Spacebar Second Stage

by Jemu Nekketsu

Episode 8: Nothing Goes, Here

DISCLAIMER: I don't own any of the anime or manga or game or movie characters and copyrights making an appearance in this work.

VENGEANCE must be had.

Evang stirred, trapped in the netherworld between life and undeath. It could be that he was more alive than dead. Alive enough to discern that his will, his soul, his consciousness was somehow disjoint as of now from his body. Awareness of time also bode well for him - it meant he wasn't dead yet. He had the niggling sensation that when he came back into the land of the living, he'd wished he hadn't.

A SERIES of piercing beeps alerted everyone in the Main Lounge that something was up with the patient. Then the noise died, leaving the occupants filled with questions, and not a small bit of dread.

"BOS?" Jemu asked the AI-cum-robot, now in Mobile Autodoc mode. His question to the electronic entity rhymed with the word 'loss.' He prayed it wasn't so.

"Vital signs still the same. The body is alive, but it appears-" the robot cut off, as if unable to select the appropriate words from its massive vocabulary. "Ms. Fujieda?" the robot asked in what passed for its pleading tone.

Fuijeda Ayame cleared her throat. "The Ryoshi Disturbance Detector confirms it. The soul is still in the body, but seems unwilling to take its proper place, so to speak."

"Fuck," Ryoji Kaji spat out, "All this soul-separation shit smells too much like one of Gendo's twisted projects." He patted his pockets for a cigarette, but finding none, shrugged and stared at the unconscious form lying in the Autodoc.

Jemu toyed with the idea of asking Dr. Ikari's advice on this matter. It couldn't hurt, he reasoned, since I'm not allowing him to set foot here, and if he waves me off, then to hell with it. He walked over to a communications console, similar to one visible in starships, and put a call to Gendo. It connected on the first ring.

"This is the NERV HQ. State your business, please," Maya Ibuki answered into the mouthpiece of her headset, Hyuuga and Aoba looking on with interest.

"Oh, Ibuki-san. I need to speak with a resident body-soul duality expert right now, if one is available. This is Jemu-san from the Spacebar."

"Oh, the pervert that made Akagi-sempai have the hots for that blonde Martian know-it-all just so he can watch two women go at it, right?"

"... Can you just put Dr. Ikari on the line, please, since I get the feeling you're not inlcined to have Dr. Akagi speak to me?"

"Sorry, but the commander is out and won't be back for three days," Maya replied smugly.

"Four," Aoba butted in.

"Sorry, make that four days," Maya replied with even more smugness.

"Ah. Are you at liberty to divulge where he disappeared to, then?"

"He went to the mountains for a camping trip with the First, Second, and Third Children in tow."

"... I see. Thank you, you've been most helpful."

OBSESSION is useful. Obsession is fine. Obsession is necessary when compasion undermines.

"Well?" Kaji asked. "What happens now?"

"Putting him in the Radichavel in his current state will be making it sure that his soul doesn't ever come back, so that's definitely out of the question," Jemu thought aloud.

"Besides, what will that accomplish, anyway?" Shiratori Tsukumo asked. "Rather, what will that hope to accomplish?"

"We need to communicate with his soul somehow," Ayame mused. "Any ideas?"

"That won't be necessary," a quiet voice replied. As one, they all turned.

"Evang?"

"Yeah."

"But the machines-"

"I don't understand it myself."

Jemu walked over to the side of the Autodoc, watching as straps were unfastened and tubes gently withdrawn. He put a hand out, and pulled Evang to his feet.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome. So, how do you feel, o clone of mine?"

"Call me a clone one more time and you'll find out."

"For clones, you sure don't look anywhere close to each other," Daigouji Gai observed.

"That's easy. I was experimenting on Pogi Potions, using myself as the guinea pig. This is why I'm more handsome than him."

A chorus of "Ewwwww!", "Thick!!!", and "The nerve!" greeted this pronouncement. Then Jemu brought out the mugs, tapped a keg, and the party began.

ALCOHOL never sat that well with him, Evang reflected. He bid the Three Gunned Men, Jemu, Ayame, and even Sada-chan good night, and teleported to his den.

Once there, he settled in his chair and reached into the folds of his cloak, taking out his grimoire and spreading it in his lap, he began to read intently. He was unaware of the time that passed; when he finally closed the ancient tome with a snap and hid it once more in his cloak, the fire in the hearth had burned out.

He closed his eyes in the darkness, granting his tired eyes some rest. His head swam, something that always happened when he was memorizing spells. He was glad for this, for it meant the memory of the pattern of the magic was lodged firmly in his brain.

He stood up, then snapped his fingers. A large ball of flame came into existence in front of him, which he split into four. Setting one to hover over his head, two on the level of either shoulder, and one in front of his feet, he began to putter around, looking for spell components here and there.

"One of these days, I'm gonna organize my stuff," Evang thought, "Or hire somebody to do it for me. Maybe some gnomes or elves, but no more imps." Imps were unreliable as hell, getting your problem solved and making bigger problems of themselves in the process. And they were very hard to get rid of.

Not unlike a certain demoness, a small voice in his head said. He paused. He wasn't able to hold both the Word of Recall spell and the Binding Grasp spell in his mind, fresh out of limbo as he was. He settled instead for the Binding Grasp.

It meant that now, he had to go through the hassle of tracking Sariko the old-fashioned way. He smiled. It had been quite a while since he used his summoning skills, being an alchemist for the past few episodes. Yes, it was time to see if he still had what it takes to be a Channeler-Conjurer.

"I'll need iron and salt, then a snack," Evang said. The snack was easy - teleport to the Spacebar kitchen, get a leg of venison from the freezer, then return. As for iron and salt, he always kept some in the pouch in his belt.

He walked to a pedestal where Arataka, the Shinguji ancestral sword, lay sheathed. The pedestal was made of white marble - a more potent cleansing stone could not be found, save for white jade. He scraped a fingernail across the pedestal's top, and found that it had the consistency of packed talc. It was good news - it meant that whatever evil spirit that was around the sword which enabled Sakura to perform outlandish Super Robot sword final attacks was now gone, sealed inside the marble, until the pedestal was split open.

He took the sheath and tied it to his belt. It never hurt to take precautions like a holy sword when one was up to business like his. Now, to head over to the kitchen. He prayed there was still some roast chicken left, and maybe some macaroni...

"HEY there."

Evang glanced up as he entered the Main Lounge, the tip of the sheathed sword scraping against the wall. He adjusted the thing. "Couldn't sleep, brother?"

"No. I mean, I could, but for my own sake I'm not."

"You're not making any sense, Jemu."

"Well, see, if I closed my eyes and fell asleep, Sada-chan might sneak into my pants unawares and have her wicked way with me."

"And that's bad because...?"

"She has this weird powerful black hole-"

"Black... hole?"

"Yeah, between her legs, it just sucks out a mere mortal's will and consciousness binds it to her own. Talk about taking the phrase 'sleeping her way to the top' to the extreme."

"At least you get good sex for it."

"Good sex? Just one second in, one second clamped around you, BOOM! Goodbye, free will and individuality."

"... I take it you've been subject to her sort of psychic vampirism, huh? How come you're not a gibbering old coot?"

"Come on. Neither of us is a mere mortal, having been killed fighting an overgrown imp and later resurrected, only to be beaten up by Ohgami Ichiro's international girl buffet."

"But if you don't lose your will, why are you still not taking advantage of Sada-chan's attempts to dominate you?"

"I'd rather have my life force drain away naturally when I reach 60 and above, not before and not specially due to excessive sex."

"A real demon in the sack, huh?"

Jemu groaned at the bad pun. "Say, I wanna ask you something."

"Shoot."

"There was this time Sada-chan and I had this orgasmathon, and we were tuckered out. Then I felt a searing heat all over me, forcing a painful erection on me, leaving me no choice but to give it to Sada-chan in her weary state. I felt something was wrong on your end. Was there?"

"Our psychic connection probably kicked in exactly when Sariko had me this close," Evang held up 2 fingers, "To blowing it all, then she up and takes little bite-bites out of my hide and sucking blood from my wounds."

Jemu winced in sympathy. "You were conscious all the while." It was not a question.

"Yeah, praying that she'd go overboard and take enough blood to force me to respawn. She didn't, though."

"Which was how I found you. You were watering the place with your LCL-like fluid."

"...Hmm," Evang said nothing just began to free his pouch from his belt. "Anyone else in here besides us?"

"Nah, everyone's nursing hangovers. Why?"

"Good. I can do this, then, without anyone minding."

"Ano, what are you- hey! No littering on my floor!"

Evang ignored Jemu's protests and continued tracing a circle of salt, then a smaller one of cold iron on the floor of the Main Lounge. He did a quick teleport into the pantry, stole a leg of venison from the freezer, and teleported back to the center of the circle, where he faced, dead on, Jemu's TMAR (Techno-Magical Ammo Replenisher)-equipped six-shooter.

"Give me one good reason I shouldn't send you into remission again," Jemu drawled out, cocking the hammer.

"It's not an imp this time!"

"Yeah, sure." Jemu's eyes fell on the leg of meat. "And I suppose you're hoisting a midnight snack over your shoulder?"

"This? Oh, it's not for me, it's for the winter wolf I was planning to conjure. Figured he might be in the middle of hunting, and I don't want him to get too hungry to be of any use."

Silence. Then everything happened at once. Jemu fired, and Evang teleported, leaving the meat to drop into the center of the circle. Jemu brought out his Q2 blaster and started doing some double-barreled shooting, his shots marking out Evang's evasive flight pattern. "Hey, man, what's the bgig idea?" Evang cried out, swatting a slug away and cursing at the pain.

"I still remember the last time you summoned something. We ended up filling two episodes beacuse of you." Jemu continued his barrage of bullets and blaster fire, sending any insurance ladies watching, if any, into cardiac arrest.

Evang noticed it too - the insurance, not the ladies, as if there were any around (Narrator snickers). He decided to stop the gratuitous gunplay with an extravagant magic show. "Sol Flame!" Evang cried out, striking the floor with his fist. A wave of red sparks surged its way toward Jemu, rising to about waist high.

Jemu leapt over it, lying flat on his stomach in mid-air ala Matrix or Max Payne, minus the the cheesy SFX. Oh, wait, let's throw them in as well. So for a scant few seconds, the flame wave roiling forward in slow motion, and Jemu was flying...

Straight into Evang's uppercut. This was no mere uppercut, mind you. Evang's clenched fist drove a small ball of concentrated flame chikara which clipped Jemu's chin and changed his flight angle to 90 degrees. Hitting a warm body, the ball stopped and hung in mid-air. Evang spiked it with the knuckles of his other fist, shouting "Tyrant Flame!," and the ball transformed into a huge maelstrom of fire, just as Jemu was coming down. You can guess what happened next.

"Dammit," Evang cursed, "I think I overdid the firestorm bit at the end. Maybe I better summon that winter wolf, and fast." He pulled out his grimoire and sped to a page he had marked between transitions, turning his back on a Jemu rollimg on the ground, and chanted as fast and as precise that he could under the circumstances. Light began to gather in the circle as he chanted, coalescing into a sphere the size of a basketball, which burst into a flash the moment he stopped.

A low, menacing growl informed him that his conjuration was a success. Even Jemu stopped rolling for a while, standing up and taking a gander at the heavy canine form, before rolling in agony again. Blinking, Evang studied the animal, and judged from its eyes why it was so pissed off. "Of course," he thought, "It's probably ticked at the flaming thing in front of it, and I wonder if he'll do anything about it."

As if reading his thoughts, the wolf inhaled, causing its silver white-furred flanks to expand, and breathed out a cone of cold that dropped the ambient temperature in the Main Lounge close to the meat locker's, causing BOS to take note.

The effect on Jemu was immediate. He went from rolling in agony from the flames to shivering from frozen sweat and body fluids. Meanwhile, Evang began to read aloud from the grimoire. "Canis antarcticus arctis. Weighing in at around 200 lbs. for an adult of either gender, except for pregnant females. Diet: carnivorous, occasional berries. Covered in smooth fur, comes in shades of white, silver, or gray for older specimens- yeah, tell me something I don't know," Evang smirked, glancing at the animal. It was less agitated now, probably because of the temperature drop and loss of flame in its peripheral vision, its glacial blue eyes staring back at him.

"I say, your taste in conjuring specimens seems to be improving, Master Evang," a voice piped up.

"Thanks, BOS"

"I hate dogs," Jemu grumbled, seemingly unharmed except for sooty skin and frost-covered clothing. "I got swarmed by a pack of them once when I was younger, and one of them tried to get a piece of my vertebral column. It happened near a church. That's why I don't trust dogs and churches anymore."

He turned to Evang and pointed at the ancient tome. "What else can you tell us about your icy mutt?"

A growl came from the winter wolf, and it leaped for Jemu. Fortunately, the wards were intact, and Jemu laughed as 200 pounds of heavy animal got bounced every which way like a pingpong ball. "Nyeah, nyeah, nye, nyeah, nyeah!" he taunted it, sticking out his tongue for good measure.

"It says here that winter wolves are psionically gifted. There have been some claims that they can read thoughts, or sense emotions around them, aiding them greatly in their hunt. This perhaps explains why they can take on a herd of mammoths or against a bull mammoth either single-handedly or as a pack with equal ease."

"Really? Alright," Jemu walked closer to the captive wolf, making sure he had its attention. "Tell me what I'm thinking."

In a flash, the wolf leaped again, and once more, the wards did their dirty job. Evang asked, "What did you think of that pissed him off so? He sure as heck remembers the barrier!"

"I visualized a litter of pups, everyone looking just like a chibi version of this critter, suckling from it."

BOS reversed the gravity inside the circle, and verified the wolf's gender. "It's a guy."

Jemu looked. "No shit, no wonder it got pissed." He laughed. For his part, the wolf didn't look to pleased at floating in mid-air.

"This is not good. According to The Book, winter wolves are very intelligent and no one has ever reported success in taming one or breeding out its savage tendencies."

"The trainers are probably amateurs. If they're supposed to be very smart, they should then be convinced ASAP that their continued existence is entirely up to their obedience," Jemu stated.

"Yes, but if they are smart, they'll have to be the ones to prove it to themselves that what you said is true," BOS pointed out.

"I wonder if winter wolves have pride," Evang thought out loud. "I wouldn't want to have to use Binding Grasp on him, just to make use of his tracking abilities, but if he doesn't cooperate, I might not have a choice."

"Tracking? What's going on here?" Jemu wanted to know, and so did BOS So, Evang spent the rest of the night filling them out on his plans, the winter wolf's eyes never leaving them.

IN the end, they decided that it was better for everyone concerned to use Binding Grasp on the animal.

"It's not like you have to pay cumulative upkeep for the damn thing," Jemu remarked, "and you can repeat the spell once you recover enough energy."

"I won't be doing any mass unsummoning spells soon, though," Evang replied, stroking the back of the wolf's neck, above the collar that wasn't there before.

"I'm afraid I won't be of much help to you in either of my forms," BOS apologized. "I'm too slow in one, and I can't do much in the other."

"That's okay. It's why I summoned big, cool, and furry here. I'll be hunting witches the way they did in the old days."

"Sounds interesting. Mind if I tag along?"

"Sorry, Jemu, but someone has to maintain a semblance of normalcy here and tend the bar."

"Oh. Well," Jemu raised his glass of rootbeer, "May your hunt be a successful one."

"Thanks."

Checking to make sure that the Oriental blade was loose and ready, Evang strode through the doors of the Main Lounge, the wolf loping negligently at his heels.

THE vastness of the Spacebar's interior was stunning. Even for him, who was born here, the gleaming expanse of steel that stretched out as far as the eye could see was mind-boggling. It reminded him of pictures and films he'd seen deserts in.

Did this mean that the familiar settings of the Main Lounge, the Hangar, the Wreck Room, etc., were mere pockets in this vastness? How much of the interior had they, Jemu and BOS and himself, actually plumbed?

Beside him, the wolf whined. He felt through the Binding Grasp that it was already missing its home, that anything 'real' was better than all this whiteness that was not snow.

"Soon, my friend. It was after all, your excellent senses that brought us here. The sooner we find our prey, the sooner you can return."

The wolf huffed, then got to its feet. It broke into a trot, which Evang matched promptly. They ran for what seemed like hours, but in reality was just minutes, coming to a stop before...

"An unregistered OAHD gate? BOS?"

"Yeah?"

"You still got a trace on me."

"Yep. Why?"

"Mark these coordinates. There's an OAHD gate right in front of me, and from what I can make out of the panel it's been recently used."

"That's funny."

"What?"

"I'm not getting any energy readings from your coordinates, Evang. Be careful."

Bending down to grasp the wolf's collar, man and beast hurled themselves through the curtain of light.

THEY found themselves falling through snow-dusted air, the white ground rushing up to meet them at blinding speed. Pulling the wolf close, Evang muttered under his breath, "Feather Fall."

Immediately, their descent slowed, keeping in pace with the snowflakes around them. He became very aware of the fact that he wasn't garbed for alpine conditions, unlike his four-legged companion. He shivered and prayed for a faster, although still safe, rate of descent.

Looking around, he spotted a log cabin nestled in a grove. He hoped it was abandoned, or at the least had a non-hostile occupant inside. His feet hit the ground then, sinking in the slush. The wolf landed on all fours and stayed on top, baring his teeth at him as if to say, "Haha, you suck."

Pull me out of this mess, he commanded the wolf through the magical link. He reached out an arm, and the animal bit down on it, then started to pull. It hurt like crazy, but worse still, they weren't going anywhere. Aloud, he spoke to the wolf, "I'm going to send you running to find your dinner, then release you from bondage. Now, go."

The winter wolf went away, sniffing for scent of prey. It disappeared in the woods nearby, and as soon as it was out of sight, Evang cancelled the enchantment. He waited for the backflow of magical energy that came with it, then channeled.

A wall of fire a meter wide and as tall as his chest sprang into existence vaporizing the snow in front of him. He headed toward the cabin then, checking the Arataka every so often on his trek. It wasn't a long walk, only made difficult by the mud. He supposed he could clear a path through the snow and bake the ground underneath using a superheated blast of air, but he hadn't tried that yet and might blow up the cabin if he made a mistake. Besides, he might not have enough energy to do that AND walk to the cabin.

He wasn't willing to find out now, so he stuck to his burning snowplow and his legs, cursing the mud as he slogged through it. When he reached the door, he realized that things looked very different when seen from the air, and it was easy to misjudge distance. Nearing the end of his rope, he raised his fist and knocked on the door.

"Come in," a voice answered from inside.

The voice didn't sound like its owner would want to gut him, so Evang decided to do as it said and opened the door, closing it just as quickly. He did a quick survey of the interior. The furnishings were simple. Hanging over the fire in the fireplace was a kettle, with something getting cooked inside.

There was no sign of his host. He had assumed that the owner of the voice was a he, since he didn't think women would welcome strangers who appeared out of nowhere in the midst of heavy snowfall.

"Hallo?" he called out.

"I'll be with you in a minute. Feel free to use the fire, as long as you warn me if the stew is burning."

A woman, he thought darkly. The OAHD portal had dropped him in the middle of nowhere where it was snowing. He had no idea of time, of what looked proper and what didn't belong inside the cabin. He looked at his clothes and grimaced. Not only did it look out of place anywhere, it also wasn't enough to keep him dry in the snow. Good thing he had red mana running through him.

"You aren't planning to take advantage of little old me, are you? I mean, a woman alone in a mountain cabin with heavy snow outside."

He better answer, he thought, just to allay her fears. "No ma'am. I'm kind of lost actually. Uh, can you tell me what the date is today?"

"Is it that important?"

"Well, yes."

"Oh. Today's the third of January. What were you up in the mountains for, when you should be home with your loved ones?"

"There's this little thing I have to give to someone, and I got caught up in a lot of stuff and was only able to get around now." This wasn't exactly a lie. He had been stuck in an Autodoc for a while, and he had a lot in store for the person who sent him there in the first place. And if she insisted in seeing what thing, well, he'd show her the Arataka in its sheath. "Um. This may sound odd, but what year is it now?"

"If you follow the Gregorian calendar, it's 1926."

Prickles of alarm raced through his spine. Still, he kept the questions going. "My brain must have frozen a while back. The soup smells done, though. What is this mountain, anyway, and where are we?"

"My, my. So many questions. We're somewhere in the Daisetsuzan mountain range, unless we've been magically transported to another place."

Daisetsuzan Mountains? The unregistered OAHD led to the Japanese mountain range where a legendary martial arts maneuver was supposed to have been developed? Evang felt his hairs rise. His hostess seemed to be taking her time. Deciding that it never hurts to have more information than he could throw a goblin at, he chanted a simple divination spell, then took another look at the room.

It appeared the same, until he looked at the fireplace. Glowing footprints led from the front of the fire to the next room. His heartbeat went up a notch. The cauldron looked normal, but the long-handled spoon hanging nearby was glowing as well. And the flames. The flames were not fire, but the eerie, ghostly luminesence that made up the footprints and outlined the spoon.

Before he even had time to think of loosening the sword at his waist, a voice behind him asked, "Seen enough?"

BACK at the Main Lounge, Jemu was cleaning the place, trying not to worry about his biological backup. Then he realized that if the place got any cleaner, he'd be suspected of being obsessive-compulsive. Needing something to take his mind off what might have happened, he called out, "BOS, I'm going to putter around in the Hangar for a while. You're in charge while I'm gone, okay?"

"Sure."

Stepping through the Quickdoor(TM), Jemu stopped and closed his eyes, savoring the ambiance of a mad scientist's armory and letting his creative juices flow. Variable fighters. The idea was burning brightly in his mind. He took a quick glance at the bastardized Geshpenst standing in the midst of a boarding/maintenance scaffold. In event of a launch, the network of platforms, stairs and ladders would either return to the floor or ceiling, or perhaps both. He didn't take note of such details in an emergency.

The black humanoid unit stood glinting under the lights, as if to underscore the fact that Jemu didn't have any experience in making transforming units.

"Wrong. There's the Better/Beta Robo, the transforming sub in Spacebar Second Stage Episode 6, there's BOS transforming into a medic-robot, the ill-fated Zaga-2 back in Spacebar Adventures, and others," a short, overweight man interjected, wiping his glasses with the hem of his shirt and putting them back on.

The Narrator was surprised. "Who the fuck are you!?"

The newcomer turned around, revealing three words printed on the back of his shirt: "The Spacebar Otaku."

The Narrator gasped, then began to do homage to the man. "We're not worthy!"

"THE narration's whacked. Guess we better do without it, ne, BOS?"

"More like it's not there at all. It happens rarely, but it's very annoying when it does. Say, you aren't cooking up another weird mech in there, are you?"

"You think I'd be stupid enough to admit it?"

"I can see everything that happens on this barge, y'know. I've been noticing energy spikes from the hangar area that correspond to welding laser bursts. The way the power cranes have been moving tell me that they've been just hopping around at anywhere between one to ten meters, tops."

"Then I don't have to tell you anything, right? Why don't you instead see to getting the narration back?"

"I don't know, doing a story all in dialog might be interesting."

"It won't be, because scene transitions will be difficult, and sex scenes near damn impossible."

"..."

"See that? We don't know who made that ellipsis. It could have been someone who had just infiltrated the Hangar area to plant explosives again on the suits inside."

"We're not even sure who's talking now!"

"See? We need narration! C'mon, BOS, let's get back the narrator's voice!"

"You make us sound like retrieval agents."

"I might consider it as an alternate line of work when I'm tired of trying to protect the world from devastation."

[INSERT COMMERCIAL HERE.]

COMMERCIALS are magic. They allow weird, wonderful stuff to happen in the short span of time given to them. In many cases, they're worse than Martian Successors on steroids, stretching out for what seems to be an eternity across your screen when in truth they're barely a minute long.

Consider the return of narration. It seems that during the commercial break, Jemu and BOS somehow righted things and restored omnipotent third person point of view in this work. It appears that the first mission of the Invisible Returner Team, aka Back Getters, was a success.

But enough about them for now. It was mentioned very early in the story that good old Gendo had taken the first three Children out on a camping trip. Let's have a look at them now.

"Shinji?"

"H- hai?"

Gendo straightened from the act of picking up another piece of firewood and adjusted his glasses with his now less-than-clean gloves. "I will ask you some question, and I want you to answer as truthfully as possible." There was no asking if it was in his ability to do so, just a command.

"What is it, Com- father?" The last word sounded unnatural to Shinji's ears, though it came from his own lips.

"When you look at Rei, do you still find her hot? Do you still get those primitive instincts to wipe that serene look on her face by ripping her clothes off, throwing her to the ground, and having mad, passionate, unprotected sex with her?"

Gendo's question caught Shinji totally off guard, so much that he dropped the bundle he was carrying. A rather heavy piece of firewood caught one of his booted feet, the sudden pain bringing him back into reality. "F-father!"

"Answer the question!"

"I find her attractive, father, not hot, and as for those urges-"

"Don't give me that crap boy! I know you still think of her as a hot chick! How else would you explain that bulge in your pants when you dropped that bundle of kindling?"

Shinji didn't say anything, just raised his arm and pointed at something ahead of them. Gendo followed with his gaze. Below them, rising up from the stream that ran along their campsite, was a bare naked Asuka. She was making her way toward one of the boulders that jutted out from the streambed, managing to get a good perch on it despite the moss growing on it and her slick body. Once she had seated herself comfortably, she devoted her entire attention to wringing out as much water out of her auburn hair as best as she could manage.

Gendo looked at his son, only to find him on his belly and starting to crawl through the brush with the confident movements of a professional peeping Tom, trying to get a better look. His son was growing up in unexpected directions. Perhaps it was this unpredictability that had would save them when the time came. Or pehaps it would be the death of them all.

IT was a blur of red eye, white hair, sharp claws and teeth. No, Evang was not fighting Inu-Yasha.

But it felt damn close, he thought. The spacious interior of the wood cabin ironically prevented him from using Fire Crash, his only Massive Attack Power (abbreviated as MAP) attack - if he used it, both of them would probably die, Sariko from the intense heat and blast, Evang from sudden loss of body heat while in below zero temperature and the thin mountain air.

That left full defense as his only viable option for now. He didn't like it, and liked even less the fact that the floor was not packed earth but wood as well. Had he been standing on turf, his defense would have been offense as well. Still, there might be a chance yet.

Sariko was furious. How had he managed to track her down? She had taken random turns and twists inside the Spacebar, too many for her too keep count, yet he was still here! And she didn't miss the implication in the reason for his being here in the mountains. A little something for someone, indeed. The moment he stepped over threshold, she had sensed he was carrying something very anathema to her around his waist. Relentless, she kept up her barrage, knowing that if she let him get even the smallest opening for an attack, she would be lost.

He saw the gleam in her eyes as he slowly gave way, backing himself up step by careful step toward the fireplace. He knew that gleam well, had experienced it enough times to know it for what it was. The thrill of conjuring and hurling a Lava Axe when all he had to do was break the ground to release a Steam Blast. Impending victory, that's what it was. Then again, there had been times when he had seen defeat twist and break the jaws of victory, and it had been HIS jaws at those times. "This is going to be very hard for Sariko to live down, if I pull it off," Evang thought.

He backed up the last feet that put him within arm's reach of the stone chimney. The makers of the cabin must have built it around the fireplace, as there were no gaps between stone and wood to let the drafts in. He felt the heat from the ghost flames creep through his arms, covered now with only tatters, scratch marks, and some blood. His shirt might as well have been non-existent, crisscrossed with slash marks from some of Sariko's early wild swings. He had blocked the claws, losing his sleeves in the process, but still his chest burned.

The ghost flames' heat didn't strengthen him, quite the opposite in fact. It sapped his strength, turning his arms into lead and his legs into jelly. If that happened, and if he gave way, his head would end up in the stew pot. Not exactly appetizing, but hey, no one's making mage soup out of me yet, Evang resolved. He reached out an arm behind him, as if to lean against the chimney, his hands coming into contact with stone.

Sariko saw that he needed the support of the fireplace to remain upright, and decided to deliver the coup de grace. She leaped, pushed against the ceiling, and went into a full pounce, her fangs and toe talons extending to three inches, the claws of her hands twice that. He did not dodge, just stared at her rushing form with an unreadable expression on his face.

He felt her claws sink into his shoulders, trying to rip them off, her teeth on his neck, her horrendous talons digging into his upper thighs. He grinned suddenly at her shocked expression - she must have felt like she struck and was stuck to a wax dummy. Knowing he couldn't maintain this stance and secret art for long, he took stock of her position. Another time, another place, this pose would have been somewhat erotic. That would come later, Evang vowed, as he gripped her arms to her sides, took a deep breath and screamed out his attack name to increase its potency.

"SECRET DRAGON DESCENT SPIRAL!"

It was his turn to leap up, pulling Sariko close to minimize damage from her talons while positioning her to avoid getting gelded by her knee. In mid-air, he effected a flip, sending both of them hurtling to the wood floor, headfirst, though her head was a few inches closer to the floor than his.

It didn't take long for them to hit the floor, or rather, for the top of Sariko's head to touch the floor. As soon as it did, a small explosion of flame took place, which drew a cry from Sariko and the singed bottom Evang's pants (he jumped clear as the explosion occured, thus minimizing damage to himself). For some reason, the sheath of the Arataka was unharmed, though it fell to the ground as the sash it was attached to was incinerated.

Quickly, Evang stood up and took stock of the situation. The air throw managed to knock Sariko out cold, and the wooden floor was a good one: it didn't burn, but it smoldered, making damage control relatively simple. Moving with efficiency, he got out of the cabin to scoop some snow and put it over the embers. The explosion had burned through to the earth beneath, and left a circle of destruction four feet in diameter. It took him twelve trips to put the embers out, and by then he was freezing. Still, his work was not yet done. Picking Sariko up, he deposited her in front of the ghost flames, and glared at them.

"Ghost flames are hot only when you don't know them for what they truly are, which could be said of human as well," Evang thought philosophically. He retrieved his cloak, which was hanging by the door safely away from their battle, and after pulling his spellbook from it, put it around his shoulders. Immediately, warmth flooded him, for the book was an old repository of powerful, dangerous spells (mostly involving destruction and energy), and the cloak was made of woven firebeast hair. The cloak was actually a powerful one-shot fire attack waiting to be used, but since he liked the ash and ember colors he decided to treat it better.

After minutes of reading, he found the spell to transmute anything into energy. He wasn't sure how ghost flame would react to getting transmuted, but he was sure he could handle the spell properly, assuming he didn't have to deal with Sariko's attacks, who at the moment was beginning to show signs of coming to. Ghost flame must have a restorative effect on demon kin, Evang theorized.

Taking the Arataka out of its sheath, he made quick work of turning an indecent amount of Sariko's clothes into strips and trussing her up once, twice, and thrice over. No sense fighting her for a second time, not with his arms sore from blocking a thousand slashes. Feeling his pockets for the tracking device / communicator, he froze as he saw what appeared to be smashed circuitry bits all over the place. This was bad, because with no tracking device, BOS would not be able to pinpoint his exact coordinates for a quick teleport. Going back via the way they entered was impossible, there was a blizzard raging outside, and red wizards weren't known for air or water transport spells.

Which was why converting the contents of the fireplace into real flames was important. Evang might be able to stave off hunger, water was no problem, but his cloak and tome could only warm him for so long. There was the teensy-weensy fuel problem to be solved if - when - he succeeded in getting a real fire going, but he reasoned that between the Arataka's edge and his weapon magic, he could fell a tree, cut it up, then take the pieces back inside.

With a last look at Sariko's bound form, he tightened his cloak, pocketed the tome, and went out of the cabin, sword in hand. He hoped he was right about the cloak and book keeping him warm.

"INSANE, that's what the project developers were," Jemu thought as he pored over the schematics and design notes of a variable jet/mobile suit called 'Project Gunmetal.'

"I mean, it takes a whole lot more energy to put myomers and other movement mechanisms in a ready state AND generate a force field than sending a less than 10 meter fighter hurtling at Mach 2, right, Seiya?"

Uribatake Seiya, fondly called Uri-P by everyone on the Nadesico, looked up from another blueprint. "It should."

"So, why does the Havoc Jet not have a force field in flight mode?"

"Probably the same reason why the Battle Engine series don't."

"And that is...?"

"Power to shields is diverted to a huge propulsion system, which is possible only through dubious contortions of the internal connections and structures of the unit."

"They aren't VF Excaliburs, Uri-P."

"Well, it's their problem for not having Transposition Engine technology. Whatever. If you ask my opinion, the enabling and disabling of certain systems dependent on transformation sequences is the product of a lazy mind."

"Whatever do you mean? I think it's creative."

"Creative? Hah!" Seiya spat. "It just shows that they couldn't figure out a way to cram everything into one huge kickass unit."

"I take it you're not a Getter Robo fan, then."

"Not really. Now, those Special Alloy units, now, those are real beauties. Heavy armor, heavy firepower, all in one form. Speed? Who needs speed with all that armor?"

"I'd hardly call the Mazinkaiser a beauty, Uri-P, it's a monster. Besides, every once in a while, even the tough guys need to dodge a Cosmo Nova or Black Hole Cluster thrown at them."

"Hmm. So, you want a transformable? I'm not exactly the person to ask."

"Maybe I should just get a Wing Zero and put a Distortion Block on it. Voila! Super Aestivalis Wing!"

"And what are you going to use to power the Buster Rifles, then?"

"I'll replace one of them with a Double Beam Gatling gun."

"I hope you run into an Aura Battler."

"Then we'll cross swords, and the occasional Machine Cannon. No problem."

"If you want an armored jet, take a Raptor."

There was a flashing light that caught Jemu's attention. A communication had just come in. He pressed the button below the flashing light, and Tsukumo's face appeared in a window. "I was wondering where the Better Machines were," Jemu greeted.

"Well, we thought Kaji could use some sort of practice, so we decided to take a Better Machine, go separate and have a free-for-all."

"I don't like the sound of that. Tell me the Better Machines are still in one piece."

"Oh, they are," Gai butted in, a second window popping up. "Even Kaji's."

"That's good to hear," Jemu replied.

"Despite all the holes and scratches, well, nothing's missing," Kaji assured Jemu.

"That's not reassuring at all!" Turning to Uri-P, he pleaded, "Could you lend me a hand, once we retrieve those three?"

"Sure. Not much to do at home while waiting for dinner to be done, except maybe to molest the missus."

Jemu thought about the brief time he spent as Sada-chan's 'husband.' "I envy you at times, Seiya, sometimes I really do."

"And during the other times?"

"You'd rather not know."

"WHY did she hit me, father?" Shinji asked forlornly. He had not really wanted to, but it seemed natural to do so. He touched his cheek, still bearing the imprint of Asuka's fist. "It's not as if I hadn't seen her naked before."

Gendo looked up from the fish he was supposed to be filleting but ended up dissecting instead. "The mind of man is a mysterious thing," he began, as though speaking from a distance not only of space but also of time, "But that piece of meat is nothing compared to a woman's. And that's a redhead you have mad at you, son, not good. It's a lot of things, but good isn't one of them."

"He's right," a new voice joined them.

"Rei," Gendo said by way of greeting. She looked at him, nodded a gretting of her own, then sat down on the log, beside Shinji. Her next words were addressed to the younger Ikari.

"She didn't object to your seeing her naked."

"She didn't?"

"No, I don't believe so. Surprised at first, perhaps, but that's all."

"So why? Why did she deck me?"

"She probably saw your father emerge from the brush and drew the conclusion that he put you up to it. Peeping at her, then reporting back."

Gendo snorted. "Like I go for precocious girls with red hair."

"Yes, we know it's the eyes you like red." Rei sighed. "It naturally falls on you, Shinji, the task of making sure she sleeps with you again."

"What if I don't wanna?" Shinji replied petulantly. "What if I decided to go after you, or worse, Misato, instead?"

"Son, I've let you get away with a lot of things, including occasionally sleeping with Rei (who could be your mother or your sister for all we know, but somehow we Ikari men seem to brush that aside as no consequence), but I am not allowing you to carry on with Katsuragi-san!" Gendo roared.

Rei silently applauded Gendo's stand, until she found out the reason.

"What if she gets you drunk, and you get her pregnant? Assuming the child escapes Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, it won't escape me! I want the next generation of Children, or my grandchildren, to have hemoglobin flowing in their veins, not Heineken!"

Rei sometimes wished she was a normal human girl, so she could get nerves on her forehead, a twitching eyebrow, and a huge mallet to pound Gendo into the ground with.

EOF