Chapter 15: Feuer und Wasser
NERV Heli-jet, sea of Japan
Misato is looking out the window, at the waters rushing by below her. Low winds make small waves, and small waves make the NERV VTOL seem like it's going even faster.
The 'heli-jet' is essentially a next-generation V22 Osprey, only using state-of-the-art jet turbine technology.
It can float like a helicopter, and can come pretty close to the sound barrier when in transit.
An upscale version that can lift an EVA is currently in the final phases of testing.
The newly promoted Major of NERV looks into the back of the Vertical Takeoff and Landing vehicle, and smiles sadly.
Rei, and not Shinji. Touji and Kensuke, typing furiously on their PDA's, and Hikari Horaki, sullenly looking out the window.
Shinji won't be coming. After almost causing a Third Impact, Unit 01 quietly went back to its old, unassuming self (much like its pilot), and so it was decided that Shinji would remain in Tokyo-3 to guard it from possible Angel attacks.
Misato looks out the front of the VTOL, and sees an array of dots barely destinguishable on the horizon. That must be the Carrier Fleet.
Her mind strays back to the timeless image of Unit 01 taking a giant sponge to the NERV pyramid, cleaning the soot from the windows.
The giant sponge had apparently been arranged by the Central Dogma staff. The 'bridge crew' as Misato liked to think of them (and herself as Kirk...) had apparently contacted a few people, played on the Evangelions's mysterious fame...
After seeing Shinji spend the whole week literally picking up the pieces of his rampage and spending whole afternoons as a glorified construction yard crane, they'd decided he'd earned at least a little fun.
It helped that being in Unit 01 meant that he was in constant communication with his mother. Apparently, the whole 'becoming a god of mankind' thing had destabilized Unit 01 a lot, and Yui had told Shinji that they wouldn't be able to do it again for quite some time, possibly ever. But by taking it slow, and keeping busy, Unit 01 and the mother and son within had, essentially, become a very, very functional whole.
Shinji's synch ration now hovered around 90% at rest, spiking up to beyond 120% when doing things like aiming, pouncing or swinging a Prog knife.
Earlier today, Ritsuko had managed to finally patch Unit 01 into the MAGI, and to Misato's suprise, she got an E-mail from Yui just as they took off toward the Over the Rainbow.
"Dear Major Katsuragi,
Congratulations on your promotion.
First of all, thank you for taking care of my son over the last few months. You and Danny both have my gratitude for... Well..
I will talk to the Commander about his mismanagement of his son, and... And miss Ayanami.
Speaking of the girl who, for all intents and purposes, is my suprise daughter:
I'd like you to take custody of Rei.
Unless you object, I'd like to move her into your apartment building.
And say hello to Asuka for me. Or... better not.
I'd like Shinji and myself on hand when we inform her that I am inside Unit 01.
After all, she's a smart girl... Just like her mother.
Her mother, who in all likelihood is stuck inside Unit 02.
Again, I am telling you this because I'd like Asuka to learn this when she is safe, and can be defended while she works through it. Please don't betray my trust and share this information with the poor girl yet.
At any rate, I hope we will be able to have a proper conversation when the Second Child and her Eva have arrived. For now, we both have other business to attend to.
Best of luck with Soryu,
Kindest regards,
Dr. Yui Ikari."
Misato was very happy to see that Yui Ikari was doing alright... especially considering the... cirucmstances.
Her jaw dropped when she read the line about wanting her to take care of Rei.
Rei can take care of herself very well. But... Maybe she can broaden her horizons? Show her how to party hard as well as work hard?
The thought fades as the Pacific Fleet comes into view. (Music: Little Big Adventure 2: The Empire)
The NERV heli-jet descends and slows down as its thrusters rotate into the vertical position.
She hears the pilot chatter to the fleet's air control in English, and looks out the window. They're flying past the bow of a cruiser, cross over the top of the stern.
She can see the barge holding Unit 02, surrounded by a pack of frigates. And right in the middle, at the core of the formation, past the Evangelion's cradle...
The Over the Rainbow. The UN's one and only attempt to unite the paradigms of the battleship and the aircraft carrier.
It was designed just before Impact as an aircraft carrier that could hold an ocean. A single ship that could field double the fighters of the American Nimitz-class, and also singlehandedly defeat picket fleets.
On some fronts, the gargantuan ship was decried as a waste of resources. Only three were ever supposed to be built, one for the Atlantic, one of the Pacific, and one for the Indian Ocean.
Enormous, self-sustained peacekeeping platforms. Their sheer size, for carrying fighters, meant more volume. More volume meant more buoyancy. And that, in turn, meant thicker armor, and a chance to strap on cruiser gun batteries on all four corners of the giant catamaran-like behemoth. And a 'modern take on battleship weaponry' right in the middle. Captained by Fleet Admiral Gibbs, the Over the Rainbow was the United Nations flagship, having fought in the Pacification wars against both China and the Western American States.
Misato already knew all these things. She'd seen the ship before, and read up about it before the mission.
To hear, or rather, see, the deaf Kensuke constantly type about it on his PDA almost gave her a headache.
Almost. As they descend on the deck, Misato's image flicks to the ramp on the side of the bridge. She sees Asuka, and two adults, looking back at her. The redheaded Pilot was in a yellow sundress.
She can't recognize the skinny young woman with an incredibly long ponytail on her right... so that must be Danny's sister/illicitly cloned miscellaneous sibling Dani.
Learning of Dani, and how her situation compared to Rei actually made flippant badass Misato and flippant badass Danny hug in empathy for the first, and, they promised, last time...
The guy to Asuka's left, she doesn't recognize either. She squints to get a better look. He looks a bit like Kaji... But, heh, according to her lustful perceptions, everyone looks like Kaji lately, Misato snarks to herself.
The heli-jet lands on the deck of the poetically named Over the Rainbow, and the back ramp opens up. Misato looks into the back to make sure the kids are disembarking, and crosses gazes with Hikari Horaki.
...Hrrrm. Uncomfortable...
Young Hikari is Shinji's class representative. According to Danny, she has a crush, or something more than a crush, on Touji. Who Danny deafened while saving his life.
Danny, who, last time Misato checked, was STILL walking around with an IV in his arm a week after his suicidal stunt. At least he woke up from his coma within a day or so.
But yeah... He saved Shinji's friends... But both of them ended up having their eardrums destroyed in the process. The doctors don't know if they'll be getting their hearing back anytime soon. And now Hikari Horaki is trying to teach them sign language...
And she must hate Misato for... for not preventing it. For not keeping the baka teens safe.
A clipped sigh, and Major Misato Katsuragi steps out onto the aircraft carrier's deck. Work to do.
UN Flagship Carrier Over the Rainbow, sea of Japan
On the portside stairwell, Danielle Fenton furrows her brow at the gaggle of kids stepping out of the heli-jet. "Did Katsuragi have to make it a field trip?" She laments to the scruffy secret agent standing next to her.
Ryoji Kaji shrugs. "Well, you said it yourself this morning: She probably feels guilty over almost getting Tracksuit and Camera over there killed."
The SEELE agent points toward the silently squealing boy, rapturously filming every aspect of the aircraft carrier...
And the kid wearing the school tracksuit, who seems to be occupied staring lovingly into the eyes of a girl with long, braided hair.
"Hm, puppy love, interesting..." Dani whispers to Kaji, who grins back.
"I'll be sad to miss it, but, like I've explained..." Kaji takes a reluctant step backward and lets go of the railing, making for the Over The Rainbow's boat hold.
He'd made it abundantly clear to Dani that there was no way he'd be staying on the same boat as his explosive ex, Misato. He didn't have the nerve to face her.
And Kaji had his little black suitcase full of incriminating files that he had to protect from prying eyes.
He was gathering dirt on SEELE, trying to figure out just how they ticked. It was his hobby.
A very suicidal hobby. But Dani, who self-identified as a superhero, could only grin in approval when he'd told her why he was leaving as soon as he knew Asuka was in good hands.
Nobody else knew, and Discount James Bond wanted to keep it that way, so Dani kept her mouth shut for now.
So with a shallow nod of confirmation from Dani, Kaji slinks off into the shadows...
Lying to beautiful women had always come easy to Kaji, but the handsome operative didn't betray Dani's trust lightly. In Kaji's black suitcase there was indeed a bundle of documents on SEELE.
But there was also the embryonic remnant of ADAM, the First Angel, catalyst for Second Impact.
The entity responsible for the death of Misato's father and half the world's population with him.
If Katsuragi found him lugging it around, he'd almost certainly get a bullet through the brain. But this is how it has to be... Kaji rationalizes to himself. Taking ADAM to Tokyo-3 would be his way into the good graces of Ikari and NERV-Japan. One step closer to the truth.
Heli Pad 2 - Rei
Rei's head swivels to take in the flight deck as she steps out of the heli-jet, the last of the small group to do so. On the journey from Tokyo-3 to the Pacific Fleet she'd partaken in learning the first basics of sign language alongside young Ikari's friends and Class Representative Horaki.
The hearing damage the two young men had accumulated in their foolhardy quest to capture video footage and distribute it - for no other reason than to elevate her mood, and Shinji's... Shinji, who had saved her life - was thankfully not entirely permanent. It would however take several years to mend, and several surgical procedures.
In the meantime, Touji Suzuhara and the ever-spirited and engaging Kensuke Aida had lost their hearing... but gained Ayanami's gratitude. A fact that would become apparent over the next few moments.
A girl with mixed Japanese-Caucasian features complexion in a sunflower yellow sundress - summer cut - with healthy orange-red hair and a gleeful if vicious smirk walks... no, - marches - passionately toward the small group. The Second Child: Asuka Langley Soryu.
"Ah, Asuka!" Misato greets cheerfully. She had been the girl's guardian for a few years during her assignment to NERV-Berlin. This was just after Asuka's mother lost her mind in a contact experiment, very similar to what killed Shinji's mother... The smile dropped off Misato's face as she remembered Yui's message.
Asuka seemed oblivious.
"So, which one of you is the pilot of the famous Unit Zero? Your close-range takedown of the Fourth Angel, despite your Evangelion's inadequacy was..." - Asuka glances warily up to Dani, still looking down from the railing, and recieves a warm, toothy smile and a big thumbs-up, a clear sign to proceed - "Was very impressive." Asuka breathes out. This whole 'being nice' thing wass hard... And god didn't that sound pathetic. It wasn't like Asuka was bullshitting, she'd been completely honest in expressing her suprise and admiration of the First Child Ayanami Rei.
But being flattering came hard to Asuka. She had the almost irresistable urge to express her... well, dominance, for lack of a better word. But back in Berlin, on the day they boarded the Over the Rainbow, Dani had taken her aside and told her something, 'the greatest wisdom of western philosophy'. The golden rule: Treat others the way you want to be treated. If you want to get candy, you should give others candy. Well, okay, Dani had used a vile, disgusting American turn of phrase as an example, And young, impressionable teenaged Asuka was very disgusted with her new older friend...
But the golden rule was a good concept. It'd been bouncing around in her head and affecting her actions as they sailed across the world over these last few weeks. And on this occasion, Asuka figured that if she wanted her well-deserved accolades, she aught to give credit where it was due as well.
Asuka had been told that the pilot of Unit Zero would be coming to the Over the Rainbow as a welcoming party of sorts. As well as a few bakas from her school or something. Asuka had kind of stopped listening after hearing Ayanami Rei would be joining her.
But Asuka isn't sure which of the two girls exiting the VTOL is the Eva pilot. The smitten-looking girl with the long dark hair looks meaningfully away toward the Heli-Jet, just as the other girl pokes her head out of the vehicle.
Baby-blue hair, bob cut, very stern looking. Jackpot.
Asuka curtsies and puts on her best mask of a public speaking smile. "Ayanami Rei, First Child?" The redhead asks expectantly.
Rei bows her head in traditional Japanese fashion. "And you are the Second Child, Asuka Langley Sorhyu, from Germany?" she asks back.
"Yup, that's me!" Asuka answers with a grin.
Before Rei can ask after Unit 02 or the monochrome-dressed woman with the very long black ponytail coming down the corrugated metal steps, the NERV Heli-jet takes off from the heli-pad.
The hem of Asuka's sundress flutters upward into the tremendous backdraft, and Touji, Kensuke and Kensuke's camera get an eyeful of Asuka's undergarments. And, well, Hikari and Ayanami also got to see her underpants, but, but that wasn't a blow to Asuka's glass pride in the way it was to accidentally expose herself to boys!
"Perverts!" She shrieks , an octave lower than most girls her age, hinting at the genuine outrage mixing into her panic, as she pushes the front of her dress back into place against the downwash. "You forgot to pay the price of admission!"
The German-Japanese girl takes a half-step back, and winds up her momentum for a nice, square jab at Glasses Nerd's face. Hope he drops his camera, so I can grab the thing and throw it overboar-
-OW!
To Asuka, it briefly felt as if she'd punched a steel strut of the type that honeycombed the Over the Rainbow's interior.
But it was no piece of steel that had jumped inbetween Kensuke Aida and the umprovoked attack on his person. No, as expected, Ayanami Rei had taken her scolding by Danny to heart and had now intercepted another temperamental bully's wrathful assault with her elbow.
It hurt, but that was inevitable.
The Second Child was very much in her physical prime. In theory, so was Rei herself. But Rei had just spent a week in hospital and another week in gauze and casts for burns and broken bones. Rei had risked breaking her elbow again parrying Asuka's punch quite that brutally. No evasion, no give, no dispersion of force. Rei's parry was very much meant to hurt Soryu. It was a message toward the Second Child. Do not touch Kensuke!
Asuka's jaw drops. But before she can even feel the pain in her knuckles flare up, she steps back and readies herself to kick sideways at the lightning-quick bluenette that had blocked her.
Taking advantage of the ridiculously telegraphed swing-up, Rei lunges forward and pushes Asuka in the chest. The redheaded hotshot shrieks as she loses her balance just as she steps into her roundhouse kick and falls flat onto her ass.
Ayanami blinks, and takes a step back. She looks down at Asuka. "You will not attempt to attack my frieds again." Rei's gaze flits to the churning waters that surround them. The gesture was merely an idle thought on the First Child's part, but upon seeing it, Asuka flinches back nonetheless.
The redhead sputters, not sure what to say but burning to reply. She'd had her ass handed to her. Damn that girl was fast. Then again, this was the same person who went hand-to-hand with the Fourth Angel and won, so she could've known...
She was well and truly ashamed of herself right now. Not just embarassed at having her modesty taken away, but loathing her inability to land a proper hit on that little lech kid. She was pretty sure she'd get an earful from Dani if not Kaji about losing her temper as well... But she'd been embarrassed damnit! It was a choice between doubling down or getting laughed at!
But Asuka, ever the climber of Mount Notgivingup, takes a steadying breath and then scrabbles back onto her feet. "Just your friends, Second Child?" Asuka asks with characteristic timbre.
"I don't think I should be attacking anyone..." And the haughtiness melts, replaced with good-humoured Western nonchelance. All an act, but as close as Asuka can get to facing the depths of her fear and expressing it in a non-pathetic fasion...
She shrugs, raises an eyebrow at the First Child. "I panicked, sorry. Can we chalk it up to stress and move on?" Rei nods. "Very well." She turns to Aida, who is already tapping on his camera.
Rei begins to form the sign language symbols for 'please delete' with her hands, but Kensuke glances up from his camera and just grins knowingly."Already on it, Ayanami!" He answers, speech just a tiny bit slurred, but his knowing smile audible in the playful tone of his voice even as he bends back over his camera.
He looks up at the strange, fiery western girl who - to his mind - is just the kind of person he wants fighting the Angels. "You, Asuka Langley Soryu, are just the kind of person we need fighting the Angels!" The young Otaku exclaims with an admiring grin.
Asuka blinks, then smiles back at the four-eyed twerp. Maybe he ain't so bad.. "Thank you." She answers sweetly, hoping to express with her face what her voice can't. "I can't wait to meet the Third Child, see who's best!" she exclaims, more to the girls of the group.
"Ahum." Dani Fenton now walks up to the little gathering. "I see Misato has already left for the bridge. Admiral Gibbs will love that. And Asuka..." She turns to stand right next to her charge, and leans down faux-intimidatingly. "What did you just say about meeting the Third Child?"
Asuka blusters and rolls her eyes flusteredly. "I said that I can't wait to meet that baka badass so we can learn from eachother~" She sing-songs, sarcasm lathered on thick as peanut butter.
Rei Ayanami, First Child, key to Instrumentality, vessel of Lilith, Stoic, fourteen-year-old, Clone...
Is now temporarily free from supervision, and had already decided a while ago to become as human as possible in order to better fulfill her chosen destiny.
She takes a stealthy step toward Kensuke, and underlines her admiration for him by pecking a simple kiss onto the side of his face, then turning back toward Dani as if nothing had happened.
Indeed, it took Kensuke a full two seconds to process the event, at which point the poor obsessive but well-meaning boy simply... froze.
Rei let herself smile just a little, and looked over to Class Representative Horaki.
Hikari Horaki didn't quite know what to make of Ayanami's slow transition from an android into a reserved but serene young lady... but I think Ayanami just invited me to come talk to her later...
Major Katsuragi and Admiral Gibbs
"Misato Katsuragi, NERV." The NERV Major flashes her credentials to the man in the ornate black-and-gold uniform.
"The Second Child is taking a boat to to the freighter carrying Unit 02, to show it to her fellow Pilot. They'll be departing any moment now."
Admiral Gibbs instantly disliked this Major from NERV Japan. Coming onto his bridge, and...
He sighs loudly and sips his coffee. "Understood." What was the point in arguing?
He'd seen the incredible power of the Evangelion. He'd spent over two weeks with Asuka and her guardians.
By now he understood why NERV got carte blanche to basically do whatever the hell they wanted. They got results.
Enormous, world-shaking results, if the choppy video from the Fifth Angel Ramiel's attack on Tokyo-3 was any judge.
He didn't care anymore. His cargo was safe, and all he had to do was sail to Hakone, drop off the Evangelion and the princess, and then it was back to the Pacific for the majority of his fleet.
"Coffee?" He asked the NERV Major collegially, half-glad that she'd stayed on his boat instead of joining Asuka on Captain Dinozzo's converted container ship.
Woman like that would respond either very positively or very negatively to the nostalgic 'romantic' who was now being force-fed Anime by his crew.
On DiNozzo's ship, every night was movie night, and his crew had finally decided to rebel and put the screws on him for a change.
The Admiral chuckles. He shakes his head when the NERV Major throws him a questioning glance. "Just thinking about the ship holding Soryu's little Ferrari..." He explained.
Misato raised her eyebrows. "How has she been?" Intolerable, most likely...
Gibbs shrugs. "From what I hear she's a bit of a disturbance to the crew during breaks... She's a civilan, and she's young, so I get that... But..." He smiles a little at the NERV Major.
"She's got her feet planted firmly on the ground. She knows damn well what her job is, and I think every single person on this ship knows that if push came to shove, she'd get into that robot and fight just as hard as we would."
Misato blinks. "This is Asuka Langley Soryu we're talking about, yes?"
The Admiral can't help but burst into another subdued fit of laughter. "We all know she's a brat, ma'am." He eventually answered diplomatically. "But she trains six hours a day, all sorts of acrobatics, on the deck, with, well, with her..."
He jerks his thumb at Dani Fenton who turns toward the two and raises an eyebrow, but shrugs and goes back to staring out at the sea.
"She's loud, she complains, but she always does what she's told even as she's yelling, and she doesn't stop. She's a kid, but she's military material." The Admiral answers sincerely.
"And she's pretty convincing when she needs to be..." He adds idly.
Misato doesn't quite know what to make of that answer. Has Asuka just grown, or has Fenton's sister been training her in more ways than one?
The Second Child and her Evangelion
"What do you guys think!?" Asuka shouts as she walks over the red breast of her Evangelion: Unit 02. "This is the Production Model! Faster, better, stronger than Unit 01! Not quite as tough," she adds with a pout "But not by any significant margin."
This was a blatant falsehood, Asuka knew. Unit 01 had been so ridiculously over-engineered that it could remain operational, if only barely dragging itself along, well after her own Eva had come to pieces. This however came at the expense of agility and even strength...
Touji smirks. "It's RED!" He shouts with a bit of a slur even on top of his snarky accent, knowing it would most likely not answer the foreign girl's question. He's deaf right now and Shinji's Future Ex-Wife keeps forgetting that!
Asuka just rolls her eyes in reply, but when she catches the boy's all-in-good-fun joking grin she finds it to be a little bit infectious.
"Any REAL opinions?" She asks loudly. "How about YOU, Aida?" She points an outstretched arm at the bespectacled kid leaning down at her from the other side of the LCL-filled Evangelion storage tub.
The boy in question glances over to Hikari Horaki to ask what the redhead girl was shouting at him... only to find the Class Representative had vanished.
But he finds only Danny's sister, who'd decided to accompany them to the ship. The woman in the white jacket motions down at the red Evangelion and mimes cocking a pistol, swinging a sword, before turning back away, seemingly looking out at sea. Kensuke's comprehension dawns, and he nods. "Ah..." He wonders where his Horaki and Ayanami had gone. Ladies's room?
With a shrug he turns back to the exotic beauty stood atop the Evangelion. "It's a BEAUTIFUL weapon!" he shouts at her. "I can't wait to see it in action alongside Unit 01 and Unit 00!" For some reason, the Pilot scowls at the compliment.
The First Child and the Class Representative
"So you have a thing for Aida?" Hikari Horaki asks bluntly as she sits down in the stall next to the one Ayanami had chosen.
There's a moment of silence. "I am interested in spending time with him, yes." Rei eventually answers flatly, even more quietly than usual. "He seems to posess a strong drive and clear morals... Whereas I..."
Hikari smiles wryly as things start falling into place. "May I ask you something, Ayanami?"
"Yes, you may."
"Do you consider yourself odd?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I..." Ayanami knew she could cite any number of things. Her social interactions were stiff, her DNA was a horrible mishmash of human and Lilith traits, her mind was young but her soul was an ancient goddess...
"I feel like I am a foreigner to every nation." She eventually replies.
While Hikari Horaki is an intelligent girl, and would eventually deduce the true meaning of that answer, I.E. that Ayanami literally considers herself not of earth, and all the NERV-related implications that would with that revelation...
Currently, Military Bathroom Hikari takes her classmate's heartfelt statement at face value, and sighs softly with empathy for Ayanami.
"Above all, take it slow." She advises her classmate, her friend, she supposes. "Even if you risk your life, this is new ground for you, and definitely for Aida. Don't break your own heart and don't accidentally break his by rushing into anything." Hikari wasn't sure where she got the nerve to preach to Ayanami quite like that but... Somehow, she feels like the porcelain genius of class 1-A really does need a Talk. The young woman had always been a mystery to everybody, other than the fact that she piloted the Eva alongside Shinji and aced almost every exam, people knew nothing.
Ayanami nods. "...I have never been one for rash action..." She says contemplatively as she leans down and peers at her faint reflection on the decorative tiles.
Hikari smiles. "Just so long as you understand what your feelings are, it is perfectly alright to act on them. And, also..." Hikari hesitates, but inspired by the recent memory of the brash, very Western pilot of Unit 02 shouting over the sound of a motorboat, decides to ditch politeness in favour of directness. "If you want practical advice, not just for love but all sorts of girl stuff... I'm here, and I'd be delighted to teach you when we get back to shore."
Rei exits the bathroom stall and began washing her hands. "You are presuming..." She begins gravely, "That I've never had a mother to acclimatize me to normal life..."
Hikari has just stepped out of her own bathroom stall and is about to lock herself back in to blush in solitude when the next few words echo in the bathroom.
"You would be entirely correct." The girl continues dryly.
Hikari blinks. "Was that... sarcasm, Ayanami?" She looks at her friend and sees that she's smiling faintly, the way she had been doing a lot lately.
"It was a little morbid, but yes, it was a joke." She throws her paper towel into the trash bag, and turns to face her Class Representative. "I am... 'odd' as you say, because I was not born and was not raised to live in society. I was, however, trained to save it, and while I've always been quite content with that..." She left the comment hanging, to see if Horaki would see the same thread of logic that Rei was now following.
"...You want to live like a normal person so you know what you're protecting?" The pigtailed girl asks her bobcut bluenette counterpart, who nods.
'Yes." Ayanami smiles happily, and Hikari nods respectfully, almost but not quite bowing her head in deference.
"I'd be honored to help you, Ayanami." The two girls step out of the bathroom and can already hear Asuka boasting about her Eva's might, even two corridors removed from the transport ship's hold.
In a flash of prescient dread, Hikari wonders how long it'll take for the Second Child to gravitate toward her as well. Interesting times and all that...
Dani
Out at sea, hovering about a nautical mile in front of both the Dani Fenton on the Over the Rainbow and the Dani Fenton on the Evangelion cargo ship, an ethereal image of Dani Fenton opens her eyes as she exhales a cold vapour.
At the exact same moment, all three of her splits glare downward at a certain point on the seabed ahead of the fleet. The scout immedeately high-tails it back to the fleet, while the Dani Fenton on the bridge turns toward Admiral Gibbs. "We have an Angel. It's underwater, and it's waking up."
On Unit 02's containership, the third Dani jumps off from the gantry and swan-dives into the lake of LCL coolant swirling around the red Eva.
And now for something completely different...
Interlude
Farseer Seleyne, ERROR: LOCATION NOT FOUND
The membranes of the universes dance and twist, collide and meld and tear themselves asunder on the currents of time.
But one can only skid across time so much, and there has simply been too long a gap for there to not be precursors.
The Time Lords.
They could smash holes between universes, and they often did. They built watchtowers and picket fences. But the Time Lords had been wise. They'd turned inward, and upward...
Leaving the corridors and plazas of their crumbling arterial network.
Leaving them free for explorers to traverse.
It'd taken quite a bit of effort for Farseer Seleyne's sponsors to deposit her into this... webway of webways. In ways, it awed her. The Eldar had risen high before their fall... But as she ran her hand along the vaulted stone wall, inlaid with poured bronze and seemingly impervious to the particulates and nothingness between the membranes of the universes... Seleyne realized her position in the grand scheme of things.
She was just another rat, clambering through old sewer tunnels.
But Seleyne had a destination, a-
A figure stood at the end of the hallway. He looked to be standing in a military at-ease position, and he definitely had the air of a mon-keigh. Not that she could smell him, thankfully, for he was clad head to toe in ivory armor, glowing at the seams with silver light. He cleared his throat as she approached, and the Eldar Farseer could hear his voice being distorted as he spoke. Somewhat like one of the hated Astartes, though admittedly with far less clear menace.
"Good afternoon." The man said dryly. "Mind telling me what you're doing in these old, sealed ruins?"
The Farseer blinked. She had not expected this. Granted, she was very much out of her depth, seeking a prodigy a few universes over as her own was slowly being devoured by the Necrons...
But... "Who are you?! To walk around here like you own the place?" She hissed. Contempt was never a good way to start negotiations, she knew, but for all she'd been through, she was a Farseer first and foremost, and she demanded respect.
The man took a step forward, and more of the bright light from the tunnel's exit flooded in behind him. "I'm a cop. So I'll ask again. Who are you, and why are you trespassing?"
Cop?
A... A policeman!? Seleyne took a hesitant step back.
These were ancient ruins, hidden outside the universe. Outside every universe! For a mon-keigh to just stroll in to intercept her like he was the night watchman for some archaeological digsite would mean...
Oh.
Oh gods... So this man was either bluffing, or...
The Eldar woman suddenly turned extremely pale, and also extremely diplomatic.
Her stance shifted from wary to regal and she angled her head up to gaze down at the mon-keigh standing before her. "I am Farseer Seleyne, on a pilgrimage from one universe to another. I am a teacher of lost knowledge and I aim to bring hope!"
The man in the ivory armor stood stock straight. "Tzeench then?" He asked bluntly.
Seleyne grit her teeth. The mon-keigh was not entirely incorrect. "Among others, yes."
And he shook his head. "I'll have to ask you to turn back then. No Chaos proselytizing allowed here. This is a relatively volatile area already." And just like that, the mon-keigh knight turned around and walked out of the tunnel.
A fight it would be then. The Farseer didn't look forward to this one bit. It was likely that the 'police force' this man belonged to were far more advanced than the Eldar... At least when it came to spatial manipulation.
There was however a decent chance that sorcery might do what technology could not. The dire oblivion facing Seleyne's home universe meant that certain old pacts were taken up, and more safely too.
Seleyne was an avatar of everyone, impossible as that would seem. She stepped foward and let her Warp Spider persona guided her legs into a familiar sprint. Her Farseer self, as used to battle as any of the others, began calling on the blunt, direct magics of mon-keigh Psykers and wreathed herself in a cloak of psychokinetic force.
She would fade into invisibility, but there was no Warp here to dive into, merely oblivion. The only magic she had was the reservoir within herself. She would have a run at this arrogant ape's blockade, and make it to her destiny... Or die in the attempt.
She burst out of the tunnel, out onto the ruined plaza held in a glass bubble. A plaza that, - to one of the five people now watching her, - had looked uncomfortably like a Forerunner ruin.
Officer Gracchus the Jiralhanae raised up his bone-white gauntlet. On his mental command, the device flash-fabricated half a dozen expanding adhesive foam pellets in a flash of emerald light. These were generally used to deal with speedsters. The Brute shot them into the Eldar Farseer's path.
But the agile Warp Spider jinked to the side with little effort, her superior control of the undulating field of kinetic force wrapped around her body allowing her much freedom to maneuver. The runoff of the exploding pellets was simply knocked aside as she passed.
A second officer, wearing the same white plate armor, only this one clearly in a female mold, raised her hand as well, and with blue rays of light exploding out of her armor's seams, a tesselating forcefield suddenly barred the Eldar woman's way.
She attempted to bash through, but the barrier remained in place in front of her. All she got for the effort of expending the magic she carried with her was a muffled grunt from the armored policewoman.
A fourth officer, - this one with bright pink glowing accents on her armor, - stepped forward. Her hand flashed with the golden Light of justice and lanced out at Farseer Seleyne. The Eldar's world went topsy-turvy as the blast of Light impacted her. She felt nauseous as she crashed to the ground.
The grey-tinted MVP Lieutenant walked up his Sin'dorei Sergeant standing over the collapsed Eldar. "What was that, Anaria?"
Under her helmet, the Blood Elf crinkled her nose. "Just an Exorcism, sir. She should be fine. Though from what I can sense, she was absolutely brimming with Chaos power."
The Lieutenant huffed in suprise. "Was?" But he wasn't the bluntest Runeblade in the Necropolis. "So she used it up?"
"Yup." The Blood Elf replied.
"Alright then. Gracchus, cuff her and hoist her on those strong shoulders of yours. We're taking her in for processing."
Not five minutes later, the five MVP officers left the ruined Time Lord tunnel network, and eternity was free to start slowly wearing it away again.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Yes, I did just do that! That little scuffle took place in the Void between universes, basically right next to the universe we've been following so far. This isn't the last we'll see of these cops...