Neon Genesis Evangelion, Old School!
Disclaimer: I don't own a damn thing. I spent all my money on Pocky. Thank you.
Rei Ayanami stood above the city. Her masters bid her, and she did. She raised the mask over her face and ran a finger over the hilt of her dagger, it's hilt ending in the Dragon's gaping mouth. She ran to the edge of the roof and left across the alley of Shanghai. Landing on the tile of the next roof, she looked about. Noone had seen her still. She ran farther. There. Both the guards bore flintlock rifles, a European refinement to the hand cannon she had seen on the battlefield. She could avoid them easily. She drew in for the leap across the street and performed it easily. A peddler saw the thief and ignored it. Not his problem. She dashed across the new roof, looking for a window in the building. She was attempting to infiltrate the city's largest building not included in a compound, ten levels tall. She found her window easily and listened closely to the room inside. No sound. She listened closer. No breathing, either, but it may have been hidden by the street's noise. They would all be like that, though, so she opted to use this one. She dove across the gap between the small building and the larger one, tearing the paper that closed it easily, even with her light frame. She rolled to her feet, weapon drawn. Nothing. She was on the third level. The Target was on the sixth. She listened for noises in the hallway. Footsteps... one pair... going the other direction. She opened the door silently and snuck a look. A single guard to her right, similarly armed as the two at the door, his back turned. A corner immediately to her left. The building's creator had been very superstitious and would have built it according to Feung Shui... The stairs would be to her left. She snuck past, wrapped feet silent on the wooden floor. The guard turned around.
'Funny. That door wasn't open a second ago... or maybe it was. I've got to lay off that sake stuff.' The stairs where right where Feung Shui dictated. Perfect. She crept up them, stopping to listen for more footsteps. There were none. She kept moving, up the next flight of stairs and paused at the final flight. Singing. Ode to Joy. Beethoven. A guard at the top of the stairs to the sixth level. She paused to think of what to do... Hmph.
Luchesi hummed to himself, thinking of home. Shanghai was nice. It was certainly more hospitable than Portugal, but... still. He was sick of rice. Sick of soup. Sick of high voices in all the women. Sick of everything. His job sucked, too. Graveyard shift. Nothing to do but stand with a gun and think of home. A thin, apperantly female hand snaked around the corner of the stairwell. 'Hey! The guys must like me more than I thought! Did they get me a woman? I'll buy drinks next time, definitely!' He crept down the stairs, a big smile on his face. He was not confronted by a hooker. A thief, but a feminine one. Very feminine.
"Tch. Do you know how much you look like a woman?" Rei slit his throat with her dagger. Not understanding what he said. She didn't speak Portugese. Running up the stairs, she remembered her masters saying the Target was in a room in the center of the building under constant guard. The Jesuits said it was a holy relic, justifying the guard. Two guards, flintlock rifles. Just like outside. Probably another would come up the stairs to check on them... and would find the guard she'd killed! She'd just lost a major portion of the amount of time she had to work. Two shuriken, thrown with a flick of the wrist, embedded themselves in the guards' necks. One tried to yell 'thief'. It came out a gurgling 'thee', not loud enough to attract attention. She picked her way over the bodies and entered the room. A priest sat up in his bed, trembling. She dashed in, and grabbed the item, prominently displayed on an altar. It was... a tiny golden knife hilt? Not hers to question. The priest said something, a question. He was unarmed, but still a threat. She rendered him unconscious with a swift kick. Shouts from the level below. They'd found the first dead guard. She couldn't go down the stairs. That meant that she needed to go either up to one of the last two levels or out a window... In the hallway, a guard rounded the cornere. He shouted something that could only be 'stop'. She readied her dagger. The guard stopped. Had he seen a demon? Whatever it was, it was gonna die! He fired at the thief. The Dragon's intuition flowed through her, and Rei's arm moved of it's own will, knocking the bullet away. Another kick sent the guard's gun down the stairs. He followed soon after, bowling into his two comrades. One's rifle discharged. She dove through a window, rotating once in midair to bring her legs under her and counted the levels. One, two, three, she braced and landed on the roof of the adjecant building.
"Thief!"
She ran, leaving the angry Jesuits to their own alarms. Two days later she was out of Shanghai, on a boat headed to Japan, ready to rejoin her masters.
Shinji Ikari wandered Japan, alone. No-one could save him. He was Ronin. He would die by the sword. He would be killed in combat, to the everlasting glory of his father, father's father, father's father's father, and so on and so forth. If humiliation didn't get him first. "Come on, you guys! Give it back!"
"Aww, he wants it back!" "Over here!"
"That's my sword! I need that!" "We'll trade you! Your gold for your sword!" "No way!" "C'mon, it's fair!" "No it's not!" A large, burly man with a nasty scar on his chest held the sword out of Shinji's reach. "Of course it is. Look at the quality of this guard! That's a nice guard!"
"Hey!"
They all turned to the newcomer. Misato loomed in the doorway to the pub. "Shiji! I leave you alone for five minutes so I can get a drink and you get every moron in eight kilometers mad at you!"
She stomped up to the burly man.
"Give it back to him."
"Sure."
One of his hands caressed her shoulder. Shinji heaved a large rock. "If I can have a little taste..." His eyes went blank. Misato had kneed him in the testicles at the same moment Shinji had clubbed him on the head. He fell to the dirt. Shinji picked up his sword. His two smaller companions look at Misato, then at Shinji, then at their fallen leader. One pointed at Misato and shouted 'Demon' before they both ran away.
"Men." She muttered under her breath and stomped back into the bar. Shinji looked around. The burly man was starting to recover. He froze.
"Shin-JI!"
"Right!" He trotted into the bar. Looking around, he decided maybe he should have stayed outside. It reeked. He stepped over a puddle of liquor and sat down across from Misato at the table.
"Um, do we really have to stop here?" "Yes." Misato said and downed another shot. Shinji felt very watched.
"Do we have to sleep here, too?" Misato looked around her. She was also very watched.
"No." Shinji felt relieved. "When are we going to leave?"
"When I say so."
"Shouldn't we be going to this Big Important Council that you keep talking about?"
Misato stopped.
"We've got plenty of time."
"You said that three weeks ago."
"We've still got plenty of time. Hey, I'm not feeding you so you can bug me. Go train or something."
"I was training, before they came along." Misato stopped again and sloshed around what was left of her bottle of alchohol. "Fine. We'll leave."
Shinji started to stand.
"After I finish this."
"Um, Misato..."
She chugged the last few gulps, enough alchohol to kill a normal human. Not Misato.
"Okay, (hic) let's go..." They kept following the trail, entering a forest. Shinji remebered first meeting Misato, almost a month ago. She'd found him naked, tied to a tree, half dead. Someone had amused themselves at his expense. Again. He'd awaken in extreme pain, next to a warm fire. Misato was humming, and he was warm. He looked down. His genitals had been covered by a small bottle. It was labeled 'Toothpicks'. "What happened?"
"Someone beat you up and stole your clothes."
"Am I okay?"
"If you can't tell, you probably aren't. You'll be fine." "Why did you save me?" "Because you looked so pitiful. Now, apologize for being so heavy."
"S-sorry."
"Good. Want something to eat?"
"Put something on, first."
She threw a change of clothes at him. "These are women's clothes!" "Do you feel like wearing a dress for the next few days, or the bottle?" Shinji had worn the dress. He could still hear people laughing at him when they'd gotten to the next town. Misato had stopped at the bar before she'd bought him men's clothes. He didn't want to remember that. She'd told him her name, and that she needed to go somewhere. He asked if he could go with her. She'd thought about that for a few minutes before agreeing. So, here they were, weeks later, still going towards this enigmatic Council of NERV. He was still getting beat up, and Misato was spending more money on alchohol than food. The woman was insane. But at least now he had something to look at on all those long miles. However, the first three fingers of his left hand were still sore from two and a half weeks ago, when he'd been stupid enough to try and take advantage of her. She hadn't even woken up. Not even after he screamed. Or ran around sucking on his fingers. Or after he ran into the fire and burned his feet. In the morning, she had the nerve to ask him what happened. He said he'd rolled over onto his sword amidst much blushing. His existence was just getting from town to town on their way to whatever this is.
Deep within the Earth, as the two halves of the Progressive Knife grew closer together, Evangelion stirred.
Disclaimer: I don't own a damn thing. I spent all my money on Pocky. Thank you.
Rei Ayanami stood above the city. Her masters bid her, and she did. She raised the mask over her face and ran a finger over the hilt of her dagger, it's hilt ending in the Dragon's gaping mouth. She ran to the edge of the roof and left across the alley of Shanghai. Landing on the tile of the next roof, she looked about. Noone had seen her still. She ran farther. There. Both the guards bore flintlock rifles, a European refinement to the hand cannon she had seen on the battlefield. She could avoid them easily. She drew in for the leap across the street and performed it easily. A peddler saw the thief and ignored it. Not his problem. She dashed across the new roof, looking for a window in the building. She was attempting to infiltrate the city's largest building not included in a compound, ten levels tall. She found her window easily and listened closely to the room inside. No sound. She listened closer. No breathing, either, but it may have been hidden by the street's noise. They would all be like that, though, so she opted to use this one. She dove across the gap between the small building and the larger one, tearing the paper that closed it easily, even with her light frame. She rolled to her feet, weapon drawn. Nothing. She was on the third level. The Target was on the sixth. She listened for noises in the hallway. Footsteps... one pair... going the other direction. She opened the door silently and snuck a look. A single guard to her right, similarly armed as the two at the door, his back turned. A corner immediately to her left. The building's creator had been very superstitious and would have built it according to Feung Shui... The stairs would be to her left. She snuck past, wrapped feet silent on the wooden floor. The guard turned around.
'Funny. That door wasn't open a second ago... or maybe it was. I've got to lay off that sake stuff.' The stairs where right where Feung Shui dictated. Perfect. She crept up them, stopping to listen for more footsteps. There were none. She kept moving, up the next flight of stairs and paused at the final flight. Singing. Ode to Joy. Beethoven. A guard at the top of the stairs to the sixth level. She paused to think of what to do... Hmph.
Luchesi hummed to himself, thinking of home. Shanghai was nice. It was certainly more hospitable than Portugal, but... still. He was sick of rice. Sick of soup. Sick of high voices in all the women. Sick of everything. His job sucked, too. Graveyard shift. Nothing to do but stand with a gun and think of home. A thin, apperantly female hand snaked around the corner of the stairwell. 'Hey! The guys must like me more than I thought! Did they get me a woman? I'll buy drinks next time, definitely!' He crept down the stairs, a big smile on his face. He was not confronted by a hooker. A thief, but a feminine one. Very feminine.
"Tch. Do you know how much you look like a woman?" Rei slit his throat with her dagger. Not understanding what he said. She didn't speak Portugese. Running up the stairs, she remembered her masters saying the Target was in a room in the center of the building under constant guard. The Jesuits said it was a holy relic, justifying the guard. Two guards, flintlock rifles. Just like outside. Probably another would come up the stairs to check on them... and would find the guard she'd killed! She'd just lost a major portion of the amount of time she had to work. Two shuriken, thrown with a flick of the wrist, embedded themselves in the guards' necks. One tried to yell 'thief'. It came out a gurgling 'thee', not loud enough to attract attention. She picked her way over the bodies and entered the room. A priest sat up in his bed, trembling. She dashed in, and grabbed the item, prominently displayed on an altar. It was... a tiny golden knife hilt? Not hers to question. The priest said something, a question. He was unarmed, but still a threat. She rendered him unconscious with a swift kick. Shouts from the level below. They'd found the first dead guard. She couldn't go down the stairs. That meant that she needed to go either up to one of the last two levels or out a window... In the hallway, a guard rounded the cornere. He shouted something that could only be 'stop'. She readied her dagger. The guard stopped. Had he seen a demon? Whatever it was, it was gonna die! He fired at the thief. The Dragon's intuition flowed through her, and Rei's arm moved of it's own will, knocking the bullet away. Another kick sent the guard's gun down the stairs. He followed soon after, bowling into his two comrades. One's rifle discharged. She dove through a window, rotating once in midair to bring her legs under her and counted the levels. One, two, three, she braced and landed on the roof of the adjecant building.
"Thief!"
She ran, leaving the angry Jesuits to their own alarms. Two days later she was out of Shanghai, on a boat headed to Japan, ready to rejoin her masters.
Shinji Ikari wandered Japan, alone. No-one could save him. He was Ronin. He would die by the sword. He would be killed in combat, to the everlasting glory of his father, father's father, father's father's father, and so on and so forth. If humiliation didn't get him first. "Come on, you guys! Give it back!"
"Aww, he wants it back!" "Over here!"
"That's my sword! I need that!" "We'll trade you! Your gold for your sword!" "No way!" "C'mon, it's fair!" "No it's not!" A large, burly man with a nasty scar on his chest held the sword out of Shinji's reach. "Of course it is. Look at the quality of this guard! That's a nice guard!"
"Hey!"
They all turned to the newcomer. Misato loomed in the doorway to the pub. "Shiji! I leave you alone for five minutes so I can get a drink and you get every moron in eight kilometers mad at you!"
She stomped up to the burly man.
"Give it back to him."
"Sure."
One of his hands caressed her shoulder. Shinji heaved a large rock. "If I can have a little taste..." His eyes went blank. Misato had kneed him in the testicles at the same moment Shinji had clubbed him on the head. He fell to the dirt. Shinji picked up his sword. His two smaller companions look at Misato, then at Shinji, then at their fallen leader. One pointed at Misato and shouted 'Demon' before they both ran away.
"Men." She muttered under her breath and stomped back into the bar. Shinji looked around. The burly man was starting to recover. He froze.
"Shin-JI!"
"Right!" He trotted into the bar. Looking around, he decided maybe he should have stayed outside. It reeked. He stepped over a puddle of liquor and sat down across from Misato at the table.
"Um, do we really have to stop here?" "Yes." Misato said and downed another shot. Shinji felt very watched.
"Do we have to sleep here, too?" Misato looked around her. She was also very watched.
"No." Shinji felt relieved. "When are we going to leave?"
"When I say so."
"Shouldn't we be going to this Big Important Council that you keep talking about?"
Misato stopped.
"We've got plenty of time."
"You said that three weeks ago."
"We've still got plenty of time. Hey, I'm not feeding you so you can bug me. Go train or something."
"I was training, before they came along." Misato stopped again and sloshed around what was left of her bottle of alchohol. "Fine. We'll leave."
Shinji started to stand.
"After I finish this."
"Um, Misato..."
She chugged the last few gulps, enough alchohol to kill a normal human. Not Misato.
"Okay, (hic) let's go..." They kept following the trail, entering a forest. Shinji remebered first meeting Misato, almost a month ago. She'd found him naked, tied to a tree, half dead. Someone had amused themselves at his expense. Again. He'd awaken in extreme pain, next to a warm fire. Misato was humming, and he was warm. He looked down. His genitals had been covered by a small bottle. It was labeled 'Toothpicks'. "What happened?"
"Someone beat you up and stole your clothes."
"Am I okay?"
"If you can't tell, you probably aren't. You'll be fine." "Why did you save me?" "Because you looked so pitiful. Now, apologize for being so heavy."
"S-sorry."
"Good. Want something to eat?"
"Put something on, first."
She threw a change of clothes at him. "These are women's clothes!" "Do you feel like wearing a dress for the next few days, or the bottle?" Shinji had worn the dress. He could still hear people laughing at him when they'd gotten to the next town. Misato had stopped at the bar before she'd bought him men's clothes. He didn't want to remember that. She'd told him her name, and that she needed to go somewhere. He asked if he could go with her. She'd thought about that for a few minutes before agreeing. So, here they were, weeks later, still going towards this enigmatic Council of NERV. He was still getting beat up, and Misato was spending more money on alchohol than food. The woman was insane. But at least now he had something to look at on all those long miles. However, the first three fingers of his left hand were still sore from two and a half weeks ago, when he'd been stupid enough to try and take advantage of her. She hadn't even woken up. Not even after he screamed. Or ran around sucking on his fingers. Or after he ran into the fire and burned his feet. In the morning, she had the nerve to ask him what happened. He said he'd rolled over onto his sword amidst much blushing. His existence was just getting from town to town on their way to whatever this is.
Deep within the Earth, as the two halves of the Progressive Knife grew closer together, Evangelion stirred.
