by Greylle
DISCLAIMER: Original series belong to someone else.
NOTE: Okay, this is a "crack fic" - it's not meant to be taken seriously. We're just out to have a bit of fun with a bizarre idea.
Okay, LOTS of bizarre. Hopefully lots of fun though too. ^_^
Chapter Eight: Online
Rei Ayanami glanced at the boy walking along the top of a fence and considered things in her usual silent manner.
She put her observations within the framework of her own experiences.
Ranma was walking atop the fence, and from what little she'd seen - he seemed to orient towards high ground when possible. The reasons for doing so were quite clear to her - with the elevation came a superior line of sight to potential dangers and targets. The downside of which was that potential threats had an easier time spotting Ranma. Conclusion: Ranma expected threats and was sufficiently confident in his own abilities that he discounted danger to himself in such encounters.
That he was able to walk along such a narrow path, and able to hop/flip from ground to wall and back when such paths were necessarily abandoned, also told Rei a few things about her erstwhile boyfriend. He almost seemed weightless at the time he was making such leaps. Which was certainly odd enough for consideration. Was he using an AT field projection?
"Round One - FIGHT!"
Rei blinked as Ranma paused, looking towards the sound of that voice. It was merely the game arcade located a block away from the school. Rei had known of its presence but had not travelled along this path particularly often, and such activities had never demonstrated a particular appeal to her.
Rei considered the arcade herself. Was this not something that couples did? Schoolmates often came to such places, but she had initially discounted potential combat training via the simulations within. Now she was unsure. Were such things of actual value?
Ranma himself had merely hopped down and regarded the screen of the one placed upon the sidewalk at the door. Some odd detail had caught his attention?
"SHIRYU SHOTEN HA!" said one of the characters in the game, again drawing a slight reaction from Ranma.
"Pfeh," said Ranma, reacting to Rei's presence and making a gesture to the game. "They got that move all wrong."
Rei blinked and observed the game further. Ranma was indicating that the manuever of the digital character was something real? "How could that be real?"
"Oh, that's just a chi blast," said Ranma, walking away from the machine. "No big deal."
Rei frowned ever so slightly. What was the appropriate response to such a statement for a potential girlfriend to make? Was he indicating that the game's unrealistic portrayal of melee combat had some basis in reality? Perhaps an indication of admiration layered with skepticism? "That would be 'cool' to see."
Ranma merely glanced back and seemed to go off into some thought.
Rei increased her stride slightly to catch back up. Her response obviously wasn't sufficient. Then again, what about the fires in her apartment? He had done something there.
"I would like to see you do that," tried Rei.
Again Ranma glanced back at her, his expression indicating some inner turmoil. Finally he put a hand out, palm forward, and pointed it at a trash can.
WHUNG!
Rei stopped as she came next to the trash can. She'd observed at least three feet of distance between Ranma's hand and the trash can. Yet now the metal pipe that served as the lip of the trash can was now bent inward as if hit by a hammer.
"You're so cool, Ranma-kun," tried Rei, remembering odd details she'd seen in those videos. Praise of this sort seemed common within such relationships.
"Uh, yeah," said Ranma, who wasn't averse to praise but also knew this was NOT what he had expected from Rei.
There was much that Asuka knew that she should have been happy about, what with her transfer to Tokyo-3 coming up. Being sent to the center of the defense of humanity was a major step and she'd taken it as a signal that she was needed there. That did a lot to convince her that she was being seen as a major asset in the scheme of things. Sure, it also suggested that she was only being brought in due to the other pilots hadn't proven to be enough to do the job, but that just made her be like the calvary in those old cowboy films.
Instead, she'd been reluctant to pack some of her prettier outfits. Not that she was bothered by dressing to show how sexy she could be. Heck, she wanted to truly show Kaji that she was becoming an adult. And being able to impress Misato with how lovely she'd become would be a bonus.
However, that'd also be what she'd have to use in that stupid mission that NERV Japan had given to her. Certainly, Misato hadn't sent it, and no one was going to pretend about that fact, since the woman's name hadn't shown up as anything resembling a contributor to the message. Yet, that was only a little comfort, as she had still been given the 'mission' to seduce the idiot Third Child. Sure, they put it down as 'assisting in preventing emotional outbreaks from the pilot of Unit 01' and 'creating a comfortable and pleasing atmosphere for the Third Child', but she knew what it meant. She had no doubt that she could wrap this idiot around her little finger, but it made her wonder just what sort of a pathetic loser would have to resort to having secret paramilitary organizations assign 'friends' to him. More than anything else, she was sure that he had to be some sort of scrawny weakling who wouldn't be able to bend rubber, rather than some athletic stud who could outdo the stunts in the movies.
So, it was with an already annoyed state of mind that she stood in her room, amongst the boxes and packages of her packing, and glared at the message on the paper in her hands.
"What the hell is this anyway?" she snarled, not caring that she wasn't about to get an answer. "You've got to be kidding me! 'Living arrangements will be made upon arrival'?"
No matter how many times she looked at it, the words did not change. Instead, they still told her that her original plans were not going to come to fruition quite as she'd thought. She'd liked the idea of staying with Misato, and had thought that it would give her the chance to put some distance between her and Kaji, so that he wouldn't think that she was a kid, or something silly like that.
Instead, she only might be able to stay with the elder woman, and that would only happen if the captain's own situation changed, unless they changed their minds back to their original thinking. Of course, it didn't matter to Asuka, as she wasn't exactly pleased by this latest... hiccup in her life. She was the pilot of the first production model of the Evangelion series, not some piece of equipment that was supposed to be stored wherever it was easiest! What was worst about the whole deal was that she didn't even know if she'd have someplace to live when she got to the city, and being homeless simply did not appeal to her.
Going from a frustrated growl to a yelp of disgust, the redhead crumpled the paper and threw it against the wall, not that it made her feel all that much better.
She did hope that everything, including the likely wimpy Third Child, was going to be worth all this hassle.
Leaning back in his chair, Kaji looked at the screen in front of him, and smirked. It seemed to be almost amusing that he was getting even more work sent his way now, seeing as he had a lot of people might have thought that overseeing the transport of Unit 02 and its pilot would be worth enough effort. Besides, it was also clear that there was no doubt that he'd succeed and get to NERV without any undue delay.
But then, he'd have expected such... confidence from Gendo Ikari. The man was nothing if he wasn't sure of himself, and what he could do. As it was, the guy already had him doing several things at once, on top of what others expected of him. Work was nice and all, but the truth was that it seemed to be a lot of fuss and bother at times.
Still... the fact that he was being asked to check around the Commander's son seemed to be telling. Apparently, according to the projections, the boy was supposed to have become some sort of 'shrinking violet', incapable of standing up for himself. Instead, he was a more than capable martial artist who was cocky and not afraid to mouth off. This 'Ranma Ikari' seemed to be rather interesting in that respect, although he was going to have to see what made the boy tick before he made any real decisions.
Taking the time wouldn't be that much of a bother, of course. Hell, if anything, it'd give him plenty of time to enjoy himself while he was there. Flirting with Ritsuko would be nice, but he really couldn't wait to see dear old Misato again. No matter if she was still mad at him or not, he liked the look in her eyes when he got her... excited.
His smirk turned into a full blown grin, and he gave off a loud chuckle.
Ranma was doing something unusual for him. The rest of the class was completely uninterested in the subject, which was the teacher droning on about Second Impact and the effect on the world situation.
So the rest of the class was dozing while Ranma paid attention and took notes. On a piece of paper, as he hadn't had more than basic lessons with the computer yet. Though before class he'd managed a little preparatory study.
(Knowing Asuka was going to show up, he was trying to learn a few handy German phrases to throw out. Strudelkopf. Spast. Wichser. Du kotzt mich an. He didn't know what all of them meant, as he'd just had a few minutes before class, but he had hopes for a really devastating one to reward Asuka with when she started in on something. Auf die knie, und heul um vergebung - sounded complicated but was probably a really nasty one to unleash.)
For now though - he had to learn more about this world. What exactly had happened and how had it altered the world.
They'd dropped a nuke on the Tokyo he'd lived in, part of that war that had ended with this 'Valentine Treaty.' So, from what he remembered of those movies - SEELE had caused both the Second Impact and had been directly responsible for the war.
Which meant that paying back those old bastards, or at least depriving them of their prize - THAT was a goal to go after.
Rei pondered. This was nothing new, she was easily the most introspective member of her class.
Rei was, among other things, evaluating her orders. She had been groped this very morning by her new boyfriend, and that had been quite odd. Though he had not intended to, apparently, it was a sign that she was taking as hopeful.
Apparently what Ranma-kun was capable of passed beyond what she knew to be possible, which was a sign of incomplete briefing or merely insufficient data on the parts of those who had prepared her for normal life.
Rei was unclear on a wide variety of things involving this situation, and getting more data was mandated at this point. The problem would be determining where she could actually go for information on such things.
Misato let the people work as she leaned back in her chair and tried to pop a vertebra between her shoulder blades that was informing her she'd been stressing of late.
Shopping for Rei had been surprisingly fun, but the situation as it was - rife with possibilities that could not only go wrong - but end in her meeting with a fatal accident if it turned out to be anything as indicated.
The Babel Fish was in a bowl at home. Having it in her ear was not only disgusting, but distracting. It turned out that lots of things had basic communication but not exactly a huge vocabulary.
Having listened to birds chattering at each other, with a single word or phrase repeated past the point of irritation, had been enough for that particular experiment.
"Man, we'll be cleaning Angel spatter off for days at this rate," complained a worker.
Staying in quiet and isolation wasn't something hard for Gendo, as he did it all the time. In fact, he rather preferred it that way, as he didn't feel all that connected to his fellow man, and never wanted to have that change. Rather, he preferred to sit behind his desk in his empty office, and keep his thoughts to himself.
It made plotting ever so much easier when one didn't have someone prattling at them.
At this time though, he was doing more along the lines of troubleshooting, as he had a problem that had not been expected. He had been told that his son would be biddable, antisocial, and easy to use in his plans by the files sent to him. However, what he got was an arrogant fighter who could quite likely cause the medical expenses of the security department to rise. As this sort of 'hiccup' was of the sort that could have been spotted earlier, he knew that something had happened that made the files invalid.
All he had to do was to figure out what, or who, had given him bad information, and handle it appropriately.
Fortunately, he didn't foresee any sort of future issues with any other personnel coming up.
For Ranma, it was lucky that some things were still the same, even if he was in a different time. Computers might have taken up even more of a role in daily life, but school was still the same in a lot of ways. The time in between breaks was nice enough, and even if he was back in junior high, it didn't feel as bad as he might have thought to simply sit around.
And even dealing with Rei was proving to be something that was easier to handle than he might have thought. From what he'd experienced before, he might have expected some sort of harassment or violence, but even when she was in a terribly embarrassing situation, she was rather... calm about the whole thing. Not that it wasn't kind of odd to think about, but the fact of the matter was that it was also nice to not have to deal with a girl who was about to whap him for accidents. In fact, other than seeming to read a book even when she started coming over to him, she didn't do much of anything.
"Hm? Whatcha readin'?" he asked as she stood next to him. "It any good?"
"I am unsure of that. My ability to judge its worth will come from trying it out," Rei answered, her red eyes never looking from the page.
"'Trying it out'? It ain't a novel, or somethin' like that?"
"No, it is a guide to the interactions between males and females of compatible desires."
"Huh? Guess that's good..."
Her brow furrowed just a bit. "Unfortunately, the only way to prove its worth is in the application of its techniques."
"Well, maybe I could help..."
"That was what I was desiring to be the case."
"What are ya thinkin' 'bout tryin', anyway?" the pigtailed boy asked, blinking in confusion.
"According to this, kissing is acceptable normally with the second date. However, as we are living together, it may be permissable to skip to chapter five."
"'Chapter five'?"
"See here?" the blue haired girl told him, tilting the book so that he could see as well, her slender finger following the lines of text. "This is what I am talking about."
"Oh, I see. It's... It's... Ya gotta be joking..."
"Why would I do something like that?"
"Because... That's... It's just not somethin' that ya do with someone that ya just met!"
"But we have not 'just met'. We have spent time together, and share both a class and housing accommodations," Rei commented.
"Ya wanna actually try this?"
"Certainly. Attempting such activities with you would be no burden upon me, and would be done without reservation."
What she said left the martial artist rather unable to make coherent sounds, and he grunted and squeaked for a bit.
Ritsuko sat back and contemplated the ceiling.
Gendo finished going through the report and summed up his reaction to it in a simple and direct manner. "You're sure of this?"
"It has to be," said Ritsuko. "It's the only explanation I could find after the results of the various tests came back taken after the Angel attack. I spent most of the afternoon trying to test him as a followup."
"The only pleasant thought about this is that the old men of SEELE are likely to be even more annoyed than yourself," said Gendo.
"He has to be reinforcing his physical parameters with angel-level AT fields," said Ritsuko, "and for that to happen it has to be a form of angel contamination."
"Yet he can be used," said Gendo. It was not a question.
"Well, yes," said Ritsuko. "We had to build specialized equipment, but we have a measure of his strength and speed. His ability to heal and recover are... astonishing."
"Useful traits for someone who is to be sent out to fight," pointed out Gendo. "I see he burned out your treadmill."
"He was running over forty-five miles per hour and his heartrate only went up marginally," said a frowning Ritsuko. "Though if you want to discuss broken equipment, there's the weight machine."
"Deal with it, Doctor," said Gendo. "Unless you want to negotiate a better budget?"
It was on its way.
Shamshel had been "born" at the moment that Sachiel perished, however it had evolved a little based on things that had occurred to Sachiel.
There was an Other. This had to be seen and verified. Where there was an Other, their Purpose might need to be re-evaluated.
That there might have been further alterations in itself was not of a concern.
Asuka grumped to herself as the plan to take her Eva unit, the only one designed for combat, was loaded onto a ship. She was watching from a distance, but it was only proper she should be around for such a thing.
Mainly though she was brooding.
Ship travel was SUCH a pain.
Her mission was SUCH a pain.
Being away from Kaji was SUCH a pain.
Being told her living arrangements were apparently still being worked out was SUCH a pain.
"Could this day get any worse?" asked Asuka.
She wasn't sure if that was thunder rumbling or just another jet passing overhead somewhere.
As he spent much of his time sitting at his desk, people tended to think that he had taken root there. Although he had been seen in other places, most people always thought of him sitting, either behind that piece of furniture, or on his command chair. No one knew if he had private quarters, or if he even took time to sleep or eat. They knew that he had to do such things, since he was technically human, but as with thinking about demigods and demons, bathroom activities were shied away from.
Not that standing with his hands clasped behind his back as he stared at the red lit diagram on the wall of his office was much different. Still, even he needed to stretch his legs sometimes, and he felt like doing it. Despite what it might have seemed, not everything that he did had a meaning... though he did have to admit that there was a certain... effect that came from creating an imposing figure like he was doing right then.
Plotting was what he did best, and the fact was that he knew that he constantly had to do that sort of activity. Strategies had to be adapted, and he didn't want his plans to get derailed by whatever new events were coming up. Events were still progressing how he wanted them to... but he wasn't about to ignore how certain developments could cause issues in the future.
His son's abilities were one such 'problem', but weren't of the sort that could simply be gotten rid of. If he removed the one posing the threat, he'd lose the boy, and that was not workable at all. At the same time, the boy's talents were proving to be useful against the Angels, which was welcome. The giant creatures' activities had to be stopped in order for the controlled activation of Third Impact to be done according to his plans, and so they had to be destroyed. Honestly, the Third Child's abilities were helpful in that regard, and it almost made him wish for more pilots like him.
And then a thought hit the Commander's mind, with only a slight tightening around his eyes showing any sort of indication to the outside world. Certainly all of the boy's powers couldn't be duplicated, but the fighting capability could be taught. Having the other pilots learn how to fight with even a fraction of that strength could make things much easier in the combat situations, allowing him more time and energy to apply to his real plans.
Besides, it would have other benefits as well. Being in close contact was just the sort of situation that would make it ever so much more likely that the German girl would be able to get into... intimate encounters with the boy. Rei would have the ability to keep an eye on the Third Child, since she would have a legitimate excuse for staying around him. It'd allow her to pass on the knowledge to others as well. And on top of it all, it would keep the boy occupied, and out of trouble in the mean time.
Allowing a small smile to curl his mouth up, Gendo congratulated himself on his plan, and considered its usefulness to be a good allocation of resources that would benefit him in the long run.
He just hoped that someone, like those old men at the table, wouldn't bumble their way into his plans.
Keele Lorenz had never been someone who hid from any sort of conflict, and sat tall at the long table in front of him. It was a solid structure, built out of a single piece of material, with the room giving off a similar 'monolithic' feel. The visual representation of the other contributors to this meeting didn't help in that regard, with each using the usual 'black slabs' as representations of themselves.
Considering the fact that this was a collection of the most powerful individuals on the planet, that 'overwhelming power' concept seemed to fit. At the very least, they could wield enough power to make small nations vanish, and were expecting to control the evolution of the human race. They were used to having dominion over the planet, and expected that to continue.
"The boy is not what we expected," commented SEELE-04 in a tone one might expect from a doomsayer. "He is an unstable element."
One could almost hear SEELE-07 nod. "Not only has he shown both accomplish feats beyond human norms, and an inability to follow instructions, but has not hidden that fact."
"If the public finds out that such a person can exist, then the uproar will be massive."
"Which begs the question as to where Ikari got the boy," Keele murmured, frowning thoughtfully.
"What did you say?"
"Are you saying that I misspoke?"
"Actually... no. What I was thinking was that it was simply unnatural for the boy to be this capable. Do you agree?"
The cybernetically enhanced man nodded. "Yes. And your point is..."
"That is that his son had to be created somehow. Human bodies simply can not do the things that he has managed to, and we know that Ikari's offpring has managed to do just that."
"And so you suggest that he might have had some sort of gene engineering in his past," SEELE-09 suggested.
"Exactly. We know that such things can be done. Look at what has been accomplished with Ayanami and our own experiments."
"But we know that the boy was born. He was clearly birthed by Yui Ikari."
"True, but who is to say that he hasn't done something to the boy."
"Not just Ikari. His wife was also a brilliant scientist. They could have adapted the boy to suit their needs as they had the chance to," SEELE-02 put in.
"Basically, yes. They could have decided that rather than following in their intellectual pursuits, he would be better used by having powerful physical capabilities."
"I rather doubt that either one of them could become an accomplished fighter."
"Be that as it may," SEELE-03 grumbled, "what we need is to figure out what we can do about it."
"You're suggesting that we act."
"Why not? If left unchecked, Ikari will use this power to his own advantage, and I don't think that any of us want to see him gain from this sly use of his son."
"True, but we must take care in what we do."
"We may want samples of the boy's DNA," SEELE-05 drawled.
SEELE-08 hummed a bit. "Having an agent there to monitor and manipulate the boy may also be good."
"If nothing else," SEELE-07 commented, "we may want to remove this boy as a threat to our plans... permanently."
As he heard the discussion over their plans really get underway, Keele thought of Gendo Ikari, and wondered what the man was really up to.
"WHERE is my luggage?" asked Asuka.
"As near as we can tell, it's in Turkey," said the stewardess.
"'as near as we can tell'?" repeated Asuka.
"Except for your red bag, we definitely know where that one is," said the stewardess.
"Well, let me have it!" demanded Asuka.
"It'll be in Tokyo no later than Tuesday," said the stewardess.
"Next week?" asked Asuka. "That's the one with all my clothing!"
"It's the weirdest thing, our computerized baggage service has NEVER had this problem before," said the stewardess. "We put barcode stickers on everything and it is scanned at every terminal and routing station. It's always worked perfectly before."
"Why is it going to take a week for my baggage to get to Tokyo?" asked Asuka, wondering if EuroAir's recent restructuring were at fault. She hadn't ever HEARD of this happening.
"It's currently on an oil tanker heading to Tokyo from Egypt."
"How? Why?" asked Asuka, her rage draining away as curiosity hit. "How could that happen?"
"As near as we can tell, a server crashed in Tokyo-3, some programmer named Hibiki says he found the problem, and your baggage is the only one affected," said the stewardess, bowing her head in apology.
"Well, at least I'll be in Tokyo soon," said Asuka.
Kaji watched from the bridge. Asuka was apparently back to yelling and screaming at the poor stewardess.
It had been odd, as they'd been prepared to go with a military convoy. Instead they were here on a commercial yacht with a military escort.
Unit 3, Asuka's EVA, was loaded on a military ship - but the sleek little yacht they were on could go a LOT faster if it was needed.
He glanced down at the paperwork. He was to get genetic samples of Ranma Ikari. Somehow. Well, he'd have to figure that out after meeting the guy.
"Do we have confirmation?" asked Ritsuko Akagi as the lift took her onto the NERV bridge area.
"It's kinda obvious," said Makoto as he pointed to the screen. "What else looks like a kaiju and flies slowly over Japan?"
Ritsuko glared at Makoto briefly, but had to admit he had a point. Big floating weird-looking creature going about 15kph as it flew over the coastline. If it wasn't an Angel, it was doing a pretty darn good imitation. "It. Is. Not. A. Kaiju."
"Should we get the Third Child?" asked Makoto. "Rei's not ready to pilot yet."
Ritsuko smiled. Why not ruin HIS day? "Do it."
On the screen continued the image of the Angel dubbed Shamshel.