Chapter 25: The Incredible Size Changing Angel!
"Commander Ikari, are you awake?", a rather familiar voice called out via telephone.
"Keel, why are you calling me at Two in the damn morning?", a rather grumpy, sleep deprived sounding Gendo Ikari replied on the other line, while Yui continues sleeping, entirely uninterrupted in her sleep. "Is this about the Human Instrumentality Project? I already said..."
Keel immediately cuts Gendo off, replying, "No. I just got confirmation that yet another angel had left Antarctica about several days ago and has been heading its way to Tokyo-3."
"Another angel? We already had encountered two angels just yesterday. Does this mean they're getting hasty now?", Gendo replied with a slight sense of confusion.
"I'm not sure. However, I will warn you that this angel has a rather...unusual power.", Keel replied back and the sound of a recliner squeaking in the background.
"What kind of power?", Gendo responded, repositioning himself on the bed to lean closer to the wall as he becomes more interested in what Keel had to say.
"Well...according to witness reports, this angel had started out as being the same size as Sachiel. However, it then suddenly vanished out of nowhere. Around this same time, other surviving witnesses claim that the angel literally shrunk down to human size and seized control of a nearby Cargo Ship.", Keel replied to Gendo, with his voice noticeably having difficulty accepting the news he received and informed.
"That sounds...strange. Way too much like an old sci-fi movie or an American comic book. Is that what they exactly said?", Gendo replied in bewilderment over the news he received.
"Correct. Even though you now know of this angel, I like you to be prepared for it to show up anytime. However...for now, you all take it easy. Me and the others have some...talking to do.", Keel replied back to Gendo, with his voice easing down a little.
"I understand", Gendo replied.
However, all he got back was the sound of the phone hanging up.
As Gendo placed the phone back on the receiver, he slid back down into the bed, which made Yui turn around and ask her husband, "Ummm...what was that phone call about?"
"It was Keel of Seele. He informed me that another angel is en route to Tokyo-3.", Gendo immediately replied. "However, we shall deal with that in the morning. We need our sleep."
"Okay, my love.", Yui replied back, in which she turned towards her husband and planted her arounds around his neck and a kiss on his lips. "but I hope this angel doesn't come too soon. We already dealt with two just yesterday."
"I know. Me too", Gendo responded as he curled up next to his wife and they both went back to sleep.
"What! The corpses of these angels disappeared too? What the hell is going on around here?", Misato griped on th phone as she was simply dressed in the sloppiest of bed apparel in her collection and her hair in a even more so state of distress, Shinji, Asuka and Pen-Pen, on the other hand, try to eath breakfast, despite being alerted by Misato's sudden turn to frustration in her voice.
"Honestly, Misato. I have no damn clue of why they're vanishing either", Ritsuko replied on the other line, dressed in a hazmat suit and at the site of yesterday's fight.
"Well you better eventually get to the bottom of this. Its getting really old now", Misato replied back, still sounding annoyed by the situation.
"Fine, fine, fine. I'll ask the Commander and Dr. Ikari about it later, I just don't have very much minutes on my phone left, so I gotta go", Ritsuko responded back with her voice sounding rather tense.
"Okay, i'll see you then. Call me after you've talked to the Ikaris, please.", Misato replied, with her voice calming down and as she resituated herself as she stood by a nearby kitchen stool.
"I will. Bye.", Ritsuko replied back, only to hang up right after saying bye.
With that out of the way, Misato hangs up the phone and sits herself on the table, only to immediately focus her eyes on Asuka.
Asuka immediately realizes that Misato is looking at her and replies, "Was? Ich just essen right now" in a very "Why me?" tone.
Misato then leans closer to Asuka and sternly replies, "No more speaking in German, Asuka. Not while you live in Tokyo-3."
"Machst du witze me?", Asuka replied in a rather cocky tone after hearing what Misato informed her.
"See, you did it again. You need to stop speaking in German. Even though you live in Japan now, all citizens of Japan are required to learn how to speak English as a secondary language", Misato replied, "and since you mostly speak German and live in Tokyo-3, you have to start talking in English. Its a requirement."
"Im Ernst? That's a load of stier stuhlgang. Ich weigere mich, Englisch zu sprechen.", Asuka annoyingly replied to Misato in a classic rebellious fashion.
"I'm not joking, Asuka. Until you can start speaking in English, I have enrolled you into an afterschool English language class. Once you start speaking English, then you will no longer need to attend the class. However, you will still need to read books on the subject to become more fluent in the language, so there you go.", Misato responded, trying to keep her cool in retaliation to Asuka's stubbornness.
"Oh Mann.", Asuka gulped and replied, "Ja, ja. Ich werde learn how zu sprechen Englisch. Just, lassen Sie mich alone."
"Okay, then.", Misato replied back. "A deal is a deal. Anyways, I gotta get dressed, because I look like poo poo.", in which she then stood up, scratched her back and made her way to the bathroom.
Asuka then turned her head towards Shinji, who seemed to be lightly chuckling and yelled, "What are sie lachen über?"
"Nothing.", Shinji replied with a slight smile of amusement on his face.
Asuka then proceed to grunt out "Hmph!" and turn around, having her back face Shinji as she leaned her head up with her nose point upward and her arms clamped together. As for Pen Pen, he got up and waddled his way to his den to chill out as usual.
"So Shrio...where's Aoba?", Hyuga asked Shiro, in which both of them are in HQ's lounge room.
"Well...from what I understand, he went off to jam with Rei earlier. Not sure if it was Kaji or Yui that told me that, because I was suffering from one hell of an hangover earlier", Shiro replied, who is slumped over a couch in the area, reading an unknown manga of sorts with various ridiculous drawings of chibi characters covered in blood on its cover.
"Ah. I guess they needed to chill out, considering the craziness of what happened. I guess that's why the other pilots are nowhere to be seen.", Hyuga replied back as he readjusted his glasses.
Shiro then leaned himself up, nugged closer to Hyuga and added, "I just remembered that Mari apparently went with Rei and Aoba as well. Beats me why, but i'm too buzzed to care.". He then took a glance at the lounge room's flatscreen TV, saw that Maya was standing in front of it and added by whispering, "Hey. Take a look at Maya. Never knew she had much interest in ol' Naomi."
On the TV itself is yet another archive interview regarding Naomi, which seems to be, as previously mentioned, commonplace in Tokyo-3.
"Now Naomi. I had heard rumors you got back in touch with a long lost sister. Any confirmation on this or not?", the interviewer, who oddly resembled a young David Frost with a handlebar mustache and a Beatles-esque bowl haircut.
"Well...when my father was on his deathbed, he had informed me that I had a twin sister, but he and my mother could only afford to raise one child, so they gave her up for adoption. Now, it took me a while to track her down, but on a whim of chance, we managed to run into each other and catch up on lost time. Right now, we're both collaborating on a very top secret project and it feels good to be working with who I got left in my family", Naomi replied to the interviewer as she slid her robotic right hand through her long, flowing hair. She also proceeded to readjust her glasses afterwards.
"Well...I suppose that has to be quite a liberating experience. Meeting a sibling you never knew of for most of your life.", the interviewer replied with a tone of awe in his voice.
"It very much is. For the longest time, my life had been complete shit. The loss of my mother, the loss of my hand, the loss of my father and the loss of a mentor of mine. However, me finding my sister and the support of my dear Erik has kept me from crumbling from all the stress and despair in my life. In fact, all I can see is one big bright light that's helping me guide my way.", Naomi replies back, with tears dripping from her eyes.
As Maya watches this interview, she begins to unusually tear up as well. She then lifts her right hand right into view. All of a sudden, behind her Shiro begins to try standing up and walk towards Maya, only to stumble down to the floor due to intoxication from alcohol. He then managed to stand back up and lumber towards Maya, in which he then asked Maya, "I never knew you had much interest in ol' Naomi."
Maya then noticed that Shiro is next to her. She proceeds to wipe the tears off her face, turns around and in a rather giggly fashion, she smiles and replies, "Oh no, Shiro. Sempai Akagi is much better than that Naomi person. I never even knew about that Naomi person until now"
Hyuga, surprised about Maya's comment, stood up and slightly shouted, "Maya, you better not be kidding. The television stations have play all this Naomi crap all the time, for nearly three years now. How did you just realize that all of a sudden?"
Maya then turned around, shoved Shiro with her right hand, which strangely knocked him down to the floor, looked at Hyuga and replied, "Well, Hyuga...unlike you and everyone else. I don't watch television."
Although Shiro was knocked down to the floor, Hyuga simply took it as a result of his intoxication. Rather, he replied to Maya, "Well...okay. I just assumed that whenever you vanish to...wherever you go on your off-hours, you watch TV. Guess not."
Maya then walked towards Hyuga, coming close to his face. She lowers her eyelids to make her stare appear to be more sensual than her usually bouncy self, then places her ice cold right hand on his face, softly slides it down up until she reaches his right shoulder. She simply plants her right hand on it and looks right into his eyes.
Being a bit unsure and confused about Maya's current actions, he nervously breaks a sweat and even rapidly shifts his eyes in both directions. He's also tingling a little from Maya's arctic cold hand and grit his teeth together with an expression of sheer uncertainy.
As Maya continues to stare at Hyuga, she begins to slowly lick her upper teeth, proceeding to move her tongue down to lick her bottom teeth and lower lip, finally ending it by closing her mouth to slowly, sexually rub her lips together. However, rather than making any more, Maya suddenly reverts back to her bouncy, cutesy self, removing her hand from Hyuga's shoulder and informs him, "Well, I gotta go. Sempai might need my help. See you later.", and walks away, waving at him as she leaves the room.
After Maya left, Hyuga shakes his head and decides to help Shiro up, who has suddenly fallen asleep on the floor after being knocked down. Right as he helps him up, he suddenly sees Maya pipping her head back into the room, informing, "Sorry. Forgot my clipboard. Bye!", only to leave the room again with said clipboard in hand.
Shiro, who had suddenly awaken from his abrupt slumber looks at Hyuga and asked him, "Say...what just happened now? Looks like Maya is gone. What happened?"
Hyuga, still somewhat befuddled and embarrassed from what just happened, quietly replies, "Nothing, Shiro. Nothing. I'm gonna go get a drink of water.". He then walks away, only to let Shiro fall down to the ground again and fall back asleep.
"So Mari...I never knew you could play drums. When did you decide to say so now?", Rei asked Mari, in which both are at Aoba's place. Aoba himself is in the kitchen, grilling some hot dogs for himself and the girls. Rei does not have her trademark leather jacket on at the moment, but can clearly be seen wearing a Geoncyber T-Shirt and her usual denim jeans and black sneakers. Interestingly enough, her hair has also slowly began to grow out a little. Mari, on the other hand, is wearing a somewhat skimpy looking green tank top with the limbless Black Knight from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" on it, tight grey acid washed jeans, a black wristband on her left arm and Peep Toe Ruched Slingback Wedge Espadrilles.
Mari then turned around and replied, "The thing is, Rei, is that I don't really like saying too much about myself to other people. Too much bloody arse bollocks resulted in me being open to sharing a bit of myself to others back in ol' Blackpool.", with her voice being uncharacteristically stern and bitter. However, she then greatly toned down her voice to her usual upbeat self, smiled at Rei and added, "However, since we two are real BFFs and I like you...well...a lot, I decided to open up about that. Anyways, about the drums...my pops told me to take up an instrument to deal with...with...with".
Rei noticed that Mari started to appear to be distant, with tears suddenly pouring from her eyes. Being concerned, she asked her friend, "Mari, what's wrong? Don't be afraid to say what you want to say."
Mari then extended her arms out and hugged Rei, planting her face right onto her elbow and cried, "I'm sorry Rei. I just...just don't like thinking back to the past".
Rei then started to pat Mari's head and replied, "Shhhh...don't worry, Mari, we'll all together. You don't have to say what happened. I too had something horrible happen to me, so don't worry. We all got problems of our own."
Mari then leaned her head up, lifted her glasses, snorted, wiped the tears off her face, put her glasses back in their original position and asked Rei, "So...what happened to you?"
Rei then leaned her head towards Mari and softly replied, "I'll tell you after we leave Aoba's. You can tell me what happened to you in return."
"I understand", Mari replied back as she nodded and remained planted against Rei.
All of a sudden, the doorbell rang, which alerted not only Rei and Mari, but Aoba as well, who is still in the midst of preparing the hot dogs.
"I'll get it.", Aoba informed the girls as he made his way to the door. Once he opened the door, he was greeted by Shinji, of all people. He then said, "Oh hey Shinji. What'cha doing here, bro?"
"Ummmm...mother told me that Ayanami was hanging out here, so I decided to...well...stop by and see if she's still here", a fairly nervous sounding and looking Shinji replied, in which he was squeezing his right hand with his own strength in said hand.
"Yeah, Rei's here. So is Mari. Come inside, man. I was whipping up some hot dogs for me and the girls, but I got plenty for you as well", Aoba replied, opening up the door all the way to let Shinji come inside and hang out.
As Shinji was walking into the living room, he saw both Rei and Mari sitting by each other and calmfully told them, "Hey Makinami. Hey Ayanami. Interesting to see you both here."
Rei then saw Shinji, stood up, walked towards, hugged him, smiled at him and said, "Hey Shinji...how you're doing?"
Shinji started to hug and smile at Rei as well and replied back, "Well, i'm doing fine. Misato and mother let me come by because I wanted to see and hang out with you. Ever since Asuka moved down here, we haven't gotten the chance to be around each other much, so that's why."
Rei then replied back with a tone of curiosity, "So...speaking of our teutonic...friend...what's she up to?", after she and Shinji stopped hugging, in which Rei sat on the nearby sofa.
"Misato is looking for someone to help Asuka speaking English all the time, so she had to stay home", Shinji replied as he sat right next to Rei.
"Well, that's not a very big surprise. That germanic twat needed to eventually start speaking the language of our world, otherwise our communication between each other would be stiffled by her...unusual frankensteining of English and German.", Mari replied with a bit of snideness in her voice.
"Well...either way, we shall just relax. No school and nothing at HQ. It's a free day. Enjoy it when you can", Rei replied to both Mari and Shinji as she reclined on the couch to relax.
Aoba then came in the living room, holding a big plate full of hot dogs. He then informed, "All right. Here's the hot dogs. Chow down as many as you can.", in which the three kids then stood up and walked towards him to grab a hot dog for themselves.
Inside a house in the same neighborhood as Aoba's, a Japanese business man walks into his house, which is surprisingly dank and trashed looking. With a briefcase in his right hand, he walks around his place, wondering why it appears to be so ramshacked all of a sudden.
Out of nowhere, as he is standing in the kitchen, a muscular looking, pear colored beast of sorts slowly peaks up behind him. The man turns around to see the beast, in which his face slowly twists into a look of absolute horror. Rather than not messing around, the beast charges at him, tossing the guy around the house crashing right into his cabinents and walls.
Bloodied and bruised, the man is on the floor, virtually helpless from the monster's attacks. The monster then leans down towards the man and plants its right hand over his head, which causes his head to violently shake, up until the back of his skull bursts open, shooting out a glop of blood, brain and skull matter right into the wall.
"Hey! Did you all hear that?", Rei asked Shinji, Mari and Aoba as she was finishing up her second hot dog.
"Hear what, Ayanami?", Shinji asked Rei, not being sure of what she meant at all.
"I think I heard some guy getting trashed. Even weirder is that I feel some kind of...presence around the area.", Rei replied, with her voice being a bit serious and marginally monotonous.
"What kind of presence, Rei?", Mari curiously asked Rei, being very interested in what she has to say.
"It feels like that there is an angel nearby, but at the same time, its weird.", Rei replied, with her voice being less distant and more normal like her usual self.
"An angel? Holy crap! Shit, we gotta get to HQ...", Aoba shouted when he heard what Rei said.
However, Rei replied, "No. It feels like its next door."
Aoba suddenly replied, "That's Toshiba's place!". He then stood up, ran to the door, grabbed several baseball bats, walked back to the kids, handed one each and added, "Alright. Let's see what's going on at Toshiba's. Be cautious at it."
Aoba and the kids, all armed with baseball bats, despite Shinji being not totally game to defend himself and walked towards Toshiba's house. Aoba knocked on the door, only to have the door open up. Even though everyone else was going to go in, Shinji told them, "I will go inside, because I don't want to see you hurt again, Ayanami."
"Are you sure you want to go in? I can go in myself.", Aoba replied back, being not sure that Shinji is suitiable to do what he said he would do.
"I can do it. I need to prove myself. Stay right there, i'll be back", Shinji replied and proceeded to walk in.
Rei then shouted out, "Be careful now. I can come along to help you out."
Shinji then replied back, "I'll be back" and walked inside.
As Shinji was walking into the place, he suddenly grew more weary that he's doing this, especially since that he's not the most manly of teen boys out there. Without warning, the beast suddenly rushed out of nowhere and tackled Shinji, causing him to fly right through the wall and head first into a car outside.
Seeing Shinji crash into the car, the others suddenly gained a sense of sheer dread, but as the beast came running to outside, Agent Will, dressed in very 90s-esque casual clothes, popped out and flat out punched the beast, sending it right down to the ground.
After socking the beast out cold, he quippied, "Welcome to Tokyo-3.". He then looked at Aoba and the two girls, only to quip, "Now that's what I call a message from god."
"Is Shinji okay?", Rei's voice asked. The entire room is encased in pure darkness.
"No look. He's awakening now", Yui replied.
All of a sudden, the perspective reveals eyes opening up, seeing Rei, Mari, Aoba, Misato, Asuka, Ritsuko, Agent Will and Yui standing, looking at the person in question.
Shinji's head then is shown, in which he has bloodied bandages wrapped around his head. His simple response is, "Who are you?"