Well, here goes... this posting dedicated to our friend the Lurker. May 
your eye stop watering from this thrice-damned haze of smoke.
---
The streets were empty� odd for the middle of the day. No cars, no 
people, nothing but the occasional bird. He could hear sirens, but 
distantly. It was if the entire town had become empty of people, but 
nothing else had changed.

-Where am I now?

The young man had come a long way, but he wasn't tired yet. Compared to 
slogging through jungles or climbing mountains, taking a walk through 
town was nothing to even think about. The September day was hot, and 
small beads of perspiration trickled from his hair into his headband. He 
ignored it, as usual, and adjusted the straps of his pack. Looking at 
the paper in his hand, he read again:

I'll pick you up at your house, 2 PM.
Your father wants to talk with you.

		Katsuragi Misato

It was a miracle he had received the letter at all; he hadn't been home 
in nine or ten months. If the postmaster hadn't forwarded it to a 
friend's place, it would have rotted in the mailbox. As it was he 
received it late; he only had had six days to get home. If he knew where 
he was. If he knew where home was.

He looked around for somebody, intending to ask directions, before 
remembering that nobody was around. Odd, that. Failing that, he hunted 
down a phone booth, and started flipping pages. With any luck, this 
Katsuragi person would have returned home already and he could have her 
come pick him up. He fed scrounged change into the machine and dialed.

On the fifteenth ring, he hung the telephone up. Grabbing the change 
from the return slot, he looked around desperately. He was good at being 
lost, perhaps the best there was, and knew that you could always get 
somewhere by finding a straight line and following it. He also knew, 
from a rather unfortunate incident last Christmas, that you weren't 
supposed to follow that line in the middle of a city. And there still 
wasn't anybody around. Where was everybody?

A low rumble startled birds off the ground. The young man looked up, 
expecting the much-feared thunderstorm - Wouldn't that be perfect - but 
only saw a girl, young teens, with short blue hair. She stood about a 
block away and just looked at him.

The sound of a car engine caused the young man to tilt his head away, 
and when he looked back, he saw nothing but an empty street and birds. 
Puzzled, he wandered over to where she had stood and started looking 
around to see where she might have gone. She hadn't ran off� nobody the 
young man knew was quite that fast, and he knew some very fast people 
indeed.

Another low rumble echoed off of the buildings. It was interrupted by 
the sound of squealing brakes as a small blue sports car skidded to a 
halt right next to the young man. The driver flung the door open and 
shouted, "Get inside! Where have you been? I've been looking for you for 
a week!"

Never one to turn down a free ride, the young man threw his pack in the 
back seat and climbed inside. The driver didn't even wait for him to 
close the door before peeling out. He fastened his seat belt, though he 
really didn't need it, it wouldn't do him any good anyway, and looked 
over at the driver.

"Hello. Nice to meet you." It was always best to be polite to women when 
you first met, especially when they were driving you somewhere instead 
of pounding your face in. She looked to be in her early thirties, quite 
good looking, with hair so dark it shone the blue of the car. He noticed 
that she was wearing a silver cross pendant before she answered.

"You'd never know it from the trouble I had tracking you down. What's in 
the pack? I didn't ask you to move or anything."

The young man decided that she must have him confused with somebody 
else. Everything he owned was in the pack� two changes of clothes, a 
ribbon, some food, his umbrella, a travel tent. A little paper and a 
pencil. A couple of rock fragments he had found interesting. A truffle� 
He coughed and said, "I'm trying to get to Nerima. Which way are you 
headed?"

Another booming sound shook the car, closer this time. The woman's 
knuckles tightened on the steering wheel as she answered, "This isn't 
the time to play games. You were supposed to be at home, after all. Did 
you decide to go sight-seeing?"

The young man immediately wished he hadn't taken up this ride. Sometimes 
people could confuse him, especially when they didn't explain what they 
were talking about. He decided to take the direct approach, not unusual 
for him, and asked, "Do I know you?"

She turned the wheel sharply, sending a long wrapped tube up against his 
pack in the back seat. "Of course I know you, you're Ryoga Hibiki, 
right?"

Ryoga nodded and said, "Yes." Well, now he was totally confused. Another 
thing I'm an expert at, he thought. "Who are you?"

The woman lost her exasperated look and smiled. "I'm Misato Katsuragi. 
Welcome to NERV, Hibiki-kun."
---
Paradise Lost p1
Fan fiction by Andy Kent
All characters copyright Rumiko Takahashi or Gainax, respectively.
---
The booming sound was getting closer, and more frequent. Ryoga idly 
wondered whether or not it was thunder while thinking about that last 
remark. He knew a little about nerves, they had taught him in school 
that they let his body move. And that the word could mean 
"self-confidence", another thing he could use. He decided that she could 
be helpful and smiled. "Thanks. What is NERV and why me?"

Misato looked at Ryoga. Here was a young man, maybe seventeen or 
eighteen, clean-shaven with black hair that hadn't seen or needed a comb 
in a year. He wore a yellow headband with black squares, a yellow tunic, 
and black pants with leather shoes. All dusty, of course, and his face 
was fairly weathered for someone so young. She briefly toyed with the 
idea that Gendo had lost his mind and rejected it before pushing a brown 
paper packet at Ryoga. "Everything you'll need to know is inside there. 
We'll get you an ID card later; I couldn't find a current picture. We 
tried to erase your records before picking you up, but�"

Ryoga grew a sweatdrop. Of course she hadn't found any records. He had 
been wandering around for years, never able to stay long enough to get 
paperwork done. As far as he was aware, he had never had to worry about 
a paper trail.

The booming sound was very loud now, almost too much to talk over. "As 
for why you're here� We need you to stop something."

"What am I doing wrong now?" Ryoga prepared for an attack. Whenever a 
woman told him that he was doing something wrong, the woman hit him at 
the same time. And it was always his fault. Or Ranma's, but mostly his. 
"I wasn't doing anything." That would never work, they never believed 
that you were innocent, even Akane just jumped to conclusions. "Why are 
you laughing like that?"

Misato managed to stop giggling and pointed out the driver's window. 
"No, Hibiki-kun, I mean we need you to stop THAT."

THAT turned out to be big. Six or seven stories tall. Ryoga had the 
absurd thought that it looked just like the uniforms that he saw on a 
cartoon he saw a few months ago, except for the three-fingered hands, 
and that red thing on the belly, and of course that it was huge and 
walking around without anybody inside of it. It was pretty funny 
looking, for a THAT. "Sure, but then you need to turn around. I can't 
stop it if you keep driving away from it." Ryoga had also learned that 
it was usually a good idea to do what a woman asked, because they might 
feed you afterwards.

>From the look on her face, it wasn't the right answer. "Exactly what do 
you want to do to it?"

"Stop it, right?"

"HOW?! Hibiki-kun, that is an Angel. A big walking robot. What are you 
going to do, walk up and hit it?"

Ryoga put two and two together. "Then hitting it wouldn't work, right? I 
could use a telephone pole." Ryoga knew he was no expert on western 
theology, but he doubted that an angel would be affected much by that 
either.

Misato considered that for a second before filing it away. "I have a 
better idea. Just keep reading the packet."

---
Misato stopped the car for a second on the rise before the tramway. 
Looking down on Tokyo-3, she could see the Angel just inside the suburb 
where she had found Ryoga. Of course it would have been a suburb on the 
other side of town from Nerima, where Gendo had told her to start 
looking. It was still walking toward the city center, heedless of the 
dozens of rockets pounding on its exterior.

Ryoga, meanwhile, was still leafing through the packet. He could read 
rather well, if it wasn't a map or something, and even though the papers 
were full of things like "emergency procedures" and "contingency plans" 
and "operating manual", he could follow the basic meaning. NERV was 
obviously a secret organization bent on world conquest.

Misato noticed a break in the bombardment. The Angel had destroyed most 
of the firing platforms, but not this many� She immediately threw 
herself back in the car and shouted, "Get down!"

Ryoga had just enough time to appreciate the lenience of time on 
Misato's appearance when the car was picked up and thrown like a rag 
doll. He flashed back to an unfortunate accident with a glass of cold 
water, a laundry machine, and a sniggering Ranma. The car came to rest 
on its side, several hundred feet up the hill.

Misato managed to climb out the top hatch. "Damn, they used an N2 bomb 
on it! The UN must be desperate." She hauled Ryoga out of the car by his 
bandana - heavy for a kid that age, too - and shook him a little. As 
near as she could tell, his only injury was a slight nosebleed, far less 
than the various bumps and bruises she had suffered. "Hibiki-kun, come 
on. We've got to get going. Help me get the car back up."

Ryoga came to his senses, and caught up with Misato's words after a 
second. Pivoting his hand neatly on the top of the car, he vaulted it, 
came down on the other side, and gave it a quick push. The car 
immediately tipped over and rocked for a second before calming down. 
"Let's go, Katsuragi-san."

Misato climbed in to her once beautiful car - and she had just finished 
the payments on it! - and drove the rest of the way to the tramway. She 
didn't look at Ryoga for the whole trip, and tried not to think about 
how he had so casually tossed her car back upright. She even had to 
listen to him try to apologize for pushing it too hard, he really hadn't 
meant to, how was he supposed to know it was mostly plastic? Maybe Gendo 
had a good idea after all, here.

---
Misato herded Ryoga onto a long escalator. They were in the Geofront 
now, a huge excavation under Tokyo-3, in the NERV headquarters. She was 
trying to explain what was going on, but Ryoga didn't seem to be 
listening very hard. He was spending a lot of time looking around with 
wide eyes and a slack jaw. - This whole thing might be a bit much for 
him, maybe? And on top of meeting his father� - Misato wasn't looking 
forward to that. Gendo had occasionally mentioned a wife and son that 
had abandoned him, ten years ago or so, but it had never meant anything. 
"So, what do you think of meeting your father, Hibiki-kun?"

Ryoga stopped staring and looked at Misato. "My father? You found him?"

"Yes, he's waiting for you down here." Misato watched Ryoga clench a 
fist at his side. Yes, she really wasn't looking forward to those two 
meeting each other.

"I can't believe him! He ran off what, ten years ago?! He left Mom and 
me! Where has he been hiding all this time!?" Ryoga was furious. After 
his father had left, all those years ago, he really didn't have a 
family. Sure, Mom was there, but he'd only seen her once since. They 
just never made it home at the same time�

Misato didn't know what to think. Sure, Gendo was a class A jerk at 
times. Sure, he had as much humanity as his desk on some days. Still, he 
always took his responsibilities seriously - along with everything else 
- and he seemed genuinely angry when he thought of his missing son. 
Obviously there was more going on here.

---
"Gendo-san? It's time. Your son is on his way to the hangars with 
Captain Katsuragi."

Gendo Hibiki looked up from the reports on his desk. To be honest, this 
was the last thing in the world he wanted to do. Here was the Angels, 
NERV's reason to exist, finally here, and he had to go bawl out his son 
for running off all those years ago. It was the least important thing of 
a host of very important things, but everything else had to wait on it. 
"I'll meet him there."

"Yes sir. And one thing�"

"What?"

"You're going the wrong way. That's the bathroom door, sir."

---
Ryoga looked around in the vast hangar. It was mostly empty space and 
catwalks, with the exception of one thing. That one thing was a large, 
bright purple robot standing up by a wall. The robot looked very 
different from all of the anime robots he'd see occasionally; it was 
thin and willowy and had really stupid looking shoulder plates way above 
the shoulder. The horn was pretty silly too.

Misato pointed and said, "There, Hibiki-kun. That's Unit 01."

Ryoga looked back at her and asked, "So why am I here."

"You are here to pilot it, Ryoga."

Both Ryoga and Misato looked up. Gendo was standing on another catwalk, 
higher up than the other two, resting his white gloves on the rail. 
"Ryoga, you must pilot the Eva."

Ryoga was seething. The beard, the glasses, everything was the same he 
remembered of his father, except for a wrinkle here or there. "You! How 
could you leave Mom like that!! She was worried sick about you!"

Misato looked on with an expression of shock. Gendo replied, "I never 
left your mother. She took you from me. Stop arguing and get in the 
Eva."

"Quit trying to change the subject! Ten years ago, you left us!"

"I did no such thing. I went out, spent six months trying to get home, 
and when I got back, both of you were gone. She must have left with 
you!"

"Left with me? She waited a month! Then she wandered off somewhere�"

"Wait a minute. She didn't run off? You didn't run away? I went back 
twice, nobody was home either time."

"You mean you didn't run off? Of course nobody was home, I can't find 
the place, neither can Mom, you know that Dad."

"Don't call me Dad. Where is your mother now?"

"I haven't been home in a while. Nothing's too dusty, so I know she 
makes it every so often� more often than me, anyway."

By this time, Misato was completely lost and both Gendo and Ryoga had 
grown sweatdrops. Gendo recovered first and said, "We can talk later. 
Get in the Eva and fight, Ryoga."

"Eva? What's an Eva?"

Misato made shooing gestures at an approaching blonde in a lab coat. 
"Not now, Ritsuko. Now, Hibiki-kun, the robot over there is an Eva."

"I thought that was Unit 01 or something like that."

Grinding noises issued from Misato's teeth. "Yes, Hibiki-kun, it is the 
Evangelion Unit 01 Test Type. It was made to fight Angels like that one 
we saw earlier. You have to pilot it."

Ryoga stepped back a foot. "How? I'm not a robot pilot. Don't you have 
robot pilots or something? I just do martial arts. I don't know how to 
pilot a robot. Why me?"

Gendo interrupted Ryoga. "Because you are the only one who can, Ryoga."

Ryoga considered this for a second. "No, I can't do it. I don't pilot 
robots. I never wanted to pilot a robot anyway, that stuff is just in 
cartoons, right?"

"You don't have a choice. Get in the Eva, Ryoga."

"No! I can't pilot it. Go get a real pilot."

Gendo quickly saw the futility of arguing with Ryoga and decided on 
another strategy. "Futuyuski, reconfigure Unit 01 for Rei and sortie 
her. This pilot is unusable."

"But sir, Rei is�" Futuyuski looked genuinely concerned.

"It doesn't matter. Get her out here."

Misato was still trying to talk Ryoga into piloting the Eva. "Come on, 
Hibiki-kun, it's easy. Didn't you read the instructions I gave you? 
Besides, it's a cool robot. It'll help you get girls. Please, 
Hibiki-kun?" Ryoga was not entirely immune to batted eyelashes, but in 
this case, he decided to be stubborn. After all, his father would be the 
perfect type of person to lie about running away. This way, he could go 
away and not worry about seeing Gendo again. - Yes, it's better to 
refuse. I couldn't do it anyway. I just wish Katsuragi-san would stop 
looking at me like that; it's not making this any easier - as he tried 
to ignore her pleading.

She was interrupted as a door on the far end of the catwalk opened. Five 
people, wearing white coats (doctors?) pushed a gurney along the 
catwalk. As the gurney passed Ryoga, he saw that there was a girl on it, 
although she was wearing so many bandages that it was hard to tell. 
Ryoga guessed that she'd been mauled by some ancient demon� after all, 
people usually didn't live through ordinary injuries that were that bad.

"What are you thinking, Gendo? Rei isn't in any condition to pilot the 
Eva!" Misato's face showed raw fury. "She's almost dead already!"

"It can't be helped. There is no one else. She must pilot Unit 01."

Ryoga stiffened. He was fairly familiar with severe injuries and knew 
that she'd be lucky to survive standing up, much less moving around. 
Making her pilot the robot was� well, it was wrong.

---
The Angel reached the outskirts of Tokyo-3, and began its attack. A huge 
pillar of green-white fire lit up the dusk as a building disappeared 
into shrapnel. The pillar split five hundred feet in the air, branching 
horizontally and continuing up, forming the cross.

---
The hangar was battle-hardened, but this was the first time the 
hardening was put to the test. Unfortunately, though, it proved to be a 
little too soft.

---
The ground shook and everybody looked up. Ryoga heard a grinding noise 
coming from the beams supporting the cavern ceiling. His senses kicked 
into high gear as metal gave way. The falling beams looked heavy, maybe 
a thousand pounds each, but they couldn't kill him from only fifty feet 
of falling. Ryoga spared an instant to look around. The technicians were 
thirty feet away, and neither they nor the girl would avoid anything. 
Too far. Gendo was above and away, out of the path - damn - and Misato 
was� was standing right next to him, and the beam would flatten her like 
a pancake. No choice. Ryoga threw himself over Misato, braced one arm 
against the catwalk and locked the joint. If the floor could hold the 
pressure, they'd both make it. He heard the scream of twisting metal.

To Gendo, the movements were a blur. The doctors hadn't moved an inch, 
but Ryoga had flattened Misato (huh?) just before the beams hit. Then 
his view was blocked by dust from the ceiling, and he heard the clank of 
metal on metal. "Rei! No, Rei! Noooo!"

Misato opened her eyes. She saw Ryoga, face clenched and eyes closed, 
and behind him a slab of ceiling armor. She scooted out from under him 
and looked around. Two of the doctors had been hit, and neither was 
going to make it. The other two had fallen and knocked the gurney over. 
Rei was not on the gurney. Not on the gurney? There she was, a few feet 
closer on the catwalk�

With a giant purple hand over her body. Unit 01's hand. Misato got the 
feeling that some strange things were going on.

"Er� excuse me, Katsuragi-san, but this thing's really heavy. Could you 
get it off of me?" Ryoga's voice. She looked back at him, under a plate 
that should have smeared him into paste. It had bent and deformed, and 
Ryoga's hand had twisted the catwalk almost through. She tried to prop 
it up while he rolled away, and almost dropped it on him. Her momentary 
fancy that he'd been hit by styrofoam armor was shattered; it really WAS 
metal plate. She turned to look at him.

Ryoga had figured that Misato was fine. After all, the catwalk had held. 
He was just glad she had moved away quickly; the last thing he needed 
then was to be in what would have been a� um� "compromising" position. 
He checked the others. Two dead (crushed skull, crushed chest, no 
chance), one broken arm, one unhurt� What was that hand doing there? It 
was right over the girl, who had fallen off during the mess. He stepped 
over to her, not even noticing his own injuries. That was really heavy, 
after all. She lay face-up, eyes open, pupils dilated, and twitching. 
Good thing that hand was there, as it was, she might not have survived 
the fall. He looked closely, checking for broken bones and such. Blue 
hair, but he was used to such things. The eyes were red, which was 
ordinarily a bad sign, but they weren't glowing and she wasn't about to 
launch a ki attack anyway. Not all of the blood on her bandages had 
dried.

Gendo called out to Ryoga. "Pick her up and put her over there, in the 
entry plug. Hurry! We need to launch the robot."

This didn't sit well with Ryoga. He could ignore his father asking him, 
he could ignore Misato, but he really, really didn't like it when 
helpless people got hurt in a fight. He could feel himself getting 
angry, feel the vengeance-lust that had driven him for so many years. 
"If we move her, she'll die." Ryoga didn't like lying either (she'd just 
be crippled for life, probably) but it beat the alternative. "I'll pilot 
the robot. Tell me how."

"Get in that seat over there. Hurry, there's not much time. Misato, get 
to Central Command. Futuyuski, get a medical team to hangar seven. I'll 
be in Central Command. Hurry, Ryoga!"

---
Ryoga was in deep now. He had jumped into the metal tube, found a seat 
inside, and looked around as they closed the hatch. It was dim, red 
lights everywhere. He couldn't see how he was supposed to drive the 
thing, there was just two handles. Maybe you pushed and pulled them to 
make the legs work. What about the arms? Nope, just two sticks. He 
looked for instructions, but half of the readings were too complicated 
and the other half were English. - Serves me right for missing English 
class. Even if it wasn't my fault. - He noticed a pair of metal things 
on his seat, and started bouncing them on his palm. They looked like 
iron-plated orange halves.

"Hibiki-kun? Can you hear me?" Misato's voice, clear but with the static 
of radio.

"Yes, I hear you. What do I do now?"

"First, stick the neural interface plugs on your scalp. You need them to 
pilot the Eva." Ryoga tucked them into his headband. "Don't worry about 
it. You read the manual, right? Eva is pretty easy to operate." Sure, if 
he had read the manual. He thought it would have been a good idea to 
save it for last. Stupid mistake, as usual. "Don't hold your breath, 
we're putting the LCL in now."

He noticed the fluid in the bottom of the container and panicked. "Hey! 
No!! Stop the water! Katsuragi-san!"

"Hibiki-kun, that's not water. It's LCL, you can breathe it, don't worry 
about it."

Like hell he wasn't worried about it. He was going to have a hard enough 
time piloting this thing as a human. Plus everybody would find out about 
his curse. No, no water for Ryoga. "Hell, I'll breathe air. I don't need 
the LCL." He tested it with his finger. Thicker than water, a little 
viscous, but warm. Even water wouldn't set him off at that temperature� 
but he never took chances with water.

"It absorbs shock, Hibiki-kun. You'd get tossed around in there without 
it."

"Sorry, I just don't like water much."

"That's not water, I told you. Just breathe it."

After a couple of coughs, Ryoga found that he could indeed breathe the 
stuff. It felt a little strange, but not bad. "Fine, now how do I drive 
it?" He heard a faint "whirr" noise and noticed movement. He guessed 
that they had to put his tube in the robot.

"We have to load the entry plug into the Eva first, Ryoga. Wait a 
minute."

---
"We're past the absolute borderline. Synchronization established." Dr. 
Ritsuko Akagi looked worried. Of course, Misato would be worried too, if 
it were HER robot creation being hooked up to an untested pilot using 
HER technology and HER fault if they all died because it didn't work.

"Launch Unit 01."

"Unit 01, launching." Aoba was all business now. Misato thought for a 
moment. Yes, this was the moment they'd all been training and building 
for, the first time that an Eva would go forth to defend Mankind from 
the horrible power of the Angels� and they'd picked Ryoga as the pilot. 
Nepotism was a horrible thing, and the last thing she'd have expected 
from Gendo. It wasn't that Ryoga was bad, but he seemed to be a little 
slow on the uptake. "Hibiki-kun, you alright?"

\"Yes, fine. This feels really weird, though."/

"You'll get used to it. Remember, when you get to the surface, just 
think and Eva will move. Don't play with the levers yet, they're only to 
use the guns properly. Just think."

\"Sure. I can do that."/

The monitor showed Eva 01 emerging from the tunnel shaft. Its head 
cocked upwards from the spare inertia, but the unit was undamaged. It 
seemed the launching system worked pretty well too. "Release the docking 
clamps." Misato tensed a bit at the thought of fighting the Angel. 
"Okay, Ryoga. Just think of walking, alright. Walk for me."

Eva 01 took two steps forward, tripped over its power cord, and fell on 
its face. The front spike demolished a small lingerie store on the 
street corner. \"Help! I can't move this thing!"/

"Get up, Hibiki-kun! Hurry!" Secondary monitors showed the Angel turning 
the corner and heading for Unit 01. Inexplicably, it was now carrying 
several large billboards in one hand.

\"How do I get up, damn it?!"/

The Angel threw a billboard at the Eva, knocking it backwards onto its 
rump. While Unit 01's arms and legs jerked, trying to find some 
purchase, the Angel struck with a string of billboards, snaring Unit 
01's arm.

"It's caught the arm in a AT field!" Aoba.

"The neural signal is reversing! It's backfeeding into the pilot!" 
Ritsuko.

Misato shouted into the commlink. "Hibiki-kun, that's not your arm it's 
got. It's not your arm!"

\"Damn it, how do I fight this thing! I can't move it!"/

The Angel wrapped another length of billboards around Unit 01's head, 
and twisted the neck. The purple of the Evangelion's hull mixed with the 
red fluid from a crack in its neck.

"Hibiki-kun! NO!"

With a heave, the Angel flipped Unit 01 into the side of a nearby 
building.

"We've lost contact with the pilot!" Aoba.

"Eject the entry plug! Recover the pilot!"

"We can't! The Eva is blocking the signal!" Maya.

Ritsuko tapped keys at her station. "The neural links are disconnecting. 
It will shut down soon."

---
Ryoga was pissed. He couldn't use this robot worth anything. Hell, a 
telephone pole would be better. He also wasn't used to hurting, not like 
this, even from being hit with broken wood and being flung through 
triple-reinforced concrete shouldn't hurt this much. His vision went 
red�

---
Unit 01 slumped against the side of the building. Something had cracked 
during that throw, and the Eva was spraying blood all over the street.

"Is the pilot alive?" How the hell could Gendo be so cold asking that 
about his own son?

"We can't get a signal. No readings from the entry plug." Maya.

Unit 01's head came up, its eyes glowing white.

"Motor neurons are firing. The Eva is moving again." Ritsuko.

"Still no signal from the entry plug." Maya.

"The computer signals are being refused!" Aoba.

Unit 01's face cracked, a lipless mouth with jagged metal teeth. It 
screamed, loud and deep.

Misato turned to look at Ritsuko. "A berserker?!"

---
The Eva was walking from the center of the blast crater. Dark purple, 
streaked with its own blood, and the Angel's blood, against a backdrop 
of red and yellow. It was almost pretty� if you could ignore the fact 
that it had just torn off the Angel's arms and legs and hammered on its 
core with its own rib until it blew itself up in desperation.

It stopped, slumped to its knees. The glow faded from its eyes.

---
Misato moved some papers out of Ritsuko's spare chair. Her office, 
assigned to the Technical Director, was always a mess. "How's Ryoga 
doing?"

Ritsuko looked up from her terminal. "Pretty good, considering what 
happened. The doctors should be done with him in a few minutes."

Misato smiled at Ritsuko. She obviously was thinking about something 
other than Ryoga's condition. "Out with it, Ritsuko. What's wrong?"

The smile wasn't returned. "I've been going over what just happened. 
Unit 01 should be badly damaged. AT field exposure, physical trauma, all 
of that. But aside from the head, the armor's barely even dented. It's 
like the Angel was pulling its punches."

"No way."

"You're right, too. It was hitting Ryoga, it's just that Ryoga wasn't 
getting hurt."

"And what about earlier?"

"When Gendo tells me that he saw it happen, then I'll believe it."

"There's his handprint in the catwalk! Did you think he stamped it there 
or something?"

Ritsuko looked back at her terminal. "Easier to believe than Ryoga 
getting smashed with a block of armor plate and not even being bruised."

"You're hopeless." Misato threw up her hands, drained her mug of 
(well-spiked) coffee and walked out the office door.

---
"Hey, Akane, look at this."

Akane was in a good mood. Ranma hadn't said one thing wrong all day, no 
insults, no "tomboy", no "uncute", no fianc�es glomping on to him every 
minute. She decided to be nice to Ranma today. "What is it, Ranma? We've 
got to get to class. There's a lot to catch up on after that drill 
yesterday�"

Ranma was perched on the rail of the culvert. "No, really, check this 
out. It's that dojo destroyer guy! He's in the water down here."

Akane took a look of her own. Yes, that was him, all four hundred pounds 
of muscle and three ounces of brain. He was lying face down in the 
water. "Why is he smoking like that?"

Ranma snorted. "Figures that big ox would set himself on fire or 
something. Come on, you tomboy. We've got to get to school."

"Ranma�"
---
End of Part 1


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