"And so," Brad finished. "That was how Omega got the best of me, despite everything I threw at him."
"In a literal sense too." Trent chuckled, setting down his beer on the table.
"Oh shut up." Brad glared at him out of half-closed eyes. "I'd like to see you do better against the number-one Raven."
"Dude." Lysander chipped in. "You're number five, you should have... ok nevermind, you did trash him pretty good, but still, there was probably something wrong with your style."
"Shut up..." Brad growled, leaning closer to Lysander.
"Ok ok, I'll leave it alone!" Lysander fended him off with a grin. "Damn man, you sure are touchy about losing, lighten up!"
"Whatever..." Brad sulked, going back to his beer. The other two men laughed, getting some stares from the others in the bar.
"This isn't a bad place Lysander. Where'd you hear about it?" Trent looked around the pseudo-ornate bar. All the wood was a dark brown, and a fair amount was exposed, giving the bar an olden look, from sometime in 2000. At the hour, however, it was practically deserted, only a few patrons moving about.
Lysander grinned. "I didn't. I just happened to see it on the way here for the mission."
"Humph. Well, you did a good job just picking one out randomly." Brad grumbled, causing the other two to laugh again.
"Hey Lysander, you never told us how you met that other raven, Firecracker, I think her alias was." Trent took another swig of his beer, and looked at Lysander, waiting for a response.
"Aw man... Do I have to tell you guys?" Lysander complained jokingly. "I swear, that's becoming the most popular story of mine."
"Yeah." Brad chipped in, sounding more interested, and less irritated. "You have to tell us. Or else we're going to kick your ass."
"Oh fine... Alright... where to begin..." As Lysander started to tell his story, the other two listened intently. After about ten minutes of talking, with occasional pauses to take a drink, the raven had finished his story, leaving his companions in various states of awe.
"Damn man, you're one lucky bastard." Brad breathed quietly.
"I suppose. Faye likes to dump molten boulders down the back of my shirt, and that gets annoying after a while, but I put up with it. After all, I'm the one who invited them to live with me."
"Polite as always I see." Trent commented, finishing his beer with a sigh. "You're a nice guy Lysander, but don't let it go too far." He got up and walked out of the bar after slapping some money down on the counter, leaving the said raven with a confused look on his face.
Go too far? What does he mean by that? The orange-haired raven thought quietly as the door slammed behind his friend.
"Humph." Brad snorted from next to him. "That was cryptic."
"Yeah... tell me about it." Lysander ran his hand through his hair and sighed. "At least you're not the one who has to figure it out."
"That's very true. But what kind of friend would I be if I didn't help you figure it out?"
Lysander only blinked in reply. "I hope that was a rhetorical question, because I can't think of an answer to that which would sound right. Let's just say that you're still my friend, alright?"
Brad shrugged. "Works for me."
"Well." Lysander stood up and put some money down on the counter. "I guess I'd better get going now."
"Wait. Let me come with you." Brad quickly finished his beer, and put some money on the counter as well.
"Uh... Brad, the days that we used to stay the night at each other's houses are over. We're men now, people don't usually do that unless they live far away from each other."
"Oh c'mon Sander... It's so lonely where I live, it'd be nice to actually have people around for a change."
Lysander furrowed his brow and sighed. "Well, I suppose it couldn't hurt this once. But Faye's not going to like this very much..."
Brad's grin softened Lysander's heart and strengthened his resolve. "Thanks man. You won't regret this, I swear."
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The two ravens walked up to the ship where Lysander made his home. The said raven took a card out of the pocket on his coat and swiped it casually in the slot near the door, which made a beeping noise and opened slowly.
"Welcome to my humble abode. Well, it's a ship really, but I still live here." Lysander was the first to step over the threshold, and walked inside the ship. He paused and looked back over his shoulders. "C'mon, there aren't traps waiting to fry you or anything. And you don't have to take your shoes off either, just leave 'em on until you get to the room you'll be sleeping in."
Brad followed after Lysander, quietly looking around at everything inside the ship. Although there wasn't much to see on the walls of the dull gray hallways, he still found the layout to be interesting. As they rounded a corner, Lysander's hand quickly went up.
"Stop." He commanded quietly. "There's someone ahead of us."
Brad stopped in his tracks as Lysander peeked around the corner ahead of them, and came back with a strained look on his face.
"OK." He breathed. "It's Faye. Just act like the world is ours. Don't get nervous." Lysander emerged from the corner first, walking like he didn't have a care in the world, and Brad followed suit, trying to look as calm and collected.
"Sander!" The same voice from the female raven who had been participating in the test rang out ahead of them. "Where the hell were you!?"
"I was out with some friends, that's all."
"Oh. Well, you should have told us next time, Kenja got kind of depressed waiting for you, she fell asleep earlier though." Faye smiled evilly. "That means I have you all to myself tonight." She advanced with the evil smile pasted firmly upon her face, wrapping her arms around Lysander's waist.
"Uh... Faye? We're not exactly alone." Lysander replied nervously, trying to gesture behind him despite the fact that her arms had pinned his arms against his side.
"Oh really? Who else is there?" She replied smoothly, her head moving up towards his as their lips got closer and closer.
"Um... Faye... I like you too and all that, but now's really not the time!" Lysander blurted quickly, starting to panic.
"Geh. Fine." Faye snorted bad-temperedly, pulling away from him. "Who's the other person?"
"Oh, it's just Brad. You guys met in the test." Faye looked over Lysander's shoulder to find Brad standing there with an amused look on his face.
"Well, It's nice to see you again." Brad said lightly, but they could tell he was trying to keep from laughing.
"Humph. Nice to see you again too." Faye said airily, then spun on her heel and stalked away like an offended cat.
"She's probably not in a very good mood. That usually happens whenever I manage to deflect an attempt to seduce me." Lysander explained, causing Brad to nod knowingly. "To the guest room!" He continued. "Nothing's going to be happening around here for a while, so it'd probably be better to get to bed."
Brad sighed. "Alright, lead the way." He followed his orange-headed friend as the other raven lead the way to the guest room, waving his arm as he gestured Brad inside.
"And this, is where you'll sleep tonight." With that, he turned on the lights, revealing a fairly spartan room. A bed sat in the center, and there was a bare wooden desk with a flimsy chair, but other than the carpet on the floor, there was nothing else in the room except for the lights. "Sorry it's kind of bare. But we don't usually have guests here."
"Eh. It's fine. I didn't exactly expect to stay here myself. It was a spur of the moment thing, and I thought you'd refuse."
"You should know me better than that Brad. But I suppose that's my fault for dropping out of contact with you. Well, you can't change the past. G'night, I'll see you in the morning. Oh yeah, there's something you can wear to sleep in the drawers to the desk. I was too lazy to move a dresser in here." Lysander coughed before he stepped out of the room, closing the door after him.
Well, nothing else to do now. Brad thought as he changed into the nightwear in the drawer and got into the bed, pulling the covers up to his shoulders and falling asleep.
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Needles of light stabbing into his eyes woke Brad up. He sat up with a groan and stretched groggily, groaning again. "Morning already?" He asked himself. "It feels like it's only been an hour." The raven hopped off the bed and changed back into his normal clothes, opening up the door to his room and starting to wander around the ship, wondering where everyone else was.
About five minutes later he wandered into the cafeteria, to be greeted by the sight of Lysander and another woman eating some bread covered with a lemon-yellow goo.
"Welcome to the cafeteria. Feel free to have some food, but eat at your own risk." Lysander mumbled, a look of intense disgust on his face. The woman sitting across from him gave him a sympathetic look.
"What does it taste like?"
"Lemons, with ground coffee, and some butter thrown in for good measure." The woman replied, closing her eyes and sighing before taking another bite.
"Sounds interesting." Brad replied, getting a slice for himself and sitting down.
"Oh, Brad, this is Kenja. Kenja, this is Brad."
"Nice to meet you." Kenja replied distractedly, still bothered by the taste of the food.
"Nice to meet you too." Brad took a bite of the slice of bread with the goo, and almost vomited in surprise as the horrible taste forced its way into his mouth. "How can you people eat this stuff?" He gagged.
"You get used to it, that's how you eat it." Lysander replied, swallowing the last bite of toast without chewing. "It doesn't taste so bad when it's all you've had to eat for the past few weeks."
"Why do you buy it? Can't you afford decent food?"
"Not if we want to keep Endgame and Gorgon in working order. Also, we're trying to save some money so Flamestreak can be rebuilt."
"I see. Need some help with that?"
"Well, it would be nice if we could do it soon, but there's no way we're going to be able to get that much money that quickly."
Brad chuckled. "You're wrong Lysander. There is a way to get that much money that quickly."
Lysander's eyebrow rose considerably. "And just how quickly would that be?"
Brad grinned. "Now."
Lysander and Kenja looked at each other, then burst out laughing. Lysander was the first to recover. "You're shitting me, right?"
"Not at all." Brad shook his head. "Being the number four raven means that I have some cash on hand. Which I can give you. It's not like I have a better use for it."
Lysander and Kenja looked at each other. "Score!" They both yelled, and gave each other a high-five.
"Well, that's certainly welcome news." Lysander grinned, then shook his head. "And to think we've been saving up 5 months for that thing too."
"I just need to make a few account transfers... but it should be done in about an hour. Got a computer?"
"Yeah. There's one upstairs." Kenja replied.
"Excellent. May I use it?"
"Go ahead." Lysander tossed in. "I'll show you the way." He tossed his unfinished food into the garbage and got up, leading Brad to the room.
"So... this is the computer room?" Brad looked around the second room, which was just as Spartan as the guest room. The only remarkable feature was the desk, and the computer, which looked like the latest model. The desk was just a plain wooden one, and sat forlornly in the middle of the room.
"Yeah. This would be it." Lysander answered from behind him. "Feel free to use it, I'll be downstairs, I'm still hungry. Oh." He turned around and wrote something out on a piece of paper from the notepad on the desk. "Here's my account information. You'll need it."
"Got it." Brad sat down and turned the computer on after a few minutes of looking for the power switch. I wish he at least told me how to turn the damn thing on... now let's see what they got on this thing... Hmmmm... Internet explorer 102.5 huh? Dated, but still good. Brad opened up a few windows and started typing. Now to make a few charitable donations...
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Lysander walked up to the computer room after Brad called him. "Yeah man, what's going on? Did you do the-- HOLY SHIT!" Lysander's eyes bugged out when he saw his new account balance. "Wow! With that money we can repair Flamestreak for sure!"
"Indeed, and maybe you can get some other stuff for your place too, it's kind of bare."
"Yeah, we could sure use some extra carpeting. That floor can get really cold in the winter." Lysander admitted. "But seriously, is there a catch for this or something? I mean, I know you're my friend and all, but friends don't usually give other friends over 2 million credits unless they want something in return."
"Well... there is something I'd like..." Brad began tenativley. "I'd like it if I could move in with you guys."
"I suppose that could be arranged. But I'm not going to have an easy time of it. Kenja won't mind, but about Faye? She's not going to like it very much."
"I figured. But could you let me? It's really lonely at my house."
"Yeah, sure. It'd be rude not to repay you somehow anyways. Guess I'd better go break the news to them." Lysander walked off downstairs, leaving Brad to wait, the other man being understandably nervous. A few loud shouts and a crash from a distance didn't help him get settled. Lysander came back about 10 minutes later, looking somewhat worse for the wear. Several large bruises had appeared on his face, and there were several scratches on his arms.
"Well, that settles it, you're moving in as soon as possible."
"Uhhhh... Lysander.... you didn't have to go through all that trouble for me."
"Nah, but I did anyways. After all, what are friends for?"
Notes: Sorry for the long time between updating. Had major writer's block, so I decided to take a break from writing. But I'm back! And hopefully now I'll be able to update once a week at least. I know exactly where I'm going with this. Getting there is the only hard part. We all drop the ball sometimes, but for me it's time to get it rolling once again. And yes, GMA 4 will be coming sometime in the future.
To the Reader:
Duo: I don't think I'm going to put anything else from Evangelion in here. But I AM going to plan/write an AC/Eva crossover. Just gotta get some ideas down. I've already got something going, but it might be a while before you see any results.
Anyone Else: Sorry, forgot who else reviewed between ch. 11 and this one. Don't worry, I'll make sure to take your names down this time! >>