Sea of Tranquility: Arrival of Chaos

Previously, but in Maki's subconscious…

"By the end of this year, all of you will suffer…

...unless you do exactly as I say."

Before he could finish his sentence, Maki realized that his psychic connection to Twilight had been severed.

Betrayed, the professor-turned-monster curtly turned and began walking back towards the sea without a second thought.

"Damn it! I try to warn them of Seele's machinations, and they rebuff me! That bastard Gendo must be covering his tracks!"

Maki mentally grumbled to himself.

"Oh, don't worry, Doc. It wasn't Gendo's fault this time, it's Twilight's. But trust me, she rarely slips up. I've noticed."

Maki paused, startled by the new voice in his head.

"Where are you?! Show yourself!"

A mysterious young man with silver hair and a colorful 1920s pinstripe suit stepped forward into his imagined office.

"Keep walking, Doc. Pretend you didn't hear me and I'll explain. They've still got eyes on you."

In the physical realm, Maki did as he was told, lest another battle ensued and exhaust him further.

"I'm an old acquaintance of Princess Twilight, the kind girl who was able to speak with you. You can call me, Discord."

"Gee, what a friendly and non-threatening name," Maki answered sarcastically.

"I see you haven't lost your wit, Doc. Good thing, because I'm-"

"From an alternate universe. Yeah, I know. Yui and Kyoko told me."

Discord's smile faded, and he grumbled.

"Damn it, Prime! Always ruining the moment!"

"Is he that red robot that gave me a power boost earlier?"

"Yes, and apparently, he can never take a joke or appreciate one!"

"I suppose leading an army does that to you. Give him my thanks."

"Sure, after you apologize for brutalizing his men."

"I was getting to that before I got cut off!"

Discord cleared his throat and pulled out a notepad from his suit pocket.

"Now, where was I? Right. Alternate universe. Anyways, I might have stolen two Eva Units, a Nerv branch, and deposited them on top of Old Tokyo."

"You what?!"

"Long story short, I was trying to save them from Angels, and I think I might have fed one of them to another Eldritch horror."

Maki stared at his bizarre guest with apparent confusion.

"Uhh...You...WHAT?!"

"I can see you're having an aneurysm. I probably should've started with the fact that I could bend space, time, and reality to my will. In fact, you guys won't see the results until a few hours from now..."

Back at Nerv HQ…

"I thought you said we lost Units 03 and 04."

An increasingly exasperated Gendo stated to the assembled Nerv staff.

"Well, Commander, we lost both visual and audio contact with our American branch and presumed it was an Angel attack. Thankfully, both units were salvageable and are currently undergoing repairs…"

Gendo motioned to hush Hyuga and pointed to the embarrassing visual feed on the MAGI's main screen.

"I just want to know why Nerv's entire Nevada branch HQ is currently submerged in what used to be Old Tokyo."

His usually concealed anger was beginning to boil over.

"I'm sorry, sir, we don't know how to explain it. The entire structure just disappeared and reappeared there out of nowhere!"

"Do you honestly expect me to believe that, Lieutenant Hyuga?"

"Don't be too hard on the kid, Ikari. He's absolutely right!"

The room froze at the sound of the mysterious new voice.

Gendo, Misato, and a few security personnel drew their guns.

"Who's there!" ordered Gendo.

A woman in a lab coat emerged from what had been empty space seconds earlier.

"Easy, Gen-chan. Don't you remember me?"

Gendo froze at the familiar voice of his late wife.

"Yui? How did-"

Quickly realizing the circumstances, Gendo leveled his pistol at the apparition of his wife!

"You have some nerve using my wife against me!"

Suddenly, "Yui Ikari" disappeared in a puff of smoke!

At the same time, one of the Section 2 bodyguards trained his pistol on Gendo instead!

"Oh look, you made her disappear again. Better luck next time, Gendo!"

The fake bodyguard's taunt cut deeply, leaving Gendo seething with rage.

"Drop it!"

Misato commanded as she and the other guards refocused on the intruder.

"Listen to what I have to say! Or, you can just go ahead and fill us with lead, I don't care-!"

Discord was cut off by the sound of another pistol cocked behind his head.

It was Luna's Beretta!

"I knew you'd try something theatrical, Discord, but hostage-taking is unbecoming of you!"

"Well, excuse me, Princess! If you had seen the way he treats his son, you'd know he deserves this! Besides, I did him a favor, getting those Eva Units here on time!"

"You were the one who teleported the Nevada base?!" interjected Ritsuko.

"It wasn't easy! An Angel tried to attack the base in the form of a thundercloud. So, I decided that the best course of action was to seal the Angel in a pocket dimension with another lightning demon god. After that, I couldn't just go back into hiding, so I flung the entire base here."

As with Maki, Discord's bizarre actions left more questions than answers.

"He's a reality warper. This is one of the tamer things he's done," explained Luna.

"Oh, that makes sense," replied some indifferent technicians.

"By the way, you should really invest in life preservers."

"Get to the point!"

"Okay, fine! Megatron knows you guys are onto him. He wants you to know that everything is gonna get much worse unless you work with him."

"After that stunt with Godzilla? Things already have gotten worse."

"I meant the part where all the Angels and all the Kaiju attack at once."

"That's impossible! Those beings may be physically powerful, but the chances of them coordinating such an attack are-!" exclaimed Ritsuko.

"Yes, yes. 'Extremely unlikely.' You do realize that you're just tempting fate at this point, Dr. Akagi?"

"We'll take our chances."

Luna responded sternly.

"Well, you seem awfully confident. Oh, and one last thing."

Discord held up three fingers and counted down as if expecting something…

"Fly Me to the Moon/Let me play among the stars…"

A dissonant ringtone from Discord's…

...watch?

"Let me see what spring is like/On Jupiter and Mars…"

Discord hit a button on his watch, with his pistol still trained on Gendo.

"Hey! Gendo! What's happening?"

The gathered Nerv staff watched in awe as a familiar, but more cheerful voice answered.

"Oh, just stamping out Shockwave loyalists and Garoga remnants with the family. You know, the usual. Where's Luna? I have a message for her about the A.U."

"That's funny, I'm in a little stalemate with her and your AU self right now."

"Is he abusive to his Shinji and Rei like you said?"

"Oh, definitely."

"Hey! Other me! Go-"

Audible explosions conveniently drowned out his speech.

"-yourself!"

Some disgruntled Nerv employees tried their hardest not to giggle.

"Luna, if you can hear me, Celestia wants you to know that she and Vector Prime just detected another powerful Kaiju on your Earth! Whatever it is, it's completely unrecognizable! That's why we sent Discord to help! If you haven't seen it yet, be prepared!"

Luna sighed and responded.

"Understood, Lt. General."

"Good to hear. Yui! Get on the autocannon! Fuyutsuki! Where's my air support?!"

Discord ended the call and sneered smugly at the less impressive Gendo Ikari, who was starting to look somewhat emasculated.

"You see, Gendo, that's how you balance fatherhood and duty. You make sure the whole family enjoys the fun!"

At this point, Discord took off his sunglasses, revealing a pair of fierce yellow eyes.

With his mission now apparent, Discord lowered his weapon, which vanished back up his sleeve.

Luna lowered her weapon as well, and the Nerv staff followed suit.

Exasperated, Discord teleported over to the nearest chair, switching back to his pinstripe suit.

He wasted no time in acting like a spoiled VIP.

"Can someone get me a drink? All this interdimensional travel is exhausting! 'Best of all possible worlds,' my ass!"

Across the multiverse, around the same time…

A Garoga scientist answered an alarm.

Upon checking his readings, the insectoid invader rushed to notify his superior.

"Sir! It appears that Ghidorah's containment vessel has been exposed to some techno-organic contaminant!"

If anything, Baron Garoga seemed vaguely intrigued instead of angry.

"Will it affect his ability to fight?"

"No, sir, it actually seems to be strengthening him!"

"Where did this contaminant come from?"

"It seems to have been teleported from another realm!"

The Baron laughed as he knew only one being who could perform such a feat!

"Oh, Discord, you fool."

The Baron stood up and bellowed.

"Deploy Mecha-King Ghidorah to Monster Island immediately! Let's see how well this cyborg symbiote performs against those Terran vermin and their pets!"

"Yes, your Highness!"

"Once that's done, find out which universal stream that contaminant came from so we can track down that reality-warping annoyance!"

"As you wish, sire!"

The Baron sat back down on his throne and thought to himself.

"The destruction of those pathetic humans and their Equestrian and Cybertronian allies is at hand. Escaping to another universe won't help much. What was that little taunt of yours, Discord? Ah, now I remember…"

He smirked as the particular insult came to mind.

"Multiverse theory's a bitch, isn't it?"

To be continued...