Andreas' Boat Sale and Rental, Cyprus coast
Andreas, the owner of Andreas' Boat Sale and Rental, sighed at the absolute lack of business on this slow day. Normally he at least got a few people interested in renting a boat for fishing, but today lacked even that. Perhaps it was the storm passing by down south scaring his potential customers away? Well, whatever it was he should consider closing up if he didn't get any customers soon. Not to mention he had a bottle of ouzo waiting for him at home. As he got up to close up shop, a disheveled woman in a hospital gown half burst half hobbled into his store and slammed a bag on his counter.
"Can a bag of medical supplies buy me a boat?!" She half-screamed at him in English. Andreas was understandably taken aback, eyeing the bag that was likely stolen from a hospital or ambulance. He was now in a situation where he had to deal with an escaped patient who was most likely mentally unstable. As calling the cops to subdue her while she was here would most likely set her off, he decided to humor her in order to distract her. God he wished he closed up earlier.
"It can, but it's not a very good boat I'm afraid." He responded in poor English, trying to half remember lessons learned years ago, watching her closely in case she got aggressive.
"I'll take it! As long as it takes me out of here!" She paused as her brow scrunched in thought. "Also, do you have any coffee here? Mama's in need of a caffeine fix."
"Yes!" He shifts into his loud and boisterous salesman persona he uses for tourists, hoping it will make him less threatening to her. He slowly reaches into the fridge he keeps behind the counter for holding drinks and bait and pulls out a can of coffee. "You mind can?"
"Not at all!" She snatches the can from him with frightening speed and downs it like a woman possessed. "Oh my bitter dark ambrosia, how I missed your acrid taste." She purred as she whispered sweet nothings to the now empty can. "But I can't dally for long, gimme those boat keys guv, I got places to be and godchildren to dote on." Andreas filed that part away for later and placed a set of keys on the counter. It was to a now-defunct boat that lacked an engine. Hopefully trying to get it to turn on would distract her long enough for the authorities to get here and take her back to the safety of whatever psych ward she busted out of.
"It's the red boat at the end of the dock, can't miss it!" He explained as she took the keys and inspected them. "The engine is a bit old so it might take a bit to start up! So be patient with her, alright?" Hopefully trying to work the non-existent engine would distract her for a bit.
"Aye aye, Cap'n!" She gave him a mock salute as she hobbled off with her crutches. He had to admit, she could move around on those things. He shook his head free of those thoughts and grabbed his phone the moment she was out of the building, dialing up the authorities posthaste, barely noticing one of his workers coming in.
"Andreas, who's the woman on crutches? A customer?" He asked as he eyed the bag of medical supplies on the counter.
"Some crazy woman with stolen medicine. I'm calling the cops now, so keep an eye on her so she doesn't fall into the water and drown. I gave her the keys to that broken red boat so she can distract herself until the cops arrive."
"Boss…" His worker began with a suddenly worried look. "I've actually been fixing that boat up so we could sell it again. It's fully functional." Andreas froze and looked at his worker with wide eyes.
"What?! Oh no." The sudden sound of a boat starting up and speeding off reverberated throughout the shop. "Oh no."
"That sounded like it was heading south, isn't a storm passing through that way?" His worker asked uncomfortably.
"Oooooh nooooo." Andreas put his head in his hands as the phone finally connected to the authorities. Suffice to say, this was not going well for him.
Mediterranean Sea, south of Cyprus
"Ah, the open sea. Not where I expected to go, but as they say, Britannia rules the waves~." Mary chuckles a bit as she begins to hum the aforementioned song. She honestly didn't think buying a boat with medical supplies she filched off the crashed ambulance would work, but here she is! She was honestly expecting the guy to try to call the cops, leading her to have to throw hands, but looks like Lady Luck is on her side. But that was to be expected, the ladies loved her. Well, some ladies loved her. Most tolerated her, with a few actively avoiding her. One even filed a restraining order, but that was a misunderstanding. Seriously, how was she supposed to know that it wasn't a one-way mirror?
"Hm?" She was broken out of her musings as she noticed a gathering of dark clouds on the horizon. A storm stood directly in her path to GEHIRN Egypt, the one place she could contact people she knew. Well, she was sure there were other places but that was probably the closest and she also didn't know how to drive a boat enough to turn around. Perhaps she should have thought of that before getting a boat? Well, no time to worry about that now as she drove her boat headfirst into a storm.
"Seriously, how hard could driving a boat be-"
20 minutes later
"Who-" She coughs and sputters as the rough waves recede as the last of the storm passes. Mary was clutching onto a life preserver with a vice grip, with nothing but water for miles. "Who the hell puts a bloody stick shift on a goddamn boat!?"
36 hours later, somewhere in the southeastern Mediterranean Sea
Mary blinked languidly as she continued to paddle in the direction she believed to be south. She had been here for weeks, she thought. The sun beating down on her like… honestly she couldn't think of an analogy now. She lucked out a while ago as an errant plastic cooler containing a water bottle and some jerky floated by her, undoubtedly lost by some seagoer or another. She had already consumed the jerky and the water and was wearing the cooler as a hat to prevent the sun from stealing her brain thoughts like the sexy celestial body that it is. No matter, she would survive this and become sexier than the sun and get all the bitches. Or a sandwich. She could really go for a sandwich right now. Maybe she could grab three fish swimming by and stack them together to make a fish sandwich? Eating raw fish was okay, right? There was sushi and sashimi which were raw fish, so she should be fine, right? Suddenly she could feel herself being lifted out of the water.
"Is that you God? Finally! I was about to make an offer to Satan to get out of here you git!" She was suddenly plopped onto a hard surface that felt like wood. Above her were two men who were staring at her. Suddenly her fight or flight instincts activated and she grabbed a nearby seagull to use for self-defense. The seagull is confused but weirdly into it. "Back off wankers! I know how to use this!" The seagull honks in agreement.
"Calm down miss." One speaks softly in fairly decent English while the other speaks something in a language she doesn't understand. Arabic perhaps? "We found you adrift, you might be suffering heatstroke." He spoke gently as if trying to calm a scared animal.
"Likely story! I bet you're pirates trying to steal my treasure! Little did you know that the real treasure was the friends we made along the way!" They looked at each other as the English-speaking man spoke something to the other in their probably shared Arabic(?) language.
"Miss, please calm down and put down the…. Seagull." He attempted, trying to beguile her into a false sense of securit- "We have food and water for you."
"Why did you say so?!" She tossed the seagull over her shoulder, the bird flying away heartbroken. "Lead me to your sandwiches pirate man!" The men stared at her silently as she stood there with the cooler still on her head. "No seriously, lead me to them. I lost my glasses, I can't see." The men looked at each other before one took her by the hand and led her to some sort of interior space. She smirked as she was led into the bowels of this pirate ship that smelt suspiciously like a fishing barge, these poor fools had yet to realize that she had already started her takeover of this pirate vessel. Soon she would be Queen of the local pirates, and she would sail to GEHIRN at the head of a pirate fleet with a harem of buxom buccaneer babes waiting on her hand and foot. All according to plan.
One hour later, Egyptian coastal town of Sidi Barrani
"So." Police Officer Adhaf sighed as he pinched the bridge of his nose as his partner was still wrestling with the foreign woman. He was glad he never learned English as the fisherman he was taking a statement from who did speak it was wincing at whatever she was saying. "You found her adrift around an hour north of here, and she seemed delirious and aggressive from dehydration and heatstroke?
"Yes, we managed to calm her down and got her to eat some food and get some water in her. After which she sat still and constantly chuckled and muttered things about pirate queens." He responded, wincing as the woman was attempting to put his partner into a chokehold. Adhaf had to admit, the woman was stronger than she looked.
"And she didn't have any sort of ID on her?" He figured she didn't, but he was required to ask anyway.
"No, it looked like she had nothing in her pockets. But her clothes do look like hospital clothes." The fisherman added, pointing out the obvious. Adhaf was annoyed but the fisherman was trying to help so he couldn't be too annoyed. "And she also mentioned she needed glasses." A useful note, even though it did nothing to reveal her identity.
"Good to know. I believe that's everything. We'll contact you if we have any more questions." "He flipped to a blank page in his notebook and wrote his work number on it, then tore it out and handed it to the fisherman. "Call this number if you discover anything else or something happens."
"Understood." The fisherman takes the number without hesitation. "Will she be alright?" The woman has at this point managed to steal a bike and crash it into a wall in the short time he's looked away. She was pinned underneath the lightweight frame and was screaming something as she flailed around like a feral cat. Foreigners honestly. Ever since that time in the eighties with a vacationing American senator in Cairo, they've been the bane of his career. He moved out here to escape them, but he can't seem to shake them off.
"Considering she's committed at least three major criminal actions already I'm afraid I'll have to arrest her. But I'll get her out in a few days to meet with an interpreter to help find out who she is and hopefully get her back to where she belongs." Adhaf responded as his partner managed to extract the woman from underneath the bike before handcuffing her.
"Whoever keeps putting stick shifts on things better watch out! I'll find you and keelhaul you! You don't mess with the new Pirate Queen!" The woman shouted in a rage, all meaning lost to Adhaf's untrained ears. He sighed, hoping she would be out of his hair sooner rather than later.
Sidi Barrani Women's Correctional Facility, Two Days later
Welp, she's done it now. She's landed herself in a foreign prison where nobody spoke her language. She really shouldn't have referred to herself as the Pirate Queen in front of the local police. Piracy is illegal stupid! They were obviously on the hunt for her because of her (future) pirate deeds. Suffice it to say, she's hanging up her pirating coat for the foreseeable future. On the plus side, she's been in prison before, something she's legally forced to admit due to the Strathclyde Police, so she knows how things in this place work. After all, power was a language all in of itself, and she didn't need to speak the same language to establish dominance by shanking the biggest bitch she can find. The problem was making a shiv, specifically what to make it out of. She could use her glasses, helpfully provided by the prison doctor, by sharpening one edge. But she needed to see in order to stab a fool, so that wasn't a good idea. So she went to plan b, trying to turn a paper clip, a rubber band, and a plastic straw into a weapon she could use to kill. If only the combat knife she stole from one of the guards wasn't so sharp, it kept ruining the straw! How was she supposed to kill someone if her stolen combat knife kept ruining the straw!?
"Excuse?" Mary yelped as she quickly threw the useless combat knife away, dropping down a nearby drain. She whirled around a brandished the ruined straw at the fiend who would surprise someone whose back was to the entire courtyard! She registered a guard, who eyed the straw with confusion." You…. get phone." The guard told her in broken English, most likely telling her she got her one phone call, something she tried requesting when she got here, and it looks like they finally figured it out. Excellent, she could contact someone to get her out of here.
"Good! Please lead the way, madam!" She hid the straw in her prison uniform waistband as she followed the guard to the phone area, keeping an eye out for any ambushes that lay in wait. Fortunately, they were unaccosted as they reached the phone room, no doubt because her hypothetical enemies were weary of her skills with a straw, as they should be. She was led inside the room, which contained only a table, chair, and phone. Cordless, unfortunately. That nipped her plans to pilfer the cord and use it as a weapon in the bud.
"One call." The guard informed her before moving to the corner to watch her. She had a feeling this call wouldn't be so private. But that's fine, she only needed to call someone to bail her out.
"Understood my fine lady, one call. I wouldn't want to take up too much of your time." She winked but was ignored. Curses, she couldn't unleash her charm in these drab prison clothes. Well, she could worry about seducing prison guards later, now she had a call to make. She sat in the provided chair and grabbed the phone, ready to call her ticket out. As she stared at the number pad she came to a dread realization.
"Oh bloody hell, I don't know if any phone numbers I know are still valid." She eyed the guard, who seemed to be ignoring Mary's mumbling while still staring at her. "How could this go awry? My plans never go awry." She whispered as she went through a mental list of phone numbers she could remember. "Wait, Yui! That girl would keep the same number come hell or high water." Not to mention Yui owed her a favor, so perhaps she wouldn't be upset about the sudden contact after years of silence just to bail her out of prison. Again. She quickly input the number and let out a sigh of relief as the call wasn't immediately rejected. The phone rang a couple of times before a familiar voice responded.
"Who is this?" The gruff but familiar voice of Yui's boy toy Gendo answered. It wasn't Yui, but she wouldn't say no to one of her old BFFs.
"Gendy! It's been ages luv, and it's fantastic to hear your voice. Sorry if I'm interrupting something but your old pal Mary has gotten herself into a spot of trouble."
"You? How?" He sounded flabbergasted, and she couldn't blame him. After all, she's probably been declared dead for a decade and a half, and nobody expects to get a call from a ghost. Well, most of the time anyway.
"It's a long and sordid tale Gendy. Well, it's actually not now that I think about it, I was just in a coma for most of it." She pauses, trying to formulate how to ask her next question. "But we can get into that later, I need your help ol' buddy ol' pal of mine." There was a moment of muffled speech from the other end, apparently he was talking to someone.
"I have multiple questions but I will save them for later, you said you needed help?" Ah, good on him for not dallying.
"Absolutely. Sorry to ask this of you after not talking to each other for so long but could you bail me out of prison? I may have been arrested for a short stint of piracy and people here barely speak a lick of the Queen's English."
"… I am somehow not surprised. Where are you right now?" Ah, the million quid question.
"Somewhere in North Africa, I think? Maybe Algeria. I always wanted to visit Algeria. Or was that Morocco? Not entirely sure. Anyways, they're speaking some kind of Arabic and there's a coast nearby." She informed him, the guard continuing to stare at her.
"That does not help in the slightest. Is there a prison official I can speak to, or have you already escaped?" Oh, she hadn't thought of escape yet. She would formulate a backup escape plan later.
"Have just the person right here Gendy!" She offered the phone to the guard who looked at her quizzically. The guard took the phone and began speaking rapidly, no doubt negotiating her release. After about five minutes of nonstop negotiations, the guard handed her the phone back before grabbing her walkie-talkie and began talking to someone. "I take it that negotiations went well Gendy?"
"Indeed. I'll be there within the week to pick you up. Be careful and stay out of trouble." He warned her, causing her to roll her eyes instinctively.
"Gendy! Buddy, pal, amigo, homeskillet-"
"Mary, don't call me homeskillet."
"-I can assure you I am always careful and always try to stay out of trouble." She heard a sudden bemused snort.
"That's the greatest falsehood I've ever heard." Another familiar voice graced her ears.
"Professor Fuyutsuki! I didn't think you'd be slumming hit with Gendy! What's the occasion?" Glad to hear the old man was still kicking.
"Shogi. And be glad, I doubt anyone else here speaks Arabic fluently enough to have translated. Even if I was a bit rusty." Ah, of course. She had to remember to buy the old professor a pint for that. Hopefully, her favorite pubs were still standing and forgot they banned her in the fifteen years she's been in a coma.
"Thanks, Professor! Hugs and kisses~ And don't worry, I'll be on my best behav-"
Sidi Barrani Air Force Air Strip, four days later.
Gendo stared blankly as the El-Sa'ka Special Forces member pushed Mary towards him before backing away and waiting to see him leave.
"Hey Gendy. So….. may have made a bit of a mistake." He gave her a flat look, pushing Adam's constant screaming to the back of his mind.
"I wouldn't consider trying to start a prison riot as 'a bit of a mistake.'" She was lucky that Egypt no longer practiced summary executions since the dictatorship was overthrown.
"Trying implies I failed, and that I meant to do it. Neither of which is true!" She said with far too much pep for someone who had a Special Forces squad extract her from a rioting prison not twenty minutes ago.
"…. Just get into the plane so we may leave before you cause another problem." She looks like she's about to say something before she nods and sprints into the waiting plane. He sighs and follows behind her as the El-Sa'ka members depart and return their attention to the prison situation. As the plane door shuts behind him and the engine thrums alive, he finds Mary reclining in one of the passenger chairs.
"Sweet ride you got here Gendy. Did Yui pay for it with her science money to pamper her boytoy?" Ah, how he missed Mary's inability to filter anything she says. He really did miss his friend, but unfortunately, his scenario didn't allow for such pleasantries.
"No, this is something I possess due to my leading NERV, GEHIRN's successor." He began, trying to lead her thoughts to where he needed them to be. Mary was a woman who always thought many steps ahead, it's just that all of the steps are wrong and based on nonsense. As such she needed to be kept focused or she would try to get out of a parking ticket by turning a microwave into a bomb. Again.
"They rebranded? And made you the head honcho Gendy. Makes sense, Yui is the gal who would focus more on her work than running an organization. That means she's back at HQ building big robots?" She fiddled with her glasses, at which he handed her a pair he had custom-made for her based on what he knew about her prescription from all those years ago. "Gendy! You shouldn't have!" She quickly snatched the glasses and put them on, tossing her old pair away. "Fits like a glove!"
"Good. And no, Yui isn't building anything at the moment. You remember the Evangelions, right?"
"Kinda. Those giant biomechanical machines that could use the AT-fields, right?" He nods. "Right. We could never figure out how to get them working without resorting to the Contact experiment. Did Yui find a workaround?" He stared blankly at her, which was the best answer she could give her. She quickly came to a realization. "Oh bloody hell she didn't."
"She did." He begrudgingly admitted.
"Oh, that daft bitch. Of course, she did. I'm assuming you and Kyoko are trying to get her out?" He gave her another blank stare. "Don't tell me…."
"Kyoko also attempted the Contact experiment. She half succeeded." He figured it was best to rip off the bandage quickly.
"What do you mean half!?" Mary shouted aghast, confusion and horror filling her eyes.
"As far as we can tell, half of her soul entered the Eva Cora while the other half stayed in her body, causing her to go insane enough to be admitted to a psych ward. She then hung herself only to be found by her daughter while her husband engaged in an affair with her nurse the next room over." Even explaining that left a bitter taste in his mouth, Kyoko deserved better. Mary stared at him with wide eyes as her mouth opened and closed repeatedly as she tried to formulate a response. After about two minutes she managed to organize her thoughts.
"What in the name of the Queen's knickers happened?!" She asked-screamed incredulously. "How did things go to such shit?!" Fortunately for him, that was an easy question to answer.
"Are you familiar with Keel Lorenz?" She looked at him quizzically.
"The rich philanthropist that was a German rebel during World War 2? Yeah?" Oh, at least he didn't have to explain that.
"What if I told you he was head of a secret world-spanning shadow organization with designs to use an ancient alien superorganism to unite humanity as one to rule over them." He never realized how insane those words sounded when spoken out loud, hopefully she takes him seriously.
"The Freemasons?" Huh? "No wait, the Illuminati!" She paused as her eyes widened once again. "It can't be, the Serbian Orthodox Church?!"
"No!" He quickly interjected before she went off the rails. "They are called SEELE, and they are currently using NERV to further their plans. I plan to stop them and rescue Yui by any means necessary. Would you join me?" He offered his hand out to her. She stared at him.
"What about Kyoko?" She asked pointedly.
"Well, we can try to save her, but she might like being a giant robot now." He explained, not willing to admit he hadn't considered saving Kyoko up until this point. And even after this point honestly but Mary didn't need to know that.
"Fair!" She nodded in understanding. "Then I'm game!" She clasped his hand and gave it a firm shake. Excellent, despite her ability to cause massive amounts of trouble without trying Mary was an invaluable piece to have for his plans, one he would not let the Old Men sink their greedy fingers into. "Now, does this plane have a coffee machine? Your girl here needs her caffeine." Ah yes, he forgot about her obsession with coffee.
"There is one over-" She had suddenly disappeared as he pointed to the machine, moving to it with unexpected speed. "-there?"
"Sister, mother, secret lover~ How I have missed your warm embrace." She purred as caressed the machine far more intimately than he expected. "Decant your umbral ambrosia to me from your glass teat so I may return to your caffeinated bosom, my oldest love~." He had a feeling he should leave her alone. Mostly because she was going to do things to that machine that no man should bear witness to.
"I'll be in the other cabin." He announced, but it fell upon her deaf ears. He felt the plane hit a cruising altitude as he moved to another room. He would have to brief her on everything later. But he had time, they would arrive back in Japan in around three days, plenty of time to catch her up to speed. Plenty of time for her to get her caffeine fix.
Little did Gendo know, or perhaps he forgot, was that she never got enough caffeine for her fix. Something Gendo learned when they touched down after the most recent Angel attack, where she commandeered a rescue boat to go accost the pilots before collapsing from a caffeine crash. But that's a story that's already been told. And possibly will continue to be told.
Been a hot minute, huh? I didn't expect this to take over a year but that's what happened. Writer's block is a bitch. In the end, I condensed what I wanted to be 2-3 chapters into one while still keeping the meat of what I wanted to tell, so apologies if this chapter seems off or subpar, but if I spent any longer on it I would go insane. Next chapter, whenever that will be, will see a return to the familiar Tokyo-3 and your favorite dysfunctional teenagers and their miniature companions. Until then, I hope you enjoy, leave a review if you can, and have a pleasant day. It's good to be back.
