Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.
Disclaimer: I do not own DC comics or anything associated with it and am making no profit off this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.
Chapter Fourteen: While You Were Sleeping
When Blue Beetle finally started coming to, she awoke slowly and with a great deal of reluctance.
Her whole body ached, and she had no idea where she was or how she had ended up in this situation. Ten years ago, that probably would've meant she'd celebrated the end of the semester, and the exams that came with it, just a little too hard. These days, it was usually an indication of something significantly more unpleasant, so the sapphire superwoman was understandably not in a hurry to wake up, shake out the cobwebs, and take stock.
The alien life form that had taken up residence in her body, however, was less patient.
(Ritsuko? Ritsuko, wake up!)
"Just a few more minutes…" she mumbled.
(Ritsuko dear, if you don't get up now, you'll be late for school and miss the test you have today. And I will never forgive you if you fail.) The scarab said imperiously.
With a small yelp of fear, Blue Beetle started awake, her brain kicking into gear with the kind of speed that only fear could invoke. When realized what had happened, she scowled darkly.
"Scarab, I swear if you ever go through my memories and channel my mother like that again, I will get a knife and cut you out of me," she vowed.
(Yeah, yeah.) The scarab said, clearly unimpressed by the threat. (I wanted to wake you up as soon as possible. It's not a good idea to hang around this place longer than we have to.)
This place? Blue Beetle wondered, finally turning her attention to her surroundings.
She was floating in a familiar vortex of swirling colors, drifting like a derelict ship left out in the middle of the ocean.
"The Bleed," she said.
(Pulling us in here was the only way to save us from the explosion, though we didn't avoid all the force of it, judging from the long nap.) The scarab explained. (Thanks for telling me that you were going to do that, by the way. If I hadn't gotten a clue from being plugged into your CNS, I never would've been able to transport us into the Bleed in time.) It added crabbily.
"I didn't exactly have a lot of time to explain my entire plan to you," she pointed out.
(We're mentally linked. All you had to do was think it at me.) The scarab retorted, not mollified.
"I told you to transmit the detonation signal continuously," Ritsuko argued. "I think that should've made it pretty obvious I was planning to blow the thing."
(Of course. Blowing the EVA up was what we were there for. But I thought you were going to try to put a little more distance between us and it before you breached the AT Field.) The scarab replied.
Blue Beetle tried to rub at her temples, only to be stopped by her helmet. Someday, she swore, she would get used to the full body armor. Maybe.
"Look, I'm sorry, okay," she said. "I'll try to keep you informed next time, I promise."
However, the scarab wasn't quite willing to let it go yet. (You know, you shouldn't do a sacrifice play like that so lightly.) It said. (Because it's not just you, Ritsuko. You'd be sacrificing for two.)
"Ugh, the way you're talking almost makes it sound like I'm pregnant," Blue Beetle grimaced.
(Ritsuko.)
She sighed. "All right, I'm sorry," she said. "It wasn't something…premeditated. I don't want to die. It was just that everything was happening so fast, and I know how dangerous even one of those damned things is. To get rid of it…that seemed like a fair price to pay."
(It isn't.)
They were silent for a moment.
"We should get out of here," Blue Beetle said eventually.
(Right.) The scarab agreed. (Preparing to transport us back to the real world…)
Blue Beetle was momentarily blinded by a flash of light, and when it ended, she found herself hovering well above a vast rice patty.
"Where are we?" she asked. "And for that matter, when are we?" she added, recalling that the Bleed had some very weird temporal properties.
(Give me a second to connect to the internet or something, and I'll find out.) The scarab replied. After a short pause, it continued. (We're in Japan, not too far from Tokyo-3, and it looks like we lost a few days.)
"Well, better than a few weeks or months," Blue Beetle said, relieved and a bit ticked off at once.
(Um, Ritsuko, I'm looking through some news sites right now, and it seems like the days we missed were pretty…eventful.) The scarab said.
It actually sounded a bit scared as it said, which Blue Beetle definitely considered a bad sign. Almost nothing ever scared the scarab. Offhand, the only thing she could think of that had ever accomplished that feat was Misato and her Green Lantern power ring.
"What's happened?" she asked with considerable trepidation.
The scarab told her.
"Oh God, you have got to be kidding me."
Days Earlier…
"Can it really be true?" Shinji wondered aloud.
That afternoon found the Third Child doing something he'd done many times in the past, even though he'd done a lot less of it recently. He was laying on his bed, staring up at the ceiling, and listening to his SDAT player.
"How do we quantify that which mankind has always treated as ineffable? That is the challenge that lays before us if we wish to…"
The sound of his mother's voice usually had a soothing effect on Shinji, despite the dispassionate academic tone she used for delivering the lectures, but that day they weren't working their magic.
Probably because they made him think about Ritsuko, since she had given him the tapes.
"It's all just so unbelievable," he muttered.
First they'd said that Ritsuko was a traitor to NERV, using her double life as the Blue Beetle to try and sabotage their efforts to defeat the Angels by trying to have the job of stopping them transferred to the JSSDF. Then a new series of improved Evangelions that other NERV bases around the world had been working on had been destroyed in rapid succession, and people had said that it was obviously her who had done it.
Much as he might like to, Shinji had a hard time arguing against the logic that led people to that conclusion. It just didn't seem like there was anyone besides the Blue Beetle who'd have the ability to destroy all those Evangelions like that. Even without an active AT Field, an EVA was still incredibly tough. Short of an Angel or another Evangelion, there was little or nothing other than a superwoman who could just take one out like that.
Green Lantern could probably do it, too, he mused. Maybe.
Even if the emerald superwoman was capable of it—which Shinji wasn't at all of sure about; so far as he was aware, Green Lantern's feats generally tended to be a lot less impressive, and destructive, than Blue Beetle's—she wouldn't have any motive to do it.
Ritsuko was so nice to me, could she really be a traitor? He wondered.
His reluctance to accept that idea made him wonder about himself, too. Was his loyalty gained so easily that if someone was nice to him, he'd refuse to ever truly believe anything bad about them? Was his desire to believe better of Ritsuko understandable and maybe even rational, or was he just so pathetic that he'd side with a monster if she gave him the occasional pat on the head before revealing her true self?
Of course, it might not matter anymore now, he thought, his mood going from grim to outright dour.
People were saying Ritsuko was probably dead. Reports from the base where the final new EVA had exploded seemed to indicate that the attacker had gone kamikaze in the end. Of course, Shinji hadn't been allowed to listen to the recordings himself—heaven forbid he should be given even the tiniest bit of access that wasn't absolutely necessary to him piloting Unit One—but everyone was talking about the death of the Blue Beetle like it was a fact.
He didn't really know how he felt about that. He was sad if it was true, of course; whatever else she might've been, he'd considered Ritsuko his friend. However, though he would never admit to it, he was also guiltily relieved that the chance of any awkward confrontation between them had apparently been avoided. Yet at the same time he felt cheated out of the chance to ask her if what everyone was saying about her was really true, and, if so, demanded to know why she had done all of it.
In other words, his emotions were just one big, confused muddle.
So, business as usual then, he thought, scowling. God, I'm so messed up.
The Third Child's brooding was interrupted then by his cell phone going off. His first thought, as he went to dig it out of his pocket, was that it was probably Toji or Kensuke, wanting to hang out, and that he should probably go, even though he didn't really want to. It would take his mind off things.
Then he heard the sound of the apartment's landline phone in the kitchen ringing, and his stomach seemed to descend into his shoes. While it might just be coincidence, experience had taught him that the phones of important NERV personnel all ringing at the same time usually meant exactly one thing.
Misato burst into his room and confirmed it for him before Shinji could answer his cell phone and do it himself.
"There's an Angel approaching the city," she said. "Get your shoes. We have to go to headquarters now."
Following one fast and terrifying car trip, the Second and Third Children were racing toward the Evangelion cages, along with the First Child, who had been brought from her apartment by a NERV car.
"What the hell is the deal with this Angel?" Asuka growled as they moved. She had still been in the process of putting her plugsuit on when she'd emerged from the locker room, and even now she still hadn't gotten to pressurizing the garment. As a result, she was moving rather awkwardly, and she was plenty peeved at the latest threat to humanity's existence for making her rush like this. "Most of them at least gave us a little more warning."
"Perhaps this one has learned from its siblings' failures," Rei replied curtly.
"More like it just felt like being a pain in the ass," Asuka growled back, finally managing to press the button on her wrist, making her suit conform to her body.
"I'd rather have an Angel that decides to be a pain than one that's smarter than all the other ones," Shinji replied, jogging to keep up.
"Of course you would," the redhead replied, and somehow she made it sound like an insult, even though as far as Shinji was concerned, he had his priorities in good order. "I'm just glad that we can be sure our Evangelions won't be sabotaged this time, with Akagi gone."
Shinji, who was still unconvinced that Ritsuko had ever done any such thing, might've objected to the redhead's casual assumption, but they reached the cages at that very moment.
"Get in, hurry," one of the more senior cage personnel urged the pilots, who complied, quickly climbing into their respective entry plugs.
Shinji allowed himself one more deep breath of regular air as his plug started to fill with LCL. He was feeling…jittery.
Of course, he always felt at least jittery when entering into a battle against an Angel, but this was worse than usual. He knew that the odds of a certain blue superwoman making an appearance were slim at best. It made him feel like he was walking a tightrope without a net.
A moment later the LCL rose above his head, and the Third Child took a deep breath of the stuff, grimacing as he always did at the unpleasant sensation of inhaling a liquid.
A window labeled "FROM COMMAND" popped up on his HUD.
"Okay, guys, the Angel is just holding position right now," Misato began.
"Then why did we have to rush here like it was about to bust into the Geofront?" Asuka wondered aloud, expressing what Shinji thought was actually quite a good question.
Misato, however, ignored her. "We're going to deploy you at three separate points surrounding the Angel," she continued. "Approach it with caution, and be ready for anything. Asuka, you take point."
"With pleasure," the redhead replied, her earlier grievance completely forgotten.
"Evangelions launch!" Misato yelled.
Instantly, the electromagnetic catapults went off, sending the trio of Evangelions careening toward the surface. In seconds, Unit One travelled from the Geofront to Tokyo-3, coming to an abrupt halt that was bone jarring for pilot and EVA alike.
I really hope that they come up with a better way to do this eventually, Shinji thought, even though he was quite sure that NERV never would.
Shoving aside that glum thought, the Third Child directed his gaze upwards toward the Angel. It was a huge, glowing double helix forming a loop that was spinning in the sky over the city.
Shinji decided that he hated it immediately. The weirder the Angel, the harder it was to kill, usually.
"Okay," Asuka announced, "I'm approaching it now."
With a thought, the Third Child called up a mini-map on his HUD, and watched as the red dot representing Unit Two started to slowly make its way toward the Angel.
It didn't get very far before the latest threat to humanity's existence reacted. The Angel's spinning abruptly came to a stop, and the double helixes fused together to form a single glowing circle in the sky. As Shinji watched with rapidly rising trepidation, the circle broke, so that the Angel went from being a loop to a strand, like a gigantic, luminous serpent floating in midair.
Then it surged toward Unit Two with the speed of a striking viper, getting a small cry of shock out of Asuka. However, the years of training that the Second Child had undergone showed; Unit Two quickly jerked to the side, barely dodging the Angel's initial strike.
Unfortunately, the glowing band of light was undeterred by its initial failure; doubling back with blinding speed, it coiled itself around Unit Two like a python attempting to strangle the life out of its victim. The red Evangelion's armor started to glow orange around the areas where the Angel was touching it, and the Second Child let out a cry of pain even as she struggled mightily to break free.
"Asuka!" Shinji yelled, sending Unit One running forward, the purple colossus drawing the pallet rifle strapped to its back as it went.
With the same whip crack speed it had demonstrated when engaging Asuka, the Angel reacted to the new attacker, partially uncoiling itself from around Unit Two so it would have enough spare length to go after the purple Evangelion.
Shinji didn't have the Second Child's years and years of training. However, he was really very talented when it came to piloting EVA (obnoxiously so, in one redhead's opinion). Also, he knew how fast the Angel was.
Unit One jerked out of the way at the last second, watching the end of the Angel shoot past it. The walking war machine then grabbed hold of the beast's long, slender body. Ignoring the way it felt like he was wrapping his hand around a red hot piece of barbed wire, the Third Child commanded Unit One to give it a savage tug, pulling it off of the crimson giant and then flinging it away.
Unsurprisingly, the Angel only took a fraction of a second to halt itself and turn around.
Shinji responded by raising Unit One's pallet rifle and firing off a long burst. Unfortunately, the Angel twisted itself into a bizarre shape to avoid most of the gunfire, changing from a snake to random zigzag in the space of a second. The few shots that did connect didn't seem to have much of an effect.
Crap, the Third Child thought as he watched it streak toward him. He had no idea what to do now, and he found himself frozen with fear.
"Rei!" Misato barked over the radio, startling Shinji, "spread your AT Field! Make it as powerful as you can!"
"Roger," Rei replied, as cool and collected as ever.
The next instant, the Angel made an abrupt, ninety degree turn, changing course when it was only a mere few hundred yards away Unit One, now on a beeline for the prototype Evangelion.
"I thought so," Misato said triumphantly. "That thing just goes after the strongest AT Field in the area. It may not even have any other senses, or be smart enough to do anything else."
Shinji blinked, only now realizing that he'd reflexively unfolded Unit One's AT Field when he'd rushed forward to help Asuka, and the moment he did that was the same moment that the Angel had tried to attack him. He was amazed that Misato had been able to make that connection in the chaos of battle.
Asuka, however, was less impressed. "An Angel reacting to an Evangelion's AT Field isn't exactly anything new," she pointed out.
The Ops Director ignored her. "All right, guys, I want you to 'juggle' the Angel around. Spread and retract your AT Fields as necessary to keep it bouncing between the three of you."
"That's not a long term solution," Asuka protested, even as she unfolded her AT Field to divert the Angel's attention away from Unit Zero.
"I'm working on the long term solution," Misato replied.
Back in the NERV Command Center, the Operations Director allowed herself a couple of seconds to shake her head ruefully.
"That girl always thinks she knows everything," she remarked to no one in particular before turning her attention to her subordinates. "Makoto, get JSSDF high command on the horn."
"Yes, ma'am," he answered. "What do you want them to do?"
She told him.
The bespectacled man was visibly surprised by the order, but he quickly moved to comply, picking up a phone near his terminal.
A second later, the lieutenant had gotten through, but it wasn't long before he started running into problems.
"Listen," Makoto spoke into the phone, looking increasingly harassed, "this is an emergency. There's an Angel attacking and we need that missile strike…yes, I know that, but…no, I can't, but…please, you have to—"
Misato only let this go on for a few seconds before she snatched the phone from the lieutenant's hands.
"This is Major Katsuragi, Director of Operations for NERV Central," she said. "To whom am I speaking?"
"This is Colonel Sakai of JSSDF missile command," a gruff voice on the other end of the line answered. "Am I understanding this correctly? Are you really asking me what I think you are?"
"Of course not, sir," Misato said at once. "I'm not asking you to do anything. I'm giving you an order."
"What?!"
"Let me remind you that in the event of an Angel attack, NERV's authority supersedes that of the JSSDF, as well as that of the UN Armed Forces," Misato said sternly. "I am in command of all available military assets at this time, and I'm giving you a direct order to launch a strike."
Now it was the JSSDF officer's turn to sound flustered. "I can't just…I'll have to check with my superiors," she said.
"No," Misato said flatly. "I don't have time enough for you to stall until you cover your ass."
"Now you listen here, Major—"
"No, you listen," the Ops Director shot back, well aware of how many bridges she was burning but unable to find it in herself to care while the Children were engaged in a deadly game of keep away. "I am in command here, and I gave you an order. If you delay, then the Evangelion pilots could die, and if any of them do, I'm going to make sure everyone knows who's responsible. So you can either take that risk, or you can launch a strike at a bunch of empty mountains. Your choice."
"…I'm ordering the launch now," Sakai growled.
"I need to know exactly what the time to impact is," Misato said.
"I'll have the information transmitted to NERV Central."
This, Shinji decided, was completely insane.
In only a few minutes, the Angel had destroyed a good chunk of Tokyo-3's wartime configuration, crashing through buildings as it rushed in one direction and then the other to get at whichever Evangelion was projecting an AT Field at the moment. All three of the pilots had taken shots at it now and again, and Asuka had tried to slice in half with a progressive axe, but their attacks either missed or proved completely ineffective.
We're trashing the whole city here, and for what? He wondered as watched the Angel abruptly abandon its attack on Unit Two in favor of Unit Zero. We can't keep this up forever!
Fortunately, he wouldn't have to.
"All right, guys, it looks like I've got that long term solution ready to go," Misato's voice returned to the radio. "Shinji, you and Unit One are the fastest. When I tell you to, I want you to make your way toward the point indicated on your display as quickly as you can, keeping your AT Field at maximum power the whole time."
"Uh, okay, why?" the Third Child asked.
"It's because we're going to—" Misato was cut off as some alarm sounded from behind her. "Damn, no time to explain. Shinji, go!"
The Ops Director's tone was so forceful that Shinji responded without thinking, throwing Unit One into a sprint while powering up the Evangelion's AT Field and ejecting the power cable, all at the same time.
He wasn't very good at multitasking as himself, but when he was in the entry plug of an Evangelion, he could do it without even thinking about it, if it had to.
It really wasn't very difficult to see why the Second Child considered him obnoxiously talented, if one stopped to think about it for a moment.
This is just like the Tenth Angel all over again, Shinji thought, daring to look back for long enough to see that the glowing blue form of NERV's latest foe was in hot pursuit.
It was even every bit as nerve wracking as that fight had been, he decided.
"I really hope that whatever plan Misato came up with is a good one," he muttered to himself, fully aware that his Evangelion's internal battery would be nearly drained by the time he got to where she wanted Unit One.
"Move your ass, Shinji!" Asuka barked at him. "It's gaining on you!"
"Eep! Right!" the Third Child squeaked, willing Unit One to greater speeds.
The test type Evangelion's legs became purple blurs. Its feet threw up great clouds of concrete and asphalt with every step, then earth and grass as he exited the city limits. However, the distance between the EVA and the Angel barely seemed to diminish at all. Shinji considered recalling Unit One's AT Field, if only for a moment, but he didn't want to take the risk of losing the creature and maybe even having it decide to turn around and seek out one of the other Evangelions. Misato's plan clearly relied on him getting the Angel to follow him.
Again, he really hoped that it was a good plan.
Unit One reached the edge of the mountain range where his destination was, but Shinji still wasn't quite where he needed to be. The Third Child was already gritting his teeth, but now he clenched his jaw so tightly shut that he was amazed said teeth didn't simply shatter. Having legs, an Evangelion was actually a better all terrain vehicle than a lot of things out there, but it was just so damned heavy that the stone beneath its feet could easily crumble with every step that Unit One took.
Just a little more, he pleaded to any deity that might be listening. I'm almost there.
He could see the exact location he was trying to reach now, clearly marked on his HUD.
Then Unit One tripped over something. Shinji let out a cry of frustration and dismay as his Evangelion went falling forward, its momentum causing it to practically bounce along for a bit. Ironically, he ended up practically falling into the area he was trying to reach, his EVA landing flat on its back.
It only took a second for the Angel to catch up to him now, hovering above Unit One and all but filling his field of vision. It was ready to strike, and Shinji knew he only had seconds.
Then he heard a sound from above, fairly soft but quickly growing louder. At first he thought it was some kind of jet plane.
By the time he finally realized that it was a missile, it was too late to do anything aside from brace himself.
"Status report on the pilot!" Misato barked, even before the command center had stopped shaking from the force of the impact just outside Tokyo-3's borders.
N2 warheads were extremely powerful things, after all.
"He's alive," Aoba reported.
Misato allowed herself a quiet sigh, a small sign of the immense relief she felt. Despite what the numbers might've said, she'd still been afraid that her plan would be the end of Shinji Ikari. That was something she knew she'd never be able to forgive herself for, all the more because his last thought probably would've been that she'd betrayed him.
"Unit One's armor protected it from the explosion, as predicted," Aoba continued. "The pilot's heart rate is through the roof, though," he added, sounding mildly amused.
"Kind of hard to blame the kid," Makoto put in.
Misato ignored their commentary. "What about the Angel?" she asked, her mind fully on the battle once again.
"The MAGI aren't detecting any blue patterns," Maya answered. "It's dead."
A small cheer went up from the assembled personnel.
"Stand down from battle stations, begin recovery and repair operations, recall Units Zero and Two, and send out a team to bring Unit One back to base," Misato ordered. "Speaking of which, Shinji, are you all right over there?"
"I think so," the Third Child answered. "But next time the plan involves me taking a direct hit from an N2 missile, I'd like to know about it ahead of time." He added with some understandable irritation.
"Deal," Misato agreed with a small smile, just as Unit One's internal battery finally ran dry, making further communication impossible for the moment. "Okay people," she addressed the personnel on the command center. "The crisis may be over, at least for now, but we still have a lot of work ahead of us, so I don't want anyone getting—"
She was cut off an alarm started to sound on the command center.
"What's going on?!" Misato demanded, allowing some of her alarm to show through. While the Fourteenth Angel had shown up very shortly after the Thirteenth, none of the Angels had appeared immediately after the one prior.
"The UN satellite network is detecting multiple contacts approaching Earth," Maya reported.
"How many?" Misato's eyes narrowed. "Could they be asteroids?"
"Not unless asteroids make course corrections," Makoto answered. "And it looks like there's a dozen of them."
"Any sign of a blue pattern?" the Ops Director asked.
"None at this time," Makoto said. "But they're still outside the range of the Angel detection system."
"I don't understand how they got this close," Aoba frowned. "They're only a few thousand kilometers out. We should've spotted them long before now. It's like they just…appeared there."
"Asuka, Rei, I'm having positron rifles sent to your location," Misato said. "Get ready to engage whatever's coming, but don't fire unless I tell you to, understand?"
"Got it," the redhead replied.
"Roger," Rei said.
"Um, major," Maya spoke up as the two functional Evangelions got to work setting up the high tech weapons. "One of the objects in space is transmitting an audio/visual message on a broadband frequency."
Misato blinked. This was not what she'd expected. "Put it up on the main screen," she ordered.
A second later, the massive monitor on the far wall was showing the image of a humanoid figure with a pale green face, yellow eyes, and no nose.
Its resemblance to the Blue Beetle was impossible to deny.
"People of Earth, I bring you greetings from the Reach!" the extraterrestrial proclaimed in a masculine voice. "We come in peace, with the hopes of establishing trade and the exchange of ideas and culture with you!"
For a long moment, everyone in the command center was silent, stunned by this turn of events.
"Well, I think it's safe to say that is well above our pay grade," Aoba finally remarked sardonically.
"Yeah, this one's definitely a job for the UN," Makoto agreed.
Misato issued the orders to stand down again, suddenly feeling very detached and as though she was operating almost entirely on autopilot, one thought ringing through her head over and over again.
Oh, crap.
Present day…
"You have got to be kidding me!" Blue Beetle exclaimed. "The Reach showed up while I was gone?!"
(It looks that way.) The scarab answered. (It seems like they've actually been quite a hit at the UN. There are already all kinds of trade agreements in the works, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped over 100 points in an hour at the prospect of interstellar markets opening up for exports…)
"Why in the world are they being so friendly?" Blue Beetle asked. "Misato said that they were conquerors. Or like locusts, going from planet to planet and stripping them of all their resources. Making peaceful first contact and trying to establish trade doesn't exactly fit with that."
(I don't know.) The scarab admitted. (So much of my memory was lost that I didn't even know what I was or who the Reach were until Green Lantern told us.)
"I don't trust them," Blue Beetle decided as she reviewed the various news articles on the Reach with the aid of the scarab. "Not for one second. They're just too…perfect. These trade agreements look like they'd be extremely generous to Earth, and they're practically giving away a bunch a new technology. They're trying to lull humanity into a false sense of security or something."
(They could be sincere.) The scarab said, unusually quiet and timid. (I mean, I landed on Earth a very long time ago. They could've changed in the centuries since they made me. They could be peaceful now.)
Even without the mental link she shared with the scarab, Blue Beetle could've detected the sense of longing. With it, she felt that longing so strongly that it was like a shot to the gut.
Oh, scarab, she thought.
She had never truly realized how alone the scarab felt sometimes—how alone anyone would feel in the scarab's situation. Yes, it was never truly by itself, having plugged its mind into hers, but it was the only one of its kind on Earth. It hadn't even known what it was or why it existed when it had first joined with her, and when Misato provided information, it had come in the form of an explanation nearly as dry and colorless as something out of a textbook.
Now that the Reach had arrived, suddenly the scarab had the chance to meet others like itself. It couldn't help but wish that they could be friends.
The scarab's desire was almost a physical ache, and Blue Beetle badly wanted to give into it and give the Reach a chance.
She would have, too, if not for the still vivid memories of the scarab's life that the Fifteenth Angel had found and shown to her. She just couldn't bring herself to trust the same organization had so cruelly torn the scarab away from its home to make it into a weapon.
"I'm sorry, scarab," she said eventually. "We can't risk it. There's still one Angel left, and SEELE and the Commander to worry about. Regardless of the Reach's real intentions, we still have to deal with them."
(I understand.) The scarab replied, even though it sounded so disappointed that Blue Beetle felt her insides twist with guilt.
"Let go," Blue Beetle said, "we still have a lot of work left to do."
Author's Notes: And so, as I'm sure all of you expected, Ritsuko and the scarab didn't die last chapter. However, they were out of action long enough for a few developments to occur without them. And now Ritsuko has to worry about the Reach, in addition to everything else.
Anyways, thanks to my readers and reviewers, and to my beta reader as well.
Omake
Blooper Reel
"How do we quantify that which mankind has always treated as ineffable? That is the challenge that lays before us if we wish to…"
The sound of his mother's voice usually had a soothing effect on Shinji, despite the dispassionate academic tone she used for delivering the lectures, but that day they weren't working their magic.
I should turn this off, he decided, stopping his SDAT player and removing the tape.
Only to realize that there was label on both sides. He hadn't noticed that; until that point, he'd assumed that only one side of the tape had anything recorded on it.
Curiosity getting the better of him, Shinji turned the tape over, stuck it back into the SDAT player, and hit the play button.
Immediately, he knew that this recording wasn't a lecture like the others. He could hear the chatter of voices in the background, as well as the faint sound of music. If he had to guess, he'd say that the recording had been made at some kind of party.
"So, little Shinji's one year old today," a voice he didn't recognize spoke loudly enough for him to make out.
Shinji blinked. Had this recording been made at a birthday party for him?
"That's right," he heard Yui respond.
"So, how has motherhood been treating you?"
"Oh, you know, it's very hectic raising a child along with everything else I have to do, but I wouldn't trade it for the world," Yui replied.
"Right."
"And I can't wait until little Shinji gets big enough to wear that adorable sailor outfit I got for him!" Yui gushed.
In the present, Shinji grimaced. That was embarrassing, and he did not need the mental picture of his younger self in a faux sailor suit. Still, he supposed his mother was far from the only parent who did that type of thing.
"And when he gets a little bit older, I'm going to see about setting up an arranged marriage," Yui added.
Wait, what?!
"Is that so?" His mother's conversation partner asked, sounding surprised.
"Oh yes," Yui replied. "In fact, I'm going to try to set up a few. Have to maximize the number of grandchildren, you know."
There was a pause as both Shinji and whomever Yui had been speaking to were silent.
"Hey, would you like to see some of Shinji's baby pictures?" Yui asked suddenly. "Here's one where he took off his diaper, the little dear."
The Third Child abruptly hit the stop button on his SDAT and removed the tape, silently swearing to never listen to that side of it ever again.
Is This Thing On?
"People of Earth, I bring you greetings from the Reach!" the extraterrestrial proclaimed in a masculine voice. "We come in peace, with the hopes of establishing trade and the exchange of ideas and culture with you!"
For a long moment, everyone in the command center was silent, stunned by this turn of events.
Then the alien turned to his companions. "Heh, I'll bet that they bought that nonsense hook, line, and sinker. Stupid primatives," he said. "They have no idea that we intend to steal all their world's resources and then enslave them all! Mwa ha ha!"
"Um, sir?" one of the aliens on the bridge said. "We're still transmitting."
"D'oh!"
The transmission quickly winked out.
"Asuka, Rei," Misato said. "See if you can get target locks on those ships with your positron weapons."
"You got it," Asuka replied.
"Yes, ma'am," Rei said.