Keel Lorenz was not a particularly famous man. He had taken great pains to ensure that state of affairs continued.
He was not that wealthy, either, at least in terms of his bank balance. The value of some items in his possession was, however, significantly greater than the entire UN Space Program's budget for the years 2010 to 2020. Some of those items were literally priceless; no valuation could be made of them for the only person who knew of their existence was Keel Lorenz, who had no intention of ever selling them.
He possessed neither servants nor a mansion; millennia of experience had taught the man that such things only drew attention. If any passer-by were to look upon Keel Lorenz's house, then they would simply see an old-style cottage in the middle of the German countryside. In recent times such passers-by would probably die shortly afterwards, since a plan conceived so many years ago was now entering its final stages.
If those passers-by somehow got into the cottage, they would see Keel Lorenz's home; lived-in, but not unusual. Many of the artefacts Keel Lorenz had amassed were hidden, partially to add yet another layer of deception to Keel Lorenz's life, but mostly because he enjoyed living in the old cottage. If someone managed to see Keel Lorenz himself, they would see an old man, his eyes lost in one of the many wars humanity had fought with itself and replaced with a simple visor.
If they spoke to Keel Lorenz, and if he deigned to reply, they would die. Instantly.
It is for this reason that Keel Lorenz never speaks to anyone directly. He uses a complex system of relays to negate the power of his own voice; the power that started the long chain of events that led to - among other things - a series of Crusades and Jihads, colonial "acquisitions", the rise and fall of empires, two World Wars and, of course, Second Impact. Some of those events were by his will, others were simply consequences of his actions.
There were two events he had actively fought against in his life.
Both times, he had failed.
Both times, the consequences had been dire.
His conversation with people who he inevitability thought of as his underlings (no matter how much they thought themselves as his equals) was intended to deal with some of those consequences.
"This is unacceptable," he said. A teacup beside him shattered at the sound of his voice; he would repair it later. It was empty, regardless.
"It was unavoidable," said one of the men on the other end of the line. "The national programs have always been rather... critical... of our ability to defend mankind against the Angels. Sooner or later, one of them was going to intervene. At least this way we gain a backup option should events turn out... poorly."
"I had hoped to avoid this situation. I ordered steps to be taken. Why has it occurred?" Keel Lorenz demanded, looking around the holographic room at all of the latest generation of old, rich men who wanted what he was going to gain. Not that he would give it to them; all of their kind had earned his apathy over the years, hatred being too strong an emotion for the house around him to withstand. As it was, the walls shook with his annoyance – he would have to buy new sets of armour plating.
"Well..." said one of the old men, nervously, "We haven't had enough time to re-establish control over some key UN members... so, we couldn't stop the vote passing. The British-" The man cut off as Keel Lorenz looked directly at him. Even through the holographic connection, the unfortunate man felt the glare.
With Keel Lorenz, looks could kill. Luckily for the SEELE council member, this time, it did not.
"You have other tools at your disposal. Use them," Keel Lorenz said, simply. The circle of holograms nodded, and the avatars slowly faded out of existence – except for one.
"I will send you the backup plan I have in mind should they fail again," said Gendo Ikari. "Luckily, we should not need too many modifications to our current plan. They really are rather similar, at the end of the day."
Keel Lorenz nodded, dismissing the holographic chamber.
He relaxed, reaching for the teacup. It reformed as he lifted the handle, and filled with tea as he took a sip. Sometimes he regretted his life. Others, like now, he did not.
Shinji waited as Unit 07 was lowered into one of the Evangelion hangar bays, unsure of how to stand. Rei stood beside him, at full attention, but Asuka was slouched against the wall; in any other situation, he would have just made himself comfortable (NERV not being big on military discipline), but if he was about to meet the pilot of Evangelion Unit 07, the person who had inspired him in the first place...
His mind trailed off as he looked at Unit 07. Most of it was familiar – he had watched VHS tapes of the British Isles campaign until they had broken, then wasted most of his teacher's annual free internet usage watching the videos online.
The following lecture had been... annoying.
Most of its armour was still unpainted, gunmetal grey, except for the usual notices ("NO STEP" and so on) and a single band of red where the left arm met the shoulder joint. He'd noticed that arm seemed slower ever since Jerusalem – not that Unit 07 had ever been particularly agile. It fit easily into the cage, despite being much smaller than his own Evangelion.
The characteristic hiss of an Evangelion's entry plug ejecting broke Shinji out of his thoughts, but the object that slid out of Unit 07's spinal cord didn't look like any plug Shinji was familiar with. It was angular, bulky – more like the cockpit of a gunship than an Evangelion entry plug. Two – not one, but two – hatches opened, and out stepped two armoured, helmeted figures. One of them (who had a bulky prosthetic arm) staggered, and the other steadied them.
Shinji's mind rushed to memorise every detail on their armour – the unit patch, the camouflage scheme (urban colours, it seemed), every pit and dent...
"Michael," Rei greeted, nodding at the figure with the prosthetic (and Shinji couldn't help feeling a little jealous that Rei was so familiar with the newcomer. The likelihood of the pilot being part of Rei's family barely managed to soothe that thought). "Lieutenant-Commander." This was directed at the other figure, who reached up, removed their helmet and revealed a surprisingly normal-looking brown-haired girl, who beamed at them.
"Rei," the girl said, "I keep telling you to call me "Rose"! Me and Mike are a package deal, after all." While she was speaking, Rose reached over to the other pilot's – Michael's – helmet with her free hand, helping him to take it off. Just as Shinji suspected, the boy was obviously some part of Rei's family – the blue hair and red eyes kind of gave that one away. He actually looked surprisingly like Rei, somehow, aside from the facial scars. It was actually a little disturbing.
"It's good to see you again, Sis," Michael said. "Sorry we took so long getting here. Customs was kind of a pain."
"...you entered this country without going through Customs," Rei pointed out.
"And we had to use the single most powerful spacecraft ever assembled to do so," Rose countered.
"Hence, "Customs was a pain"," Michael finished. That was weird – the two didn't even look at each other while speaking, and neither of them seemed to interrupt the other. Strange. I'll have to look into the dual-pilot system at some point, too, Shinji decided.
"Regardless," Michael continued, "standing around here isn't exactly productive. When's the debrief, and perhaps more importantly where is everything around here? Especially the shower rooms."
The debriefing was being held in Conference Room 145, a fact which Shinji had memorised very carefully when he'd been told. He'd also turned up early; one of the advantages to wearing a school uniform all the time was that it was rather easy to change into, so he'd finished showering before Michael even turned up.
The room was like any other of the 500 or so similar rooms scattered about the Geo-Front; a digital blackboard dominated the room at the head of an elliptical table. Snacks and drinks had been laid out – Shinji had a small pile of them sitting on the desk in front of him. Piloting Unit 01 always made him hungry.
The door opened, and Rei stepped in.
Shinji smiled at her as she sat by him, and memories of their date flooded back in past the tension of the fight. The movie had been pretty good – something about time travel and alien invasions, not that it had been easy to focus on it thanks to Rei attaching herself (via each other's arms) to him early on. When he'd asked why she'd been so forward after the movie (well, in actual fact he simply panicked in her general direction until she explained), she'd said that she was "simply following the guidance I found from the internet and was given by Class Representative Horaki".
"So," he said, snapping back to reality, "What's your brother like?"
"I don't know," Rei replied. "I've only met him once before today, and spoken to him six times."
"And I thought my family was messed up," Shinji muttered. "Why haven't you seen him more?"
"There was no need, and it would have been inconvenient," said Rei. Shinji looked at her, silently asking her to explain, so she continued. "He was fighting a war. I was training. We only even found out about each other when we met before the battle of Jerusalem."
"The Third Angel? I forgot you would have been there. Asuka too, come to think of it." Shinji fell silent for a moment. "I should probably have been there too. I... don't particularly like the idea of you going into battle without me."
Rei smiled, and opened her mouth to speak. The door opened again, interrupting her, and the pilots of Unit 07 walked in. Shinji's mind went into overdrive again, noting down the details of their uniforms, the pistol holster on Michael's hip, the carbine across Rose's back, and so many other nearly useless bits of information. To say Shinji had a pretty bad case of being star-struck would be an understatement. It wasn't until several seconds of this that Shinji realised Michael's prosthetic was absent. Weird, he thought.
Michael stood next to the projector screen, and Rose sat near him.
The door opened again, breaking Shinji out of his daze.
Asuka walked in, scowling. "Please don't tell me they put you in charge again," she said as she saw Michael.
"Officially speaking, the whole "command" situation is a little confused," Michael conceded, "but since this debriefing is unofficial, it doesn't matter."
Michael waved his right arm for silence. "Let's just get this started, shall we. MAGI, start the program." The projector booted up, showing several different windows. One displayed video of the recent battle, flipping through the various highlights, while another displayed a model of the Eighth Angel. Yet another seemed to be an analysis of radio signal strength, with some weird distortion in the centre that increased over time then faded. The final window was a simple tactical map of the deployment, running through the battle on repeat. "Having a pseudo-AI is really useful, you know," Michael commented as the projector warmed up. "It's a pity you're not selling them – they put this together in the time it took me to take a shower. We'd buy them in a heartbeat." He shook his head, and pointed to the highlight reel.
"Quite frankly, Pilot Sorhyu, your performance out there was a disgrace," he began. "You blocked Pilot Ikari's line of fire, cluttered the radio when signals were having trouble getting through, and somehow managed to get one of the world's best war machines stuck head-first in the sand like an ostrich. Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki asked the MAGI – who then asked me since they're apparently too busy - to pass on this message to you, and I quote: "I will not tolerate this organisation being made to look foolish on the world stage, and if you act like a fool in combat I will find you a job more suited to a fool."" Michael smiled thinly. "Personally, I'm inclined to agree with him, although I think he likes the word "fool" a bit too much."
Asuka bristled. "It's not my fault the Angel didn't die! I got its core with the first blow, it should have-"
"Quite frankly, Pilot Sorhyu, I don't care," replied Michael. "You did better in Jerusalem, and I saw the video of the Seventh Angel battle, too. That was impressive. Your contribution to this last fight, on the other hand, was a farce. Humanity cannot afford anything less than your best performance in the field. Am I clear?"
"...fine," Asuka agreed.
"Good," Michael said, turning to look at Shinji. "As for you, Pilot Ikari... your teamwork needs work too. You didn't even try to pull Unit Two out of the sand. That said, you did better than Pilot Sorhyu." He sighed, and waved his hand. The feed showing the highlight reel changed to show footage from the previous Angel battles. "Quite frankly, the only thing keeping humanity alive at the moment is each pilot's skill, the Sixth and Third Angels being the only exceptio-."
Michael broke off into a coughing fit. Rose jumped into action, shoving a cup of water into his hand. He gulped it down, and waved her off as the fit subsided. He half-collapsed into the nearest chair, panting.
"Are... you alright?" Shinji asked, after a few moments of awkward silence.
"It's just an old wound," Michael insisted. Shinji couldn't help noticing the boy didn't sound convinced. "I suppose that's my body telling me to stop with the speeches. The short version is: we need to start acting like a team. Any suggestions?" Michael kept himself upright for a few seconds after finishing, before slumping back on the chair. Rose slid a beaker of water over to him.
"Pilot Ikari and I complete the standard multi-Evangelion simulations with high marks every time," Rei said, "and our performance during the Sixth Angel battle-"
"Oh, for god's sake!" Asuka shouted, "Just say "me and my boyfriend work well together"!"
Rei stared at the redhead for a moment, then nodded. "Very well. "Me and-""
"What Rei's saying," interrupted Shinji, red-faced, "is... that our teamwork is... good?" He trailed off, aware that everyone in the room was watching him.
Michael put his paper cup down on the table. "Yours and Pilot Ayanami's, yes. Not the team's as a whole."
Asuka sighed. "We haven't run through the team sims yet," she said. "And it's a little hard to work well with people you barely know."
Rose shot a look at Michael, then spoke. "You've been here a week and they haven't put you through any sims with the other two pilots?"
"Well, I was a little busy trying to follow Shinji's mad scientist theories," admitted Asuka. "Between messing around with the MAGI, my duties at school, and the battery of tests they put me through..."
"School?" Michael asked, slamming the cup down. Water spilled over the table, and he used his sleeve to clean it up as he continued. "You're professional soldiers. Why have they got you going to school?"
Shinji answered, surprising Michael – after all, the boy didn't look very talkative. "NERV has concerns about the psychological stability of its pilots," Shinji explained. "For some reason, they think we're all on the verge of going berserker and tearing the city apart."
He looked away at a wall. Let's not mention the fact that that's exactly what I did on my first sortie.
"In an effort to prevent this, it's a condition of our employment with NERV that we attend school and socialise. It's also part of the UN's drive to rehabilitate child soldiers now the war's over," he concluded.
Michael sighed, and finished off what was left of his water. "So, I guess there's nothing we can do about that. Regardless, I'll try to get some team exercises scheduled over the next month or so. Anything else?"
Rose looked up from her collection of papers. "It says here Pilots Ikari and Ayanami live together," she said. Rei gave her a look that threatened immediate destruction.
"I do not see how that is relevant," she said.
"Really?" said Rose, "You don't see the connection between two pilots living together and their improved teamwork?"
"The existence of such a connection is irrelevant," argued Rei, "there are no free rooms at Captain Katsuragi's apartment. If-"
"Relax, sis," Michael lazily interrupted, "no-one's going to take your boyfriend away." He looked Shinji over as the boy spluttered. "We're getting off topic. There's a couple more things, then I've got another... two? meetings." He paused to take in a large breath. "Take a look at the weird squiggly line things on the screen. That, I'm reliably informed, is showing the effects of each Angel's AT Field on our radio communications. As you can hopefully tell – because I sure as hell can't – it's been getting worse with each Angel. The upshot is that in a few more Angels' time, we might not be able to talk to this place. A few more after that, and we might not even be able to talk to each other." He ran out of breath, and collapsed back into the chair.
Rose took over seamlessly. "Now, this doesn't mean complete isolation – the power cables for your Evas contain fibre-optic cables for precisely this reason," she said. "It does mean that we really need to get to the point where we're able to work together without talking to each other."
"And the last thing?" Asuka prompted.
"The last thing is that we're going to get more company," said Michael. "It's likely that the Russians and Chinese are going to send at least one Evangelion over between them. Hopefully we'll get all of them."
"I hope not," Asuka said. "Tatyana's a bitch." Everyone in the room stared at the redhead. "She called me a Nazi!" she protested. "I'm not a fucking Nazi!" She trailed off. "I did call her a communist bitch, though," she muttered.
"Tatyana Ivanova?" Shinji asked, "Pilot of Unit Six?" He deemed it prudent to leave out the fact he was one of Tatyana's twitter followers
"No, Tatyana Gofuckyourselvovich," Asuka retorted. "Who the fuck did you think?" She looked around for Michael and Rose, to see how they would respond.
They were no-where to be seen.
"Does this mean we can go?" asked Shinji hopefully.
"-just saying that you should have told her off. You were the closest thing to a superior officer in the room," argued Rose as the two waited for their elevator to reach the Commander's office.
"Maybe next time," Michael said.
"And another thing; you can't wave off what happened in there. We're seeing a doctor after this whether you like it or not," Rose continued. She sighed, and leaned back against the wall. It was obvious Michael wasn't listening. She rallied herself, and kept going. "Look, I don't want you to die because you were too damned lazy to go see a doctor. I'm not even going to mention the synchronisation problem back in the battle-"
"We killed the Angel, didn't we?" asked Michael suddenly. Rose slowly nodded. She knew where this was going. "So there's no problem."
"Mike, you killed the Angel. I was just along for the ride," said Rose. "The entire point of the dual-pilot system is to prevent that sort of thing happening!" Michael just stood there, silently. Rose felt her fist clench in anger; why did he never bother to listen?
"I am not going to just let you go berserker again!" she shouted. That got a reaction – just a small twitch, but a reaction nonetheless. "I don't know what you did, but if we don't sync together next time..."
She trailed off, perfectly aware there was nothing she could threaten him with.
To her surprise, Michael sighed. "I had the engineers cut you out of the sync loop a while back," he admitted. "I... don't want to make you go through Jerusalem again. Or Saint Louis."
Rose stood in silence, uncertain how to proceed.
The elevator doors opened.
"Sweetie, Daddy's gotta go away for a bit. I'm sorry, I don't have a choice. Mommy'll take care of you, okay?"
But mommy never – NO.
"Are they making you go to war?"
"...Yeah. Look, they say it should be over before Christmas. I'll bring you back-"
And then daddy was gone, and he – NO, STOP -
"-REPEAT, THEY'RE BREAKING THROUGH! THAT MONSTER'S TAKING EVERYTHING WE THROW AT IT!"
NO.
"Rose. You have to pilot it."
"Dad'll come back if I win, right?"
STOP IT.
"Enemy Evangelion is in your sector, Rose. Take it out."
There it was. The squat, grey behemoth. Draw the knife, get in close – DON'T WANT.
The roar as she stabbed the monster, that grey monster that had eaten everything in her life and then pain as – JUST WAKE UP!
"Another bad dream?" Michael asked as he walked into the room. Rose nodded.
"You should be glad you never get them," she said. Her co-pilot smiled, and handed her a glass of some soft drink or other.
"I had one after I collapsed," he said as he sat down beside her. "Birmingham, back in... oh-six?"
"I thought you said you never dreamed," Rose commented. She couldn't keep the accusation from her voice. If he'd lied to her-
"It's the first time," Michael explained. "It wasn't really a dream, though. It felt... real."
"What happened?" she asked. Anything to get her mind off of her memories.
"I ran out of power after breaking the enemy forces. The plug ejected and put me in the middle of a shopping centre filled with enemy soldiers." Michael trailed off, lost in thought. "That... was the first time I killed someone up close. A shard of glass through the first guy's neck, and then three more with the first's sidearm. Then the second fireteam got me."
"That was a little more detail than I wanted," said Rose. "Don't you have any happy memories?"
"Watching movies with the Admiral," Michael said. "Old war flicks, mostly, but I think my favourite was Star Wars. He used to put it on after something like Dambusters or Battle of Britain and point out all the similarities."He smiled, and sat back on the couch of their new apartment. "What about you?" he asked. "You've never really told me anything about yourself."
Rose shook her head. "I don't really have that much to talk about. Dad left for the war, never came back. Mom went crazy, then died a couple of months later. Then the Army picked me up and shoved me into Unit Four. The rest is... geography."
Michael laughed.
"Geography," he said as Rose glared at him. "I'll have to write that one down."
Rose smiled, and cuddled up to the boy. There was one other thing, though, before she fell asleep...
Not that she could remember.
Unit 07 ran through the streets of Tokyo-3, a sword and shield clutched in its hands. A cluster of VTOLs flew around it, watching for the enemy. Massive gouges ran down its back; they had encountered their opponents once before, and it had not gone well. Their armour had withstood the assault, but only just.
The group rounded a corner, and there was one of its opponents. The red behemoth stood, and spat fire. The VTOLs scattered, and Unit 07 brought its shield up. Slowed to a walk by the stream of fire coming from its enemy, it advanced down the street.
It reached an intersection, and fire pounded into its flank. The blue enemy had been waiting for just this manoeuvre. Behind the armour plating, however, the pilots were grinning a bestial smile.
"Trap sprung," they whispered.
Unit 01 slammed into Unit 00's back, sliding a knife right into the blue Evangelion's entry plug. The threat eliminated, Unit 07 walked onwards. Asuka wasn't a fool, as much as a certain subcommander may deem her so, and Unit 02 retreated down the street.
Inside Unit 02, Asuka seethed with fury. Her trap should have worked; Unit 01 was supposed to be busy with a separate trap sprung by her supporting forces, and there was no way Unit 07's reactor could still be working. They'd even blown that damned cannon off of its shoulder!
She shook her head, and started planning. If she could get back to her rearming point, the close-defence guns should be able to deal with one of the enemies. She could deal with the other, easily. If she could just get it into a one-on-one fight, she could win. She smiled, victory assured.
That was, of course, when the second part of the enemy trap closed.
Unit 07's VTOL escort had regrouped ahead of Unit 02, and now began pouring rocket fire into Asuka. She dashed down a side street, and Unit 01 began firing into her flank with Rei's assault rifle. Unit 07 was still coming, too; she could see it at the top of the street. Surrounded by buildings and threatened on three sides, there was only one thing to do.
Asuka cast her own rifle aside, and drew her shortswords. She desperately tried to call for her own VTOL squadron, only to be met by static. Cursing, she charged towards Unit 07, the slowest of her opponents-
***SIMULATION TERMINATED***
REASON: YOU ARE DEAD.
GAME OVER.
"So, what did we all do wrong?" Michael began. "I'll go first."
The pilots sat around the conference room table. Had the room had any windows, they would have seen the utter darkness of the Geo-Front at night. As it was, they had to make do with circadian rhythm-destroying fluorescent lighting.
Asuka was glaring at everyone and everything, Rei was... well, Rei, and Shinji looked slightly guilty about stabbing his sort-of girlfriend in the back. The commanders of the support forces – two generic NERV officers – sat there, uncomfortable. This wasn't their place.
"So, what Rose and I got wrong," Michael continued. "Well, we walked right into your trap, for a start." Rose smiled sheepishly. "On top of that, we got overconfident and paid for it – if we'd had the AT Fields enabled for this sim, we wouldn't have taken so much damage. Technically speaking, you actually killed us."
"Then why the hell were you still moving?!" Asuka protested. "If we killed you..."
"You blew through the radiation shielding and managed to put the reactor into meltdown," Michael explained. "Quite impressive, considering they designed it to not do that. If the fight had dragged on a few more minutes, we'd have been considered dead."
"So I guess my mistake wasn't finishing you off, then," Asuka said. "Without you, Shinji didn't stand a chance."
Rei bristled at this. Rose spoke up before an argument could start.
"Pilot Sorhyu, you were killed by Lieutenant Aoba's VTOL squadron," she said. Asuka bristled - that had been a little embarrassing. "Not Unit 01. That was your real mistake – you threw away one third of your forces rather than conserving them and hitting us with everything you had."
"It's not my fault Makoto's forces were useless," Asuka protested. "Without the AT Field, they shouldn't have had a problem killing Unit 01!"
"You sent a tank battalion and a VTOL squadron against our tank battalion, a VTOL squadron and Unit 01," said Michael. "Remember Jerusalem? How we had you as a mobile reserve?"
Asuka nodded.
"That's how we used our VTOLs. We distracted you two with Unit 07 – unintentionally, I have to admit, but we still did it – and dealt with your forces piecemeal," he explained. "After that, there was only one thing you could do – retreat – and once you know what the enemy is going to do, that enemy has lost." He smiled again. "That charge at the end threw us off, though."
"Why "us"?" Rei asked.
Michael and Rose looked at her, confused.
"You keep saying "us"," she explained. "Were you not in command, Captain?"
"When we're synchronised, we are pretty much one person," said Rose. "There's some disconnect – mostly due to differences in muscle memory – but... well, we both know what the other's thinking, and can think semi-separately, but..." she looked around, trying to think of the words.
"We co-ordinate our thinking," Michael said. "It's why we can have a live nuclear reactor operating in combat, for example." He shook his head, mentally dismissing the topic. "Ikari, how about you?"
"What?" Shinji asked, brought out of some train of thought.
"Your mistakes," Rei prompted. "Aside from the part where you stabbed me in the back."
Shinji drew in a breath, carefully. It's a little unfair she's pissed, he thought, after all those times she killed me in the one-versus-one sims. "Well, I got picked for the wrong team," he joked. "I mean, I get that part of the point was to get me and Rei fighting each other, but I don't think there's a situation where I'd be fighting her."
Michael looked at him, expectantly. Shinji's mind went into overdrive, as it always did when he thought something was impossible.
"Well... the Third Angel took over an Eva, didn't it? So I suppose if we got another one of those. Or..." He trailed off for a second, before continuing. "Or if something big happened."
"Like?" asked everyone else, simultaneously.
Shinji rocked back into his chair, but his mind kept going. He had to finish this train of thought.
"Any number of things," he explained, shaking. "One of us could be brainwashed, or we could start believing in different fundamental precepts – like she believes that the human race is more important than the survival of whatever race the Angels belong to and I don't, or vice versa, or someone holds someone else dear to us hostage, or-"
"Or you could just hate each other by then," muttered Asuka. "It happens."
Shinji went catatonic, staring off into space. He hadn't considered that possibility – what if he'd angered her enough by killing her in the simulation that-
Rei took his hand under the table.
"Okay, we can stop this discussion now," said Rose. She turned, and whispered into Michael's ear. "Mike, I know you wanted him to think things through, but do you really think it's a good idea to traumatise the kid?"
"If you're still calling him a kid," he whispered back, "then yeah, it probably is." He shook his head, and raised his voice again. "Rei, what about you?"
Rei glared at her brother, but spoke up anyway. "I allowed Pilot Sorhyu to take command, when she lacked the qualifications to do so. I did not check to make sure I was not being ambushed, nor did I react as fast as I should have when I realised I was," she said.
"Good," Michael said. "Now, since we have time... let's run through that again."
There was a collective groan from everyone else in the room. Michael relented.
"Fine," he said, "go on. Shower, go home, do whatever it is you do at..."
His eyes widened as he checked the time.
"Two AM!?"
Sorry this one took a while - between a script-writing thing, a week's holiday and just general craziness I haven't had time to write this. I'm also sorry there's not much in the way of action in this one. That will change in the next chapter - you'll get at least one new character, and probably an Angel battle too. I can feel your excitement from here already.