also needed to get back to Misato’s apartment to get some homework done. Evangelion pilots might save the world, but they still needed to do algebra.
Ahead of him in the corridor was Gendo. Shinji felt the usual mixture of anger, hate and fear well up inside of him at the sight of his father. There were times Shinji would have cheerfully murdered his father, and times he wished he could just hear Gendo say, just once, that he loved his son. Shinji dismissed that last thought, because his father was walking towards him, reading a folder. Typical, Shinji thought angrily, doesn’t even know I’m here.
They had drawn even with each other when Gendo looked up. “Shinji.”
Shinji stopped: not only had his father used his first name, which was rare, but his voice lacked its usual sneer, anger, or disgust that it usually had when Gendo spoke to him. “Father,” he replied warily.
Gendo seemed oddly unsure of what to say. “Shinji…” He seemed to come to some sort of decision. “You did well.”
Shinji blinked. “But…it was just a sync test…to check the repairs from Azrael…”
“I wasn’t referring to today’s test. I was referring to…” There was an odd pause, and to Shinji’s stunned surprise, Gendo stared down at his shoes, a mannerism that Shinji recognized in himself. It made Gendo look younger, actually vulnerable. “I was referring to all of it. All that you’ve done.”
Shinji was so flabbergasted that he could not speak more than to say “Uh…well…”
“Keep up the good work…son.” Then Gendo turned away, hurriedly headed for the launch bays, leaving Shinji in his wake. Then Shinji began to smile. Wishes, it seemed, did come true sometimes.
Gendo slowed down once he reached the bay, wondering why he had suddenly felt the overwhelming urge to praise his son. Yet he did not regret it. The truth was, he was proud of Shinji. Despite his son’s fright at piloting EVA-01, despite screaming terror every time he went into battle, despite the hate that he knew Shinji felt for him, no one had fought the Angels longer or harder than Shinji—aside from Gendo himself. There was no margin for error in the war against the Angels, but although Gendo knew—or thought he knew—the endgame, Shinji all the same gave NERV what it needed: hope. Gendo hoped himself that his son would understand someday, all that was happening and all that the Evas were defending. The end would justify the means.
Gendo looked up at EVA-01, then opened the folder again. No one was around, so he allowed his emotions to surface for once. If anyone had seen him, they probably would have fallen off the catwalk in shock: Gendo Ikari, the iron, emotionless commander of NERV, was crying.
Inside the folder was only a photograph. It was a young scientist and his bride: an intense young man dedicated to the work that would one day consume him, and a pretty young woman who was equally as committed to a cause that would take her life. Yui Ikari was the only human being who had ever accepted Gendo completely, without reservation. The photograph had been lost in Second Impact.
But wishes did come true sometimes.
Gendo removed his glasses and dried his eyes, glancing around to see if someone had seen him, but of course the only other being in the huge bay at the moment was EVA-01. He smiled up at the mecha. “No one’s made me laugh like that in years,” he mused. “Urd, you almost broke me. But I am glad to have met you and your sisters.” He held the photograph up. “This will do for now.”
He heard boots on the catwalk and saw Rei approaching him, having already changed from her plugsuit to her usual school clothes. Gendo replaced the photograph in the folder and turned to meet her. “Yes?”
“Sir, I was wondering if you might answer a question for me,” Rei said. “It is confusing, but I ran across it last night while reading a book that Technician Ibuki gave me.”
Uh oh, Gendo thought, but pressed on. “Of course, Rei. What is it?”
“Sir, what’s a ctarl-ctarl?”
Maya was happily humming to herself as she typed in code, reinforcing MAGI’s firewall according to the plans Washu had given them. She jumped out of her seat as she heard demented, raucous laughter coming from Ritsuko Akagi’s office. Maya got up and was approaching the door when it suddenly flew open, admitting a very, very happy Ritsuko. “S-Sempai?” Maya stammered.
“Oh, hello, Maya!” Ritsuko swept Maya into a hug. “It’s so good to see you!”
“Urk,” Maya struggled out. Being clasped to her sempai’s bosom was a dream of hers, but not one where she also had her oxygen cut off.
“What a wonderful day!” She dropped Maya, who sucked in huge draughts of air, and went over to hug Shigeru. “Ah, Aoba! How are you today?”
“Uh, fine, Dr. Akagi,” Shigeru said, clearly measuring Ritsuko for a straitjacket. She hugged him as well.
Makoto, on his way back from dinner, saw Maya still trying to get air and Shigeru being smothered by a wildly grinning Ritsuko. Curious—and hoping to avoid a similar fate—he looked into Ritsuko’s office. “My God,” he whispered. “She did it. She actually did it.” He peered closer. “She beat Final Fantasy XI.”
“Makoto!” Ritsuko called out, dropping Shigeru. “You must also share in my joy!”
Back at Misato’s apartment, Asuka Langley Soryu was asleep. It had been a long day for her as well—synch tests, evaluations that her concussion had been mild, and so on. She was curled up in her bed, a smile on her face. These days, she dreamed more and more of a certain Third Child, though Asuka wouldn’t have admitted it under torture. It helped that she too had a family memento thought long lost: a stuffed black bear that she clutched to her chest. Oddly, as long as she held it, no nightmares plagued her sleep. Belldandy had been surprised when Asuka had quietly and hesitantly asked for the bear, but the goddess had seen a way to solve two problems with one wish.
Azrael had not been completely destroyed. A tiny part of it had somehow survived even Belldandy’s light, but it had been reduced to almost nothing, powerless. Belldandy knew, however, that the Angel needed to be bound and trapped all the same. Azrael was now a teddy bear.
And, Azrael decided, it wasn’t such a bad fate after all.
Misato sat with her feet up on the sofa, staring at Asuka’s door. She checked the clock: Shinji would be getting home soon, and he would fix dinner. She let Asuka sleep, knowing that the girl needed it. “Kids,” she mused. “God, was I ever that young?”
“Wark,” Pen-Pen replied.
“Now don’t you start.” Misato finished her beer, got up, tossed the can in the garbage, then opened the refrigerator. She pulled out another and shut the door…and paused, listening. The refrigerator made a clunking noise, and Misato opened it again, to see that the beer had been instantly replaced. “Ah, Washu,” Misato sighed, “I think I love you.”
Pen-Pen thought that the boozy human was now likely to drink herself to death, but at least he would never run out of fresh fish ever again.
Tokyo
Goddess Universe
“Some watermelon, Keiichi?”
Keiichi looked up as Belldandy handed him a plate. “Thanks, Bell.” He scooted over a little on the temple’s veranda to make room for her. The sunset was beautiful here too, but not as beautiful as the goddess who sat next to him.
“I almost lost you.” Keiichi didn’t realize he said it aloud.
“You didn’t,” Belldandy replied, not looking at him, though she smiled. “And you won’t. The Ultimate Force, remember?”
Keiichi felt an overwhelming desire to kiss her, so he decided to act on it. Before, he might have been too nervous to do so, but now he was determined never to take her presence for granted again. She turned to him, closed her eyes, and offered her lips. Their arms found each other, and Keiichi leaned in to complete the kiss…
…only to be interrupted by a scream from Skuld. It wasn’t a scream of terror or of fear, but pure rage. Keiichi instantly drew back, whirling around, expecting an irate goddess standing over him with a hammer in her hands and homicide in her eyes. Instead, she was stomping out of the temple and didn’t even notice either of them.
“Get back here, you little shit!” Urd shouted. “You owe me 5000 yen!”
Skuld whipped around, her teeth bared in anger. “Stick it, Urd! You cheated!”
Urd came out of the door, hands on hips. “Oh, and how did I do that? C’mon, brat, the Dolphins won fair and square. I had nothing to do with it.” Her eyes narrowed. “Though that last quarter rally by the Jets was suspect, wasn’t it? Maybe you were the one who cheated!”
“So now you’re accusing me, huh?” Skuld brushed past her, headed back into the house. “I’ll fix you, Urd! I’m going to my room, and when I come back down, I’m going to have a little surprise for my stupid big sister!”
“Oh, I’m sooo scared!” Urd taunted. “I’ll be waiting, loser!”
Keiichi sighed. “Well,” he said, “back to normal.”
Belldandy gently grabbed his chin, turned him back to her, and finished the kiss.
North of Tokyo
Tenchi Universe
Washu held up the control orb of the Time-Space Machine. “Finally finished. Ah, it’s beautiful.” She set it down carefully on the workbench. “Well done as always, Washu! You never cease to amaze.” She crossed her lab to a blueprint table. “No rest for the weary or wicked, though. I need to finish this before Love Hina comes on tonight. That Keitaro…he cracks me up every time.” Washu cackled as she sat down. “I can’t wait to see Tenchi in a plugsuit.”
As if summoned, she could hear Tenchi’s voice through the slightly ajar door to her lab. “Now girls, please, just calm down—”
“No, Tenchi, with respect, I will not calm down! Repeat what you called me, you foul piece of interstellar flotsam!”
“You heard me, Ayeka, but I’ll repeat it! Apparently Princesses of Jurai are deaf as well as stupid! I said, you’re a flat-chested, stuck-up, overpaid, underhormoned—”
The end of Ryoko’s statement was interrupted by a titanic explosion, followed by the crack of shattering wood and plaster as the former pirate was blown through the door of the lab. Ryoko sailed across the room, narrowly missed Washu’s head, and crashed into the worktable. “Dammit!” Washu shouted. She ran over to a woozy Ryoko and kicked her back towards the door. “Out! Out! Out!”
“Put me in, coach!” Ryoko slurred. “I'm ready to play!
Neither noticed that the Time-Space Machine had fallen to the floor, or that it sparked.
“Oh, great! Where the hell are we now? Just when I had my hands on that bounty! All those woolongs…”
“You? I think you mean we, Faye,” an older man pointed out.
“Stuff it, Jet.” The young woman looked around in the moonless darkness. “This isn’t Mars, that’s for sure. It’s way too green.”
A man slightly older than the woman, but younger than the other male, struck a match and held it up to a sign. “’Welcome to Tokyo-3, Home of NERV.’ What the hell is that?”
“Oooh, fig leaf!” A scrawny girl hopped up and down. “Ed’s hungry. Can we get some figs?”
Notes:
If NERV thought having Washu loose inside MAGI, just wait until Ed gets hold of it.
And that's the end! I hope you had as much fun reading it as I did writing it. Leave me a review and tell me what you thought of it, if you like.