Chapter 4: Mr. Angel's Neighborhood
After some serious roof hopping Shinji managed to arrive at Nerv headquarters. The crews were already finished outfitting Eva 01 for combat and were standing by waiting for the order to begin the launch sequence. Shinji ran into the nearby change area and donned his plug suit and threw the neural interface units onto his head and jumped into the entry plug. Misato's voice came over the intercom. "Hey Shinji you ready?" "Not really but hey didn't stop me last time." / Technically it did stop you, I had to take over and save our ass. / ^ Shut up Ranma minor technical oversight ok. ^ From the control room. "Launch Eva 01" Inside the entry plug Shinji put a CD into the custom installed CD player. % Exit Light, Enter Night, Take my hand. We're off to never never land he he.% Inside the control room Misato's eye was twitching. "Ok who's idea was it to put a kick ass stereo into an Eva?" Scanning the room she saw nobody blink. + I thought it was a good idea. + thought Gendo but of course he wasn't going to say anything. + At least the boy's got good taste in music. + The purple and green Eva rocketed to the surface, again it's head snapped up upon reaching ground level. When the restraining bolts were released the Eva ran out of it's cage and to the nearest weapons cache where it grabbed a gun. Shinji crouched behind a building waiting to get a clear shot at the incoming Angel. Then he saw it. It was like a giant slug oozing along the ground, except that it was hot pink with two eyes on the top and two translucent whip like tentacles. Shinji lunged out from behind the building and pumped a few hundred rounds at the Angel's general direction. "Shinji get out of there you can't see the target, retreat and obtain a visual, pattern blue remains!" Misato was yelling but Shinji didn't hear her. He was too busy avoiding the tentacles that were trying to tear him apart. He was using his own AT field to shield his arms and using them to block the whips, but it still stung when he blocked. ^ Damn it the stupid gun didn't work. ^ / Guess you're going to have to take it down the old fashioned way. / ^ Kick it's ass. ^ / Kick it's ass. / ^ Well then. ^ "Let's rock and roll!!" Increase volume. % Everybody was Kung fu fighting, those cat's were fast as lightning.% Shinji lunged out but the Angel wouldn't go on the defensive, it kept attacking him, and it was all Shinji could do to keep himself from being dashed to pieces. Then one solid hit later the Eva was embedded in a hillside with an advancing Angel. Shinji looked to his right side and saw a girl and a boy on the hill next to his hand. He noticed the girl was Ranko, and the boy was about a year older than her. The strange thing was that he had fangs and was wearing a red bandanna with black spots. "Major I can't just leave them there they'll be killed." Misato sighed. There was no other way she had to let them into the entry plug. "Make it snappy that Angel'll be on you in less than two minutes." Shinji hit the emergency hatch release and the entry plug slid out. "Get in." He called over to them. Ranko rushed over dragging the boy with her. The boy seemed hesitant about getting into the entry plug. "Get in stupid, it's not cold water, see, he didn't change into a girl." To this the boy relaxed a bit but was still nervous about getting into the plug. Shinji shut the hatch and got the Eva moving just in time. The Angel shot one of it's tentacles right were Eva's head was. A tenth of a second later and Shinji would have had one world class headache. As it was the tentacle just missed and he was able to land a fairly forceful side kick to the Angel's core. A small crack developed, but was healed a second later. ^ It's no good I can't beat it, it's too fast none of my attacks are fast enough to penetrate it's defenses. ^ / Then you've just got to use something faster. / ^ But Ranma I'm not fast enough to do the amogouriken. ^ / You may not be yet but the Eva is. Try Shinji I believe in you. / Klaxons brought Shinji back to reality from his little chat with Ranma. The Angel had cut Eva's main power cable. "What are you doing stupid, taking a nap, get in there and fight." "Shut up and let me drive Ranko." ^ Alright I've got 5 minutes to beat this thing. One minute if I use the amogouriken, got to make this count. ^ "Katchu Tenshin Amogouriken!" yelled Shinji as he made Eva's arms move at the speeds that made the Amogouriken technique famous for the users ability to pluck chestnuts out of a fire without being burned. All two thousand five hundred fifty seven punches hit their mark. The Angel's core went silent, and both Eva and Angel stood there motionless, as if in a dance where time just stopped. Misato, Ritsuko, and Gendo were standing over Shinji who was sitting in a chair in Gendo's office. "What were you thinking? When that timer started I told you to get out of there, why did you stay?" asked Misato. + And it had better not have anything to do with a certain deceased martial artist, or I'm going to get violent. + "I had to beat the Angel, that's my job isn't it?" he looked up at Gendo and narrowed his eyes ever so slightly "Victory and survival of the human race," he looked at the floor "no matter what the cost." "But you could have been killed." / It is a martial artists duty to protect the weak and the helpless even if it costs him his life. / "It is a martial artists duty to protect the weak and the helpless even if it costs him his life." ^ Hey quit putting words in my mouth. ^ / You seemed to need as much help as you could get. / Gendo spoke up. "You've been spending way too much time with Ranma haven't you?" "It's not like I have any choice in the matter, I'm sure Ranma doesn't like it much." / Actually I love it. Beats being dead any day. What are you saying? Am I a bad roommate? / Gendo put his hands together infront of his face, he steepled his pointer fingers. "Shinji, Ritsuko you're dismissed." He said in his monotone voice. "Misato I want you to stay." After they had left. "Yes sir what would you like." "In your opinion have you noticed any changes in my son ever since he met Ranma?" "As a matter of fact sir yes I have. He's only been here two days but he seems to have grown up quite a bit, and his courage and confidence have really shot up. Ranma seems to have had a definite effect on him, but of course I didn't know him until two days ago so my opinion is probably flawed." "It is not, it seems my son has grown himself quite a pair these past couple of days." "Pair of what sir?" "Balls captain, my son is a wimp, or at least he was a wimp until he took a dive in those Jusenkyo springs. It seems meeting the undefeated Ranma Saotome has done him a world of good." "If you don't mind me asking sir, just how exactly do you know Ranma?"
"It was a long time ago. I used to go to Furinken High school in the Nerima district of Tokyo. There was this girl there by the name of Akane Tendo. She was beautiful, every guy in the school wanted to date with her, but it was decreed by this guy named Kuno that you could only date with her if you beat her in fair and square combat."
"Sounds pretty corny if you think about it."
"Yeah I know, I even tried my hand at it once, got knocked on my ass so fast I barely knew what happened. Anyway one day this guy named Ranma shows up, and it turns out he was engaged to Akane through his parents meddling. It took a while but eventually everyone gave up on Akane because once they saw how much Ranma cared for her we all knew we didn't stand a chance."
"So he loved her did he?"
"Very much, but they fought a lot. In fact as I remember it she was one of the few people who could actually defeat him, you see she had this devastating hammer attack, I still can't figure it out. Anyway it turns out that his father engaged him to several other women, I think it was two or three others besides Akane, then there was that crazy woman Kodachi, she was after him too." "Sounds like a harem." "Not really, for some reason Ranma was considered a stud, and therefor all the women were naturally attracted to him. Then the mayhem started after one of his fiancée's great grandparents started teaching him and a few others some really dangerous techniques, like the Katchu Tenshin Amogouriken, and the Hiru Shoten Ha. There were guys always trying to kill him, like his best friend, I think his name was Ryoga Hibiki. Yes that's right. I think that was his son in the entry plug today. That's more or less it, it ends with the great grandmother that taught him those techniques killing him because he wouldn't marry her granddaughter according to some stupid law in their village. And that brings us to today." "I think I understand things a bit clearer now. Is that all you wanted sir?"
"No. I would like you to get ahold of Harley Davidson Japan and get them to custom build Shinji his bike, then get over to the motor vehicle center and requisition him a Nerv license. Oh and on the bike make sure there's lots of chrome." He narrowed his eyes and placed them closer to his steepled fingers. "Lots of shiny chrome and some cool sunglasses and a leather jacket." Misato twitched a bit but saluted. "Yes sir." "And Misato you will not repeat any of this to anybody, that is an order." "Y. Yes sir." "Dismissed." All alone in his huge office he stared at the tree of life on his ceiling. + I just hope that the introduction of this new variable doesn't interfere with the equations, or the schedule. + He leaned back further and his chair tipped backwards and laid him flat on his back with his legs twitching in the air.
In a blue sedan driving along the damaged road systems there was a good fight going on. Inside the car were Ranko, Reika, and an older woman with short dark blue hair with a white streak down the front. "And just what were you thinking young lady? You know that when the sirens go off you're supposed to get to a shelter and stay there." "Aw mom lay off ok we got chewed out enough by those Nerv guys, for just being there." "Don't aw mom me, both of you are grounded for two weeks." Both of them groaned. The older woman calmed down a bit. "Now Ranko, I want you to tell me everything that happened." "Alright, well his name is Shinji Ikari, he's a pretty good fighter." She looked down at the floor mat. "He beat me." "That's all right you know you're uncle Ranma used to beat your father all the time. So why did you challenge him anyway?" "That jerk stole my move!" "And what move was that?" "He stole my Mouko Takabisha, that was mine." "I thought that you and your father were the only ones who could pull that off." "So did I but he did it so he had to have stolen it." "Well what happened in the eva? How was it inside?" "Well it took bro here a while to figure out that the stuff in the plug wasn't water. I had to tell him that Shinji didn't change so it was ok."
"So Shinji's cursed eh?" "Yeah, but that's not all, he did this really cool move, what was it he called it again? The Ka. Kat something." "Katchu Tenshin Amogouriken" Reika decided to pipe up. He had been silent for most of the trip since he was being chewed out. "Yeah that's it do you know anything about it mom?"
"It's an amazon technique, your aunt Shampoo can do it, you should ask her to teach it to you sometime. If Shinji is Jusenkyo cursed he might have learned it at the local Amazon village." "Could be but it was still cool."
"Ranko you said Shinji was cursed, what does he turn into?" "He turns into a girl mom." Pausing for a second "About 16 or 17 years old, red hair, pigtail. She looks like me except he's better built to boot." Akane's grip on the steering wheel tightened and she went death white. "Are you ok mom?" Ranko reached over and shook her mom softly. "Y. Yeah I'm ok just a bad memory." The car continued on.
After some serious roof hopping Shinji managed to arrive at Nerv headquarters. The crews were already finished outfitting Eva 01 for combat and were standing by waiting for the order to begin the launch sequence. Shinji ran into the nearby change area and donned his plug suit and threw the neural interface units onto his head and jumped into the entry plug. Misato's voice came over the intercom. "Hey Shinji you ready?" "Not really but hey didn't stop me last time." / Technically it did stop you, I had to take over and save our ass. / ^ Shut up Ranma minor technical oversight ok. ^ From the control room. "Launch Eva 01" Inside the entry plug Shinji put a CD into the custom installed CD player. % Exit Light, Enter Night, Take my hand. We're off to never never land he he.% Inside the control room Misato's eye was twitching. "Ok who's idea was it to put a kick ass stereo into an Eva?" Scanning the room she saw nobody blink. + I thought it was a good idea. + thought Gendo but of course he wasn't going to say anything. + At least the boy's got good taste in music. + The purple and green Eva rocketed to the surface, again it's head snapped up upon reaching ground level. When the restraining bolts were released the Eva ran out of it's cage and to the nearest weapons cache where it grabbed a gun. Shinji crouched behind a building waiting to get a clear shot at the incoming Angel. Then he saw it. It was like a giant slug oozing along the ground, except that it was hot pink with two eyes on the top and two translucent whip like tentacles. Shinji lunged out from behind the building and pumped a few hundred rounds at the Angel's general direction. "Shinji get out of there you can't see the target, retreat and obtain a visual, pattern blue remains!" Misato was yelling but Shinji didn't hear her. He was too busy avoiding the tentacles that were trying to tear him apart. He was using his own AT field to shield his arms and using them to block the whips, but it still stung when he blocked. ^ Damn it the stupid gun didn't work. ^ / Guess you're going to have to take it down the old fashioned way. / ^ Kick it's ass. ^ / Kick it's ass. / ^ Well then. ^ "Let's rock and roll!!" Increase volume. % Everybody was Kung fu fighting, those cat's were fast as lightning.% Shinji lunged out but the Angel wouldn't go on the defensive, it kept attacking him, and it was all Shinji could do to keep himself from being dashed to pieces. Then one solid hit later the Eva was embedded in a hillside with an advancing Angel. Shinji looked to his right side and saw a girl and a boy on the hill next to his hand. He noticed the girl was Ranko, and the boy was about a year older than her. The strange thing was that he had fangs and was wearing a red bandanna with black spots. "Major I can't just leave them there they'll be killed." Misato sighed. There was no other way she had to let them into the entry plug. "Make it snappy that Angel'll be on you in less than two minutes." Shinji hit the emergency hatch release and the entry plug slid out. "Get in." He called over to them. Ranko rushed over dragging the boy with her. The boy seemed hesitant about getting into the entry plug. "Get in stupid, it's not cold water, see, he didn't change into a girl." To this the boy relaxed a bit but was still nervous about getting into the plug. Shinji shut the hatch and got the Eva moving just in time. The Angel shot one of it's tentacles right were Eva's head was. A tenth of a second later and Shinji would have had one world class headache. As it was the tentacle just missed and he was able to land a fairly forceful side kick to the Angel's core. A small crack developed, but was healed a second later. ^ It's no good I can't beat it, it's too fast none of my attacks are fast enough to penetrate it's defenses. ^ / Then you've just got to use something faster. / ^ But Ranma I'm not fast enough to do the amogouriken. ^ / You may not be yet but the Eva is. Try Shinji I believe in you. / Klaxons brought Shinji back to reality from his little chat with Ranma. The Angel had cut Eva's main power cable. "What are you doing stupid, taking a nap, get in there and fight." "Shut up and let me drive Ranko." ^ Alright I've got 5 minutes to beat this thing. One minute if I use the amogouriken, got to make this count. ^ "Katchu Tenshin Amogouriken!" yelled Shinji as he made Eva's arms move at the speeds that made the Amogouriken technique famous for the users ability to pluck chestnuts out of a fire without being burned. All two thousand five hundred fifty seven punches hit their mark. The Angel's core went silent, and both Eva and Angel stood there motionless, as if in a dance where time just stopped. Misato, Ritsuko, and Gendo were standing over Shinji who was sitting in a chair in Gendo's office. "What were you thinking? When that timer started I told you to get out of there, why did you stay?" asked Misato. + And it had better not have anything to do with a certain deceased martial artist, or I'm going to get violent. + "I had to beat the Angel, that's my job isn't it?" he looked up at Gendo and narrowed his eyes ever so slightly "Victory and survival of the human race," he looked at the floor "no matter what the cost." "But you could have been killed." / It is a martial artists duty to protect the weak and the helpless even if it costs him his life. / "It is a martial artists duty to protect the weak and the helpless even if it costs him his life." ^ Hey quit putting words in my mouth. ^ / You seemed to need as much help as you could get. / Gendo spoke up. "You've been spending way too much time with Ranma haven't you?" "It's not like I have any choice in the matter, I'm sure Ranma doesn't like it much." / Actually I love it. Beats being dead any day. What are you saying? Am I a bad roommate? / Gendo put his hands together infront of his face, he steepled his pointer fingers. "Shinji, Ritsuko you're dismissed." He said in his monotone voice. "Misato I want you to stay." After they had left. "Yes sir what would you like." "In your opinion have you noticed any changes in my son ever since he met Ranma?" "As a matter of fact sir yes I have. He's only been here two days but he seems to have grown up quite a bit, and his courage and confidence have really shot up. Ranma seems to have had a definite effect on him, but of course I didn't know him until two days ago so my opinion is probably flawed." "It is not, it seems my son has grown himself quite a pair these past couple of days." "Pair of what sir?" "Balls captain, my son is a wimp, or at least he was a wimp until he took a dive in those Jusenkyo springs. It seems meeting the undefeated Ranma Saotome has done him a world of good." "If you don't mind me asking sir, just how exactly do you know Ranma?"
"It was a long time ago. I used to go to Furinken High school in the Nerima district of Tokyo. There was this girl there by the name of Akane Tendo. She was beautiful, every guy in the school wanted to date with her, but it was decreed by this guy named Kuno that you could only date with her if you beat her in fair and square combat."
"Sounds pretty corny if you think about it."
"Yeah I know, I even tried my hand at it once, got knocked on my ass so fast I barely knew what happened. Anyway one day this guy named Ranma shows up, and it turns out he was engaged to Akane through his parents meddling. It took a while but eventually everyone gave up on Akane because once they saw how much Ranma cared for her we all knew we didn't stand a chance."
"So he loved her did he?"
"Very much, but they fought a lot. In fact as I remember it she was one of the few people who could actually defeat him, you see she had this devastating hammer attack, I still can't figure it out. Anyway it turns out that his father engaged him to several other women, I think it was two or three others besides Akane, then there was that crazy woman Kodachi, she was after him too." "Sounds like a harem." "Not really, for some reason Ranma was considered a stud, and therefor all the women were naturally attracted to him. Then the mayhem started after one of his fiancée's great grandparents started teaching him and a few others some really dangerous techniques, like the Katchu Tenshin Amogouriken, and the Hiru Shoten Ha. There were guys always trying to kill him, like his best friend, I think his name was Ryoga Hibiki. Yes that's right. I think that was his son in the entry plug today. That's more or less it, it ends with the great grandmother that taught him those techniques killing him because he wouldn't marry her granddaughter according to some stupid law in their village. And that brings us to today." "I think I understand things a bit clearer now. Is that all you wanted sir?"
"No. I would like you to get ahold of Harley Davidson Japan and get them to custom build Shinji his bike, then get over to the motor vehicle center and requisition him a Nerv license. Oh and on the bike make sure there's lots of chrome." He narrowed his eyes and placed them closer to his steepled fingers. "Lots of shiny chrome and some cool sunglasses and a leather jacket." Misato twitched a bit but saluted. "Yes sir." "And Misato you will not repeat any of this to anybody, that is an order." "Y. Yes sir." "Dismissed." All alone in his huge office he stared at the tree of life on his ceiling. + I just hope that the introduction of this new variable doesn't interfere with the equations, or the schedule. + He leaned back further and his chair tipped backwards and laid him flat on his back with his legs twitching in the air.
In a blue sedan driving along the damaged road systems there was a good fight going on. Inside the car were Ranko, Reika, and an older woman with short dark blue hair with a white streak down the front. "And just what were you thinking young lady? You know that when the sirens go off you're supposed to get to a shelter and stay there." "Aw mom lay off ok we got chewed out enough by those Nerv guys, for just being there." "Don't aw mom me, both of you are grounded for two weeks." Both of them groaned. The older woman calmed down a bit. "Now Ranko, I want you to tell me everything that happened." "Alright, well his name is Shinji Ikari, he's a pretty good fighter." She looked down at the floor mat. "He beat me." "That's all right you know you're uncle Ranma used to beat your father all the time. So why did you challenge him anyway?" "That jerk stole my move!" "And what move was that?" "He stole my Mouko Takabisha, that was mine." "I thought that you and your father were the only ones who could pull that off." "So did I but he did it so he had to have stolen it." "Well what happened in the eva? How was it inside?" "Well it took bro here a while to figure out that the stuff in the plug wasn't water. I had to tell him that Shinji didn't change so it was ok."
"So Shinji's cursed eh?" "Yeah, but that's not all, he did this really cool move, what was it he called it again? The Ka. Kat something." "Katchu Tenshin Amogouriken" Reika decided to pipe up. He had been silent for most of the trip since he was being chewed out. "Yeah that's it do you know anything about it mom?"
"It's an amazon technique, your aunt Shampoo can do it, you should ask her to teach it to you sometime. If Shinji is Jusenkyo cursed he might have learned it at the local Amazon village." "Could be but it was still cool."
"Ranko you said Shinji was cursed, what does he turn into?" "He turns into a girl mom." Pausing for a second "About 16 or 17 years old, red hair, pigtail. She looks like me except he's better built to boot." Akane's grip on the steering wheel tightened and she went death white. "Are you ok mom?" Ranko reached over and shook her mom softly. "Y. Yeah I'm ok just a bad memory." The car continued on.