This chapter's new, and I went back to Ch. 5 to add a fight scene, even if it wasn't the one I originally intended. Thanks to a couple reviews, I'm going to try to go back and get a few more scenes out of Shinjimuse, who wants to avoid scenes with the nakama in order to avoid the inevitable moment when they start acting like jerks and/or die. He's very suspicious of the nice things.
Also, when I see SEES, I think apple pie truffles – they're a candy company that lets you pack custom boxes.
The car racing towards them from Tokyo-1 seemed almost like something Misato would drive, and drove almost like Misato was driving lately, except for the siren on the top. Not built-in, but like the one plainclothes officers put on top of their cars when they broke cover and chased after someone.
Shinji watched it, while Misato just gave it a glance and continued watching the sky, hand shading her eyes. Where was the air transport for the Evas they'd been promised? NERV as well as the nearby JSDF forces had been warned to expect a large aircraft, so they didn't shoot it down, but if she had busted her ass to get these ready for pickup in eight minutes and they were kept waiting…
As soon as the white sports car stopped, the driver was out and heading towards them, not quite running but walking fast enough his coat flared out behind him. "Fantastic," he said, looking over the Evas in their carriers and the giant spools of metal cable. "You're Colonel Katsuragi?"
"Yes. Vice-Director Kageyama?" she said, noting the silver piping on his black uniform and the differences between his JPs insignia and the standard one.
"Hiro's fine. Is this where I should summon the transport?" He asked, looking around them. "Looks like there'll be enough room, not that I'll be summoning it at full size…"
"Summon? You're transporting it on a demon?"
"Know how demons are about cars? They're much worse about planes and helicopters," Hiro told her, pushing back his hood (clearly bad weather gear) to look at Misato with bright blue eyes. "Especially septentriones and angels – tenshi angels, and we're dealing with both. Hopefully, anyway. Humans daring to fly? They'd be on a cargo plane like Yamato on tak-" He coughed. "But they'll think twice before challenging a powerful demon, even if it is carrying cargo. As long as the Evas are fastened securely, it shouldn't be a problem. I've used Pengie for construction materials, boats and ATVs, so he's used to it."
Pengie? "Summon away," Misato said, waving at the field.
He nodded, getting his phone out of a pocket and flipping it open with a well-practiced gesture. "Da Peng!"
"A flying fish? I thought the trouble was that you didn't have enough powerful demons that can do subaquatic combat." Misato still waved forward the crews, who after the past few weeks were used enough to demons that some of them had already started towards the great fish, as it laid two of its great golden fins down on the ground so they could wheel on the Evas' carriers.
"A flying freshwater fish," Hiro said apologetically. "Well, fresh water and fresh air, I guess. I haven't even been able to test what depth he's rated for because salt is something people use to make wards against demons. No one's got a spell that wards a demon from salt, and Miyako had the other clans hit their archives. There are lots of demons it doesn't bother, but Pengie's not one of them."
"Pengie's his nickname?"
"One of his nicknames," Hiro said, going with her as she led him and Shinji towards one of the buildings, out of the way of the work crews.
"One of?"
"Well, you see, most demons are sentient," he said, leaning against the sheet metal wall of the hanger she'd led them into, for the sake of getting out of the eternal summer sun. "And/or pretty disgusting. So one that's a fish, and not sentient, and huge… Keita dubbed it the Emergency Food Supply."
"Eating a… demon?" Misato said skeptically. From her knowledge of mythology, that rarely turned out well. Mermaids, for example, were Russian roulette.
"If people are hungry enough, they'll eat anything," the Vice-Director said, with a smile that did reach his eyes and still seemed a little sad.
"You don't need to tell me that, I used to be in the UN military." She'd been to plenty of places that were still devastated after Second Impact. They used to sow land with salt to make it infertile, to devastate a country too much for it to recover and fight back, she recalled from stories of ancient times. Second Impact had done that on a massive scale. The Qin anti-LCL solution got rid of that disgusting stuff, but it couldn't do anything about the perfectly natural salt left behind by the massive tsunami.
Was there a connection?
He nodded. "We've been accumulating food stockpiles of our own for years now, JPs has, so we don't have to seize the stockpiles meant to feed the public in order to make sure that we can continue to fight, but it's still a relief." Oh, right. "I take it you're Shinji Ikari?" he said, smiling down at the boy.
"Yes, sir."
"No need for that, just call me Hiro," he told Shinji, holding out his hand. "According to Colonel Katsuragi-"
"Misato," she corrected him.
"Misato, then, you're the one who suggested this?"
Shinji nodded, blushing a little. There was something about this man, but unlike the times he'd bumped into Rei at NERV when he didn't have Null Auto set, it wasn't strong enough to keep Shinji from noticing that this Hiro was especially charming, and that it might not just be natural charm or even practiced charm, like Kaji.
"I'm Asuka Langley Sohryu, the Second Child and pilot of Unit 03," the redhead said, stepping between the two of them. Shinji was grateful that she'd intercepted that handshake before he could take it.
He really didn't think there was anything malicious to it, but that presence was a little frightening because of just how inviting it was, to a boy who lost his mother and was abandoned by his father. This feeling, which should have meant comfort and safety, had never ended well for him.
"Nice to meet you, Asuka. I'm Hiro Kageyama, Vice-Director of JPs. I think I'm a Colonel now too, for when we deal with the JSDF." Since they were listing titles. He still smiled for her, and Asuka still smiled back. "I heard from Captain Izuna about the angel you took down. One of the shito, wasn't it? I'm glad that the Evas are capable of fighting the battles they were built for, and at sea on top of that. That's a good sign."
"I make my own luck," Asuka told him.
That got her another smile, and a sidelong glance as though the two of them were sharing a joke. "My thoughts exactly." More seriously, he added, "Just don't take too many risks down there, alright? The two of you are younger than Airi was, and there's already enough grey hair in the family."
While Asuka was divided between being polite to the adult and giving the person who had just insulted her battle prowess a piece of her mind, Hiro's phone rang. With an apologetic nod at them, he said, "Hey, Miyako… No, the time estimate on the death clip has been pushed back, but we don't want it prevented yet, remember? The Big Pink Thing and the others are still watching the Record, and if they find out it's been changed so that he survives, they'll pass the word on to Where Naoya Gets It From. Coming through dramatically at the last possible moment is actually practical this time." He listened for awhile, then laughed and said, "Isn't it the evil twin who's supposed to kill and replace the good twin? And we both know that what I meant was, 'you can kill him if he does it again,' not 'if it happens again.' Not that he was the one who did it last time, but you know what I mean." It sounded like they both laughed. "The Dragon Stream? Look, unless you need someone to waggle his fingers over it and say 'Shrinky shrinky…' Oh, right. Saiduq?"
"Yes, Shining One?"
"Miyako thought of some more questions she wants to ask you, just in case," Hiro said, tossing Al Saiduq his phone over Shinji's head.
That made Shinji's skin crawl almost as much as someone suddenly being there right behind him. Letting go of his cell phone? While outside? Just tossing it to someone so casually, as though he wasn't worried about a demon attacking at all?
"The Pleadic calculations are human technology, not something I provided to the Hotsuin clan, but…"
Hiro said, "Ahem. Classified," and waved at Dr. Saiduq. "Step outside for a minute."
"Oh. If you say so, Shining One." He blinked, but vanished.
"He's still working on the concept of keeping information from people," Hiro said with a kind of familiar affection, like talking about the foibles of a kid, or a pet.
"You said she had questions to ask him, 'just in case,'" Misato said. Just in case he died?
"I take it Shinji showed you the death clip?" Hiro asked her.
"Yes." She'd demanded to see it. Those were her Evas, but also her pilots, her wards. And Shinji wanted to go out there to save someone who definitely wasn't human? "You really trust him? That much?" Enough to hand over his cell phone, the piece of technology that contained a demon tamer's defense against inhuman creatures. Like Saiduq.
Hiro looked up at the sky, or rather the great fin arching overhead, for a moment. "'I trust him with my life' is the traditional thing to say, but it's an understatement and we're both in the business of taking risks." For the sake of defending Japan, or the world. "So I'll say this: the details are classified, but he has been trusted with the fate of the entire world. And I was not disappointed." He met Misato's eyes. "Call Makoto Sato if that doesn't satisfy you, but let's not talk about it now. He's still here, just…" Hiro waved offhand at the empty air, "and humans saying that they don't like or trust him depresses him, since it's a little hard for him to get that not everyone knows him, and it's reasonable to be cautious if you don't know who he is or what he's done."
"He thinks he's that famous?" Dr. Saiduq was fairly well known in certain circles, but even Misato, who worked for NERV, was only on the edge of those circles.
"No, but he's a being of the Akashic Records who can access all data, for a certain value of data, with a thought, and he's still not certain that we aren't a hive mind," Hiro added. "Which is mostly my fault, come to think of it, since he thought we weren't until all of that happened. He's got some points, and there are a lot of things that people just 'know' even if you leave the Will of the Species out of it. Putting us aside for a minute, the septentriones were, or are except for him, a hive mind, so even though he's experienced being on his own it's not really how he sees things." For that matter, "He might still be a hive mind, since Alcor is a binary system, but not enough of one for it to matter."
"So you are admitting that he is not a human, or a demon, but one of the… one of one of the, races of beings that's attacking us?" Misato asked, just to nail it down, get it out in the open.
"There's really no use trying to hide it," Hiro said, because duh. "He can't even pass for a demon, he's too little like us. All you have to do is talk to him for two minutes, and it's obvious that either he's an alien or a total fruitcake. With whipped cream," for good measure. "We don't let him out on JPs business without me or Fumi there to run interference, because Makoto's too honest to come up with good explanations on the spot and Yamato just thinks it's funny to watch Alcor act unnatural and everyone else try to tactfully ignore it or come up with reasonable explanations, or pretend they didn't just see that because people don't tell you they'll show you the way to the caterer's table and then vanish in the middle of a crowded room, that kind of thing. It is funny," Hiro said, both to be fair and because he did have a sense of humor, "and until now it wasn't a problem because either people would come up with reasonable explanations on their own or just assume he's a demon, if they knew about them, but since we are doing a joint operation, for the sake of full disclosure, yes. He was created as one of the servants of Polaris, and we're fighting his brothers along with the servants of Eli and Kawkab."
"And you're not worried that he'll betray you for their sakes?"
"No." Hiro frowned at her: he'd said that saying things like that would bother Alcor, and she insisted on having this conversation now? Well, at least they weren't talking behind Saiduq's back, and she knew that. "We've gone through this before. Polaris and the others aren't dead because restoring… certain data meant we had to restore everything in those files, we couldn't pick and choose, but he's helped us kill them and given us valuable strategic advice for… thousands of years, come to think of it. The Hotsuin Clan actually predates the migration to these islands." They had multiple OOPARTS that were that old.
"Restoring files? What could be so important that you brought angels back to life, to attack us again?" Misato demanded, hand not on her sidearm but the pocket where she kept her cell.
"The universe," he said, quite simply. "The thing about saving the world is that you can't just save the parts the people you like happen to be standing on."
"The universe." Seriously?
Hiro just gave her a look, as Ritsuko finally got here from whatever Gendo Ikari had her working on to give everything a once-over. Yes. Seriously. Not something to kid about. "It's been almost a decade since then, and they didn't try anything, not even once. Even though Al Saiduq is the administrator now instead of Polaris, they're still beings of the Akashic Record, so all they had to do was look and it was obvious that if they started anything with us again, they weren't going to win. Then Eli got involved – I'm not the expert on him, but even Naoya's still not sure why he did it, or even if he personally is behind this. The most powerful of his servants used to be human, so he might still have enough human free will to alter fate enough that Polaris and his servants could win. In human terms, all the septentriones but Alcor are cowards. The way they exist is… For them, it's not possible to change what's predestined, there's no way for bravery to let someone win against the odds. So they won't go into a fight unless they see that they win."
"What about Adam, and the shito?" because those were the ones Misato cared about the most. The ones who seemed familiar. Even though none of them had taken forms that looked anything like the white giant, they still had a different feel to them than the angels that had wings (or not, like the giant flaming wheels with eyes) or the septentriones.
"Kawkab and his creations? He was sealed at the South Pole. Beyond that, we don't really have much information. We're working on that." After what Kaji told Miyako, although Hiro wasn't going to tell a NERV employee about that, because even if Kaji thought she was trustworthy, she reported to people who weren't. "As far as we can tell, this is an attack of opportunity. Kewkab was deposed as administrator, and we think it wants to use the confusion to regain Heaven's Throne." Or that was what they'd thought, but it didn't explain the significance of what NERV had in the geofront, and then there was Second Impact.
"Another former administrator sleeps in the sun – that one might be Vega. We don't have much information on Vega, because something is so wrong about the files from his reign they make Alcor sick, which messes with causality and then we get rains of frogs and energy drinks. When your name means terror, though," that was never a good sign.
"Energy drinks?"
"Dr. Otome's – You don't know her, but she's the head of our medical department – Her daughter's a really smart cookie," Hiro said proudly. "Oh, thanks," he said as Al Saiduq appeared beside him and returned his phone. "Don't be nervous," he said when Saiduq vanished again an instant afterwards. "I think she'd prefer you where she can see you anyway. Right?" he asked Misato when Saiduq reappeared, standing slightly behind Hiro but mostly to the side, enough that Hiro had seen him reappear out of the corner of his eye, since he was already looking that way when he took the cell phone. They had rules about Saiduq appearing right where Hiro wasn't looking.
"Right." Hell yes. "Is there some way to tell if he, or one of the others, is there?"
"I am always with the Shining One," Al Saiduq said helpfully. "As for my siblings, they have not… They do not understand the nature of human perception enough to…" he looked at Hiro for help.
"He still gets confused about what we can and can't perceive sometimes, and he's been observing us since a little before we became sentient. The other septentriones never bothered to try to understand us, and the whole concept of hiding something is alien to them, remember? The bottom line is, if they intend to make a change in our frame of reference like, say, something that would kill us, they'll manifest in matter that we can detect. It's really all data, and that's how the system works for them. That doesn't mean they can't observe our data without us detecting them, but again, they can't understand human thoughts. They can look at what we're thinking all they like, that won't let them actually read it. Right?"
Saiduq nodded.
"They can observe physical data, but there's a difference between seeing and understanding. They could see a lot of humans in one place, for example, but they can't tell if that's civilians or an army – they wouldn't even know there's a difference, and they wouldn't bother to try to figure it out. As for Eli's servants, if their master really is all-knowing, he doesn't share much of that data with them, if any. They're much closer to humans - although how close they are to us is up for debate," Hiro looked amused again. "And NERV would know more about Kawkab's spawn than we do. I'd heard the name before, but it was just part of a list of past administrators. Polaris trying to impress me with 'the order of heaven' and how I didn't have a chance in hell of overturning it." Ha. "If they're anything like Polaris and Eli's servants, though, you can count on overconfidence." He looked over at the Evas. "Looks like they're almost done checking that all the cables are secure. If you don't mind, I'd like to get moving as soon as we can."
The vessel of Adam's soul, SEELE's tame angel.
Whether they made him the new holder of Heaven's Throne and had him remake humanity, or simply used him as a component of the alchemical transformation of humanity into a greater being, which would then take Heaven's Throne for itself, either way he was the key to their transcendence. To becoming something greater than worthless humanity, a species incapable of evolving any further, a species only capable of treating each other with animal cruelty, using its intelligence for no greater purpose than to make better weapons to kill each other with.
Until now.
In truth, having him here was a waste of a meeting. His purpose had already been impressed upon him, and there were important matters that they weren't going to discuss in his presence, whether he was asleep or not.
It was still to Lorenz Keel's benefit, every once in awhile, to remind the others of what exactly they were fighting for. What they had achieved, what Lorenz had achieved. To impress upon them the holiness of their cause.
Especially when the anniversary of Second Impact arrived, and the world descended into mourning.
The Committee couldn't afford for its members to have any doubts, especially now.
Lorenz knew they wouldn't, though. Not after all these years. It was one thing to make sacrifices for a noble cause, it was another thing altogether for any of them to sacrifice themselves by telling the world the truth and exposing themselves to a maddened beast's wrath and desire for vengeance.
No, using what they'd found in the ancient spacecraft buried in Japan and beneath the Antarctic, as foretold in the Dead Sea Scrolls, the surviving humans would be granted enlightenment, be transformed into ideal beings.
All according to the prophecies, the prophecies these men and countless others sworn to secrecy believed in so fiercely, with so much passion, because the alternative? Why, the alternative would be facing the fact that they were the greatest murderers humanity had ever produced.
Lorenz Keel smiled, but none of them could see it, hidden as they all were behind the black monoliths. Sheltering behind those masks. Because none of them could bear to look at themselves.
Yellow eyes glinted, but none could see them.
In the tube the angel dreamed of blue darkness, of a piano that played the songs that came from humanity's hearts and a woman's voice, wailing for the lost.
So useful, so very useful to have 'the angel' here. Why, who could doubt that it was possible for humanity to become something greater when faced with the avatar of that very hope?
That very, futile, hope.
I'm going with the 'Hiro is Seth' thing in this, which would make him as well as Lilith the ancestor of the human race & is why Shinji reacted to him like that. Obviously I'm going with the MegaTen thing of all myths are true, because people's belief in them will boost 'the truthiness' and people will believe just about anything if it's what 'everyone says.' Hence the power of rumor.
The administrator that sleeps in the sun is the final boss of Digital Devil Saga 2. Like Polaris, he does the delete the world thing, or rather the planet dissolves into data that streams towards the sun. Before that, he changed the sunlight so that people who went out in it turned into stone, and then he sent the demon virus, which turns people into demons that have to eat human (or demon) flesh or else they go ravenously insane with hunger and turn into mindless demons that crave human flesh.
Yeeeeeah.
I'm debating over whether he's Vega, or Vega is an even nastier entity from Megaten that also has power over reality. Either way, said nastier entity will be showing up in the fic. Like, say, in this chapter.
Why hello there, Nyarly. I was divided between Lorenz being this game's Kandori (pawn), or having him be like "Jun's father" in Innocent Sin. Currently, Nyarlathotep's ability to screw with human thoughts is like ninety-nine percent sealed, though (and man, is he pissed), so he'd be relying on his ability to interfere directly. And the fact we're all a bunch of idiots, of course.
After going over P2 and P1 in reverse order, I do think that Philemon's faith in humanity and their ability to grow up/get shit done on their own is his Achilles Heel. Unfortunately, it's likely too much of the aspect of the collective unconscious that he is for him to work around it. In P2 especially, he was playing with a bad hand. Such a bad, bad hand. He let Nyarlathotep deal, and the party that were the only ones who could save the world were a bunch of people who ran away from responsibility – yes, even Maya, because she could have visited, could have faced that trauma and not traumatized a bunch of even younger kids into thinking they murdered her.
Alien spacecraft under cities, books of apocalyptic prophecy, humanity (supposedly) getting turned into a better class of being… Of course I had to bring in Persona 2.