Decrypt THIS!
-- Listar MIME Decryption --------------
-- Name : CAGMST9.TXT
-- Decoded: quoted-printable
Once upon a time, there was a fanfic author.
He READ a lot more stories than he actually WROTE, though.
So, instead of geting a little work ethic, he got lazy and decided to
take the easy way out, and rag on others works instead.
So he recruited a couple of fictional charchters, snagged a movie
theatre, and grabbed some munchies.
And thus was born.......
LST1/2K: Lunatic Science Theatre 500.
Starring, in no particular order:
Mercutio: Who nearly developed carpal tunnel typing this stupid
thing.
Maya Ibuki: Mmmmm.......... Maya.........
Hikaru Gosunkugi: Why are we still PAYING this guy?
<Begin LST1/2K>
Hikaru: Whatttttttt, no witty banter at the begginning?
Mercutio: We�re all out of witty banter.
-*-
It was the usual piano bar that she and Ritsuko met
at, but tonight Misato was alone. Ritsuko was busy that
night, though Misato did have the option of being with Kaji.
Ha!
Instead, Misato decided to lounge about by her
lonesome this night, unwinding from a bit of a hectic day at
NERV. Giant monsters, she assumed, would be the most
stressful part of her job, but the paperwork she had to
endure proved otherwise.
Maya: Well, of course. It�s all part of Ikari-shirei�s plan to keep
us so distracted we don�t have time to notice his real agenda.
Mercutio: I thought that�s what the free donuts and coffee in
the break room were for.
Maya: Those are just meant to keep us AWAKE while we�re
being distracted. And as a bribe.
"Heya, Jimmy."
"Heya, Misato. What'll it be tonight?"
"Martini on the rocks. Shaken, not stirred."
Hikaru(Kaji): �Hey!!! _I_ get to do all the cool James Bond stuff
around here, thanks!�
"Comin' right up."
A moment later, Misato had her martini in hand,
staring blankly outside the bar's window at the Tokyo-3
skyline. She was as close to approaching a totally blank
state of mind as humanly possible. Had she been a follower
of Zen beliefs, it would have been an accomplishment.
Instead, it was just a total moment of blankness, soon
interrupted by the lounge singer's music drifting into her
ears.
Mercutio: And of course, we all know there�s nothing more
horrifying than that.
o/~ We've got stars directing our fate o/~
o/~ And we're praying it's not too late o/~
o/~ Cos we know we're falling from grace o/~
o/~ Millennium o/~
Misato blinked. Something was nagging her,
something about that song...
o/~ And when we come we always come too late o/~
o/~ I often think that we were born to hate o/~
o/~ Get up and see the sarcasm in my eyes o/~
Misato's brow wrinkled as she turned to see who was
on the piano. A rather ordinary lounge piano man sat, oddly
general in his physical appearance but with a hint of
perhaps middle eastern lineage in his features, casually
playing his song.
Mercutio: Look, it�s Ibn al Xu�fassch.
o/~ And when we come we always come too late o/~
o/~ I often think that we were born to hate o/~
o/~ Get up and see the sarcasm in my eyes o/~
o/~ We've got stars directing our fate o/~
o/~ And we're praying it's not too late o/~
o/~ Cos we know we're falling from grace o/~
o/~ Millennium o/~
Maya: How obviously ominous.
As the piano player ended his song, he paused a
moment and looked at her. Misato suddenly felt lightheaded,
a little dizzy, as she stared into his eyes, and she could
swear that she saw the stars in them.
Hikaru: You were wrong, it�s Dave Bowman.
With a playful grin, he winked at Misato, then left.
For a moment, Misato stared at the empty piano
chair, mental gears grinding. She had that _feeling_, like
something in the universe was trying to tell her of grander
things, or something like that.
Nah.
Maya(Misato):�Hey it�s eight at night and I�m not drunk yet!
I need to fix that immediatly.�
"Hey Jimmy, gimmie 'nother."
"Righto, Misato."
As Misato watched the bartender mix her drink, she
asked, "Hey, who was the guy at the piano?"
"New guy we hired as a temp while Akio's on
vacation. Neil O'Tip, he calls himself."
"Neil O'Tip? The guy doesn't look Irish."
Mercutio: <groans loudly>
Hikaru: I can�t BELIEVE they sank to this level.....
Maya: What? Did I miss something? Who�s this �Neil O�Tip�
guy?�
Mercutio: Try saying it really, really fast a few times in a row.
The bartender shrugged again. "Hey, as long as he
can play, I'll pay."
Mercutio(Jimmy): �It�s a bit odd how he keeps asking to be
paid under the table with fresh goat�s blood, but hey, who
the hell am I to complain?�
As the bartender resumed mixing her drink, Misato
found herself humming the tune, then singing it quietly.
o/~ We've got stars directing our fate o/~
o/~ And we're praying it's not too late o/~
o/~ Cos we know we're falling from grace o/~
o/~ Millennium o/~
Hikaru: Igh. Even fifteen years AFTER the millenium,
people will STILL be using it as a marketing gimmick.
-*-
John Biles & Rod M. Present
A Neon Genesis Evangelion Elseworlds
Children of an Elder God
Part 9
The King in Yellow
Mercutio: Lose 1d3/1d6+1 Sanity Points for reading this part.
-*-
Namura-sensei whistled merrily as he walked through
the library, thumbing through the many volumes.
Hikaru: Oh boy, a library in a Mythos story. That�s NEVER good.
The annual school play was coming up, and it was up
to him to decide upon the play. What to do, what to do...
Romeo and Juliet had been done far too many times,
even though it was a classic. Shakespeare in general was
becoming a bit overexposed, he thought. The children would
enjoy something new, definitely.
Mercutio(Namura): �I forgot.... is it my job as a techer to SHAPE
their fragile little minds, or destroy them beyond repair?�
Ah, what was this?
A dusty book caught his attention, its bright yellow
cover like a beacon in the darkened shelves. It seemed to
call for his attention.
Hikaru: Whenever the library books start to talk to ME, I always
just go rent a video.
He pulled it from the shelves, then flipped to the
opening page.
THE KING IN YELLOW
Hrm. Catchy title, yes.
Mercutio: Well, DUH. If they named it something obvious like �You
All go Insane and Die Horrible Screaming Deaths� it would NEVER
get preformed.
-*-
Gendo frowned at the report. Those fools in the UN hadn't
been able to stop a group of terrorists from making off with an
N2 bomb. To make matters worse, several of the bomb's guards
had been found reduced to puddles of ooze that only DNA tests
could identify.
That could mean only one thing. He wished. At least
seven different groups were capable of doing that to someone,
and likely more if some damn fool had put the Pnakotic
Manuscripts on-line again.
Hikaru: At www.miskatonic.net, for all your Mythos needs.
There were, however, other factors which inclined him to
believe that the same fools behind the Cherubim attack were
behind this attack. First of all, they were on his short list of
'people who can reduce guards to orange slime.'
Maya: He keeps that right next to his �people who know too much list�,
his �people who know too much but they sleep with me so l let them live�
list, and his �people I�ve killed using only my brillo-pad consistency beard
as a weapon� list.
Secondly, it fit with the recent attempt to steal Stonehenge. Why
the fools didn't just buy some concrete and make some molds...
he didn't know. Then again, crazed cultists aren't noted for being
very smart. And finally, it was time. The prophecies indicated
their master would strike soon.
Gendo just wished the prophecies indicated WHERE.
Mercutio: Feh. Prophecies are generally worth dick. Just ask Rand
al�Thor.
-*-
"I hate research papers."
Shinji ignored Touji's whining. It was easy to do,
since he'd been repeating the same thing endlessly during
their whole stay in the library.
"I hate research papers," Touji said again, grabbing
a book off of the shelves and tossing it onto the already
large pile Shinji was carrying.
Hikaru: Why doesn�t he just buy one off the �net, like every other
self-respecting student?
"Hey!"
"I hate hate hate hate hate research papers," said
Touji again, just to make the point clear. The pair reached
a table where Kensuke sat, Touji slumping into his seat,
Shinji spilling the load of books clumsily as he sat down.
"I hate hate hate hey... what'cha lookin' at?" asked
Touji.
Mercutio(Touji): �You didn�t get porn and not tell me again, did you?�
He peered over at the five books spread out in front
of Kensuke, along with the scattered notecards, one of which
Kensuke was currently scribbling on. One of the books
caught Touji's eye; it was in English instead of Japanese
and looked like a pamphlet rebound into a hardcover book.
Mercutio: You realize, of course, this is the �Kingdom Come�
hardbound edition.
There was a picture of a battered looking church next to a
picture of the same church reduced to rubble.
"I decided to do my research paper on government
coverups. Only, then I couldn't find anything on it."
Hikaru: Coincidence? I think not.
Mercutio: You can�t use that line. It�s already in here.
Hikaru: <smugly> Coincidence? I don�t think so.
Touji began to laugh loudly, and Shinji giggled.
"Gee, I wonder why," Touji said.
"So the teacher suggested I go back further in time
to older coverups which nobody was trying to coverup
anymore, or at least where something had leaked. So I was
looking for some books on how we got dragged into that war
with China by the Kwantung Army, and I found this." He
pointed to the book in English. "A couple of months ago,
some high up NERV guy donated a ton of books to all our
libraries, and this was one of them. It's about the Raid on
Innsmouth in the 1920s."
Mercutio: I find it amazing that a japanese person could pronounce
�Innsmouth� without stuttering at LEAST once.
"The what?" Shinji asked.
Hikaru: Ever notice how everybody ALWAYS asks that right when
exposition is called for?
"The official story was that it was a raid on
bootleggers, but this guy who wrote this was one of the
soldiers on the raid and he published this book about what
really happened. They found an underwater city of fish-men
and blew it up!"
"Uh huh," Touji said. "I suppose the Creature from
the Black Lagoon was ruling it."
Shinji listened. It was probably just a silly
story, but after seeing Mu, he had to admit there might be
some truth to it. "Does he have any pictures of the city?"
Mercutio: Of course, you KNOW that any picture they might�ve
gotten will be out of focus and overexposed.
"Uhh...no." Kensuke said. "But he's got pictures
to prove the US government leveled Innsmouth."
"That doesn't exactly prove anything about fishmen,
you know," Touji said. "I think the teacher's gonna laugh
at you."
Hikaru: More than usual, even.
"Get a load of THIS," he said, flipping through the
book.
"A load of what? Touji been telling lies again?"
Asuka said idly from over his shoulder.
The three guys all half-jumped out of their flesh.
"Go away!" Touji said. "We haven't got time to kick your
ass."
Kensuke finished flipping to a blurry photo of a
wall painting. It was hard to see, but it showed a variety
of winged creatures with bat-liked wings. Some of them were
humanoid with no face. Others had long snakey bodies and
wings that seemed inadequate to carry them. And some...
Mercutio: Hikaru?
Hikaru: Nightgaunts and Hunting Horrors, most likely.
"Hey, those look like Cherubim!" Asuka said.
"That was on one of the walls of this 'Starry
Wisdom' chapel that secretly ran Innsmouth," Kensuke said.
Mercutio: Ummm........ no, I�m afraid not.
Hikaru: Innsmouth was run by the Esoteric Order of Dagon. The
Starry Wisdom cult was located in Providence. Beyond the superficial
fact that both sects were Mythos-related, they had very different
theologies, and never did the twain meet.
Maya: You just have ALL the answers, don�t you Hikaru?
Hikaru: I spent my entire adolescense alone in my room reading
obscure tome, okay? So just ease the heck off.
"They were in cahoots with the fishmen."
Asuka snorted. "The Creature from the Black Lagoon
was leading the fishmen, eh?"
Shinji blinked. "That's just what Touji said."
Touji and Asuka stared blankly at each other.....
Maya(Asuka):
GET OUT MY HEAD!!!!! GET OUT OF MYHEAD!!!!!
Mercutio(Toji):
Then turned to Kensuke. "You're nuts."
"Nuts, eh? Take a look at THIS!" He pulled out
another book, which said, 'Legends of the Inuits'. "There's
all these stories about the Wendigo, who lives in the north
and runs around eating human hearts and stuff. He controls
the ice and snow and..."
Touji rolled his eyes. "And he's in league with the
fishmen?"
Hijaru: Actually.....
"Sounds an awful lot like the Angel of Winter, eh?"
Kensuke said.
"Yeah, but he'd have to have been around for
thousands of years to make all these legends," Touji said.
"Why'd he wait so long to attack Toronto?"
Mercutio: It�s TORONTO, f�r gosh sakes!!! If you had a choice would
YOU attack it? I didn�t think so.
-*-
"Hello, Rei."
The nearly albino girl blinked and hesitated as she
Mercutio: NEARLY albino?
Maya: Trust me, there�s no nearly about it; she�s as albino as you
can GET. That color goes alllllllll the way through.
Hikaru: And, uh, how would you know that?
Maya: <blushes> Ummm, nevermind.
stepped into the examination office. Normally, Maya had
overseen the exams. Seeing Dr. Akagi there instead seemed
to have surprised the girl.
Ritsuko wondered if Rei would ask where Maya was.
Instead, after the moment of hesitation, Rei merely nodded
and took a seat at the examination table, stripping her
clothes away.
Maya: Hmmpf. Sempai never asked ME to strip nekked and get on
the table....
"Maya's told me you've been feeling strange
lately," said Ritsuko as the myriad of scanners went to
work on Rei. "Are you still having that problem?"
Rei nodded, seeming more subdued as usual as she
did.
"You do understand you're not to harm Langley."
Maya(Rei): �Not even a little? I thought NERV was in the
_business_ of causing people we didn�t like to have �unfortunate
accidents.�
Rei nodded once more.
"Rei... tell me... do you feel a need to be with
Shinji?"
Maya(Rei): �I still want to rip off all his clothes and do things that
are only legal in Canada to him, if that�s what you mean.....�
She hesitated in responding, averting her eyes from
Ritsuko's. "I... yes."
"If he was here right now, what would you do? What
would you say to him?"
Rei's face betrayed subtle signs of frustration,
and she replied with a barely audible whisper, "I do not
know."
The doctor sighed. All these years, and all the
training they'd given her, they always thought of her as a
pilot, and never as a person. As a result, nobody had ever
prepared her for things like this.
Hikaru: Knowing NERV, they�ll probably just give her a copy of
�Gray�s Anatomy� and tell her to take some cold showers.
Maya: Hey, worked for me.
Then again... why now? Why Shinji?
Mercutio: She wore Gendo out, so she needs fresh meat.
Rei had been
attending school for a while, after all, though why NERV
bothered to do that was a mystery to her. Perhaps it was
NERV's feeble attempt to give her a normal upbringing?
Lots of questions, actually.
And she didn't have any of the answers. This whole
things reeked of a need for parental guidence, and she was
no mother figure.
Mother figure...
Mother...
Ritsuko frowned as the phrase echoed in her head,
bringing up unwanted memories from a long time ago. Her own
mother certainly-
Mercutio: .....was insane?
Hikaru: ......knew how to sleep her way to the top?
Maya: .......knew how to get funky?
<Mercutio and Hikaru stare at Maya>
Maya: It was all I could think of!!!!! Quit looking at me like that!!!
-*-
Tired from the day, Shinji had went to bed intending
to skip the usual 'dream training' that he'd been undergoing
lately.
What dreams may come, let them be.
Mercutio: Oh yes, because that worked SO well for Hamlet.
The dream that came seemed awfully familiar.
As Shinji's eyes opened in the dreaming, a single
pink cherry blossom floated down before him.
A breeze blew, and suddenly the air was filled with
the sight of endless cherry blossoms swirling in a perfect
blue sky.
Hikaru: Hell, this could be the begginning of every cheesy
japanese romance movie ever made.
He finally regained enough presence of mind to look
around, and found himself in a forest full of cherry trees.
The air around him was fresh and cool, and the breeze had
calmed to a gentle sigh.
"Ikari."
He turned to the sound of the whisper of a voice,
and saw a slight glow of red from under the tree's shadows.
A moment later, Rei stepped from under the tree's shade,
dressed in a simple blue sundress. However, there was
something different about her this time. There was a look
on her face he'd never seen before, as if she was uncertain
and anxious, a worried sort of nervous frown that spread to
her eyes.
Maya: Wow. In this one part ALONE, Rei�s had twice as many
facial expressions as she does in the entire TV series.
"A-Ayanami. Um, hi."
He couldn't help but notice she was actually
blushing and fidgeting as she stood before him. She did
seem at a loss for words.
Mercutio: Rei? Quiet? Nooooooooooooo, really?
Shinji looked around once more, scratching his head.
"Um... this place is beautiful."
"You like it?" asked Rei quietly.
Maya(Rei): �It took me five Dreaming rolls to make it, so you�d
BETTER.�
"Yeah, I guess. Looks... familiar."
"It was in the movie."
"Movie?"
Rei nodded, giving no more clues. It was enough,
though, for Shinji to figure out.
"Oh, um, Springtime Cherry Blossoms?"
Hikaru: The sequel comes out next week: �Revenge of the Sakura:
The Blossoms Strike Back.�
Mercutio: Starring Jackie Chan.
Rei nodded again.
"I... wish to understand people," said Rei. "To
understand you."
"Oh." Shinji blinked. "So... what do we do now?"
Rei shrugged. Seemed it was up to Shinji to take
the initiative, something entirely alien to him.
"Let's... let's... go for a walk then," suggested
Shinji.
Once more, Rei nodded. This time, and much to his
surprise, she linked her arm with his and leaned her head on
his shoulders as they walked.
Mercutio: Some would say �awwwww, isn�t that cute; Rei is
bonding with Ikari-kun.�
Hikaru: Others would wonder if she was just looking for a good
place to stick the sacrificial knife later on.
"R-Rei?"
She looked up at him with curious eyes. Her face
was close, uncomfortably close, and those lips...
Maya: Rei doesn�t _have_ lips. Take a good close look
sometime.
"W-what are you... I mean..."
"The people walked like this," explained Rei, "in
the movie."
"Oh."
Maya: She�s been reading �Romance for Dummies� apparently.
They walked through the forest, emerging into a
pleasant looking plaza filled with nondescript couples
walking arm in arm. In the distance, the sounds of a
festival could be heard. The sounds of children laughing
and
"Rei?"
Again, silently, she looked to him instead of
speaking.
"Why do you want to know me?"
"Because," she said again, her voice still a soft
whisper. "I wish to be with you."
Mercutio: Now if THAT can�t have any NUMBER of different
meanings.....
Hikaru: I believe that was point.
Having a girl express such intense desire for him
was something entirely alien to Shinji.
Maya: Having a girl _speak_ to him is something entirely alien
to Shinji.
His first reaction
was to run away, but it only held sway for a moment. He
couldn't run anyway, with Rei latched unto his arm like-
Mercutio: A leech?
Hikaru: A tick?
Maya: ..... some sort of mold?
<Mercutio and Hikaru stare at Maya>
Maya: <fumes> I don�t know WHY I even try anymore.
Then again, was it so bad having Rei feel that way?
Thinking it over, Shinji realized it might not be such a bad
thing, no.
-*-
Later that day...
Asuka hung up the phone and danced around in a circle.
"Woo hoo! He said yes! He said yes!" She and Hikari high-
fived. "So who are you gonna ask out?"
Hikaru: You know, I never did understand what Hikari saw in Touji.
I mean sure, there�s all that good stuff underneath his gruff surface,
but there are plenty of people who are like that _on_ the surface too.
Mercutio: You seem awfully concerned about the placement of
Hikari�s affection, Gos.
Hikaru: <shrugs> She�s got the female version of my name; I
kinda identify with her.
Maya: You identify with a pretty young schoolgirl who likes
strong, athletic men?
Mercutio: Is there something you�d like to tell us, Hikaru?
Originally, Asuka had planned this as a double-date
between herself and Kaji and Shinji and Rei. However, Dr.
Akagi had told her that Rei was going to be fairly busy in her
free time doing some experiments with her and various tests
Maya: Her body needs it�s ten-thousand mile tuneup.
for a while, so she'd convinced Hikari to come along. Now who
Hikari would actually ask out...Asuka had no clue. She wanted
Hikari along, though; she wasn't quite ready for a date alone
with Kaji, although she wouldn't have admitted that.
"Well..." Hikari said slowly, as she needed no psychic
powers to see what was likely to happen next. "I was thinking
I'd ask Touji," she said quickly.
Mercutio: And amazingly, Asuka is _surprised_ by this.
"TOUJI?" Asuka's hair would have stood on end if it
could. "He's so...he's a macho pig idiot!"
"He is not! He's a nice guy when you're not picking on
him!"
"A nice guy? He's a sexist idiot! I don't think he
knows any words but oink!"
Maya(Hikari): �Granted, but he�s got a nice bod, so I�m asking him
out. So there!!!!!!�
Hikari fumed. "He goes and visits his sister in the
hospital every day. He doesn't like to show it sometimes,
but he really is a caring guy."
"He's rude as hell! He may care about his sister,
but not anyone else!"
Hikari's eyes narrowed. "I haven't exactly seen you
feeding the hungry."
Maya(Asuka): �I throw food _at_ them. Does that count?�
"You know what I mean! He's just a thug! I can't
see how Shinji can stand to be around him."
"He is not a thug! When did he ever beat someone
up?"
"Besides Shinji?"
Maya(Hikari): �Shinji doesn�t count! YOU beat up Shinji! Hell,
Pen-Pen could take Shinji!!!!�
�I heard that!� yelled Shinji.
-*-
The command center of NERV was dimly lit, bathed in
a glow of red that filled the air with tension. Massive holographic
projections displayed multiple images: a satellite view of a small
wooden building in the woods, a mini-cam attached to a soldier's
helmet, radar, sensors, and other displays.
Hikaru(Gendo): �Lieutenant, is the BattleNet connection established?�
Mercutio(Shigeru): �Yes sir. You may commence �Unreal� multi-play
at your convenience.�
Hikaru(Gendo): �Excellent.�
Misato watched over it all, herself watched over by
Gendo.
Maya: The drunk leading the blind, as it were.
"So, this is where the N2 was taken?" asked
Fuyutsuki.
"If our sources are correct," replied Gendo. "Have
they made confirmation?" he asked, his voice echoing down to
the command floor below.
"They're working on it," said Misato.
A few tense seconds passed. Then a voice filled
with static interference broke the silence.
//"S-r, -t's conf--med. N2 p---r sign--ures
ins--e. Very fain-, --ob-bly und--r--ound."//
"Good job," said Katsugari. "Any signs of life?"
Mercutio: You know, this like the fourth part in which they�ve
misspelled �Katsuragi�, and they always misspell it the same way.
You�d think by now they�d have the word in their spelllchecker.
//"A --w, so-- are real st--ge, com--nd-r."//
On a separate holographic display on the right, a
static-tainted stream of data in the form of charts, graphs,
and something resembling a DNA chain appeared.
"It could be Cherubim," said Ritsuko, "or something
we haven't seen yet."
Maya(Misato): �Oh, like what, some sort of formless black spawn
that will devour us in the name of it�s toad-like master? Ha!
I�d like to see that.....�
"Your men ready to move?" asked Misato.
//"Ye- com---der."//
"Take prisoners if you can, but the priority is
recovering the N2-"
"Wait," echoed Gendo's voice from above. "Do we
have the codes?"
"Codes?" asked Misato.
Mercutio(Gendo): �At great expense, we have obtained the
Ultimate Code; the �Nude Raider� cheat for Playstation.�
Hikaru(Fuyutsuki): �Three of our best men died getting us
this information.�
"I believe we do," replied Fuyutsuki.
Gendo nodded. "Captain, have the team clear out.
Send the detonation codes in five minutes. There will be no
prisoners."
Misato looked up at her boss, stunned. "S-sir?"
"There are to be no survivors," said Gendo calmly.
Hikaru: And Gendo wonders why he never gets invited to parties...
Maya: No he doesn�t.
Mercutio: Shutup. we needed something to stick here.
"Yes... yes sir. Bravo team, clear out fast. We're
setting it off in five. You got that?"
//"Roger, command. On our way-"// The message was
cut off by a a scream. //"What the... GET DOWN!"// The
satellite image showed the seven dark shapes of the commando
force, scrambling furiously around and shooting wildly.
From a helmet-cam of one of the soldiers, they saw one of
the men held in the air by unseen hands, flailing desperately.
Spouts of blood suddenly burst from his body, and some thing
made of a mass of tentacles became faintly visible.
Mercutio: Once again, the Overfiend puts in an appearence.
"Bravo team, what's happening?!" yelled Misato.
//"---re under at---k! I can't s-- --em!"//
//"G--E OVER, -AN! GA-- --ER! -HIT!"//
The display of graphs and bars indicating 'angel'
lifeforms began to rise wildly. Meanwhile, the vital signs
of the soldiers suddenly flatlined, one by one.
"These are new life signs," said Ritsuko as she
looked over the displays. "Unknown, sir."
Maya(Ritsuko): �And by �unknown� I mean �I don�t want to discuss
it in front of the unbeleivers.� Sir.�
"Send the detonation code now," ordered Gendo.
"But sir," said Misato. "What about the-"
"Send the detonation code NOW."
"Yes sir." Misato looked sadly at Makoto and
nodded. He typed in the command.
The helmet-cam view died instantly in a burst of
white, and the satellite view became filled with the sight
of a fireball bursting from the ground.
Hikaru: Look, it�s Tulzcha.
"Not as underground as I hoped," said Gendo. "Is
the threat neutralized?"
For a moment, Misato stared slowly across the
displays, from the flatlined vital signs of the soldiers, to
the fiery remains of the house in the woods, and finally to
the set of readings that detected 'angel' type life forms.
"No survivors, sir. None."
"Good," said Gendo, rising from his chair. "The
mission is a success. Those fools who worship Baraquiel
won't unleash him that way.
Hikaru: Do we have a breakdown on the name �Baraquiel�?
Mercutio: Depends upon what source you of Angelology you
consult. We�ll go into it later.
�Fuyutsuki and I will be on our
way to Antarctica.�
Hikaru(Gendo): � Our mission: to create the most evil sno-cone
EVER.�
�I'll trust you to keep things in order."
"Yes sir."
And with that, Gendo and Fuyutsuki left the room.
Misato sighed. "If it's a success, why do I feel so
shitty?"
"It's not your fault," said Makoto. "We're in a
war, there's going to be casualties."
Mercutio: You�ll notice he never even CONSIDERS the ethical
implications of having killed a whole mess of people. Or if it
was even legal for Gendo to order him to so.
"Yeah, I know," said Misato, not sounding any
happier. "I know."
"At least," said Maya, "it didn't end like the last
mission."
Aoba shuddered. "Orange goo."
Hikaru: mmmmmm..... orange goo.....
Misato winced visibly, and Makoto thwapped Shigeru's
arm, giving him a "shut up!" sort of glare.
"I'm outta here, guys," said Misato wearily. "Page
me if anything comes up. Hey Ritsuko, c'mon, let's get
drunk."
-*-
Kaji said, "I'm sorry, but Commander Ikari wants me to
go over all these supply reports. Someone is pilfering supplies
or else wasting them."
Maya: Damn, they found out about my secret office-supply smuggling
ring. Now I�ll have to kill them all.
Asuka heard Kaji sigh over the phone.
"So I have to cancel on the outing tonight. Sorry!"
"But...but...we've been planning this for so long!" Asuka
tried to control herself; Pen Pen and Shinji were watching.
"I'm sorry, liebchen. I HAVE to read and correlate these
damn things in the next two days."
Maya(Asuka): �Oh, and is suppose if you DON�T horrible
beasts will fall upon as all like a plague.�
Mercutio(Kaji): �You�ve never seen the secretarial staff get
angry, have you?�
"We already bought tickets."
"Unless you can train Pen Pen to read and correlate
reports in the next half hour...If we wait, we can maybe get
Shinji and Rei to go next time too."
She laughed, then sighed. "Okay, I guess," she
said. "I'll be okay. I'll find something to do tonight.
Maybe whoop Shinji at one of my wargames or something. I'll
be okay, really."
Then she heard a woman's voice faintly over the
line. "Kaji, who are you talking to? We need to get
going!"
Mercutio(Kaji): �Hey, I�m not paying you to talk!!!�
Asuka felt the bottom of her heart plunge towards
her feet.
"Gotta go, liebchen. Talk to you later!" He hung
up.
He...he's with another woman, Asuka thought. She
struggled to keep her face calm; Shinji was watching her.
Still, her body trembled and it was an extreme struggle to
keep whatever shards of dignity she had left. He...wouldn't
even tell me, she thought. I never thought he'd start
hiding things from me.
Mercutio: Yes!!!! Asuka gets some emotional torment!!! Woohoo!!!
There IS a God!!!!
Maya: You really don�t like her at all, do you?
She quietly hung up and drifted away from the phone.
There were no tears until she was safely hidden in her room.
-*-
Kaji sighed. Kid's gonna get the wrong idea. Not
that she doesn't need to move on to someone her own age,
but...I wonder if Misato taught her the 'I'm okay, don't
mind me, but really you need to baste in your own guilt'
thing.
Maya: We don�t need to be _taught_ that. It�s somethng all women
have naturally inborn. <smiles>
"Done talking to your little friend?" Dr. Phelps
asked sweetly, with only the tiniest bit of acid in her
voice as she put the pile of documents down on his desk.
<All>: �Good evening, Mrs. Phelps.�
"Or would you like to keep me stuck here a while longer
while you call all your preadolescent girlfriends?"
"Asuka is hardly preadolescent."
Maya: She�s fourteen, moron. Last time I checked, that was
DEFINITLY preadolescent.
"Speaking from experience?"
Kaji frowned. Hell really is other people, he
thought.
Hikaru: DAMN straight.
-*-
Shinji, being an adept at the art, could tell Asuka
was moping.
Hikaru(Shinji): �You have learned much from me, young Grasshopper.�
Maya(Asuka): �I told you not to call me that!�
This surprised him.
Asuka wasn't the sort of person who moped in his
experience. He didn't like to see her moping, although he
couldn't have explained clearly why. It stirred him from his
homework when he couldn't take it anymore. Cheering others
up was something that was entirely alien to Shinji, but he
guessed that some upbeat music would perk her up.
Unfortunately, he didn't HAVE any cheery DAT�s.
Hikaru: Biiiiiiiiggggggg honkin surprise.
His sheet music collection, on the other hand, did
have some uplifting selections. While the cello is not the
world's most chipper instrument, it's not the saddest
either. He found a polka and started to play it. Hearing
the music, Pen Pen began to prance about the room, which
Shinji couldn't help but laugh at, if only a little.
Maya: He won�t be laughing when Pen-Pen starts preforming
the Dance of the Seven Veils.
Asuka looked up from playing 'I Crush Your Head' on
her Sega Octopus game machine. "..."
"Am I doing this right?" Shinji asked. "I haven't
played this piece in a while."
Asuka stared at Pen Pen. "He's trying to..."
Hikaru: Get down, get funky!!!!!
"I know I don't have an accordion, which is what I
really need, but..." Shinji said sheepishly. "Or sausages.
And it's not October yet, but..."
"Are you trying to cheer me up?" She asked. "Or
have you gone mad?"
Mercutio(Shinji): �Well, a little from column A, a little from column
B.......�
"Er, yes?" he answered.
"Well, if we're going to polka..." She got up and
sprinted to her room, then returned with a CD. "Let's do
this right." She put it in the CD player, and a properly
done polka started up. She came over to Shinji. "Lose the
cello."
He blinked. "What?"
"I'm gonna teach you to polka."
Hikaru: Dance, stick-boy, dance!!!!!!!
Beginning to sweat, he said, "Urr...I'm not much of
a dancer."
"You can learn." She stared at him intently. "You
WILL learn."
Maya: And Shinji�s training begins.....
Mercutio: What?
Maya: <innocently> Oh, nothing.......
"..."
-*-
TO: AgentX42@Users.Mizunonet.Net
FROM: Moldy567@Coldmail.com
SUBJECT: Coincidence? I think not.
Take a look at the two files I attached. I think you'll
find some suspicious parallels.
__________________________________________________
Want free email at the price of your privacy, your soul, and
your first born child? Oh wait, that wouldn't be very free...
http://cold.mail.com
Mercutio(Kensuke): �Damnit, ever since I bought that Pickmans
Modem, I get all KINDS of cracked out e-mail.�
Kensuke opened the first file, laughing faintly.
Probably another set of doctored pictures; the last set had
'proven' that all of the EVA battles were actually created
using computer graphics and the EVA toys being sold by
Bandai. Kensuke had gone and gotten one of the Shinji
figures to give to Shinji as a gag gift for his birthday,
although he wasn't sure when Shinji's birthday was.
Mercutio: Ummm....... Shinji�s birthday has already come and gone.
Maya: How could you possibly know that?
Mercutio: Shinji was born June 6th, 2001. It was like May 30th at the
end of CoaEG Part 7. If you expect me to beleive that all the events
between then and now take pace in the course of a single week,
I don�t THINK so.
It wasn't very accurate, unless Shinji was hiding
three inches and fifty pounds of muscle. The body looked to
have been stolen from another figure line, with a plug suit
slapped on it. The head was recognizable, though, even with
a frozen plastic smile. The figurines of Asuka and Rei
looked like both of them were in their twenties with figures
to match.
Hikaru: Hell, NORMAL Asuka and Rei look like they have the
figures of twenty-year olds.
And the rest of the staff had apparently been
completely made up by Bandai, unless his eyesight was
getting worse than usual. For example, Commander Ikari
certainly didn't ride around in a flying wheelchair in
reality, nor was he bald.
Mercutio: Ikari Gendo _IS_ Professor Xavier.
Maybe it was just intended to
conceal classified information. Everyone and their dog knew
who the Pilots were, but the rest of the staff was invisible
to the public.
Hikaru: Suuuuuurrrrreeeeee they are. They just, y�know, live in
a HUGE city that�s chock full of�em.
The first file was a text file. It was in German,
which he could read, but only slowly. He had to run it
through a text translation page to fill in the blanks he
couldn't, but then the results weren't entirely clear:
**********
I cannot speak of his coming, for words fail me, but
be assured, He Cannot Be Named, but He CAN be seen, if one
takes the precaution of preparing the preparation often
associated with the great scholar Ibn Ghazi...
--Excerpted from Page 305 of _Unausprelichten Kulten_, by
Mercutio: It�s spelled �Unaussprechlichen.�
Friedrich Wilhelm von Junzt, 1839 Quarto Edition.
**********
Kensuke blinked. Funky. Probably he made this up
and put a monolith picture in the next file, so I'll panic.
He opened the next file.
Hikaru: And encountered stolen screen shots from 2001.
The video clip was grainy and badly digitized, but
he could see what was happening. Men in NERV uniforms were
busily slaughtering a group of scantily clad and rather
hapless people who had things painted on their bodies, or
possibly tattooed.
Two things caught his attention. First, one of the
victims pointed a short basalt rod at one of the NERV
agents, who collapsed into a puddle of goo in about five
seconds.
Mercutio: The mysterious basalt rod, available form the Sharper
Image. For all your cultist needs.
Secondly, as the man collapsed, you could see him
standing next to a monolith. It was a five sided cylinder,
painted in orange-brown and blue with strange runes. Most
were unfamiliar to Kensuke, but he could see one clearly;
the astrological symbol for Jupiter was marked on each side,
just below the top.
Hikaru: That�s rather pointless. Hastur has exactly ZIP to do with
Jupiter. Neither do any of the GOO, really.
The footage ended just as a blurry claw
dropped down into the image, landing on the pillar.
-*-
Sae Tamagotchi shook her pretty little orange haired
head. "Why of course, Namura-Sensei! I'd be happy to get
you some coffee!" She bounced off the stage as if fetching
and carrying made her happier than anything else in the
universe.
Mercutio: Perky, isn�t her?
"Five will get you ten they're having an affair,"
Touji muttered to Kensuke and Shinji.
Hikaru: Good call.
Shinji looked up from his script, still trying to
figure out why he had accepted the lead. For that matter,
he wasn't sure WHY he had been cast as the lead. He was no
great actor, yet he had been cast in the lead role by
Namura-Sensei. "Then why isn't she in a lead role?�
Maya: Oh, she�ll be �leading� all right.
�She�s only playing my mother. Touji has more lines. I have
more lines, and I didn't even WANT to be in this play!"
Hikaru(Touji): *Finally.... an excuse to wear makeup!�
"You're playing King Alar, of course YOU have more
lines," Kensuke said. "At least you get to be sane. I have
to be the insane bad guy. I wanted to be Thale! He gets to
kick some butt."
Mercutio: You�d think Kensuke would ENJOY being the wacko
bad guy, but for some reason, no.
Touji preened a little. "That's why they chose me.
No one would believe you kicking ass, Kensuke."
"So why do you think they're having an affair?"
Kensuke asked.
"The damn letch kept making eyes at my sister before
her accident. And..." He shut up suddenly.
"And she made eyes back?" Kensuke asked, grinning.
"She did not! My sister wouldn't..." Touji
spluttered and fumed.
Maya: Boy, this fic even found a way to pervert a greivously injured
girl in the hospital.
Hikaru: Cool.
Sae bounced back with a cup of coffee, then sat down
next to Namura-sensei in the front row of the Tokyo-3 Junior
High Auditorium. Namura took a deep draught of coffee, then
said, "Okay, people, let's get going. Everyone who appears
in Act One needs to go backstage. Hikari, go stand in the
middle of the stage, just behind where the curtain drops."
Mercutio(Namura): *Just a littttlllllllleeeee to the left, and the sandbag
will take her out.*
Shinji and his friends headed backstage, soon joined
by a dozen or so other people who had either willingly
joined the cast or been roped into it like Shinji. Asuka
waved to Shinji, then stuck out her tongue at Touji, who
growled. Kensuke laughed. "She's just getting in
character. Uoht and Thale hate each other, and I remember
Uoht sticks out her tongue at Thale at some point. During
the duel at the feast, I think." He began to flip through
his book.
"Her character's name is even dumber than her real
one. Uuuuaaaught," Touji exaggerated.
<All>: �We are the Knights who go..... Uuuuaaaught!!!!!�
Rei stepped out of the darkness to stand by Shinji.
Shinji started. She had worn her school uniform to the last
two rehearsals (unlike everyone else, who had worn casual
clothing), but this time she had changed into a pale green
blouse and a long pleated dark green skirt. Only her shoes
remained the same from earlier in the day.
Kensuke said, "Whoa!"
Hikaru(Kensuke): *Mental Note: Plant camera in Rei�s shower
after rehearsal.*
Maya(Rei): *Mental Note: Check shower for cameras after
rehearsal.*
Touji blinked.
Shinji said, "Uh, you look nice, Rei."
"So what's the occasion?" Kensuke asked.
"Play rehearsal," she replied.
Mercutio: Which on Rei�s priority list, ranks somewhere below
�floating nude in a glass tube� but somewhere above �freaking
out people at random.�
-*-
"Uoht! Scoundrel!" boomed Touji, holding a broom
before him as if it were a blade. His poise was straight,
tall and majestic upon the stage, his voice carrying across
the auditorium.
Hikaru: And at that exact moment, Touji realized that he wasn�t
wearing any pants.
"The..."
Shinji blinked.
Mercutio: Crickets chirped in the background.
"The..."
Hikari frowned, looking very much worried.
"The... aw shit... the..."
Asuka hefted her own fake sword menacingly.
Maya: Three miles away, a duck exploded.
"The... okay, I'm lost."
*WHAP* "Dummkopf!" yelled Asuka.
"HEY! Cut it out, ya beer-swilling bitch!" Touji
raised his own 'sword' in challange.
Mercutio: You know, I�m just _waiting_ for the day that Touji
just hauls off and bitch-slaps her.
"Asuka! Touji! Stop!" cried Hikari.
"Just born to hate each other, I tell ya," said
Kensuke jokingly. "In a past life, these two were either
mortal enemies or married."
Maya: Why not both?
Rei observed it all silently, as if committing the
moment to memory.
Maya(Rei): *Mental Note: Bait Touji into killing Langley for me. Mweh.
Heh. heh.*
"L-let's go to the next scene?" suggested Shinji.
This wasn't a formal rehearsal, so they could skip around as
much as they liked. On the other hand, it also meant they
didn't have half the cast, and HAD to skip some scenes.
Asuka had wanted to work on a scene with him and her and Rei
in it, and things had snowballed. Now, he was starting to
worry that the snowball had become an avalanche.
Asuka and Touji glared at each other a moment long,
their weapons wavering between them dangerously. A moment
later, both slowly turned away, grumbling and with eyes
narrowed.
Maya(Asuka): *Mental Note: Slip liquid heat into pig-boys jock strap.*
"Next scene," said Kensuke as he thumbed through his
copy of the play. "Let's see... where were we? Act 3 scene
4?"
"Ja, act 3," said Asuka. "Big finale."
Kensuke frowned. "Damn. Lots of me in this one."
"Fancy that," said Asuka. "You are playing the
title character you know!
Hikaru(Kensuke): �Yes, but I�m a lazy, lazy man.�
C'mon, schnell, let's go." She
sprawled herself out on the floor, clutching an imaginary
wound. Rei knelt beside her, her face clutched in her
hands, trying to fake weeping. She had the 'fake' part
down.
Mercutio: Ayanami Rei: a method actors worst nightmare.
"Okay, okay, I'm going." Kensuke adjusted his
glasses, put his script away, took a deep breath, then
began.
"And now, good king," said Kensuke, his voice deeper
than usual with a hint of menace. "Your lady Uoht lies
broken by my sword, and your lady Cassilda driven mad by my
words. Good advice I did give, my lord. Were my words
wasted upon thy ears, king of fools?"
Mercutio(Alar): �I�m sorry, I didn�t quite catch that. Could you
repeat yourself?�
At this point, Shinji was supposed to step in and
say his lines, but he found it hard to move; Kensuke had
never quite managed to get the tone right before. Which
shouldn't have pinned him in place, but for just a moment,
he felt like Kensuke was gone, and the Stranger in the
Pallid Mask truly stood before him.
Glancing at the others, he could tell they were
surprised as well. He steeled himself; it was just a play
and Kensuke was just acting.
Hikaru: Warning, warning, flimsy rationalization in progress....
Asuka wasn't really dying, and Cassilda wasn't on the... Rei
wasn't on the verge of madness.
Maya: Oh, of course not. Rei passed the verge YEARS ago.
What Shinji had to do next was to portray anger;
this wasn't his specialty. He summoned up all his memories
of people yelling at him and tried to imitate it. "You have
come into my kingdom!" he said loudly, pointing a finger at
Kensuke. He took a step closer, remembering the time one of
his foster parents had yelled at him for stealing a bike,
when really he had just found it. He still had moments of
bitterness about that, and now it welled up.
Mercutio: If they�re going to steal from the manga universe, I do
wish they�d get it right. They did not _yell_ at him for stealing that
bike. Shinji�s Aunt & Uncle just gave him that �we�re very, very
disappointed� look parents do so well.
"You have turned my people against each other!"
Hikaru(Hastur): �Oh, come on! Mysterious stranger, weird mask,
your subjects slowly growing more bitter and resentful..... how
could you possibly NOT see this coming?�
"They already hated each other," Kensuke sneered.
"I merely helped them do what they already wanted to do.
Humanity is divided against itself, and that is why it
always falls. Every society is but a fragile veneer over
the beasts inside every man. It is the nature of beasts to
fight and struggle and hurt one another."
Mercutio(Hastur): �Either that or to lick themselves a lot and
then fall asleep. Whichever.�
Shinji took another step forward, and bellowed as
best he could, remembering the gang that had beaten him up
and stolen his lunch money every day for a month when he was
in the fifth grade, and how the school hadn't done anything
about it because it happened off the school grounds. "I AM
NOT A BEAST! I am the king and I take care of my people!"
Hikaru(Alar): �By instituting an archaic, absolutist, repressive feudal
form of government upon them!!!!�
"By hiding behind two women and sending them to do
battle for you. Now they have fallen, and you do nothing,
for you fear me." Kensuke sneered. "It matters not. The
armies are on the march, and Yhtill will be destroyed.
Thale is dead and his followers rise in revolt as we speak."
He pointed out across the auditorium. "And the storm that
is coming will scourge this land. My work is done."
Mercutio(Hastur): �I tell ya, �Tep had better be paying me overtime
for this gig......�
The lights flickered, and Hikari jumped. Touji
muttered to her, "That twit Uoht never would have gotten me
if it wasn't written into the script."
Maya(Uoht): �Actually, I cheated; drugged your wine before the
duel. But we�re both long dead, so who cares. Although I must
say this new body I get to posses is WAY better than yours.�
There was a feeling of static in the air as Kensuke
smirked at the glowering Shinji. Shinji took another step
foward, his face red, his eyes dark. "You will not get away
with this!"
Mercutio: And at this point, the supervillain says �But I already have,�
and launches the final element of his doomsday plan.
He could see the lights flickering on Kensuke's
glasses, hiding Kensuke's eyes. For a moment, he remembered
his father looking like that when he sent him away, so long
ago. Damn you, father, he thought, and the fires within him
rose up another step. "You're the coward, hiding behind a
mask! Show your true face!"
Hikaru: We�d use a Scooby-Doo joke here, but Rod and John
already beat us to it. Bastiches.
His hand came around; it was supposed to be a slap
that would strike off the mask that Kensuke would be wearing
once they started dress rehearsals. He had been drilled a
good dozen times by Namura- Sensei on how to make it look
real AND not hit Kensuke. Unfortunately, Shinji wasn't
thinking in those terms anymore. The slap struck Kensuke
squarely on the cheek and sent him sprawling. "Damn you!"
Hikaru: Not yet. Give it another few thousand K or so.
"That's not in the script," Hikari said.
Mercutio(Shinji): �Don�t question me, mortal. I mean, uh, right,
of course.�
Touji stared in shock, as did Asuka. Rei looked up
and blinked. Shinji stared at his own hand, snapped out of
it. "Oh man, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to hit you like
that! I just...got carried away."
Kensuke rubbed his cheek. "Probably would have
worked better if I'd really been wearing the mask."
Hikaru: Of course, if he�d really been wearing the mask, we�d
all be corn fritters on Hasturs cosmic plate by now, but......
"Shinji, you idiot! You could have hurt him!"
Asuka bellowed. "Now if that had been Touji, it would have
been another matter, but..."
"HEY!" Touji and Hikari said in unison.
"I think she meant you could take it better than
me," Kensuke lied, trying to calm the waters. He felt a bit
queasy. Now I know what acting is really like, he thought.
It had been so easy to fall into the part all of a sudden;
probably the same thing had happened to Shinji. "Can we
work on that scene just after the banquet now? I'm not
quite in the mood to continue this."
Neither was anyone else, so they changed scenes, and
continued their rehearsing.
Hikaru: And the band played on.
-*-
The ship cruised through the Antarctic waters,
unseasonably warm, as they had been ever since the Second
Impact. Fuuyutsuki looked out across the waters. "I never
thought I'd be able to use a battleship as a taxi one
day."
"I did," Gendo replied.
Hikaru(Gendo): �But then, I also thought that giant squirrels would
attempt to enslave us all in their underground nut mines, and THAT
never happened.�
Mercutio(Fuyutsuki): �Day�s still young.�
"Liar."
Gendo smiled a tiny smile. He did have a sense of
humor, although it was rarely seen. "I can hardly believe
our good fortune in finding this," he said. "The ocean
floor is so big, we could have looked for years."
Maya: Technically, they DID look for years.
"It must be fate," Fuuyutsuki said. "Or a
trap. Perhaps we're being lured into something."
Hikaru(Gendo): �Oh, you�re just nervous. Here, I�ll get the
harpoon gun, we�ll slaughter a few hapless Deep Ones,
grill them with some nice lemon, you�ll feel better.�
"Our enemies lack the resources to build something
like this as a trap at such short notice."
"Do they?" Fuuyutsuki asked.
They stared silently at each other for a while, then
turned and watched the ocean go by, waves lapping gently, as
they had for millions of years.
-*-
"Hey, you wanna go to the arcade with me and
Shinji?" Touji asked Kensuke over the phone. Kensuke was
sitting at his desk, surrounded by books and papers, his
computer in the middle of running a web search.
Mercutio: Mythos tomes..... cabalistic research..... computer.....
man, this could be MY room. If there were more discarded pizza boxes.
"I have to work on that research paper," Kensuke
said. "Maybe tomorrow."
"We got play practice tomorrow. Why waste our night
off?" Touji asked hopefully.
Hikaru: If Kensuke were smart, he�d just tell him he had porn to
download. No teeneager would ever argue with that.
Kensuke stared at the passage he'd printed out a few
minutes earlier.
[In latter days, men shall wield the powers of the gods, but
lack their wisdom. They shall walk the halls of the dead,
where the Great Cauldron of Life waits for the one who shall
master it. Yet, they shall lack the ancient lore, and find
only destruction instead of life, raising a great funeral
pyre. That light shall call to he who sings the stars into
place, who will set to his work.
Mercutio: Hikaru, you�re the resident magus. Please translate
for the Mythos-Impaired.
Hikaru: Not here. Later.
Maya: Why later?
Hikaru: Would YOU keep reading an MST of something that
suddenly went off on tangent into a two-page analysis of ancient
lore?
Mercutio: For an in-depth analysis of this section, see the end
of this MST, where we do all our C&Cing and stuff. We quite
simply don�t have the space here.
-*-
Namura-Sensei held up the blade. It was fairly crude, but
it only had to look like a sword from a distance. "I can
hardly believe the school shop has so many resources," he
said to Sae, who was helping him. She was hard at work on
the hilts over at another machine. "You'd think they were
planning to turn this school into a weapons plant or
something. Or a car factory."
Maya: Gendo�s original plan was to have a student-run sweatshop
in there. True story.
Mercutio: Really? What happened?
Maya: I could tell you, but then I�d have to kill you.
Hikaru: That�s your excuse for everything! That�s what you said
when I asked where the remote was.
Sae laughed, pushing her hair away from her goggles.
Normally, she had a spiky hairstyle, but after a few hours
of working with the metal, it was drooping all over the place.
"This is fun!"
Maya(Sae): �Can we make the bombs next, Sensei? Huh?!?! Canwe
canwecanwe?!?!�
"It's a pity we don't have time to make armor before
the dress rehearsal," Namura said. "Did you and your friend
get those banners made?"
Sae nodded. "Yep! They should be putting them up
right now."
Mercutio: Kids, this is what us writer-type people like to refer to
as �foreshadowing.�
"So when do your parents expect you to be home?"
There was a pause, and then Sae said, "They're gone
all this week."
Namura put down the sword blade and smiled.
"Perfect."
HIkaru: <sniffs> Ah, the subtle, ever-present tang of pedophelia in
the air. This is becoming more like original Eva all the time.....
-*-
Megumi Kunzama strolled through the streets of
Tokyo-3, hoping to catch some inspiration.
Mercutio: That�s not ALL you can catch walking those streets.....
After a nice start in Tokyo-3, things were slowing
down to a painful degree for the ambitious reporter.
Maya(Megumi): �I�ve barely had any role at all in the last three
parts, dammit!!! I was promised full-fledged �minor character�
status in this series!!! The Fanfic-Created Characters Guild shall
hear of this!!!�
The last few angel strikes had been overseas, and
the press conferences discussing them were, typical of most
of NERV press conferences, tightly controlled.
Mercutio(Gendo): �It�s all going according to plan.�
There weren't any more bizarre occurrances here
lately, like the Cherubim attack. That one yielded a good
story, with lots of quotes all around.
Hikaru: How many different ways could NERV possibly say �There
Were Big Bat-Things. We Killed Them All.�
But since then, she'd been reduced to occasionally
prying into the personal lives of the pilots, which she did
feel just a little guilty about.
After all, they were just kids.
Maya: That�s supposed to be ironic, right?
But on the other hand, they were the only thing
standing between humanity and extinction, so they were
public figures and fair game.
However, even that particular story seemed dried up.
She hadn't seen any noticable change in behaviour among
them, and the addition of Langley to the team didn't seem to
change things. A nice love triangle would've been nice, but
from all the talk she'd managed to get from the other
students, Asuka was far from interested in anybody.
Mercutio: I don�t know about YOU guys, but I am DEEPLY looking
forward to the day Megumi realizes she�s now been reduced to the
level of a tabloid gossip-monger, goes nuts, and takes her own life.
Hikaru: You don�t know that�s going to happen.
Mercutio: This is an HPL story, dammit!!! SOMEbody has to go nuts
and take their own life!
She needed a story.
Something.
Blech.
As she passed by thet high school, she noticed a set
of students hanging up a large banner.
//Tokyo-3 Central High presents: THE KING IN YELLOW//
// A tragedy in three acts //
Mercutio: And at the bottom, in fine print......
// Disclaimer: Tokyo-3 Central High takes no responsibility for //
// any bruises, bumps, maimings, deflowerings, mental scarring, //
// karmic imbalance, or bad mojo received as a result of //
// viewing this atrocity in all of it�s splendor and glory. //
// Have a Nice Day.// ^_^ ^_^ ^_^
//Or Else.//
(o o)(o o) (o o)
/ I \ / I \ / I \
In the background of the banner was an intricate
circular design, a sigil of some sort. Just looking at it
disturbed her in a way she couldn't put in words. It felt
so _wrong_, yet she couldn't take her eyes off of it.
She walked up to the students and asked, "Excuse me,
what's this?"
"Oh, the school play," one of the boys replied.
Hikaru(Boy): <mechnically> �It is a perfectly normal school
play. Absolutly nothing out the ordinary. There will certainly
not be any sex or violence at all in this ordinary play that
has no cosmic signifigance whatsoever.�
"Oughta be interesting," said another. "Those
pilots are the stars of the show."
Megumi raised an eyebrow. "Hey, yeah?"
"Yep. That Asuka's such a babe!"
"Is it open to the public?" she asked.
One of the boys shrugged. "Should be."
"Ah, good. Very good."
It wasn't a groundbreaking piece, but it would make
for a cute little story.
Maya: Known to most REAL reporters as a �Puff Piece.�
As Megumi walked away, she took one last look at the
banner and its ominous sigil.
Yes, something about it was definitely _wrong_.
Maya: Those razor-shrap journalism instincts don�t miss much.
-*-
Ritsuko frowned. Something was wrong. Well, not so
much wrong as unexpected. For the last week or two, the
captive Cherubim had been in a coma, or a reasonable
facsimile. Now it was awake, and moving about, though
sluggishly. Its flesh had stopped turning grey and was
beginning to regain its color. And as it paced, it hummed,
a deep throbbing beat, mixed with occasional cries that
sounded joyful.
Hikaru: The same way a screaming wombat sounds joyful.
"Perhaps it was just sick," Maya speculated. "But
it got better."
"It wanted to die before," Ritsuko said. "I could
tell.
Maya: Hey, _I_ said that!!! She�s stealing my thunder.
� But now it's waiting for something. Something it
likes."
"Is it that intelligent?" Maya asked.
"Even a cat can anticipate dinner joyfully," Ritsuko
said, hoping this wasn't the case.
Seemingly oblivious to anything else, the cherubim
looked up, as if searching for something, and warbled an
incomprehensable song.
Mercutio: o/~ Louie Lou-aye, whoah-oh, we gotta go..... o/~
-*-
Rei stirred from her bed, an annoyed look on her
face. She paced the room, slowly, then stepped out to her
balcony.
Hikaru: Rei has a balcony? Since when?
She looked up to the stars, searching for something
unknown. Far away, the star Alderberan shone in the night
sky, mesmerizing her with its sparkling light.
And as she stared, she hummed to herself a
disjointed melody.
Maya(Rei): o/~ Burn baby burn, Disco Inferno.......o/~
-*-
The next night...
Misato sat with Makoto and Kaji in the middle of the
auditorium, a male on each side of her. Ritsuko had been
supposed to come, but she had bailed out at the last minute
due to some work she couldn't leave. Maya and Shigeru had
been supposed to join them as well, but the auditorium had
filled up, and Maya and Shigeru were trapped in the far
back/top of the auditorium. Misato wondered if Shigeru had
planned it that way; she'd noticed he had a bit of a crush
on Maya, who seemed oblivious to that fact.
Maya: I wasn�t oblivious; I just couldn�t care less. Men are so.....
icky.
Mercutio: Thank you for that grade-school maturity level assesment
of men, Maya.
The play was quite good so far, although somewhat
weird.
Hikaru: Noooooooooooo, really?
The basic plot was easy to follow. The old king was
dead, and the new king needed to take a wife in order to
produce children so that he would have an heir if something
happened to him. Everyone in the court was trying to
maneuver to choose a wife for him, but the King himself had
his eyes on two different women. Typical male, Misato
thought.
Mercutio: Hey, we don�t make the rules; we just enjoy them.
Shinji was King Alar, the indecisive king of Yhtill.
Asuka was one of his potential wives and also the Royal
Champion, Uoht. Rei played the other love interest,
Cassilda, the High Priestess of Lenilda the Moon Goddess,
the Lady of the Lake.
Hikaru: Wouldn�t her arm get tired from holding that sword up
all the time?
They were all putting in good
performances, although the director had apparently done his
casting by finding people whose personalities already fit
the characters. Not that Misato thought that was
necessarily a bad thing.
Mercutio: Better than most school plays, where casting is decided
by a vicious combination of humiliating auditon and snotty popularity
contest.
Several things were complicating the romantic
mishaps. Besides the long philosophical speeches which
Misato mostly tuned out, there were several subplots. There
were dangerous rumblings from the neighboring kingdoms of
Xoth and Hyades, and everyone was arguing over which kingdom
to ally with in the inevitable war, or whether to stay
neutral.
Hikaru: Where are the swiss when you really NEED them, eh?
Uoth argued they should ally with Hyades, their
long term ally while her rival Thale (played by Touji)
called for an alliance with the stronger empire of Xoth in
order to share in its likely victory. Cassilda argued for
complete neutrality, the promotion of scholarship and
religion, and the repair of the roads and castles neglected
by Alar's father.
Mercutio: Oh yar, ally with Xoth, Cthulhu�s hometown. Yeah, that�s
a good idea.
Further complicating matters was the plot
between Thale and one of Cassilda's subordinates to dispose
of Uoth, the Queen Mother's efforts to get Alar to marry
someone from her home kingdom, the forbidden love of Uoth's
squire for Thale, and the presence of a mysterious stranger
who delighted in causing trouble, The Stranger in the Pallid
Mask.
Hikaru: Vader?
Kensuke was playing that role, and putting on a
great performance, Misato thought. Unlike the others, his
part wasn't much like his normal personality, for the
Stranger was a devious plotter and manipulator.
Hikaru: Hey..... are they being sarcastic?
Mercutio: I don�t even know anymore.
As they headed towards the end of the first act, every feud and
quarrel in the kingdom was about to ignite, and no one knew
he was to blame.
Misato shivered with anticipation, wondering what
would happen. She'd never heard of this play, but she hoped
it wasn't going to end with everyone dead; plays like that
were a waste of time.
Maya: Sure. Hamlet was a waste of time. So was the Nibelungd.
Mercutio: Hey..... are you being sarcastic?
Hikaru: Oh, shut up.
Makoto and Kaji were enraptured too,
as were the audience.
A few of them seemed to be a bit too enraptured;
some people over in one corner seemed to be having an
argument on the verge of blows, and another couple was
starting to strip and make out.
Mercutio:Whoah... I�m getting Woodstock �99 flashbacks.....
She turned her head away
from that, only to see someone staring in horror at the
stage, their mouth frozen in a mask of fear. She looked at
the stage, and all she saw was the Stranger whispering
something to the Queen in a private audience.
Mercutio: ~o/ I see a little silhouette-a of a man.... ~o/
She glanced back, and the man had crumpled, burying
his face in his lap and weeping. Indeed, a fair number of
people were starting to weep, or cry, or shout. It was
getting harder to hear the dialogue on the stage over the
din,
Maya: All they need are a few people in those silly little usher
outfits with flashlights �shush�-ing people. That�d fix it.
and now Misato was getting goosepimples. I hope this
doesn't always happen at these plays, she thought.
_*_
Backstage, Shinji leaned against the wall, breathing
deeply. The play was intense, too intense. When Uoht and
Thale...when Asuka and Touji had been waving their swords at
each other, he had thought they were going to actually stab
one another to death on the spot for a moment.
Hikaru(Shinji): �Of course I think that EVERY time we get together.....�
He ran over his next lines; they came far more
easily to him now than they had before. Being Alar felt
natural, so natural he almost felt swallowed up by Alar when
he was on stage.
Mercutio: Stanislavsky would be proud.
The fact that he could see himself acting
just like Alar in Alar's position made it very easy to play
the part, although he wasn't vacillating between two women
in real life. I wonder if my secret admirer is watching
this, he thought. I hope she's not jealous. He laughed at
the thought.
Having a secret admirer was embarrassing, but
exciting too. He'd gotten three more cards, all weird haiku
he couldn't understand, but heartfelt through the confusion.
Maya: And Rei�s psychological mindfucking continues. Good for
her.
I just wish I could figure out who it was, though, he
thought. Misato had gotten two more secret admirer cards as
well, and a bouquet of flowers. Asuka had been trying to
find out who was sending them, but no one would fess up.
Mercutio(Makoto): �Hey, I happen to _like_ breathing.�
Maybe it's her, Shinji thought, then discarded the
idea. If Asuka thought that way about me, she'd just walk
up, throw me over her shoulder, and drag me off.
Hikaru(Shinji): �Not that I wouldn�t _enjoy_ that...... mmmmm, leather.�
Like Uoht tries to do to Alar in the first scene of act two. Or is it
the third, he asked himself, suddenly panicking.
He peeked out at the stage again; almost his cue to
go on. Rei needs to get here, he thought. She goes on with
me.
Mercutio: I�ll bet she does.
A hand touched his shoulder briefly; Rei was there,
clad in long, loose green robes with a hood, a 'silver'
necklace hanging down loosely from her neck, with a silver
crescent moon pendant. A similar crescent moon was daubed
upon her brow with makeup, and her skin was much darker than
usual thanks to base makeup intended to keep the stagelights
from completely washing her out. Shinji was wearing similar
makeup himself, which embarrassed him faintly.
Hikaru(Shinji): *Alone in my room when it�s just me and my vinyl is
one thing, but in front of all these people......
She stared at him, though it was a gentle stare, and he
gazed back at her. Then she nodded and stepped onto the stage.
He followed her, feeling Alars slide into place, letting the
memorized words and actions tell him what to do. And the
play went on.
Mercutio: This�s a pretty good play. All it really needs are insane
razor-wielding midgets to make it complete.
-*-
Shigeru was feeling pretty confident; he'd managed
to put his arm around Maya's shoulders a good fifteen
minutes ago, and she hadn't protested a bit. Given the
number of couples around them doing a lot more than that, he
was starting to feel bold enough to try something more
himself.
Mercutio(Shigeru): �Now, what would Go Nagai do in this
situation?�
If he'd been thinking more clearly, he might have
realized that while Maya wasn't telling him to stop, she
hadn't given any real sign of noticing what he had done
either, since she was enraptured with the events on stage.
Maya: Words cannot express my dissapointment in my counterparts
awareness of the world around her.
On stage, Yhbb was talking to one of the other
squires, trying to work up the courage to profess her love
of Thale to him. The squires were trying to discourage her
by telling her that because she served Lady Uoht, he would
never love her, for she served his enemy, but she refused to
listen, or so she said. The words did seem to be slowly
wearing away at her.
Mercutio: Like 100-grit sandpaper.
Maya was muttering, "Don't be a coward," when
Shigeru began to lean over to try and kiss her. He took
this for encouragement, and swept her into a very solid
kiss. Her eyes widened, but he didn't notice, lost in the
fulfillment of a dream.
Maya: Feh. I can�t believe he closed his eyes.
Hikaru: _All_ men close their eyes when they kiss. Kissing with
your eyes open is just _weird_. Uncomfortable. Kinda like having
sex with the lights on.
Only one thing saved Misato from a similar fate.
She didn't notice two incoming heads because she was too
busy telling Yhbb to just TELL Thale how she felt, as were
several other people in the audience.
Mercutio: Somehow, Misato struck me as one of those people who
would yell at the screen during a movie.
Kaji and Makoto both
lunged at the same time, and their heads slammed into each
other.
Maya: With a sound not unlike hollow coconuts colliding.
They both fell back, dazed, as Misato stared at both of
them. "What the HELL are you two doing?" she asked. Did
they just try to kiss me?, she wondered. Or each other? THAT
would have been just the way to end her day.
Looking around at the developing orgy, she began to
wonder if someone had put drugs in the air conditioning.
Maya: An aerosol method of delivery for Acid; yet another one of
Nerv-Biologies little triumphs.
Mercutio: Why on earth would Nerv research that?
Maya: An ex-CIA project director approved the request of an ex-hippie
scientist.
Mercutio: ........... oh.
A fight had broken out on the other side of the aisle, three
rows back. Six people were naked in a pile near one of the
doors. She glanced back and saw Maya and Shigeru making
out. Well, I'll be, Misato thought. Never would have
guessed she liked him.
Maya(Mistao): �Especially not after that little incident in the shower
about which the both of us have vowed to never speak of again.�
Then Maya suddenly stood and tossed Shigeru halfway
across the theatre. He flew down eight rows, and landed on
a couple making out, one of whom hefted him and threw him
again. She screamed, "RAPE!!!!!"
Hikaru: Well, there�s a new one. People generally yell �fire!� in
a crowded theatre.
Someone pulled Shigeru down, and Misato could see he
was being pounded on. Kaji tried to kiss her again, and she
grabbed his shoulders. "Snap out of it! Something is going
on here!"
"I want your body, that's what!"
Mercutio: Well, yeah, but that�s ALWAYS going on!!!!
"You can't have it! She belongs to me!" Makoto
proclaimed.
It can't get any worse, Misato thought.
Hikaru: Cue Megumi!!!
Across the theatre, a blonde woman suddenly stood up
and shouted, "NERV is concealing evidence about the true
origins of the Angels! Two of the EVA pilots are dating,
and I've got pictures of them dating! You people can't
handle the Truth, but I can! And I'm going to tell it ALL!"
She began to laugh maniacally.
Mercutio: If that�s the truth that�s out there, I wanna be lied to.
Kaji and Makoto both lunged at her again. Me and my
big mouth, Misato thought.
-*-
The secondary crew of the NERV command center
figured it was going to be a quiet night, one of many for
them. Whether it was from good fortune or coincidence,
nothing had ever happened on their shift.
Hikaru(Gendo): �Of course not. That would be an unanticipated
variable. It�s all going according to plan.�
Nothing lasts forever.
The ladies were into their third round of poker when
the massive monitor screens suddenly came to life in shades
of violent red and orange.
"What the... uh oh."
Mercutio(J. Random Techie): �Dammit! Who spilled the Dr. Pepper
on the console again?�
The trio scrambled to their stations, typing
furiously to confirm the power signature that had suddenly
flared out in the city and identify which of the possible
menaces it could be.
"Damn, there goes our streak," one of them muttered.
"Confirmed! It's an Angel!"
"Get Captain Katsuragi and Dr. Akagi!"
-*-
She'd known some college parties that were almost as
wild as this.
Mercutio: It�s not a party without beer-swilling frat boys.
Almost.
"Misato-chaaan!"
"Shit!" She ducked from Kaji's lunging grab, then
drove a knee to his stomach, and finally knocked him out
with an elbow to the back of his head.
Maya: The dream of oh-so-many.
And then her phone rang.
Hikaru: Now THERE�S a non sequiter if there ever was one.
Misato's eyes widened in disbelief, grimacing at the
great timing of it all. She dodged a piece of flying chair,
whipping the phone out as she rolled on the ground, and put
it to her ear as she jumped over an overly-amorous couple.
//"Captain Katsuragi!//
"I'm kinda BUSY!" she yelled, spinning and dodging
another set of wildly flying bodies.
Mercutio: �Oh, well, we�ll just call back later then.�
//"We've got an Angel power signature in the city!
It's at the Tokyo-3 High School!"//
Maya: No blue pattern..... I miss the blue pattern.....
"Yeah, I noticed, I'm right in the middle of it!"
Though not for long, if she had her way. Misato had managed
to scramble, dodge, and crawl her way through the chaos, and
was nearly at the doors.
//"You okay, commander? What's happening over
there?"//
"Everyone's going nuts here! We were all watching
the school play, but everyone's gone nuts!"
Mercutio: Thank you, Captain Redundancy.
//"We'll send forces to you-"//
"Don't! Whatever's gotten into the audience
might've gotten to them! Any ideas on WHOA!"
Maya(Misato): �Look at the size of the unit on that guy!�
//"Captain!"//
"I'm fine, just had to dodge some soda."
//"What?"//
"Nevermind, just find-"
Ritsuko's voice cut in. //"Misato, are the pilots
okay?"//
Maya(Misato): �Screw the pilots! Misato is looking out for
Misato for once!�
"Shit! The pilots!" She whirled around and
frantically tried to see the stage. Two brawling men
blocked her view, though that was fixed after she quickly
pistolwhipped them into unconsciousness.
"The pilots... are still performing the play?"
Maya(Ritsuko): �Are you asking me or telling me?�
//"Is anyone from the audience approaching the
pilots?"//
Misato looked down at the chaos before her,
surprised to see a pattern there. "Actually... hold on."
Hikaru: Time for some more pointless violence.
She dodged as another trio of people charged at her, kicked
one away, knocked another one out with an impressive
spin-kick, and took the third down with an elbow to his jaw.
"They're being left alone."
//"The play isn't called 'The King in Yellow', is
it?"//
Maya: <winces> Oh, Sempai...... could you really be that clueless?
"Yeah, it is."
//"Damn. Listen, this is important: stop the
play."//
Maya(Misato): �Brilliant deduction, Rits!! I can see how you got that
PhD of yours now!!!!�
"Waitasec."
Misato dodged and scrambled yet again, finally
making it to the auditorium doors.
"Okay, now what was that?"
//"The King in Yellow isn't just a play, it's a...I suppose
the word 'spell' comes closest to expressing it. It's going to
unleash the Angel Baraquiel."//
"Really?"
Mercutio: Noooooo, not really.
//"Yes."//
"Shit."
//"You must stop it before they finish, or else the
King in Yellow will be posessed by Baraquiel."//
Hikaru: Bit late for that, one would thnk.
"Gotcha." Misato quickly ran around, intending to
get to the stage from the rear entrances. A question popped
up in her head, and she speed-dialed the NERV command
center.
"Hey," she asked. "Why am I not being affected?"
Maya(Ritsuko): �Damnit, Captain, I�m a Doctor, not a psychologist!�
//"That's a good question,"// replied Ritsuko.
//"We'll look in on that."//
Maya: Which, in NERVspeak, means Gendo will never, ever, ever
let me tell you.
-*-
As she snuck into the rear entrance of the
auditorium, Misato felt a chill run through her. Something
was wrong, very wrong.
Hikaru: These people seem to have a real knack for noticing the
INCREDIBLY OBVIOUS!!!!!
She snuck by the actors and actresses not on stage,
dressed in their play costumes, and was disturbed by their
utterly blank looks.
Mercutio: My God! A bunch of blank-looking depressed teenagers!
That NEVER happens!
And then she noticed Kensuke.
His face obscured by a grotesque, pallid yellow
mask. Merely standing there, he radiated an aura of menace.
Hikaru(Kensuke): �I _knew_ eating that enchilada was a mistake.....�
One of the students suddenly came to life, entering
the stage, while Shinji, leaving the stage, took on the
blank look that the backstage cast now had.
Great timing, thought Misato.
She went to him quickly, shaking his shoulder.
"Shinji!" she hissed. "Snap out of it!" He wobbled as she
shook him, but did little else.
She hoped this wouldn't hurt too much...
Maya(Mistao): *Finally...... an excuse to abuse the boy!!!!!!*
*WHAP*
"SHINJI!"
Maya(Misato): *Huh. Somehow, it didn�t make me feel nearly as
good as Gendo said it would.*
"Ow! Huh? Wha?" The boy blinked several times,
his gaze finally coming into focus. "Misato-san? What's
going on?"
"We're in trouble. C'mon, help me get Asuka woken
out of this trance. And then we have to get Rei."
"She's on stage, Misato. She and Thale are about to
have their duel."
Mercutio: You wouldn�t think a Priestess would know all that
much about duealing, but there you go.
"Shit. Where's Rei?"
Hikaru: Didn�t Shinji just SAY she was onstage?
Shinji looked around, but couldn't spot her.
"Dunno. She has got to be around here somewhere, though."
He looked at the frozen students scattered around the area.
"What is going on?"
"The next Angel is here, Shinji," Misato said
quietly.
"W-what?! How'd it get into the city without us
knowing?"
Hikaru(Shinji): �What the hell are we paying you people for?�
"We invited it in," Misato said, finishing her
search, then slapping herself. "I'll just...oh dammit, she
won't be carrying her phone!"
Maya; You�d think she would. Rei strikes me as one of those
compulsive people who carries her phone everywhere.
Shinji thought for a second.
"Have at ye, traitor!" Thale shouted from the stage,
and metal began to ring against metal.
"This is where I go back on and break it up. Then
Cassilda enters..." Shinji's arm wavered about, then locked
on a point on the far side of the stage. "There."
Mercutio: This backstage area has the biggest field of view I have
EVER seen.
"Right. Go snap Rei out of this. I'll deal with
Asuka." Misato drew her pistol, then reversed her grip to
use it as a club.
"You're gonna shoot her?" Shinji boggled.
Hikaru: <Insert obligatory �bogleg� joke HERE>
"Not like this, you idiot! Go get Rei!" She turned
and sprinted onto the stage, while Shinji circled around to
where he expected Rei to come on stage. She was there,
cloaked and veiled in the garb of the priestesses of
Lenilda, her face hidden, though he thought for a moment he
could see her eyes glowing through the veil.
Maya: Enough with the hinting, already! We KNOW she could
use those eyes of hers as flashlights if she wanted to! Move
on!!!
A silver crescent moon hung on a necklace between her
breasts.
Maya: Mmmmmm...... breasts........
She ignored him completely. He put a hand on her
shoulder. "Rei, snap out of it."
The fact that she ignored him was less surprising
for her than it would have been with most people. He tried
again. "Rei, wake up! Something's gone wrong! An Angel is
controlling everyone!"
Mercutio: Hence, the REASON she won�t snap to.
No reaction at all. She kept her eyes on the stage,
a toy waiting for its owner to pick it up and play with it.
Utter silence. Several efforts to shake her didn't do
anything either.
Hikaru: He�s lucky he ain�t a pile of cinders right now,
shaking her like that......
Out on the stage, Thale and Uoht were going at it
full force. The fighting far exceeded the simple motions
that had been practiced, for it was Thale and Uoht who
fought, not Touji and Asuka, and the two combatants had
trained with the sword for many years for all that they had
not existed a few hours earlier.
Mercutio: Dont�cha just _hate_ it when your imaginary characters
start raging out of control?
Hikaru & Maya: What do you mean by that?
They were, however, completely focused, and Misato
could tell that they couldn't even see her. This made it
simple for her to smack Thale in the back of the head with
her pistol.
Hikaru: The bullets in there must be feeling _really_ neglected at
this point.....
He yelped and collapsed, leaving Uoht in a
state of confusion; this wasn't in the script. She turned
and stared at Misato who shouted, "ASUKA, STOP PLAYING
AROUND!"
"Mother?" Uoht said confusedly.
Mercutio: Well, nothing Freudian THERE.........
"I'm NOT your mother! You're Asuka Langely! Now
snap out of it!"
Maya(Misato): �Don�t make me use the mice and figs again!�
"Asuka...I heard her name in a story once. A mighty
warrior she was, but I am not she," Asuka said, her voice
both confused and courtly.
Hikaru: And with just a TOUCH of barely-repressed psychoses
for good measure.
Rei stirred slightly, and Shinji tried shaking her
again. However, instead of responding to him, she started
to head onto the stage. Desperation drove him to an idea.
"Cassilda, it is I, your liege Alars."
She suddenly turned to him, her face sliding from
utter blankness to simple calm. "Alars." A sudden warmth
washed over it, and her voice lost its usual calm, sliding
into a range that would denote happiness for most people.
Mercutio: Which on Rei, should probably denote screaming
orgasmic pleasure.
"You came to see me."
Now what, Shinji thought. He tried desperately to
think of something that would evoke Rei-ness. His flesh
began to goosepimple, and he could feel some- thing coming.
Something he didn't want to encounter.
Hikaru: Hell, he�s already _with_ Rei. Don�t get much more creepy
than that.
Misato was getting desperate; she couldn't slap
Asuka, not while Asuka was carrying two feet of sharp steel.
"I heard she was a total coward."
Uoht's face darkened. "She is not."
Maya: Jackpot! In the emotional sense, of course.
Bingo, Misato thought. Badmouth her enough to make
her switch back. "I heard this guy Touji was a much better
EVA pilot than her. She ran off with the delusion she was
some knight from a magical kingdom, so they gave him her
EVA."
Mercutio: Now THERE�S the LEAST subtle foreshadowing I�ve
ever seen.
Hikaru: You gotta wonder how Mama Langleys soul will react
to Touj- oh wait, wrong universe. Sorry.
"They...THEY WOULDN'T DARE!" Uoht shouted, and her
face changed in an instant. "You've got to be...what the
hell..." Asuka looked around confusedly, then said, "DOWN!"
Misato hit the deck just in time to avoid getting
stabbed by Thale in the back. For a moment, she heard
mocking laughter from somewhere backstage.
Mercuito(Shinji): �Rei, that wasn�t very polite.�
Maya(Rei): �Oh. Gomen.�
Thale shouted, "Interfering wench! Thou shalt be punished for
thy transgression against me!"
Cassilda turned and looked at the stage. "I always
knew Thale would come to a bad end."
Hikaru: Ummm..... doesn�t Thale have the upper hand here for
the moment?
Shinji took her shoulders and turned her to face
him. "Rei, everyone's under some kind of mind control!
There's an Angel attack going on!"
"Lenilda foretold this. We must aid Uoht. You will
need her." She started to turn again.
Mercutio: *Mental Note: Never count on Shinji to help during time
of emotional crises.
Dammit, face reality, he thought. There had to be
some way to get her to snap back to normal. Something that
would...the movie. She'd been trying to understand that
movie, he thought. "Do you remember the movie? When they
stood among the cherry blossoms?"
Hikaru: If Shinji uses the words �sweet sweet lovin� � I am SO outta
here.
"I remember," she said faintly. "How you walked
with me among the trees, and we...we..." Her face became
more troubled than he had ever seen it before. "I wanted
to..." She blushed faintly, and Shinji knew it had to be
the effects of the mind control. Gulping, she turned to
him. "Your highness, I..."
Maya(Rei): �Your highness, I want to-�
Hikaru: Allow me to rephrase that...... if either of YOU use the
words �sweet sweet lovin� � I am SO outta here.
Maya: Oh, foo. <pouts>
"You remember, right?" asked Shinji urgently. "You
remember going to the movies with me, and Asuka, and Touji,
and Kensuke, and Hikari?"
Rei frowned, looking ill at ease. "Those names...
they are familiar." She shook her head. "Talk not of these
people, my liege! I-"
"You have to remember!" said Shinji desperately.
"We went to the mall after that, and you wore a nice blue
dress and I told you that you're beautiful! Rei, snap out
of it!"
Hikaru(Shinji): �No use. I�ll just have to kill her. Oh no, wait....
that would be WRONG.�
"I... the dress..."
"And then we went to the arcade and you beat up
Asuka, remember?"
Rei seemed to smile at that, slightly. "Beat...
Asuka..."
"Rei? Do you remember? Rei?"
Mercutio: �Evangelion: Do You Remember Rei?�
Hikaru: Yet ANOTHER title rejected by Hideaki Anno when
the time came to make his movies.
Her eyes clouded over in confusion, her brown
knotted in concentration. It seemed to be working.
Mercutio: I�ve never seen anybodies brown knot before....
Shinji glanced at the stage. Misato was fleeing
Thale, while Asuka tried desperately to save her.
Unfortunately, Asuka wasn't up to Uoht's level of prowess,
and now several other characters had come on and become
tangled up in it. The play was taking off down a new
tangent, trying to adapt itself to Misato's presence;
several other characters now thought she was Uoht's mother,
a notorious drunkard. Misato wasn't amused.
Maya: <deadpan> WE are not amused.
Maybe a kiss would snap her out of it, Shinji
thought. No, I can't just kiss her. She...She was
puckering up and had her eyes closed.
Mercutio: That�s a powerful and disturbing image.
I might get sucked
back in if I kiss her, he thought. But...what else can I
do? He leaned forward, to Rei's beautiful and awaiting
face, and lost his nerve at the last second.
Hikaru: Feh. Loser.
He kissed her.
Just on the cheek.
"I'm sorry, Rei," he whispered to her.
Rei stepped back from him, eyes wide open.
Mercutio: I have this horrible urge to make a Stanley Kubrick joke,
but can�t think of a damn thing.....
"Shinji?" she asked.
He nodded, apologetically, and that seemed to elicit
from her a little, melancholy smile. It vanished a second
later as she cocked her head, and seemed to sniff the air.
Maya(Rei): �Mmmmm.......... terror........�
The smile became a snarl, and Shinji jumped back, feeling a
pang of primal terror. She spun on one foot, staring off
across the darkened backstage area, where Shinji could see a
figure lurking in the darkness. Its face was lighter than
the rest of it, though still shadowed. "Get Langely. Now."
Hikaru(Shinji): �Do you mean �get� in the biblical sense, or......�
Before he could reply, she was gone, streaking
across the backstage, from dead stop to lightning bolt
instantly. The shadowy figure simply awaited her onslaught.
Leaving a trail of icy footprints behind, she charged right
into him. But there was nothing there, and she passed
through him as if he had never been.
Mercutio: The janitors are NOT gonna be happy about that ice
on the floor.
Hikaru: Given the situation in the auditorium proper, I doubt
they�ll care.
Meanwhile, Shinji turned and shouted, "I got Rei!
C'mon! We can get out the back if we hurry!"
Asuka and Misato turned and ran for him, arriving
just as Rei returned, her eyes cold, and her jaw clenched,
though her expression was blank. The blankness seemed
merely a mask, rather than the truth, the habit of calm
instead of its presence.
Maya: When Rei gets like this, the only way to bring her down is
to slip some horse tranquilizer into her food and put her to bed
while she looks at the pretty colors.
"Let's get the hell out of here," Misato said. "I
dunno how the hell we're gonna beat this thing, but..."
"Where is it?" Asuka asked.
<All>: RIGHT BEHIND YOU!!!!!!!!!!
Mercutio: Well, not really, but it�s be pretty cool.
The characters on stage were trying to figure out
where Asuka and Misato had gone; they seemed to not
comprehend that the backstage area existed.
"It..." Misato gulped. "It's name is Baraquiel and
it's in Kensuke."
"It...how?" Shinji asked. "It possessed him? How
do we stop it without hurting him?"
Hikaru(Shinji): �And even if we can, can we hurt him anyway?�
Maya(Asuka): �Dibs on the lower spine.�
"I don't know if we can," Misato said.
"The exit is this way," Asuka said, pointing to the
doors.
"Yeah, that's how I got in," Misato said, slapping
her forehead.
<All>: �D�OH!!!�
They took off running, but the backstage doors
wouldn't open. The strange sigil from the advertising
banners glowed faintly, somehow stenciled onto the doors,
and nothing would budge them, though all four of them threw
their weight into it.
Mercutio: The Yellow Sign; for all your home security needs.
Nothing gets in, nothing gets out.
They could hear the play continuing, as characters
came and went, and a new plot took shape. Asuka glanced
out, and some people from the audience had come onto the
stage and were taking on roles. The crowd itself was in
full riot, a wild orgy of violence and sex, though they
didn't have any drugs to work with.
Hikaru: Please, this is a High School. Just start opening lockers
at random and you�ll find at _least_ some pot.
This had better not go on my permanent record, she
thought.
Maya: She needn�t worry.
-*-
Across Tokyo-3, it began. Slow and subtle at first,
with the speaking of harsh words, petty fights at bars,
couples making love on rooftops, lonely men and women in
black fleeing the cruelty of a harsh world, moments of
maternal anger at home.
Mercutio: So in other words, what an urban area is ALWAYS like.
And it grew, a roar, a cacophony of
shouting that crushed out the normal sounds of the city, a
pulsing throbbing beat of rage and lust and fear and
despair.
Hikaru: ~o/ Won�t you take me to, FUNKYTOWN!!!! ~o/
Not everyone was affected; some of its denizens had
a quiet night in front of the TV set, watching Nick
Hatchett: Robot Hunter, or ESPN3, or a rented movie.
Mercutio: Of course, people watching Nick Hatchett are ALREADY
on the verge of insanity....
But those were the lucky ones, who had not gazed upon the
Yellow Sign and fallen under its sway. For those who had, the
night was full of terror and ecstasy, for their lord and
master was coming, with none to bar his way.
The Carnivale of the King had begun.
Maya: With free beer and pretzels for all cultists, and Byakhee
rides for the kiddies.
-*-
The door to the stage shop opened, unlike the doors
out of the auditorium. "Bar the doors," Misato said. "We
need to discourage any pursuit."
Hikaru: From who? The drunken revelers?
Asuka and Rei quickly shoved a long table in front
of the doors, while Shinji got some stuff to pile on it.
"This is a dead end, you know," he said.
Maya: The operative word in that sentence being �dead.�
"I know," Misato snapped. "That's why we're barring
the door. Now we can maybe figure out some way to deal with
this before we sally out."
Mercutio(Shinji): �You have absolutly no clue, do you?�
"What the hell is going on?" Asuka asked. "It was
like..."
"The play was performing us," Shinji said.
"How come you weren't affected, Misato?" Asuka
asked her.
Maya(Misato): �Ritsuko said she�d look into it. I�m sure she
wouldn�t have lied to me.�
Hikaru(Shinji): �We�re all dead, aren�t we?�
Rei stared at the door intently, standing in a ready
pose, not speaking, back to her usual calm, at least
outwardly.
Misato fingered her necklace nervously, and felt her
tension soothe. "Unless it was my lucky pendant..."
Shinji turned and looked at it. "Maybe it was."
"What?" Misato blinked.
Maya: <piku piku>
"That thing...there was one like it painted on that
house underwater."
Everyone stared at him blankly, except Rei, who was
still watching the door.
He stepped over and touched it. It felt warm to
him, almost hot, like the one underwater, but stronger.
"Maybe we can turn him with it, like a cross for a vampire."
Hikaru: Incorrect. To turn a vampire, you need a Priest character
and a really good die roll.
Mercutio: And to be sure that it doens�t have anti-turning magic
in efect. Learned THAT the hard way. I hate my DM.
Asuka laughed. "Oh yeah, like a necklace is gonna
scare an Angel. Unless it's some mouse/elephant thing, I
doubt that would work. This isn't a vampire, and this isn't
a horror movie."
Maya: <blinks> It�s...... not?
Hikaru: What the hell are we doing here, then?
"My whole life is a horror movie," Shinji muttered.
Mercutio(Shinji): �Only without the scantily clad women getting
butchered. At least, not yet.�
Maya(Rei&Misato&Asuka): �Hey!!!!!!!!!�
Misato looked at her necklace and frowned. "I'll
call Ritsuko and see what she thinks." She flipped open her
cellular and dialed the number.
Mercutio: What, no speed-dial?
"Misato, are you wearing your necklace?" Ritsuko
asked before Misato could even say hello.
Misato blinked. "Yes."
"That explains everything. Are you familiar with
the concept of grounding?"
"As in electricity?"
Maya(Ritsuko): �No, as in punishment. OF COURSE AS IN
ELECTRICITY!!!!�
"Yes."
"You're saying my necklace is some kind of lightning
rod for Angel energies?"
Mercutio: You�d think Misato would be a tad upset that her �good�
friend knew she was walking around with a big target hanging
around her neck and failed to say anything until now.
"Properly empowered, the 'Elder Sign' as it is
known, acts as a grounding, draining off the energies
wielded by the Angels and their servants into other
dimensions. How this works is unknown. The more dependent
the being is on these energies, the worse the effects. A
Cherubim would probably only be annoyed by it, though it
couldn't get through one, while a being largely in an energy
form could easily do serious damage to itself from contact.
On the other hand, such a being could probably turn the
Elder Sign to slag at the same time. It's not omnipotent,
although the bigger the sign, the more energy it can
handle."
Hikaru: Interesting interpretation of the Elder Sign. Not quite
Derleth, not quite CoC rules. Probably closer to Lumley�s
vision of how the sign worked than anything else.
"So, it can save me from the general effect, but if
he turned his attention on me, it likely wouldn't save me."
Misato said.
Mercutio: For once, Misato�s catching on fairly quickly.
"Exactly. But if you made a larger one, you might
be able to use it to trap the Angel in the body it's
possessed. His consciousness is in whoever is playing the
King in Yellow, but not his full power; the energy levels
are still building. But you've got to do it before the play
ends, or he'll be unstoppable by anything short of an EVA.
And you'd never make it to the EVAs alive."
Maya(Rei): �I never let that stop me before.......�
Misato looked around the shop. There was some metal
working equipment in one corner, which had been dragged in
when they'd been making the prop swords a few days ago, and
not moved back to the regular shop yet. In fact, there was
another door, one TO the other shop, which she hadn't
noticed before, and felt like an idiot for not seeing. "How
big of one are we gonna need?"
Mercutio: Bigger than a breadbox, perhaps?
"The bigger the better, but if it's too big, it'll
be hard to keep on him. The longer it takes, the bigger
you'll need, though. And even then, it may only stop him
long enough for us to take more drastic measures."
Hikaru: Hey, what happened to those funky // // electronic
speech quotes?
"Will it stop him causing this riot?"
"Yes."
"We'll try it then." She turned to Shinji, Asuka,
and Rei. "Any of you ever had any shop classes?"
"No." Shinji said.
Mercutio(Shinji): �I�ve been banned from shop ever since the
incident with the glue gun.�
"This is going to be too much fun, then," Misato
replied.
-*-
"I should be the one who does it!" Asuka said.
"Rei can be the one who distracts him."
Maya(Rei): �You can�t get rid of me that easily.�
"We don't have time to argue. Rei is very
stealthy," Misato said. "And faster than you. We'll keep
him busy, while she sneaks up behind him."
Maya(Rei): *Maybe I should ask if they want me to wait until
BEFORE or AFTER they�re dead to go....... nah. I�ll play it
by ear.*
"What if he can't be snuck up on?" Shinji asked.
"Then we're all so fucked it doesn't matter," Misato
said.
Hikaru: Don�t you just love it when the people in charge say
that?
"I have no clue how good this guy is at anything
physical."
Maya(Misato): �But I�m going to find out!!! Rei, fetch my thong!�
"I can do this." Rei said. She hefted the foot and
a half across, incredibly crude star with an eye of flame in
the middle. Monkeys with typewriters could have done a
better job, and it didn't look like it could hold anything,
let alone an Angel. A chain closed into a loop with a
padlock ran through the top of the star to use to 'bell the
cat'. Assuming this would work, which none of them were too
certain of. It felt like stopping an Angel with a sling
shot. This is what the A-Team would have done. Although
they would likely have put the Elder Sign on their van and
run him over.
Mercutio(Mr. T): �I pity da fool who ain�t down with the Elder
Gods! They�re hella tough!�
They unblocked the door, and headed out into the
darkness. From the stage, they could hear the ringing of
metal and the faint smell of smoke. Looking out, the stage
was a sea of chaos, with people fighting in a surging melee.
Maya: So it�s like a tamer version of a Guns & Roses concert,
then?
Mercutio: When were YOU ever at a Guns & Roses concert?
Maya: <sweetly> Where do you think me and Ritsuko met?
Many of them were armed, and a fair number were bleeding.
The unconscious were starting to pile up, and some of those
likely dead. And cries of 'Xoth', 'Yhtill', and 'Celeano'
filled the air. It was a miniature battle between two
maddened armies. The set was beginning to burn.
Hikaru: Cool! Fire, FIRE!!!!!!!!!
And through the darkness of the backstage, mocking
laughter echoed. Shinji cocked his head; he could hear
music, though he couldn't tell where it was coming from. He
could see Asuka looked slightly distracted as well. Glancing
over at Rei, he could see she had vanished into the shadows.
Maya: Ahhhh, the cloaking device is working.
Mercutio: Just how many options does Rei HAVE?
Maya: Well, it depends on the model, y�see.....
From those same shadows, a figure emerged, the King in
Yellow, slight of frame and clad in the horrid yellow mask
of paper, one side smiling, the other frowning, both frozen
in mania. "Come, come, you must join the others," he said.
"The battle is joined, and your kingdom depends on it."
Hikaru: If it weren�t for the fact that his kingdom consists of a stage
and some cheap sets,Shinji might care.
Shinji wavered. His people were fighting and dying.
It was his duty as king to...no! I'm Shinji, not some king.
THIS is how we stop this. "You won't snare me this easily."
Mercutio: At this point, Hastur makes one of the Classic Mistakes
of Evil; stopping to gloat and/or taunt.
"I see your squire is beleaguered," he said to
Asuka, pointing out into the riot.
"I don't have a...HIKARI!" she suddenly realized.
Hikari was caught in the middle of the fighting, bleeding
from both arms and one leg, fighting desperately against two
grown men, who were pushing her back, and leering at her in
a far too suggestive way.
Hikaru: Ugh. Well, no humor HERE. NEXT!
She started to turn, and felt her
mind beginning to fog. For a moment, she hesitated, for
both her true and false selves could not bear to leave
Hikari to her doom, yet without a weapon, what could she do?
Her martial arts skills weren't so good, or perhaps her ego
not large enough for this. "DAMN YOU! THIS IS YOUR FAULT!"
Mercutio: I�m fresh out of �obvious� jokes. Damn.
"And what of you, Sissila?" he said to Misato.
"Your lover lies wounded. Indeed, both your earnest suitors
have fallen, searching the field for you." She could see
Kaji had a nasty gut wound and was down, while Makoto was
limping at the fringes of the fray.
Hikaru: Hey, refresh my memory, but wasn�t SHE the one who
wounded Kaji?
"If you do nothing, Xoth will carry the day and likely slay all those
of gentle Yhtill. Including both of them."
She leveled her pistol at him. "Stop this or I'll
blow your brains out."
"And kill the one whose flesh I wear? I think not."
Mercutio: <BKAM!!!!!!>
The gun came up, and Shinji stared in shock as
Misato leveled it. "Try me," she said. "It may not kill
you, but if your host body is dead, your little game comes
to an end. And I bet that won't be any more fun for you
than an abortion is for the baby."
"You can't shoot Kensuke!"
"Kensuke's gone, Shinji. And I can't let this
bastard destroy humanity."
Maya(Misato): �Destroy the school? Maybe. Tokyo-3? I thought
it was ugly anyway. Gendo? I�d get commended. But he can�t
destroy humanity. All my friends live there.�
"Now, now," he said jovially. "I'm not the one you
should be shooting. Do you really think this play could
have been staged without someone in NERV noticing? It's not
like the slightest effort was made to hide it going on. And
yet, the ever paranoid Commander Ikari saw no evil, heard no
evil, and spoke no warning."
Hikaru: Well, who could HEAR him through those gloves of his?
She frowned. "You're claiming he knew this would
happen?"
"How could he not? Ask yourself...how did your
friend Ritsuko know what was going on here? How did she
know the PLAY did it?"
Mercutio: <deadpan> Because, of course, the play�s the thing
to catch the conscience of the King.
Misato stiffened. He was right. How had Ritsuko
known? She'd already known about the play being
staged...why'd she only tell them now what it did? Unless
she'd found the information in NERV's files once the crisis
started, but that meant someone in NERV knew about the play
and what it could do. And hadn't TOLD anyone. And how had
this play gotten into the school library, which had been
meticulously approved by NERV? Unless it was treason.
Someone in NERV was a traitor.
Hikaru: Ah, tiny little seedlings of doubt and distrust. This Hastur
knows what he�s doing.
Asuka gasped. "He's right."
Maya(Misato): �Hey! Stop reading my thoughts!!�
Shinji frowned. It was a trap. Everything the King
in Yellow said was intended to turn people against each
other. "Maybe she looked it up. You won't trick us that
easily!"
Mercutio(Shinji): �Put some EFFORT into your trickery, man!!�
"Do you really have that much faith in your father,
boy?" the King asked.
Hikaru: Ooooooo..... low blow.
What's taking Rei so long, Shinji wondered. "He's
not very nice, but...he wouldn't betray humanity to the
Angels!"
Mercutio(Shinji): �Okay, he might clone one or three, but that�s IT.�
The King laughed. "He's been working for them all
along. NERV is just a pawn, a toy in the war we fight among
ourselves for amusement. Did you really think you could
battle the gods with your pathetic little war machines
without help from the gods themselves?
Maya: Hey! Where�d HE get a copy of our mission statement?
The people of Xoth
thought that, but they were betrayed in the end by those
from whom they thought salvation would come. And now the
story repeats itself. Your father would do anything for
power, and he cares for nothing else, Shinji Ikari. You are
nothing but a pawn to him. Everyone is."
Mercutio: Man�s got a pretty good bead on Gendo, you gotta give
him that.
Shinji felt himself wavering, and tried to dredge up
something he could use as evidence against that. The only
image that rose to Gendo's defense was a faint memory of
Gendo smiling at Shinji's mother and Shinji as he sat in her
lap, one of his earliest memories, and perhaps his only good
one of his father. "He loved my mother!"
Hikaru: Feh. We all know Gendo only wanted Yui for her mind.
"And he let her die. He sacrificed her in his quest
for more power. She didn't die in an accident; she died in
an experiment."
Maya: It would appear that for once, the Truth is right here.
Shinji found this horribly plausible, but didn't
want to believe it. I couldn't be the son of anyone that
evil, he thought.
Mercutio: And thus the Denial begins.
Misato watched the darkness. Where the HELL is Rei?
she asked herself.
There was a creak above, and a sandbag plunged down,
right at the King in Yellow's head.
Maya: Asked and answered.
He lithely dodged to
one side and looked up. "Ahh, the missing one of the unholy
trinity must be perch..." He never finished.
Even as he looked up, there was a blur and the sound
of feet pounding against boards, and then Rei came out of
the darkness.
Hikaru: SPOON!!!
She didn't put the Elder Sign around his
neck; she slammed him full force in the back of the skull
with it. It didn't affect him as much as it should have;
most people would have had a broken skull, but he simply
staggered, though his scream of pain was certainly
predictable. "BITCH!" he shouted.
Hikaru: That�s the BEST insult a god can come up with?
"Commander Ikari would not betray humanity," Rei
said. "Not like you betrayed your race." She struck again,
knocking him to the floor. "You turned the Byakhee into
devils." Her voice sounded different, as if she was
becoming Cassilda again.
"Rei, stop playing around! Put it on him!" Misato
shouted.
Mercutio: Ha! Rei doesn�t know the MEANING of the word �play�.
"I am not Rei. And this is no game," she said. The
third blow broke his nose by driving his head into the
ground. "You laughed when the City of Joy burned. You gave
yourself to the Crawling Chaos for revenge and power. You
forsook your name, so that you could not be bound. But this
story binds you. It gives you power to control others, but
you become part of the story. And every story has many
different endings."
Hikaru: Ladies and gentleman, the REJECTED slogan from
DC�s �Elseworlds� series.
"Cassilda?" Shinji asked faintly, staring in shock.
"You're dead! You're dead and gone! I am a god and
you are a mortal! YOU CAN'T DO THIS!"
Mercutio(Hastur): �If you strike me down, I shall become more
powerful than you can possibly imagine.�
"You have taken on flesh, you fool, and now I have
you," Cassilda snarled. "Only in this way can you walk
another world freely, and go where you will, but you wear
mortal flesh, and mortal flesh is weak." She struck him
again, breaking his legs. "And even a god may die! Have
you not seen what happened to your brethren? Ungoliant will
spin no more webs.
Maya: But what about Shelob, huh? What about SHELOB?
Kanser sleeps eternally. Medusa is no
more. The Wind Walker's storms have dissipated. Did you
think you would escape your fate? That you and your
brothers could ravage the universe as you will?
Mercutio(Hastur): �Well, that _was_ the general idea, yes.....�
In the end, the wheel of fortune turns, and now it throws you into
Gehenna to burn like the trash you are."
"I will leave this flesh and..." His voice turned
from anger to panic. "I cannot get out!"
Hikaru: doom, doom.....
Mercutio: Drums, drums from the deep.
"Not while the play continues, any more than a baby
can decide to crawl back in the womb once it is half out."
Her voice had a mocking, cruel edge to it, mixed with anger.
"And since you have turned the play loose to find its own
end in your desperation, the end will not come soon enough
to save you."
"You can't kill him! He's in Kensuke's body! We've
got to save Kensuke!" Shinji shouted.
"There is no more Kensuke, only the King in Yellow,"
Cassilda said.
Mercutio: THERE IS NO KENSUKE, ONLY ZUUL.
"Kensuke is dead. And so are you," the King wheezed
out. "You are Rei Ayanami, not Cassilda. She died long
ago." He made a gesture at her. "Go back where you came
from, for you are only an expression of my will!"
"By changing the plot, you freed me to do what came
naturally, instead of repeating what came before. You were
not the only one to serve a god, Hastur."
Hikaru(Hastur): �At least I served a brand-name god! YOUR
God had to be made up just for this story!! Ha ha!!�
"Don't say that!" The King in Yellow winced. "I am
He Who Cannot Be Named!"
Maya: And yet, he just was.
"You're a worthless fool." Ribs cracked this time.
"If you kill this body, it might not kill him,"
Misato said. "But if you bind him with the sign..."
Maya(Misato): �..... we might yet get some deus ex machina
action out of him later on.�
Cassilda turned and looked at Misato, then smiled.
"Yes, to leave you to rot away in the flesh you have taken,
trapped by those for whom you had only contempt." Shinji
shuddered at the savageness of her smile. What had playing
out the destruction of her home done to her? If this was,
somehow, really a woman named Cassilda. Had she been human?
Some alien? What was going on? Was the King in Yellow a
true story? She wrapped the chain around his neck, then
smiled darkly as she pressed the sign to his flesh, ripping
off his mask. For just a moment, Shinji expected her to
announce he was old Mr. Crowley who ran the carnival.
<outake>
Mercutio(Hastur): �And I would�ve gotten away with it too, if it
hadn�t been for you meddling kids!!!!!�
But only Kensuke's face was revealed, and she said, "Uoht
was right. We should have killed you the second you arrived."
Hikaru: Yes, but then there wouldn�t have been NEAR as much
destruction. And who wants that?
"The Crawling Chaos will devour you all!" The King
shouted. "The Outer Gods cannot be mocked! I have gazed
upon the Throne of Azathoth! I have..."
Mercutio: Oh, like that makes him special. LOTS of people have
looked upon that stupid Throne.
"You have failed. And the Herald of the Outer Gods
has no patience for those who fail him." The sound of
battle faded from the stage, as people began to come out of
their trance. Cries of pain took the place of shouts of
anger.
Hikaru(Reveler #1) �Whoa, man.... the colors..... what happened?�
Mercutio(Reveler #2) �Bad acid, man. Does it every time......�
Sirens began to sound outside the school. "Perhaps
he will come down from the limitless void to mock you, but
that's all you can hope for. Goodbye, and good riddance."
She turned to Shinji, Asuka, and Misato. "And thus ends the
tale of the King in Yellow, good people of Tokyo-3. The
last words are spoke, and this play is ended. If perhaps we
have offended, let this be our amends." Her voice rang out
clearly across the auditorium, sad and wise.
Hikaru: Way to rip off the Puck, Cassilda
"No!" The king shouted feebly, his voice fading.
"I can sense the power within you! You have the potential
to be one of us! To walk among the gods! Cast out this
shade and set me free and I will show you the way."
Mercutio(Hastur): �See, if you hang a left at Centauri, go straight
through three nebulae and take the off-ramp at Aldeberan, pass
by the big black Monolith, and hit the exchage at Pleidaes..... and
boom, the Court of Azathoth, your next right through the Black Hole.�
For a moment, Rei's voice rang out clearly in place
of Casilda's. "I will not betray Ikari-kun." And then
Cassilda's voice, which was Rei's voice, but older and more
emotional. "The curtain is closed. Farewell, and may your
world not meet the fate of mine."
"You're from another world?" Asuka asked. "They
attacked you too? And he betrayed you to them?"
Maya: Wow, this version of Asuka isn�t very quick, is she?
"This story is done." Cassilda sagged, and so did
the King in Yellow, who quietly collapsed. When she stood
straight once more, she was Rei, calm and impassive. She
stepped over the King and walked over to them. "It is
over."
Mercutio: Ladies and Gentlemen, the King has left the building!!!
"This is only the beginning," Misato muttered.
-*-
Medics and police covered the auditorium, checking
on the wounded of body and soul. Misato looked at the
devastation with sadness.
They were at war, and every war has its casualties.
Mercutio: That was the rationalization Nixon used for �Nam.
They'd tied Kensuke up immediately after the thing
that was the King in Yellow had passed out, and now it was
conscious again, though still dazed. It foamed at the
mouth, cursing, muttering, and occasionally screaming, and
did not respond when Touji and Shinji were at its side
calling for Kensuke.
Hikaru(Hastur): KENSUKE DOESN�T LIVE HERE ANYMORE.
Poor Kensuke. The kid didn't deserve that.
"Misato?" asked Shinji. "What... what'll they do
with Kensuke? They can bring him back, right?"
"They can help him, right?" asked Touji. His voice
was shaking.
Maya: Well, we can turn him into a human popsicle with weird
jewelery..... that sorta counts as helping him.
"I... I don't know, guys. I really don't."
As Shinji and Touji talked to Misato, Asuka made her
way inside the NERV transport and sat next to the screaming
thing that was once Kensuke.
"I think you were on to something," she told him.
"I'll find it, Kensuke. Just you wait."
Mercutio: Thank you, Scully.
-*-
"Couldn't sleep?" asked Asuka. She sat down next to
Shinji on the balcony floor, and dangled her legs between
the rails, swinging them slowly in the air.
"No, I... I never thought this could happen."
"I know," she whispered.
"I mean... they were always big monsters, like
Godzilla. Not... not like this. Kensuke... Touji...
Hikari... everyone almost died..."
Asuka nodded. There wasn't much more to say,
really. They both began to cry, and consoled each other in
an embrace borne of fear and despair.
Mercutio: Oh, gag me with a spoon.
-*-
The scene in the medical ward of NERV would've been
funny if it hadn't followed such a dire moment.
Hikaru: Which of course means to the people involved it�s tragic,
but the audience at home will be laughing it�s ass off.
The entire NERV bridge crew was there, laid down on
the hospital beds, injured in one way or another.
"I... really did that?" asked Shigeru.
Maya, in her own bed, nodded.
Maya: Ugh. They�ve got me in one of those stupid little gowns.....
"Oh... boy. Maya, I'm _really_ sorry," said
Shigeru. "I mean..."
"I know what you mean," sighed Maya. "We weren't
ourselves, it's not your fault."
Maya: �Of course, I�m still going to mace you later, just on general
principles.�
"I know... but... sorry." He tried desperately to
sink into his bed, far more embarrassed than he'd ever been.
"Aheh..." he laughed nervously, "I guess, er, this
kills any chance I have of a date, huh?"
To his surprise, Maya actually smiled. "Sorry," she
said quietly. "I... I love someone else."
This surprised Shigeru. He'd never noticed she had
her eye on someone before. "Hey, yeah? Someone I know?"
She nodded. "Yeah, but I'm not telling."
Maya: Feh. If she�s not careful, she�ll end up like me; turned into
a puddle of slime before ever expressing herself.
Shigeru sighed. "Well, I guess it could be worse.
I could be like Makoto over here."
Hikaru(Makoto): �At least _I_ never hit on a lesbian!!!�
"Shut up!" yelled Makoto.
Kaji groaned. "Hey, some of us have headaches.
Keep it down."
Mercutio(Makoto): �You have a headache? Oh, I�m sorry, then it�d
prbably be dreadfully rude of me to do THIS!!!! <whips out air horn>
<HOOONNNNKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!>
Hikaru(Kaji): AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!
-*-
Shinji was dreaming.
By now, with all his dream training, he knew the
difference between reality and dreams, and when he was in
one or the other.
He was sitting under the shade of a cherry blossom
tree, high atop a hill overlooking a valley in the forest.
Mercutio: Of course you know, it�s swarming with Dark Young.
Two pale arms wrapped themselves around him from
behind, and he felt a delicate face rest itself on his
shoulder.
"Rei?" he asked.
"I'm here," she whispered in his ear.
They sat there in silence, watching the cherry
blossoms dance in the wind. Was it minutes? Hours? He
couldn't tell.
Rei broke the silence only once.
"The Force will be with you," she whispered to him.
"Always."
Maya: Hey! She didn�t say THAT!!!
Mercutio: Heheheheheheehehheheeh........
-*-
"Pathetic humans! This little toy won't hold me for
long!" Kensuke shouted, pounding against the door to his
cell. "You cannot bind me in flesh again! I am He Who
Cannot Be Named, and what cannot be named cannot be bound!
I will starve this meatsack! It will die, and then I will
be free! And my slaves will bring you down even if that
somehow does not come to pass! I WILL DESTROY YOU!"
Hikaru: Somehow, you�d think Hastur would be _above_ ranting
like every other lame supervillain ever captured.
The large clumsy Elder Sign had been replaced by four well made
ones chained in place around him.
Gendo watched through a monitor camera, shaking his
head. "To see Hastur, one of the 'lords of creation',
brought to this."
Mercutio(Fuyutsuki): �Push the button, Gendo.�
He pushed a button, and a gas began to
flood the cell, which was no ordinary prison cell. Its
inhabitant would sink into slumber soon, and then the room
would slowly chill, putting him 'on ice' in a very literal
sense. He'd already been injected with the special
chemicals which would enable him to survive this.
"Makes you laugh." Fuyuutsuki smirked.
Gendo laughed loudly.
Maya: Wow, the rumors were true...... Fuyutsuki IS the real
puppet-master.
�We can't hold him forever like that. If nothing else, the
body will die eventually. Of course, by that time, we'll
have finished our plan, and the likes of him will bother us no
more."
Mercutio: Doesn�t their concern for their fellow man just warm
your heart?
"Or we will die horribly and our souls will slowly
roast over an open fire. Assuming they can't find a worse
fate for us."
"They can find much worse than that. But I would
never have dared this if I did not think I would win. For
all their power, they are not gods, only very powerful
mortals. They cannot see everything, do everything, or know
everything. They are merely incredibly powerful.
Maya: So were the _real_ Angels, and _they_ won in the end.
And there is one thing that power does to people. It makes them
underestimate anyone weaker.
Hikaru(Fuyutsuki): �You mean like the way you constantly
underestimate Shinji?�
Mercutio(Gendo): �Are you insinuating something?�
They forget that a horde of
army ants can pull down a wolf and devour it, though the
wolf is far more powerful than they, that a horde of piranha
can kill a cow which is hundreds of pounds heavier and has
powers they could not comprehend, like breathing outside
water. A single spider bite can kill a human, who is as far
above the spider as the one bound in that flesh is above
us."
"And what of SEELE? If they learn, they will not be
pleased."
Mercutio: Oh, please. SEELE gets mad if you blink at them the
wrong way.
"We can deal with them when they are no longer of
use." Gendo smiled. "Just as those they believe they serve
would have dealt with them. Assuming they had even
noticed." He turned away from the monitor. "Come, we have
preparations to make for the next trip."
Hikaru(Fuyutsuki): �We finally going to Vegas like you promised?�
They departed, leaving the King in Yellow to howl
futilely against the fate the stars had written for him
until sleep took him. As they gave fortune, so they took it
away.
-*-
Jimmy yawned as he cleaned some of the glasses that
had piled up during the evening. It had been a boring
night; everyone had been gone for some reason. Even the
piano player had taken most of the evening off to do
something or another. A few listless people drank
quietly or watched a rerun of a soccer game on ESPN5.
Mercutio: Apparently, the Second Impact just served to make
ESPN even MORE pervasive and powerful.
Looking perky, Neil finally returned, humming one of
his usual tunes. "Good evening, Jimmy."
Mercutio(Neil): *Nice guy, Jimmy. I think I�ll kill him last.*
"Hiya, Neil. It's been a boring night. How was
the...the play. That's where you went, right?" Why on
earth a grown man went to a high school play, Jimmy had no
idea. He wasn't even sure what the play had been. Jimmy
didn't get out much.
Hikaru: Y�know, somehow, you�d think �CITY ENVELOPED BY
ORGY OF SEX AND VIOLENCE� would have made the news.
"It was interesting. They did a twist on the usual
ending. Puts me in the mood to do a little improvising
myself later."
Mercutio: I have a bad feeling about this...........
"They changed the ending? Why not just write their
own play then?"
Hikaru: What do you think THIS is, moron?
Neil smiled as he sat down at the piano. "Everyone
thinks they're writing their own ending, but usually they're
just playing the role given them by someone else. And those
who break the script are usually punished by those who stick
to it."
Mercutio(Neil): <thinking> �In other words, I am SO keying Gendo�s
car after this.�
He stretched his fingers, then said to the
audience, "This one is for a friend of mine who's fallen on
hard times. The wheel of fortune has turned unexpectedly,
and he has fallen from grace." He smiled, flashing perfect
white teeth, then began to sing as he played.
Hikaru(Neil): o/~ It�s the end of the world as we know it..... o/~
o/~ We've got stars directing our fate o/~
o/~ And we're praying it's not too late o/~
o/~ Cos we know we're falling from grace o/~
o/~ Millennium o/~
And the piano player smiled, for in the city of the
blind, the one eyed man is king.
Mercutio: And never bring a one-legged man to an ass-kicking
contest.
-*-
- end part 9 -
-*-
DISCLAIMER:
Neon Genesis Evangelion owned by Gainax.
Cthulhu Mythos created by H.P. Lovecraft.
"Millenium" sung by Robbie Williams
Mercutio: Robbie Williams _IS_ the Crawling Chaos.
Maya: Uh-huh. Still, it was rather nice of them to source
the song, wasn�t it? I�ll bet sales of that CD triple thanks
solely to this fic.
Mercutio: That ain�t saying much....
Maya: We doing any outtakes this time?
Mercutio: Just one.
-*-
The ship cruised through the Antarctic waters,
unseasonably warm, as they had been ever since the Second
Impact. Fuuyutsuki looked out across the waters. "I never
thought I'd be able to use a battleship as a taxi one
day."
"I did," Gendo replied.
"Liar."
Gendo smiled a tiny smile. He did have a sense of humor,
although it was rarely seen. "I can hardly believe our good fortune in
finding this," he said. "The ocean floor is so big, we could have
looked for years."
"It must be fate," Fuuyutsuki said. "Or a
trap. Perhaps we're being lured into something."
Gendo grunted noncommitally as he stared out at the object on deck.
Fuyutsuki stared with him, occasionaly checking his watch.
Fuyutsuki said, �It certainly is impressive, isn�t it.�
�Oh, yes.�
Fuyutsuki coughed.
Gendo readjusted his glasses.
�Help us a lot in days to come.�
�Most certainly.�
Ominous silence reigned for a time.
�You�ve got no idea what we have either, do you Ikari?�
�Not a clue. You?�
�Nope.�
Gendo nodded. *I�d expect no less from our authors,* he
thought.
-*-
Mercutio: ...........
Maya: Ummm....... okay, that was...... good, I guess......
Hikaru: What were you ON, Merc?
Mercutio: Prozac and demerol. But that�s a story for another day.
Hikaru: Speaking of stories.....
Mercutio: Oh yar, that�s right, we were going to let you have
a go at Kensuke�s Book �O Prophecy. For the benefit of those
of you who DON�T know all that much about the Cthulhu Mythos,
we here provide in-depth analysis of the obscure bits John
obviously put in to mess with us. It�s still prety darn obscure, but
less so now.
Hikaru: Right. Keep in mind that this is ANALYSIS, not what
actually may turn out to�ve happened. Prophecy is always vague,
and Rod and John have pulled u-turns on us before. Also, you do
have to know a fair bit about the Mythos to get even the clearer
version.
Maya: If you�re tunred off by long scholarly discourses that are
primarily of acadmeic interest, you can stop reading now. We�re
done with all the funny bits anyway.
Hikaru: Now let�s see, how did that section go again.....
[In latter days, men shall wield the powers of the gods, but
lack their wisdom. They shall walk the halls of the dead,
where the Great Cauldron of Life waits for the one who shall
master it. Yet, they shall lack the ancient lore, and find
only destruction instead of life, raising a great funeral
pyre. That light shall call to he who sings the stars into
place, who will set to his work.
Hikaru: �Men shall wield the powers of the gods, but lack their
wisdom,� is standard fare for this sort of thing, and once again,
pretty damn obvious. The �Halls of the Dead� refers to the various
areas of Antarctica where the dead cities of ancient civilizations
(Elder Things, etc) lie, and the areas on that continent where Kadath
in the Cold Waste (seat of the Great Ones, the gods of Earth�s
Dreamlands) and the hideous Plateau of Leng intrude to the
Waking World. The �Great Cauldron of Life� refers to Ubbo-Sathla,
The Unbegotten Source, (an Outer God) of whom it is whispered
was the source of all earthly life. His grotto can be entered through
various ice fissures in Antarctica. Contained therein are the Elder
Keys, (�ancient lore�?) tablets inscribed with the wisdom of the Elder
Gods (Nodens, Hypnos, N�tse-Kaambl, etc), who are generally but
not always the white hats in this sort of story. The Keys power is
temendous; someone who had these (and the brains to use them)
could literally rend the world apart, or take on all the GOO
singlehanded and win.
Now, the �funeral pyre� is obviously Second Impact. Whatever
the Katsuragi expedition was doing, it obviously went wrong.
�He who sings the stars� is the Outer God Ghroth, a planet-sized
entity who travels the universe when the Stars are Right awakening
the Great Old Ones (�set[ing] to his work�).
And the day shall come when the endless weaver shall
complete his creation and cross the abyss which shielded the
world from him and once more gaze upon the sun.
Hikaru: Atlach-Nacha, the Spider-God, who appeared wayyyyyyy
back in part one (Matriel), is the endless weaver. He spins his web in
the great abyss that spans the Dreamlands and the Waking World,
and in this particular story is located in the Vaults of Zin below Yoth,
which lies beneath N�kai, which is under K�n-Yan, which itself lies
beneath Oklahoma. (See CoaEG Part 1) Now, this is canonically
incorrect, as Atlach-Nacha is supposed to dwell beneath Mount
Voormithadreth in ancient Hyperborea (Greenland) but I suppose it
can be overlooked. A disturbing fact is that his weaving was supposed
to occupy Atlach-Nacha until the end of the world.
With Atlach-Nacha dead, and his Children extinct, no-one is gaurding
his web. It can thus be used as a portal to pass physically between the
Dreamlands and the Waking World.
And he
shall sound the call, awakening his ancient enemy friends to
come forth. The heights will sink and the deeps will rise;
Hikaru: Obviously, the sunken lands such as R�lyeh will come
back to the surface, as per �Call of Cthulhu.�
Mercutio: You�d think Gendo would have nuked R�lyeh by now.
He HAS to know where it is; the Johannsen Narrative (which
gives exact map co-ordinates) is pretty easy to get your hands
on, if you know what you�re doing.
the veils will be parted and what is known will be occulted;
the dead shall walk and the living shall die.
Hikaru: This is �generic� prophecy; stuff that sounds cool and
can mean damn near ANYthing.
Blood calls to blood. Power calls to power. Fivefold they
rise from the great chasm, stalking across the land in the
visage of men.
Hikaru: HERE is where things get dicey, and I have to start
using conjecture instead of facts......
Dreams made flesh, or flesh made Dream they
are, come to renew the ancient cycle. As before, so it
happens now. In the end, they too shall yield to despair as
did those who came before. In the end, they shall become
what they fight. And the Voice of Endless Chaos will laugh
with them at the shattered ashes of their faded dreams.]
Hikaru: �Voice of the Endless Chaos� = Nyarlathotep. As for
the rest...... well, the five things �in the visage of men� are
obviously GOOD guys, because it speaks of �Tep turning
them to his side, and if they were already there that�d be
unneccesary. As to WHAT they are...... well, that�s anybodies
guess. Myself, I�m going with the Elder Gods.
Mercutio: Why the Elder Gods?
Hikaru: Because the Elder Gods have been woefully absent in
this story so far, and because they represent the closest thing to
a higher force for good in in the Mythos universe. Also, the rest
of this prophecy had to do with the Dreamlands, which have a
MUCH heavier Elder God prescence than tyhe waking world,
and because of the wording �great chasm�, which could refer to
the span bridged by Atlach-Nacha, but could also be a reference
to Nodens, Lord of the Great Abyss.
Maya: Point.
Hikaru: <sighs> Well, I�ve shot my bolt. Merc, your turn.
Mercuito: Oh yar, my cabbalistic breakdown on �Baraquiel.� Well,
firts of all, the spelling is slightly incorrect; it should be either
�Barakiel� or �Baraquijal�; I checked three highly regarded sources
of angelology and found not one mention of �Baraquiel.� Secondly.....
well, I can�t really see how this name relates at ALL to Hastur.
Hikaru: How so?
Mercutio: Well, the Angel Barakiel, in cabbalistic lore, has dominion
over lightning, and is the ruler of the planet Jupiter and the zodiacal
signs of Scorpio and Pisces. This has absolutly nothing to do with
Hastur, who has nothing to do with Jupiter, despite the use of the
symbol on the monoliths earlier in this story (I don�t know WHERE that
came from) and comes from the star Aldebaran, which is in the
constellation Taurus.
Maya: Uh-huh. And �Baraqijal�?
Mercutio: The Angel Baraqijal is a fallen one, a former grigori who is
now a demon and inhabits the nether realms, a teacher of lore and
possibly a leader of a troop of fallen angels. Once again, none of
these things relate at ALL to Hastur. This puzzles me; up till now,
all the Angel names have been chosen for their signifigance relating
to the GOO they are used to represent.
Hikaru: Hunh. Weird.
Maya: That it?
Mercutio: Ayup.
Maya: Oh.
Hikaru: Don�t we usually have some sort of closing bit we do?
Mercutio: Couldn�t think of one.
Hikaru: ......ah.
<End LST1/2k>
Reviewers Notes: I apologize for the one-month delay in getting this
thing ready; it takes TIME to do seventy-odd pages of MSTing work.
Not to mention all the research I had to do. More congrats to John
and Rod for continuing the momentum on CoaEG, even though
I really hate what they did to Kensuke.
This MSTing is officially dedicated to Travis �Prof� Butler, both for
not hurting me when he had the chance and for threatening to sic
WFL in my general direction.
-Mercutio
�A plague �a both your houses!�