(Here we go, Chapter Ten! Didn't take so long this time, did it? As always, enjoy...)
After a brisk run, the trio made it to Ghibli and Tezuka. The door was locked, so Asuka used her all-purpose lockpick: she kicked the door in. Shinji politely closed what was left of the door behind them.
The bakery was not what Shinji expected. It was more of a warehouse, taking up the whole top floor of a hundred-meter long building. Lining the shelves were hundreds of pies, cakes, and sweets, including one colossal wedding cake that stood ten feet high, divided into several layers. Asuka's stomach rumbled audibly.
"Hey!"
They turned to face the owner of the voice. It was a girl, barely into her teens, wearing a blue frock, white knee socks, loafers, and a red ribbon in her hair. She was rather cute, in a girlish way. The trio went into a defensive mode, wondering if this was a Scout. "What's wrong, little girl?" Shinji asked as affably as he could.
"Little girl? I'm Kiki, the owner of this bakery, and one of you just kicked in my storeroom door!" The girl stomped her foot in anger.
Gendo spread his hands in a I-mean-no-harm gesture. "We're really sorry about that, Kiki-san, but we're in a bit of a hurry, so if you can just tell us what we can do to repay the damage–"
"Yeah, you can repay me," Kiki said. She reached behind a shelf and pulled out a gigantic Smith and Wesson .44 caliber revolver. "You can DIE!"
"A Scout!" Shinji shrieked, and dived for cover. Asuka, out in the open, was seriously considering taking a swan dive into the cake when Gendo acted first. He snatched up a rolling pin and tossed it like a javelin, striking Kiki between the eyes. The revolver clattered to the floor. "Not a Scout," Gendo puffed. He was more worn out than he cared to imagine.
"Whew," Asuka said. "What kind of a world is this where cute little teenage girls pack heat?"
"A contrived one," Gendo answered. The phone on the counter began to ring. Shinji, dusting himself off from the bags of flour he had dived on, looked at his father. "You first, Dad."
Gendo clasped Shinji's shoulder, nodded, and picked up the phone. "Kiki's Delivery," he said, then smiled. "Nice to hear your voice as well, Rei." Then Gendo faded from sight, and the phone clattered to the desk. Shinji picked it up and replaced it in its holder.
Asuka faced Shinji. "Shinji, I..." she faltered, and looked away for a moment. The phone began to ring again. Shinji almost reached out for her, but hesitated. "I want to tell you something," she continued, in almost a whisper, "but I'm afraid of what it could mean if I do." She faced Shinji, and he was surprised to see her eyes watery. "Everything the Oracle told me has come true. Everything...but this."
Shinji blinked. She can't mean...no, of course not. Even...even before, she never really liked me...did she? He picked up the phone and handed it to her. "Tell me later," he whispered, his voice choked with emotion.
Asuka nodded. She reached out and caressed his cheek as she put the reciever to her ear. Shinji saw her eyes widen with fear.
"MOON PRINCESS HALATION!"
Shinji jerked back reflexively as a bolt of raw energy flashed past his face. He rolled to one side, half expecting to see the smoldering remains of Asuka. "NO!" he shouted. "NOT AGAIN!"
Yet Asuka was gone. The only thing smoldering was the phone.
In the real world, Asuka's eyes flew open. "Shinji!"
"What just happened?" Maya asked, scanning the Eva Matrix unfolding before her.
"A Scout," Rei said. She pointed to the screen. "Blue pattern."
"You have to send me back!" Asuka shouted.
"I can't!" Maya replied shrilly. "The connection's been severed!"
In Kiki's Bakery, Shinji got to his feet. Standing at the other end of the bakery, where Kiki's inert form had been, was Serena, Scout Moon. She twirled her scepter in one hand, streamers of smoke coming off of it. "Oh, poop. I missed." She turned to Shinji, and smiled with all the warmth of an asp. "Mr. Ikari, we meet again."
Shinji took two faltering steps backward. He knew he had a good fifty meter head start on Serena. He could run away, find another exit.
Someday, someone's going to have to fight them. His father's words echoed in his mind.
Shinji looked at Serena, who was advancing on him, taking her time, her black boots stirring up little swirls of flour dust from the floor. She was smirking at him, daring him to run, with the same expression a wolf would give a rabbit, a tiger a mongoose, and an otaku a box of pocky. And that, frankly, pissed Shinji off.
I mustn't run away, Shinji thought, and stopped as his foot brushed up against something. He glanced down. It was Kiki's Smith and Wesson.
"Run, Shinji, you baka!" Asuka screeched. "Run! What's he doing, Gendo?" All thoughts of rank were forgotten.
Gendo stared intently at the screen and slowly pushed his glasses back up his nose. "He's starting to believe."
Scout Mars and Minako, Scout Venus, sat in front of a plasma screen. Mars set a tub of popcorn between them, and Minako dived a gloved hand into it.
"Bet you 500 yen that she gets her butt kicked," Mars said.
"You're on," Minako grinned.
Serena stopped twenty paces from Shinji. Her expression changed to one of confusion. Then she looked at the pistol on the floor, and her smile returned. She set down her scepter slowly and deliberately, then rose to her full height. She bowed to Shinji, as an equal.
Shinji returned the bow. They held it for a moment, then straightened. They stared at each other, each waiting for the other to make a move. The world was frozen for one, single instant as man and Scout waited.
Serena moved first. She knelt in a blur of motion, grabbing the scepter and raising it, even as Shinji kicked the pistol into the air in approved Rally Vincent fashion and grabbed it.
"MOON PRINCESS HALATION!" Serena shouted.
"SHINJI BIG ASS GUN ATTACK!" Shinji shouted back.
A bolt of purple lightning shot across the bakery, tearing a long streak in the floor as the pressure wave smashed through the boards. Shinji was amazed at how he could see it coming, how time seemed to slow, how he was able to step aside, aim, and fire, a millisecond before the bolt neatly sliced the gun in half and nearly his fingers as well. Then the pressure wave sent him reeling to the floor as the lightning smashed its way through the wall and dissipated against a concrete retaining wall outside.
Serena picked herself up off the floor, shaking her ponytails free of the dust, wondering when she was going to learn to brace herself before firing off that attack. She saw Shinji tossing aside the remains of the pistol. "Your toy is broken," she grinned.
"So's yours," Shinji replied. Serena looked at her scepter. It hung askew, almost chopped in half where the bullet had torn through it.
"Hmpf," Serena snorted. She tossed aside the now-useless weapon. "Big whoop. You got lucky." She reached towards her forehead. "Let's see how you like this."
"Oh, crap," Shinji said to himself. Kiki's pistol was the only weapon he had. His plugsuit was still intact, but that was it. He had only seconds, and then Serena was probably going to cut him in half with her tiara. Shinji's desperate eyes alighted on the one weapon he had within easy reach.
"MOON TIARA–" Serena began, but then she was smashed in the face with a Kiki's Super Sticky Chocolate Cream Pie. She flew backwards into a shelf, which collapsed behind her, but somehow stayed on her feet.
There was silence in which one might count five, then Serena managed to pull her right hand free of her face, where it had cemented itself in chocolate, then reached up and grabbed her tiara. She tugged at it. And tugged again. She then used both hands, but short of a blowtorch, there was no way Serena could pry the tiara from the gooey brown mess on her forehead.
Finally, she gave up and looked at Shinji with eyes that could burn a hole through Eva-class armor.
Abruptly Scout Mars stood and faced the audience. (That's you, faithful readers.) "I must interrupt this fight scene with a public service announcement." She reached into her suit jacket and pulled out a handwritten note. "Ahem. 'The following, while based somewhat on the famous Neo vs. Agent Smith fight scene in The Matrix, is actually based on the author's twisted imagination, as he could find no way to fit a pie fight into the original scene. So you have been warned. Sincerely, the Author.'" She looked down at a scrawl on the bottom of the note. "'And Minako's butt is prettier than Mars'.' WHAT?!" She whirled on Minako. "This is YOUR handwriting on the bottom!"
"You said 'bottom'..."
Shinji stood defiantly, or as defiantly as he could. "Yeah? Take your best shot, Sailor Goon!"
"WHAT?!" Serena picked up a cheesecake and raised it to smite Shinji. Then she looked at it. Her stomach rumbled. "Cheesecake..." she moaned. "I can't..."
Shinji saw his chance and took it, nailing Serena in the chest with a lemon meringue. She staggered backwards and dropped the cheesecake. The glass pan it was in shattered on the floor, wrecking the confection and making it inedible. Serena got to her feet and tore off her ruined suit coat. She looked at the ruined cheesecake, then at Shinji. "I shall enjoy watching you die, Mr. Ikari."
Shinji pressed his attack. He ran forward and threw a punch at her face, following it up with an orange sherbet cake. Serena blocked the punch, elbowed Shinji in the nose, took a bite of the cake, and kicked him into a shelf. She then reached into a convienent freezer, pulled out a block of Neapolitan, and attempted to smash it into the wall, with Shinji's head in the middle. Shinji weaved to one side, landed a solid blow on Serena's side, then remembered a finishing move from a game he had once played with...Kensuke Aida? It didn't matter. He did a handstand and swung his legs upward to drive his boots into Serena's face.
Yet the Scout was still faster. She withdrew her hands from the pulverized Neapolitan and grabbed both Shinji's legs. "Shall I make a wish?" she said, baring perfect teeth. "Or maybe I'll just see what color your liver is!" With that, she tossed him towards the door. He rolled with it and came up ready to fight, just in time to first be hit with a deep-dish cherry pie (insert Warrant joke here), then a massive birthday cake for a 55 year old businessman. Shinji went down and nearly stayed down. He spit blood and flaky crust.
In the real world, he only spit blood. "Great Mother Chiyoko," Asuka breathed. "She's killing him." Asuka tore a strip from her tunic and wiped the blood from Shinji's mouth.
Shinji shook his head free, wished someone would answer the phone that was ringing in his skull, and slowly got to his feet, covered in syrupy cherries and frosting. Serena paused, a piece of cake halfway to her mouth. Shinji brushed off some of the frosting, set his jaw determinedly, and went into a Kenshin stance. The frosting flew off of him like snow. He faced Serena, unafraid, then gave her a come-hither-and-get-your-butt-kicked gesture.
Serena carefully set down the cake, brushed her hands free, and charged Shinji. He avoided her first hasty punch, blocked another, and delivered a roundhouse kick to her stomach. Serena twisted at the last moment to take it in the side, but she still winced in pain. She punched Shinji, but Shinji was already spinning, using the kinetic energy of the hit to twist him around, where he could hit her back just as hard. Shinji was in combat mode now, and knew it. I can beat her!
He dodged a thrown chocolate mousse, took a running start off of the giant wedding cake, and got in two solid kicks at Serena's upper body. She blocked both of them with raised arms, but it forced her backwards. Shinji came down, grabbed a handful of a nearby cake, and thrust it towards Serena's mouth. She leaned backwards to avoid it, but then Shinji merely extended his hand and threw the cake between her lips. Serena staggered, hacking and spitting. "Ack! Carrot cake!" she gasped.
Shinji didn't give her a chance to recover. He swung a hook kick at her, but she caught his leg. He merely used that for leverage, grabbed a double handful of her ponytails, and gave her a rough head-butt that would have killed a lesser opponent. Unfortunately for Shinji, he was not using that muscle of his body known as his brain, and rammed his head into the chocolate-covered ruby at the heart of Serena's tiara. It was enough to make her let go of his leg, but everything went black for a moment for Shinji Ikari.
A moment was all Serena needed. Still spluttering, she grabbed him by the front of his shirt and flung him into the nearest wall. It cratered beneath him, but Shinji someone stayed on his feet.
Serena dragged two shelves full of pastries over next to her. "How dare you hit me with a pie? You think this is Ranma ½ or something?" She smashed him in the chest with a mud pie, then smacked him less than a second later with a grasshopper. Soon Serena's arms were windmilling in a blur, grabbing pies and cakes off the shelf and hitting Shinji with them. "YATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATA!" she screamed.
Shinji now resembled a vaguely man-shaped birthday gala that had been hit with a B-52 strike. Serena reached into the mess, got a purchase on some part of Shinji's anatomy that felt like his neck, wound up, and threw him into Kiki's desk, splintering it. "And do you know how much I HATE carrots?" she screamed.
"Urgh," Shinji replied.
Serena didn't bother to decode that. She grabbed him again and proceeded to toss him through the hole her last Moon Princess Halation attack had made in the wall. Shinji smashed into the concrete wall and slid down to land on some very cold rail tracks, leaving a streak of blood and frosting.
He managed to get to all fours, but no more than that. He wiped away some of the frosting and pie contents from his face, and realized with a start where he was. It was a tunnel, and the whistling sound he heard could only come from a bullet train.
Infused with new energy, Shinji tried to get up, but then Serena landed squarely on top of him. Before he could react, she had him in a head lock and seemed to be doing her best to twist his head off. The sound of the bullet train got louder.
"Flew yew hore flat, Mifsler Gikgari? Flat ifsth fle floun flor inududblearikity. Flat ifsth fle floumd flor fleur dooeth," Serena said ominously.
"What?" Shinji asked. "I didn't understand that."
Serena chomped loudly, then swallowed the big slice of wedding cake. "I said, do you hear that, Mr. Ikari? That is the sound of inevitability." She raised his head towards the onrushing bullet. "That is the sound of your death."
"Okay, I got it that time."
"Glad to hear it." Serena tightened her grip. "Goodbye, Mr. Ikari."
Shinji felt new power in his veins. He didn't know how, or why, but it was there, waiting to be tapped. "I am not just Shinji," he growled at her. "I am...the Third Child!"
Impossibly, Serena felt herself being propelled upwards. Shinji didn't gather his legs under him or push off with his hands, he simply rose straight up like a balloon with the air let out. She had barely registered this fact when she was crushed into the concrete ceiling headfirst. Shinji dropped down, let go, then leapt backwards a split-second before the bullet train would have turned him into a bloody frosty smear. (Ew.) Serena got to her feet just in time to get run down.
Shinji threw himself backwards into Kiki's Bakery before the suction from the bullet pulled him in with her. He scraped off as much of the goo as he could, then grabbed a tart off a plate on the shelf next to him. "To the victor go the spoils, I suppose," he mused, and took a bite. "Almost as good as Belldandy's..."
With an earsplitting screech, the bullet slammed on its brakes. Shinji began backing towards the door. He heard the hiss of pressurized air as one of the train's doors opened, then through the hole stepped Serena, back in a pristine suit of all black. "Now I'm annoyed," she snarled.
Shinji turned and fled. His only chance now was to find a phone. And run.
"Oh, hell," Mars said. "I suppose that means we gotta go back to work."
"Suppose so," Minako said. "Pay up."
"WHAT?! Serena lost! She got run over by the train! It's not Shinji's fault that we can't be killed!"
"Sure, whatever you say..."