John Biles & Rod M. Present
A Neon Genesis Evangelion Elseworlds
Children of an Elder God
Omake Theatre #1
Public Relations
~*~
Gendo leaned forward, folding his hands and leaning
his chin on them. "So what is this idea for improving our
image you're so excited about, Maya?"
He had put Maya in charge of organizing periodic
press conferences, simply because she was photogenic.
However, she had apparently put some real effort into it,
unlike the last PR head, who had tried to simply organize
a 'Women of NERV pin-up calendar'. While Gendo had one
of the confiscated copies hidden away in his room, he
couldn't publically approve of such a thing. He had to
maintain some shreds of dignity.
"Action figures! This way, we can improve our
image AND make some money! If this works, we could
even do a NERV animated series! Gainax has expressed
interest, and so has Sunrise and AIC. And Studio Pierrot
wants to do a magical girl show starring Rei."
"Can we do this without revealing classified
information?"
"Of course! We've already worked out some example
figures," she said, opening her briefcase and placing
several easily recognizable figurines on the table.
"Aoba-san helped me with these. The first one is
Spineless Shinji-kun." The figurine showed Shinji in his
school uniform, slumped over. "Press this putton, and he
caves in to anything." She pushed the button, and the
figure said, "I...I guess so," then fell to its knees.
"That doesn't seem like a good choice to IMPROVE
our reputation," Gendo said.
"Well, we made two. This is Action Shinji." She
pulled out a more confident looking Shinji in his plug
suit. "Action Shinji has a Kung-Fu grip." She
demonstrated, pulling the tiny switch in his back, which
caused his arm to raise up and his tiny hand to clench.
"Take a look at this." She got out another figure, which
looked like a remarkable likeness of Gendo and put it
near Action Shinji and activated the Kung-Fu grip, which
caused Action Shinji to lift Gendo off the ground and
throttle him. "Kids love this sort of thing."
Gendo rubbed his neck without realizing it. "I
assume there's someone for him to throttle besides me?"
She pulled out two more figurines, one of Asuka in
her school uniform, the other of Asuka in her plug suit.
"These two can not only be throttled by Action Shinji, but
'School Asuka' talks, and 'Action Asuka' has a Kung-Fu
kick." She took School Asuka in one hand. "School Asuka
talks when you squeeze her chest." She squeezed, and the
figurine said, "Gott in Himmel!" A second squeeze
resulted in "Halten Sie!" and a third resulted in "Schnell!"
A fourth time produced, "Sieg Heil!"
Gendo frowned. "That sounds exactly like my
Castle Falkenstein game."
Maya tinysweated. "Well, we were in a hurry with
this model, and..."
He sighed. "Let's see the Kung-Fu kick."
She set up the 'School Touji' figure on the table,
then put Action Asuka next to him, facing him. Then she
flicked the tiny switch on Action Asuka's back. She did a
spin-kick and sent 'School Touji' flying off the table,
shouting, "Ya damn KRAUT BITCH!" as he toppled three
feet to the floor.
Gendo blinked.
"Hmm. I hadn't realized kicking him set off his
talking function," Maya said.
"I think this line of toys is going to need some
work," Gendo said. "Because, if nothing else, I suspect
Langely may try and use a real 'kung-fu kick' on you."
"The marketing group loved it."
"And where was this marketing group?"
"Some place in Colorado called 'South Park'.
Although they did complain the talking figures didn't
swear enough."
Gendo mentally made a note to arrange an
accidental carpetbombing. "I want script approval on any
TV series. And what's this about one starring Rei as a
magical girl?"
"They want to make her a fairy princess come to
make people's dreams come true." She dug through her
briefcase for the papers. "Ah yes, the director is calling
it 'A post-apocalyptic Minki Momo. This could be the
voice of despair for our generation'."
I should have listened to Mother and gone into
dentistry, Gendo thought.
John Walter Biles : MA-History, ABD, Ph.D Candidate at U. Kansas
ranma@falcon.cc.ukans.edu
rhea@tass.org http://www.tass.org/~rhea/falcon.html
rhea@maison-otaku.net http://www.maison-otaku.net/~rhea/
"Anybody touches my radishes and it's war!"
--KODT #1