This is a test of the Emergency Disclaimer System. This is only a test. In case of a real emergency, please go to you local previous chapter and read the instructions under the heading 'disclaimer.' You are now returned to your regularly scheduled inane babble—I mean chapter.
Fourth Impact
Chapter 29: Lillith and Rei
A growl tore its way out of Misato's throat. "You are not going to say anything about this. You are going to give me those pictures, and you are going to destroy the originals. Is that clear?"
Takoru grinned at her from where he was pinned to the wall by Adamu. "I don't have the originals. You tore them up."
"Then get me all of the copies."
"Your parents have a copy, and I am not taking anything from Soryu-san. I like my head firmly attached to my shoulders, thank you very much. The other copy is with the Nagisas, and frankly, they scare me. The last copy is in Lilli-chan's room, and you'll have to talk to her to get them."
"There's one more copy." Adamu said, shaking Takoru. Despite being younger, Adamu had a lot of upper body strength, bolstered by his malleable AT field. Takoru was completely pinned, unable to move from the neck down. Lilliko thought that he was buying her some drinks.
"There's one more copy, that ended up in the hands of a school gossip. You will get that one at least."
"The damage is done." Takoru told him. "I mean, now everyone knows that you two have been going out for months. Even if you get the pictures themselves, they all know."
"Fortunately, they're evacuating." Adamu said. "Now, you are gong to get those pictures. I don't care if everybody knows, you are going to get them, even if you have drag my sister along." He shook Takoru so that his head bobbed up and down as if nodding.
"All right! But don't blame me if something large, squishy and wet lands on you tomorrow." Adamu dropped him. Gasping for breath, he smiled at Misato.
"Any other demands?" he asked. Misato nodded as an idea came to her.
"I want you to get Lilli-kun very, very mad at you. Get her to the point that she's hitting you with both hands, then run. And make sure that I can see." He gulped. First thing his father taught him when he'd hit puberty: never make her mad and run away. Make her mad, or make her run away, but never make her mad then run away.
"See you, and those photos, tomorrow." Misato and Adamu walked away, leaving Takoru wide-eyed and terrified.
"That will teach him." Misato muttered. "That will teach both of them."
Adamu nodded. "You know, I'm not so sure that this is a good idea anymore. I mean, it sounded good when you first said it, but now…"
"Don't worry." Misato reassured him. "We only have to deal with them. By the time the others return, either they'll have forgotten about it or we'll have officially broken up." She didn't sound too happy about the latter option. When she heard him sigh, though, she perked up.
"Come on, Adamu. Cheer up. Every relationship goes through this kind of thing." He glanced at her, one eyebrow raised.
"Really?" She took on a thoughtful expression for a second.
"No." she admitted, not sounding the least bit remorseful for lying to him. "Most of the time they're not bogus. Or torn out of a several-month hiding period." She grinned. "If you're upset about that, think of it this way, at least you have a girlfriend."
"That just means more people pestering me about topics I'd rather not talk about."
"You don't want to talk about anything." Misato countered. She grabbed his arm and leaned her head on his shoulder. "Just, try to enjoy it." She told him. "While it lasts." She sighed happily. "You're my first boyfriend, you know." She said softly. "You're my first kiss and my first boyfriend, even if it was all playacting."
His eyes widened. "Your first boyfriend? What about Takoru?" She burst out laughing.
"That idiot? Oh, lord, that would have been horrible! For one, neither of us is the other's type, and two, we think of each other as siblings." She gasped suddenly. "And three, my mother and his father would be at each other's throats bugging each other about it!" She stopped walking, caught in racking laughter. "That would have been one of the few things that could piss off both my mother and his father, other than us killing each other."
He tried to stop a grin, but her laughter was contagious. She just had a warm, silvery laugh that pulled you in, invited you to join the fun. He let out a chuckle. "Knowing them, I guess it would."
She finally managed to regain control of herself and took his arm again. "Come on, boyfriend. I need something cold to drink. My throat's sore from laughing so hard."
"You did what?" Lilliko shouted. Takoru cowered away from her.
"I'm sorry! I thought it was longer than that!" she snarled and swatted at him.
"I can't believe you! How could you do that, Takoru-kun? How could you?" she seemed on the verge of tears, and he was starting to regret agreeing to Misato's demand. But as he had said to her, he liked his head firmly attached to his shoulders. At this point, however, it didn't look so much like whether he was going to be decapitated or not and was starting to look more like by whom he would be decapitated by, his friend or his girlfriend.
"It was an accident! I swear!" he went over his plan one more time, reviewing his carefully chosen lines. "I can buy you a new one—" Perfect. Her eyes flared blood red, her fingers curled into talons, and her AT field began to shimmer into existence around her. And she struck, slamming a fist into his face and knocking him back. He stumbled a few steps, counting the seconds until her other fist smashed into his stomach. He turned to run when another blow caught him in the cheek.
"BUY ME ANOTHER ONE?" she demanded. "That is the last straw, Takoru!" And he began to run, and she began to chase him, and Misato burst into tearful laughter. Adamu tried to suppress his own laughter in favor of holding the video camera steady.
"Before you ask, I'm not making copies." He told Misato, unsure if she could hear anything over her insane giggling. "I will not sink down to their level."
She just nodded, unable to respond verbally.
When the two of them disappeared, Adamu turned off the camera. "That was a lot better than I expected." He remarked. Misato nodded, letting out a few last titters.
"Takoru is a master at making people upset. He can cause someone to go from deliriously happy to homicidal psychopath in only a few seconds if he really tries."
Adamu turned to face her. "Let me guess, you were on the receiving end of that?" she nodded again.
"You have no idea how much damage I caused. Three months, that's how long he was in the hospital. And I was still mad at him." Her hand clenched suddenly. "I guess I still am, a bit."
Takoru finally managed to get out of his girlfriend's reach by climbing a tree. "Lilli-chan, please, listen to me!"
She shook the tree but was unable to dislodge him. "Please, Lilli-chan! I was faking!"
She abruptly stopped. "Faking?" he nodded desperately.
"I didn't really break it. It's still on your shelf, where it always was, intact and untouched." Her eyes narrowed dangerously. "Look, Misato and Adamu are really upset about the pictures, and they insisted that I get all the copies, and make you mad at me as retribution. Please, I was just doing that because I want to live long enough to watch our children grow up."
She waited as he slowly climbed down. "We're going back to my room, right now. And if there is a single scratch on it, you are dead, Suzuhara Takoru. Dead!" She grabbed his arm. "And don't think that you will go unpunished for this. You have no idea how much I hated you for the past ten minutes, even if you were just faking."
"See? It's still in one piece." He told her. She nodded, placing it back on the shelf. She then hurled herself into the huge stuffed bear he had won her at the carnival. She wrapped its around her and snuggled into it.
"So, how are we going to get back at them?" she asked.
"I'd rather those were my arms around you." he said softly. Then he shook his head to clear it and hoped that she hadn't heard. "Anyway, we need to find out how they managed to hide it for so long." She nodded.
"And then what?" she asked. "Once we pry that information out, what do we do?"
"We set them up on the most embarrassing date possible. Maybe a sleepover, with Misato." He grinned. "Lock them in a closet naked, perhaps?"
"Takoru, they already are together. Locking them in a closet would just get Misato's parents mad…at…them…" she smirked evilly. "Sounds good."
Unit 21 roared, its restraints snapping off. Metal chunks and wiring fell off to reveal alabaster skin. As the skin began to sag, almost dripping, Lillith suddenly realized that she needed a form, more than just a shapeless blob of flesh. Desperately searching her memory for a body, a shape to hold herself, she came across one.
In the bay outside Tokyo 4, the giant head of Lillith/Rei began to fall into itself as if being sucked in from the inside. In other parts of the globe the rest of Lillith/Rei's body did the same, gradually disappearing altogether.
Deep in the bowels of NERV, Kaoru spun to see his wife collapse screaming. Her flesh writhed and heaved as if trying to tear itself from her body.
"No!" she cried out. "Lillith, no!"
He grabbed her up and began to carry her out of the shadows.
Unit 21's white skin began to move and writhe, the hips widening, the chest bulging out. Hair poured down from the top of her head, stopping at the curve of its slim jaw. The sharp protrusions on the Eva softened into feminine curves. Wings shot out of her back, down her spine, from the backs of her legs, lengthening almost absurdly. And a pair of red eyes opened.
She shot upward, carelessly smashing her way through layers and layers of armor, crashing out through the top of the mountain and into the sky.
Their moment of vengeful mirth shattered as an alarm went off. The phone rang and Takoru snatched it up. "TAKORU! LILLIKO! WHOEVER'S THERE, WE NEED YOU AT NERV, NOW!" Takoru winced as the sound of Commander Katsuragi's voice rang in his ears.
"We're coming." He said painfully, and put down the phone. Pulling Lilliko out of the bear's embrace he started off toward NERV.
They reached NERV to find Misa and Adamu already on the bridge. Misato was pacing back and forth, a beer in one hand, the phone in the other.
She stopped suddenly as Makoto yelped. "AT field, pattern Blue!"
"Get me a visual." She snapped. A picture appeared, a white dot in the center. The camera zoomed in, but they still couldn't make out the shape.
Suddenly the door to the bridge shot open and Kaoru stumbled in, Rei screaming in his arms. Everyone turned to them as he lowered Rei to the ground. Her skin was still shifting wildly and her blood red eyes flickered.
"Get me a sedative." Dr Akagi ordered. "And find something to tie her down to."
Their efforts ceased as a fountain of LCL erupted from Rei's mouth.
"Sir!" Makoto shouted. "We have a clear picture!"
Misato turned and sucked in a breath. Shooting rapidly toward Tokyo 4, wings glinting in the afternoon sun, was the Second Angel, the Mother of Humanity, once again wearing Rei's form.
AN: well, here it is. The promised six-week hiatus plus cliffhanger. Now I'm off to talk mathematics with a bunch of nerds and geeks for six straight weeks while subsisting on soda and sugar packets. Story of my life.
For those of you who enjoyed my nearly daily updates, sorry. For those of you telling me to slow down, this is what you asked for.
Layra-chan, do you—Layra-chan! Put that down! I mean it! Put that down or I'm taking away your flamethrower privileges! Now, do you have anything to say to the readers?
Layra-chan: can't wait for camp. Six-weeks living on soda and sugar packets! YAY!
DreyonLegacy: *rolls eyes* anyway, it's been fun.
So long, farewell, goodbye, goodnight, see you later, take care, hasta la vista, vale, sayonara, ja ne, and last but not least, et cetera.