This is a pseudo-sequel to my short story Lucky Rolls, but you don't need to read that one first, since any references to it are going to be minimal.
Why a pseudo-sequel? Because this one is going to get very silly very quickly, to the point that it might end up having a completely different mood. I like to think that this takes place in an alternate, happier timeline where, after the events of Lucky Rolls, everything went fine for almost everyone involved. However, if you don't mind the silliness and you want to consider it a true sequel, be my guest.
DISCLAIMER: I still haven't played proper D&D, so there might be inaccuracies. We'll assume that Shinji and his friends are playing with some very weird house rules and mixing elements from different editions.
Neon Genesis Evangelion is property of Hideaki Anno. Dungeons&Dragons is property of Wizards of the Coast. This is a non-profit fan-based parody.
English isn't my first language, so feel free to point out any grammar mistakes and/or typos you find.
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BAKAS&BEHOLDERS
Warning: Might not contain actual beholders.
I
You Can (Not) Roll Up a Character
In the final days of 2015, the war to determine the fate of the human race ended, not with a bang, but with a collective: 'Uh. That was easy.'
Kaworu Nagisa. Tabris. The Angel of Free Will, albeit limited. The Last Messenger. The Vessel of Adam's salvaged soul. The Fifth Child. Upon arriving at Nerv, he had found that the pilots of Units 01 and 02 were much happier than he had expected. Not even the death and mysterious resurrection of Rei Ayanami had affected them as much as it should have. It seemed that an unexpected event had helped to heal themselves as well as each other, and they were much more open and stable as a result.
Something to do with twenty-sided dice and awkward kisses. He wasn't really paying attention.
Despite his Lilin guise, Kaworu didn't possess a complete Fruit of Knowledge, for that would be the dreaded Forbidden Union. He'd never be able to imagine, create, understand or even think as well as a true human would. However, it provided him enough free will to be able to choose. He was still a puppet of SEELE, but he could tug at the strings. Thus, inspired by the newfound happiness of Shinji Ikari and Asuka Langley Sohryu, Tabris decided to use his gift to go against his puppeteers' wishes. In giving him sapience and the power to make choices, the old men had ensured their own doom. With help from the other pilots and Major Katsuragi, the final battle at Terminal Dogma became a trap for Gendo Ikari. In the span of a single afternoon, his plans were shattered. All the people he had manipulated and mistreated turned against him, and once his crimes were made public, the JSSDF in person went down to the GeoFront to arrest him.
In the meantime, thanks to the work of certain badly-shaven spy who wasn't as dead as everyone believed, the whole world became aware of SEELE. Their machinations and their role in the Second Impact were brought to the light. Only a few members of the Throne of Souls managed to kill themselves before the forces of the UN dragged them out of their hiding holes.
The embryonic body of the Father of Angels was extracted from Gendo's hand and returned to his rightful owner. Tabris became Adam once again, returning to his original, luminous form. Alas, while he was now self-aware enough to not start a Third Impact, he knew that it wouldn't last. He was still a Seed with the Fruit of Life, a slave to the instructions coded in his DNA by the First Ancestral Race. Sooner or later, those orders would take control of his being and he would either fight Lilith or seek complementation.
And Adam, who was also Tabris and Kaworu Nagisa, decided to leave.
That day, the lake which had once been Tokyo-3 was erased from existence by a column of white light coming from below. The First Angel extended his wings one last time and flew up into the blue sky. All across the globe, his clones, the Evangelions, were forced to expel the souls that dwelt in their cores. Then, they rose to the heavens and self-destructed upon reaching the mesosphere, creating a spectacle of lights and colors. It was Adam's promise, to all of humanity, that their kind would never fight again.
Evangelion Unit-01 was the only exception. Being a clone of Lilith, the First Angel had no power over it. Besides, Yui Ikari, the resident soul, wished for both of them to become a living memorial of mankind's existence. Thus, using his AT-Fielf, Adam propelled the purple giant into space along with him, and they both drifted, in opposite directions, towards the black infinity.
Two years later…
Much like a phoenix resurging from its ashes, human life had returned to the GeoFront crater, which now housed the young city of Tokyo-4. The shelters had been remodeled into houses, and new buildings had been constructed around the Nerv pyramid. The headquarters and everything below had become the world's largest facility for medical research, focused on tissue regeneration, organ cloning and prosthetics.
And of course, the kids who had saved the world were welcome to visit the installations whenever they desired.
That afternoon, a room once used for debriefing had been prepared for a much different activity. Six chairs had been set around a rectangular table, which held a wide assortment of non alcoholic-drinks alongside chips, sweets and other snacks. This, however, did nothing to brighten the mood of Touji Suzuhara.
"I still can't believe that you convinced me to play this nerd game," he groaned from the south end of the table, crossing his arms.
"Oh, shut up, stooge!" Asuka huffed, sitting at the left side, close to the head. "You owed us a big one, and we're cashing in. Need I remind you of what could've happened if Shinji and I hadn't gotten you out of Unit-03 in time?"
"Alright, alright, fine," the jock rolled his eyes and threw his hands up in the air. Then, he pointed at the German girl. "But now we're even!"
"Come on, guys," Hikari pleaded. She had taken a seat at the right side of the table, near Touji. "There's no need to argue. Suzuhara, be nice and try to have fun."
At the head of the table, Shinji raised his head from behind the Dungeon Master's screen.
"Are you finished with your characters?" he asked.
"You bet!" Asuka smirked.
"Ready!" Kensuke, sitting in front of the redhead, gave a thumbs up.
"Done!" Hikari chirped, scribbling the last numbers on her sheet.
"I have finished," Rei declared. She had taken the seat at Touji's left.
"Then let's begin!" the former pilot of Unit-01 rubbed his hands together in anticipation. "First and foremost, the roll call."
"Oh! Oh!" Asuka raised an arm as she bounced in her chair. "Me first! Me first!"
"Er…" the boy's mouth bent into a sheepish smile. They had been living in the same house for three years, the last two of as an official couple, but sometimes he was still overwhelmed by her energy and lively demeanor. Then again, that was one of the reasons why he liked her so much. "Sure, you go first."
Asuka stood up, holding her character sheet for everyone to see. She had drawn a woman, clad in heavy armor as red as her long, flowing hair.
"I am Emma Alteisen of the Crimson Armor," she declared, as theatrically as she could. "I'm a Neutral Good human warrior from a faraway land. I've been training to become a great hero since I was eight years old. As a result, I'm proficient with two-handed weapons, axes, clubs, glaives, long swords, short swords and daggers. I like my men cute, kind, housebroken and a little dumm," as she said this, she threw a brief, seductive and slightly mischievous glance in Shinji's direction, who needed to summon all his willpower in order to not melt. "I came to this kingdom to kick ass and eat sauerbraten, and I'm all out of sauerbraten!"
Asuka sat down. Hikari clapped with enthusiasm, which contrasted with Rei's sincere but much mellower applause. Touji just rolled his eyes.
"Can I go next?" the freckled girl asked.
"O-Of course," Shinji said, hiding behind the Dungeon Master's screen, waiting for his cheeks to recover their usual color.
"I am Baltika Lightsmithy," she announced, showing everyone her sheet. Her character was a stout and short individual holding a large hammer. Much like Asuka's warrior, this one was also clad in heavy armor, but yellow. "I'm a Lawful Good dwarf, a paladin at the service of the god Moradin. I journey through the land to protect the innocent and ensure that the laws are upheld by everyone!"
"Wow," Touji mumbled. "Even in a fantasy world, you're still bossy."
Shinji turned to Kensuke as the class representative –yes, she was still one after two years– pulled the jock's ear.
"You go now," the Dungeon Master said.
Smiling, the geek held up his character sheet. While it attracted the attention of the whole table, only Asuka and Shinji, who had a much more extensive knowledge about the game, gawked at the paper in surprise and confusion. Kensuke had drawn a hairy monster with sharp claws, pointy ears, large yellow eyes and a long muzzle filled with blood-soaked fangs.
"Is that a werewolf?" the redhead asked. "You can't play that, stooge!"
"Au contraire," Kensuke replied, pushing his glasses up and ignoring Rei as she corrected his awful pronunciation. "I am Kenneth Clover, half-elf. I'm True Neutral due to class restrictions, because I'll be playing a druid. Specifically, one with the Shapeshifter class kit. I have the power to turn into a werewolf once per day."
Shinji couldn't believe his ears.
"Shapeshifter?" he asked. "Class kit? That's from an older edition! I mean, I'll allow it if that's what you want, but…"
"Of course I want it!" the geek insisted. "Have you seen the effects of the werewolf transformation? It boosts my Strength all the way up to nineteen! It's awesome!"
"But you can't wear any armor, not even leather! And you can't shapeshift into anything else! Wouldn't you prefer to play as a regular druid? They can transform into wolves, and bears, and giant spiders, and…"
"Werewolves?"
"Well… no, no they can't."
"Then I'm not interested."
The Dungeon Master let out a sigh and decided to concede. In the grand scheme of things, it wasn't all that troubling.
"Alright, you can be a Shapeshifter."
"Nice!" Kensuke stood up and extended an arm towards the south end of the table. "High-five, Touji!"
"No."
"Rei," Shinji called. "It's your turn."
The blue-haired girl showed her character sheet.
"I am an elven warlock," she said. "My name is Lilith."
Asuka and her boyfriend felt shivers running down their spines. They exchanged worried glances as they thought the exact same thing: 'Here we go again…'
Meanwhile, Rei continued:
"I was kidnapped as a baby and raised by a cold, manipulative general with only one arm. He wished to sacrifice me, and many others, in a ritual so that he could reunite with his dead wife," her grip on the paper tightened, crumpling it slightly, but her expression didn't change one bit. "In order to ensure my cooperation, he had me isolated in an underground castle, denying me contact with other elves, humans or dwarves. He numbed my mind with drugs and weakened my ego by making me live in a small, rusty room with little to no possessions. I managed to escape after years of imprisonment, and now I walk the world in search for the one-armed general, so that I may enact my vengeance."
An uncomfortable silence had set on the table. Even Touji, who still wasn't very convinced about the whole thing, had paid attention to that rant.
Shinji gulped.
"V-V-Very good, Rei," he stuttered, with a nervous smile. "Great job on your character's backstory. What type of warlock are you?"
The pale girl put the sheet down and turned to look at him. Her face showed no emotions other than perfect tranquility. She blinked. Once.
"I am a Star Pact warlock," she explained. "I sold my soul to the eldritch lords of the Far Realm in exchange for unnatural abilities that will help me carry out my revenge."
"Really? That's awesome! I've always wanted to see a Star Pact warlock in ac–"
"Once I find the man who stole my childhood, I shall call down powers conceived back when the embryonic universe first yawned in the primordial void. His body will burn in the unquenchable fire of the eldest stars. His mind will be crushed by the voices and gazes of alien beings that predate even the gods. He will weep tears of blood when I present him, naked and in chains, to my cyclopean masters, who will show him nightmares so terrible that not even the demons of the Abyss dare to dream them."
"Alright, Rei, you've made your poi–"
"I shall rip out his soul from his mangled, torn and maggot-ridden carcass, but not before I throw his rotten remains in a long-forgotten planet, so that they might be eaten by beasts never seen by mortal eyes. Then, using the sharpened bones of a Devourer of Worlds, I will nail his spirit to the very darkness between the stars. For each year he had me imprisoned in his underground castle, he will spend a hundred epochs watching the slow death of galaxies as he listens to a cacophony sung by the voices of a billion extinct species. And in strange eons, after he has seen the corpses of uncountable solar systems fall to the winds of entropy, I shall stand before him and shed my elven coil. The many appendages of my true and terrible form will embrace him, and every caress will erode his dying sanity a little more. Then, once he is nothing more than a shriveled delirious shadow, I will toss his broken soul into the smoke-belching Erebus, and the last thing he will hear as he falls into the maw of oblivion shall be my laughter."
If anyone had dropped a paperclip, it would've sounded like an explosion in the sepulchral silence. Nobody dared to utter a single syllable. Shinji and Asuka stared at their fellow pilot, eyes wide and mouths agape. Hikari was so pale that even her freckles had turned white.
Pointing at Ayanami, Touji gave a worried look to the Dungeon Master and asked:
"Is that what this nerd game does to people?"
Later, when recalling the event, Kensuke would swear that he had heard the cries of babies during the last sentences of Rei's soliloquy.
"Oh," the blue-haired girl said. "I forgot: I am Lawful Evil. Do not worry; I will not betray the party. I am saving my vileness for Commander Ik–the one-armed general."
Asuka put a caring hand on her shoulder.
"Wondergirl, are you alright?"
The former pilot of Unit-00 smiled at the German redhead.
"Of course," she answered. "Why do you ask?"
"Oh, no reason in particular. If you start feeling weird, just tell us, okay?" Asuka turned to Shinji and, covering her mouth, whispered: "We should keep Rei away from death metal for a while."
The Dungeon Master nodded in agreement before addresing the last player, hoping that his athletic friend would present a more normal character.
"Your turn, Touji."
The jock picked up his sheet, looked at it with disinterest and then tossed it, lazily, towards the center of the table.
"My name's Tom," he said. "I'm a dude."
Be careful what you wish for, Shinji, 'cause you might get it.
"A… dude," the former pilot of Unit-01 repeated in disbelief, while an exhasperated Asuka shook her head.
"Yeah, just a regular guy who wishes he wasn't here right now."
"Suzuhara!" Hikari scolded him. "You're being childish! Do your part!"
"Yeah, man," Kensuke added. "Honestly, you're kinda bringing the whole mood down."
"Ex-pilot Suzuhara is being uncooperative," Rei calmly stated. "His attitude is jeopardizing the mission and he should be court-martialed."
Asuka extended her arms and made calming motions with her hands, calling for peace.
"Don't worry," she said. "I suspected something like this could happen, so I came prepared," the redhead opened her purse, took out a sheet and passed it to Touji. "Here you go, stooge. I made a character for you."
The jock picked up the paper and gave it a look. Exactly three seconds after that, he stood up and slammed a hand on the table. A vein began to pulsate on his forehead.
"A HALF-ORC?" he roared.
Asuka covered her mouth with her hand, trying –but not really– to hide a mischievous smile.
"What the Hell, Sohryu?" Touji yelled, his eyes dancing between reading the character sheet and staring daggers at the German girl. "Why do I have the head of a pig?"
"Oh, come on," she was struggling to contain her laughter. "There's nothing wrong with being a half-orc, they're one of the classic races of the game."
"I have head of a pig!" he repeated, spitting at every word. "And what's all of this? Class: 'Barbarian'? Minus two in Insight and Perception, minus four in History and Investigation… How can I have minus four in…" his eyes widened. "MY INTELLIGENCE IS THREE?"
"I know, higher than in real life."
Touji burst into a barrage of angry shouts, all of them directed at Asuka, who had dropped all pretenses and was dying of laughter. At least, until the jock yelled something that Shinji didn't quite catch. Whatever it was, it caused the redhead's cackles to stop. She stood up, fire in her eyes and fury on her face, and she began firing insults at Touji in three different languages.
Meanwhile, Hikari had picked up the athlete's character sheet and was studying the drawing.
"Yeah," she said, "the pig face is a bit too much. But you know…" a blush started to appear on her freckled cheeks. "The muscles fit him…"
Kensuke leaned in closer and peeked.
"Actually," he commented. "From a certain point of view, the pig face also fits him."
"HEY!"
"Ex-pilot Suzuhara is being uncooperative. I suggest two to five weeks in a holding cell."
Behind the Dungeon Master's screen, Shinji's palm met with his face. And yet, as the table was swept by the mutually-assured verbal destruction between Touji and Asuka, he smiled. There had been a time when he felt uncomfortable around so many noisy people, but now he wouldn't miss that for anything in the world. After understanding what SEELE and his father had planned, what had been at stake and what he could've lost; now the boy wanted to cherish every second with his friends, no matter how loud they were.
However, they had already wasted enough time. Thus, as soon as his girlfriend and his best friend paused to catch their breath, he intervened:
"Come on, Touji. I'll help you roll up a new character."
The jock threw a last hostile stare at Asuka and sat down, crossing his arms.
"Okay," he groaned.
"Give it a try," Shinji insisted, passing him a blank sheet. "I'm sure you'll have fun."
"If you say so, Shin-man. What class should I choose?"
"Well, there are no rogues in the party. It would be useful to have someone who can pick locks and detect traps."
For the next minutes, Touji rolled the dice and scribbled in his character sheet, consulting the manual and asking Shinji for tips. When he finished, he showed everyone the results.
"There!" he said. "I'm Thomas Oneleg the Fourth, Chaotic Good human rogue. I was born into a family of nobles, but I left because they were a bunch of stuck-up snobs. Now I steal from the rich and I give to the poor," the athlete leaned over the table as much as he could and shoved the sheet into Asuka's face. "And look! Sixteen in Intelligence! Suck on that, Red!" and he crowned his act by making a rude gesture with his middle finger, an action that the German girl gladly returned.
"Now we're ready," Shinji declared.
The players picked up their pencils and made sure that their dice were at hand.
The glasses had been filled.
The snacks had been placed in easily-accessible bowls.
And a sign had been taped on the other side of the door: 'Do not interrupt unless it's the end of the world again, or I'll punch you. – Asuka.'
"We can begin," Shinji opened the notebook that contained the adventure he had prepared, its true nature hidden safely behind the Dungeon Master's screen. "Welcome to a world of adventure and peril, of wizards in ivory towers, of mermaids that sing in hidden lakes and of knights with flaming swords," his tone of voice began to change, becoming more bombastic and grandiloquent. "It is a land bathed in the blood of heroes and monsters, a land where castles of stone stand on the plains that once were the battlefield of gods and titans," a sparkle of controlled, calculated euphoria twinkled in his dark blue eyes, "Welcome to a world where treasures and fortune wait for those who are brave enough... or foolish enough," His lips curved into a smirk. Not a smile, a smirk. His friends stared, dumbfounded. They didn't know that Shinji was capable of doing such a thing.
Except Asuka. She did know, and she could barely contain her excitement. She had known for a little more than two years, ever since that day when they had played together for the first time, the moment when they had started to open to each other. So far, only the redhead had seen that side of him, in the small single-player sessions they ran in the apartment; but now it was due time to show it to the world and brag. That confident, assertive young man on charge of the adventure was also Shinji, her Shinji, Weaver of Stories and Master of the Game.
And that smirk meant that they were going to have a very interesting afternoon.
"Welcome to the world of Dungeons&Dragons."
To be continued…
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AUTHOR'S NOTES
This is an experiment I've been wanting to do for a while. It works like this: whenever I feel down, or stressed, or I need to relax from working on more serious projects; I'm going to come here and write one more chapter about our favorite teenagers playing D&D, to get a good laugh and, hopefully, make you laugh as well.
I have nothing planned in terms of plot, jokes or length. Well, that's not true. I have some things prepared, but very, very few. I'm pretty much making it up as I go. I can't even guarantee that I'll finish it someday.
I haven't classified this as a true crossover because the kids won't be going into the world of D&D, they're just playing. Furthermore, they won't use an official campaign setting, but a home-made world created by Shinji. Still, if you think that I should change the classification, let me know.
And for those of you who actually play D&D, I ask: is it possible to begin with an Intelligence of 3? I chose that number at random. I hope it's not, because I like to imagine that Asuka botched the rolls to mess with Touji.
Thanks for reading. I hope you like this silly thing.
NOTE: Kensuke's class, the Shapeshifter Druid, is something I took from the videogame Icewind Dale (which I still haven't finished) but I don't know if it exists or existed in the tabletop game. Despite the name, they can only transform into a werewolf and nothing else. I've read that, if you fill the rest of your party with clerics and you stack all buffs on him/her, the Shapeshifter becomes and unstoppable killing machine. I'd like to try that.
EDIT: Guest, if you're reading this, sorry that your review took so long to appear. For some reason I had the 'Moderate Reviews' option activated and I didn't realize. It should be up there now. Thanks!
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OMAKE: A Likely Beginning
"I turn into a werewolf in the middle of the town square!"
"I challenge the local blacksmith to an arm wrestle! If I win, he has to forge me a two-handed battle axe for free!"
"Those kids are playing hooky! I use Smite Evil on them!"
"I roll to pickpocket the captain of the guard, to see what happens."
"I cast Eldritch Blast at the innkeeper's face."
Hunching over his notes, now useless, the Dungeon Master watched in painful silence as his campaign was derailed into a chaotic mess. The players looked at him, eager to see how he was going to respond to their wacky antics.
Shinji took a deep breath through his nose, crossed his arms and frowned.
"Alright," he said. "A thunderous noise attracts your attention, and you notice that a section of the city wall has crumbled. Through the curtain of dust emerges Asmodeus, Lord of the Nine Hells of Baator, riding a hybrid of aboleth and tarrasque. Roll initiative, assholes."