[FFML] Children of an Elder God Finale (Episode 24) COMPLETE

[John Biles]

That's right, here it comes, the final chapter.  Enjoy!

************



COAEG 24
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed

TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
--The Second Coming, William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

***

 	Misato's eyes went over the Scimitar's displays, her irises
reflecting electric blue in the dim lighting.

     "Well, the flight is going well so far," she said.  "The Children
had some nightmares, which we're going to have to look into, but
overall, things are going pretty well here.  We estimate we'll arrive
at our destination in another eight hours."

	"That's good," Dr. Himmelfarb replied.  "Everything is fine here; the
Navy reports they are all in position to launch their attack when the
time comes."  She was standing on the main bridge, back in Germany.
She looked a little nervous to Misato.

	"Good.  We're out over the ocean now.  It's very peaceful."

	Ritsuko suddenly froze up, then collapsed at her desk.  Dr.
Himmelfarb looked over at her, worried, and hoped it wasn't the mere
mention of the ocean that did it.

	Misato looked worried as well.  "The...umm...anyway, it's all good
here."  She wanted to ask about if anyone had dreamed of Nylarathotep,
but suddenly she was worried whether he might be listening in.

	"I'll get her to sickbay," Maya said, helping Ritsuko to stand up and
hobble out the door, leaning on her heavily.

	"Let me know how..." Misato began, and then there was a loud
explosion behind her.  She spun.  "What the hell is..."

	There was another explosion and the screen went dead. "Communications
link down!" the Scimitar's communications officer shouted. "No signal
at all."

 	"Nothing?" Misato replied, head snapping around to face him.

 	"Nothing," he confirmed, scanning the boards quickly before looking
back at her. "Either the line to the antenna, or the antenna itself,
has been destroyed. We can't receive or transmit." He pulled out a
cellphone and started punching. "I'm getting cell signal, but calls to
NERV-Germany are not going through. The network's gone down."

 	"Keep trying to get hold of someone at the base," Misato said. "Or
UN HQ, or anyone else you can. Find out where the network's out.
Commander Fuyutsuki, we're getting you to safety." She detailed three
security men to hustle him out, over his protests, then tried calling
the security office on her phone. "Local calls still working," she
shouted back over to the communications officer. Then a third
explosion went off.

 	Power went down all over the ship, leaving the windows as the only
light source. The blimp started drifting, though fortunately it didn't
need power to stay aloft, and they should be able to stay alive until
they could call for help.

	Misato called the Children, telling them to meet her at the bridge;
moments later, they appeared in a cloud of bubbles, startling the
security team she had started gathering. "We need to find out where
those explosions came from, and fast."

	"Who could do this?" Shinji asked.

	"A traitor," Misato said.  "Probably working for whoever sent those
Nazi-wannabes when we were still in Germany."  Her face was grimly
determined.  They couldn't afford failure, not this close to victory.

	Asuka grimaced, and Touji and Hikari looked around warily.  Rei
moved, taking the lead just ahead of Misato, so she was ringed round
by the Children, Rei in front, Shinji to the left, Asuka to the right,
and Touji and Hikari behind her.  Four security men were ahead of Rei,
four more behind Touji and Hikari.

	She called Makoto again, but he didn't answer.  Please don't let him
be dead, she thought.  Not now.  She took a moment to pray for Ritsuko
as well, even if she didn't know what she was praying to.  Something,
anything out there that might hear a plea and have a little pity on
mankind, specifically her friends.

	Her imagination painted the picture for her, Makoto lying there dead
like Shigeru, his brain hollowed out, accusing her with his eyes,
another one of her failures.

	For a moment, she intensely wanted a beer, then she shoved the
thought away and forced herself to think positive.  Makoto was off
duty and probably taking a nap with his cellphone off, not expecting
any calls out here.  Some poorly vetted person from NERV-Germany would
turn out to be the traitor, probably working for the cult of the next
and hopefully LAST Angel.

	She called the bridge, which was thankfully explosion and death-free,
and asked the communications officer if he'd gotten hold of anyone.

	"No one is answering their cellphone, but I got a text message
indicating the base is under attack and being evacuated," he told her.

	Shit, she thought.  "Okay, find out whatever you can," she said.

	"Yes, Commander Katsuragi," he said.

	Hikari was fiddling with her own phone. "Texts might be getting
through, but I can't get to the web."

	"Dammit," Asuka said.  "I..."

	Gunfire cut off Asuka's answer, and they turned and raced towards the
sound. In the generator room, they found Makoto sitting against the
wall, bleeding from multiple wounds; a security guard turned from him
to look at them as they came in, then shook his head. As they stared,
a single yellow line began to run out of his shirt, curving up his
throat like a question mark, glowing evilly.

	"No, no, no," Misato said, agonized.  "Not you too!  DAMMIT!"

	Rei slowly advanced on him, flanked by Shinji and Asuka, while Touji
and Hikari stood next to Misato.

	"The Old Ones were, the Old Ones are, the Old Ones yet will be," he
mumbled.  "Ancient and unseen, they walk among us and we know them
not."

	"Maybe...we can drive it out of him," Shinji said hesitantly.

	Rei looked skeptical, but she nodded.  "It would not hurt to try."

	"Hold on, Makoto," Asuka said, stepping closer.

	Touji frowned.   Wouldn't he just die of the bullet wounds even if
they got rid of whatever was inside him?  He'd lost a hell of a lot of
blood.  But he didn't want to rain on their last hope.

	Hikari watched tensely, expecting that if they did drive the creature
out of him, it might well try to eat Commander Katsuragi.

	"This is all your fault, you know," Makoto said, pointing at Misato.
"We're all dying one by one because you're too weak to protect us."

	For a moment, Misato cringed, then she hardened.  "Don't play games
with me, whatever you are!  Get out of Makoto!"

	"It's too late to save Makoto.  You let a cultist of Hastur fuck him
over and over for months.  He's dead and gone and never coming back.
But you'll be dead soon too," Makoto said harshly.  A yellow dot
appeared on his forehead and lines began to blossom across his
forehead.

	Rei, Shinji, and Asuka now formed AT-fields and pressed in on him,
the fields shaping around him, pressing down on him.  Makoto began to
thrash and howl.  "Just look at your precious Children!  Even if they
slay the Dream King, they'll just do to this world what the Champions
of Xoth did to their own world!  TEAR IT APART!  You sacrificed them
for your own benefit, but they'll repay... aaaaaaaa!!!!!"  He howled
and shook and frothed.

	"YOUR VICTORY IS YOUR DEFEAT!," he screamed, twitching like an epileptic.

	Live, live, live, be free, BE FREE! Asuka chanted to herself,
focusing her will.

	Rei concentrated fiercely, though you could hardly tell it from her
blank expression.

	Come on, come on, hold on, come on, Misato thought desperately.

	The Yellow Sign on Makoto's forehead caught fire and burned away. The
rest of his body convulsed, but Makoto's expression changed.  "Misato!
 There's a bomb in the fuel and it's about to go off and another one
by the gas bag!  He came down here to distract you!"

	"Oh no," Hikari said.

	"Makoto!" she cried out.  "Rei, carry him."  She pulled out her
cellphone to call the rest of security.

	The remaining bombs now went off; it was too late to stop them.

	Fire bloomed out of the gondola as the fuel caught fire and burned;
the torn edges of the canopy started flapping violently in the wind as
the Scimitar began falling, helium rushing out of the gas bag. The
shockwave hit; Misato nearly fell, but Touji caught her.  While the
Children were able to save themselves and those near them from
immolation, the ship now lurched and turned and began to fall.

	The ship lurched again, and they all slid across the room, slamming
into the wall.  Makoto grunted sharply as the breath was forced from
his lungs, then went limp; obviously dead. Rei looked to Asuka. "Get
us out."

	"No, we have to save as many people as we can!" Misato said.

	"No time," Rei said, though she did grab a security man; the other
Children followed suit, taking as many security men as they could
carry as Asuka burned them a way out. They all sprouted wings and flew
away from the burning, plummeting, collapsing wreck of the Scimitar.

	Misato stared aghast as it burned and fell.  "Commander Fuyutsuki!"

	Shinji winced, holding a security man with each hand as best he
could.  "I think he was in the middle of that firestorm."

	"Find land," Misato said, wanting to cry but knowing she couldn't
afford tears.  "No point in staying up here."

	Below them, the EVA transport bay burst apart as Units 00-04 ripped
free, flying upwards to join the Children, growing great wings of
fire, feathers or skin.

	With a huge splash, the corpse of the Scimitar plunged into the ocean
and sank. Fires snuffed out one after the other as the ocean closed
over it, burying the dead as the Children flew for land.

************

	Maya was busy giving Ritsuko an injection when the first of the
froglike men came through the door.  Maya fumbled for her purse as he
approached and produced a pistol.  Even as he began to gesticulate and
croak at her, she levelled it at him.  "Back off!  Back off!"

	"He wants us to come with him," Ritsuko managed to say, recovering
her strength and sitting up.

	They could hear anarchy in progress, distant shouting and shooting
and explosions.  Something blew up and the table shook as Ritsuko got
up off it.

	"What do we do now?" Maya asked.  "Should I shoot him?"  She shivered
at the very sight of him.  But she'd die before she'd let him touch
her Ritsuko.

	Ritsuko said something to him and he backed off.  "Follow me," she said.

	Maya kept the gun out, swept a bunch of extra doses into her purse,
and took several unused syringes, then followed.

	To her surprise, Ritsuko led her into the women's bathroom.

	"I suppose this may be our last chance to go," Maya said hesitantly.

	Ritsuko laughed softly.  "Best take it, but we're going to sneak out
the window afterwards, so turn a sink to full blast once you're done,"
she whispered.

	Maya got out the window easily; it was harder for Ritsuko, but she
managed to squeeze out the window.

	Unfortunately, this was a case of out of the frying pan and into the
fire.  There were bodies scattered across the yard, corpses of
soldiers.  Some had been stabbed, others were missing limbs, some had
large holes in their head which were eerily dry.

	Maya stared in horror, shivering at the widespread devastation.
Distantly, she could hear shouts and shooting and cries of pain as the
battle still raged.  Out over the Rhine, she could see helicopters
fleeing into the distance.

	Worse, she could now see the leader of the Deep One forces.  It was a
good twenty feet tall, passing between  buildings because it couldn't
fit inside them, greyish skinned and gelatinous; it wobbled slightly
as it walked, bipedal, but winged and with a skull-like head that had
short tentacles around the mouth.  Maya stared at it in horror and
could hardly move.  "What is that?" she whispered.

	"Death for us," Ritsuko said.  "If we are lucky, we can make it to
the west gate."

	They creeped across the grounds to the distant cry of battle and
death.  The amount of gun firing was fading, however; it was clear the
Deep Ones were victorious.

	They reached the edge of Building 28, a storage building for various
mundane goods.  From here, there was open ground to the West Gate of
the compound, through which supplies were often delivered.  There was
also a parking lot, which Ritsuko hoped might have a vehicle.

	Unfortunately, a squad of twenty Deep Ones squatted at the gate,
leaning on their spears and looking bored with sitting here and
preventing escape.  The tires had been slashed on the vehicles, except
for the ones which were on fire.

	Light and shadow played across Maya and Ritsuko's faces as they
peeked around the corner.  "Maybe the south gate?" Maya suggested.

	It was worth trying but it was probably guarded too.  By the time
they headed that way, they could hear a squad of Deep Ones coming
their way, and Ritsuko could tell they were looking for her and Maya,
though she kept her mouth shut so as not to discourage Maya.

	But as they crept up around the laboratory building closest to the
south gate and its parking lot, they could see more deep ones guarding
the gate and amusing themselves playing frisbee with car tires.

	"Now what?" Maya said in frustration.

	"We try and get some wireclippers and cut a hole in the fence," Ritsuko said.

	As they doubled back, however, a dozen Deep Ones came around the
corner and pointed at them.  One said something authoritative.
Ritsuko put a bullet in his eye and into his skull, killing him.

	The others howled and rushed at them.

	"Run, Maya!" Ritsuko said, shooting a second one with three rounds
and injuring two more.

	"I can't leave you!"

	"RUN!"

	She ran.  Right into a group of six more Deep Ones who threw a net
over her and knocked her to the ground.

	She heard more gunshots and then just grunts and shouting.

	"SEMPAI!" she howled, and then the Deep Ones clubbed her until she
passed out.  Maya's last sensation was that of some kind of nasty gel
being forced into her mouth; it tasted rather like LCL.  And then
there was only darkness and the smell of salt.

*************

III.  Across the South Pacific

	They'd dropped the security men off on an island, with cellphones to
call for help. Now they had to figure out what to do next.

	Specifically, what to do about Misato. Contrary to many a giant robot
show, you can't ride on the outside of a giant flying thing and
continue to function very well - unless it goes verrry slowly. Even
then, how could she actually track things in battle and give orders?
They could use her GPS program on her phone to reach the right
location; she had the coordinates. But transporting her, protecting
her in battle, and communications were all issues.

	"I can protect her," Rei said.  "She must ride with me and lead us."

	"You can?" Touji said.  "I thought that LCL shit was dangerous for
anyone who can't pilot EVA."

	"It is," Rei said.  "But I can protect her.  Otherwise, we must leave
her behind or wait for backup." She paused. "I do not think backup is
coming."

	NERV was in chaos; NERV-Germany had been attacked and many of the
personnel were dead.  The other bases were too far away to help.  They
had to act and act swiftly, before it was too late.

	"I hope Commander Fuyutsuki didn't have any big secrets he was
waitin' for the last second to reveal," Touji mumbled.  Poor guy, he
thought.  What a shitty way to go.  "Ya really think you can do it,
Rei?"

	Asuka felt vaguely bad for Fuyutsuki; his death must have been
horrible, if swift. But she'd no longer trusted him. Not after all the
lies he'd spread. She felt a lot worse for Makoto, who she'd liked;
but surely he was in Heaven now.

	Shinji felt worse, but he was trying to hold it in, until the battle
was over.

	Hikari only vaguely knew the man and felt an abstract sympathy for
his death, but had little tie to him.

	Misato felt the worst, though Makoto was far more on her mind than
Fuyutsuki; she was squashing her pain until later.  Or else she would
just collapse.

 	And they needed her.

 	"I am willing to trust Rei's judgement," she said, looking down at
the glow. After all, she didn't have much other choice; they'd have to
abandon her, and she them.

	"I believe I can do it," Rei said.  They didn't have a plug suit, but
Misato didn't need to synchronize, just to survive.  Rei took her hand
and concentrated and now Misato began to glow very softly; you
couldn't really notice it in the bright light here.

	Misato's first act on experiencing LCL for herself was to nearly
vomit.  "THIS IS GOD-FUCKING-AWFUL," she howled.

	Having all of the Children laughing at her didn't help.

	"Damn straight, it tastes terrible!," Touji said.  "Nastier than anythin'."

	"It is quite foul, though you tend to blank it out with time," Hikari said.

	"I hardly notice it anymore," Shinji confessed.

	"Is this an AT-Field?" Misato asked, studying her glow.

	"Something like it," Rei said.  "A sign of my power.  Guide us."

	Misato took her phone and punched up the coordinates. "Right. Let's go."

************

	Indonesia seemed to go on forever, long enough even flying at high
speed for their minds to drift and worries to try to surface.

	Misato finally managed to get through to some survivors at
NERV-Germany, but they seemed shellshocked; about all they could tell
her was that everyone thought Ritsuko and Maya were dead.  She
couldn't believe that.  Didn't want to believe that.  Not until she
saw the body.  Not her too.

	She could have told the Children, but it would have only hurt them.
Rei knew, but Rei kept silent for whatever reason, and Misato was
grateful.

	And there was still hope.

	Please, don't let them die, she begged the universe.

	But it made no reply.

************
	
	As the desolate ocean rolled away beneath them, Touji was starting to
wonder if there was going to be anything left to defend once this was
all over.  Though at least no one could blame any of this on him.
Damn possessin' monsters.  Damn fishmen.  Damn everything.

	This was the end, right?

	Right?

	He couldn't take much more of this shit, though at least his closest
friends were alive.

	Except for Kensuke.  But at least I set his soul free, Touji thought.
 That had to count for something.

	Right?

****************

	Hikari tried to remember when she had been a normal girl with normal
worries.  She could dimly remember things like homework and playing
with Toonces and going to the mall and worrying about her hair and her
makeup.   She couldn't actually see herself now, but she had a strong
feeling she looked a fright.

	But it all seemed unreal, like another life.  She'd lost everything.
Her position as class representative, her school, her family, even her
pet.

	Only her friends and Touji were left and not even all of her friends.
 Some were scattered and she might never see them again.  And some
were dead.

	She tried to remember her classmates.  She could summon most of them
to her mind's eye, but names...habits...everything felt like a blur.

	Touji loves me, she told herself.  And I love him.  Asuka is still
alive and so are Shinji and Rei and Commander Katsuragi.  And I have
to be strong for them.  They need me.  I can't believe I'm here, but I
am and I have to be strong.

	Because if she lost them, there would be no more reason to keep on living.

**********

	Shinji stared at the landscape below, wondering what the people of
Indonesia thought of the huge monstrosities flying over them.  They
were too high up to make out people, but he could see towns and cities
and fields.  Some parts of the country looked much like Japan from
this high up; other parts looked like jungles, mountains, volcanos,
and other wild places.

	On an impulse, he sent out a command to every spider in the country
to weave webs that would read 'Don't Worry, We're Only Passing
Through.'  Hopefully that would reassure them.

	He paged Asuka.  "Asuka," he said softly.  "How are you?"

	"I'm fine, Shinji dear," she said softly.  "Just feeling a little melancholy."

	"Me too," he said.  "Do you think this is the end?"

	"I think so," Asuka said.  "Unfortunately, for all that Fuyutsuki was
lying to us, he also was the only person left who might be able to
answer that."  She sighed.  "And he was on our side, sort of, at
least.  What a terrible way to go."

	"And Makoto too," Shinji said.  "Do you think..."

	Asuka made a face.  "She was on the rebound and would just seize
anyone who came along.  And you'll note she didn't take an interest
UNTIL he got a girlfriend."

	Shinji sighed.  "She must feel terrible."

	"I feel terrible.  I really liked him," Asuka said.  "But I've lost
so much, it's hard to hurt."  Her voice ached despite her words.

	"I know exactly what you mean," Shinji said softly.  "I don't want to
go back to the old me, but I wish...I wish we could live in peace."

	"Me too," Asuka said.  "But without this, we would never have met.  I
don't know...I don't want to live without you, Shinji," she said
urgently.

	"I don't want to live without you either, Asuka," Shinji said,
catching her urgency.  "I wish I could kiss you."

	"Me too," she said.

	"You two trying to make out?" Misato asked, suddenly linking into the
conversation.

	"I wish," Asuka mumbled.

	"Are we getting close, Misato?" Shinji asked.

	"This is a private thing," Misato said.  "Look.  I'm a shitty
housekeeper.  I'm a terrible role model.  My love life is a shambles.
And I think my best friend..."

	"I'm sure she's alive," Asuka said firmly, though she was lying.  If
they hadn't heard from Akagi-san, she was probably dead.  But she
couldn't tell Misato that.

	"No one is dead until you see the body," Shinji said, trying to be encouraging.

	"That's right," Misato said, rallying.  "Damnation, this stuff still
tastes god-awful."

	Shinji laughed a little.

	"Anyway.  I want...I guess this is a stupid time to ask you, though."

	"Go on," Shinji said.

	"I want to be your guardian when all this is over.  Until you come of
majority."  Misato looked down, giving them a very good view of her
forehead.  "I kind of like having you two around."

	"I'd like that," Shinji said.  "You've been...I..."  He struggled to
find the right words.

	"There is no one else I would rather live with but you and Shinji,"
Asuka said flatly.  "Though I am going to make you learn to cook."

	"Yes, master," Misato said, then laughed.  "Okay.  Seriously, though,
we will get through this.  One way or another."

	"After all we've fought, this can't possibly be too tough a fight,"
Shinji said.  "I'm sure we'll be just fine."

	"We will win," Asuka said firmly.  "This time the stars are right for US."

*********

	"What a shitty looking place," Touji observed, studying the new
island which squatted in the South Pacific, freshly risen from the
ocean floor.  Looking at it made his head hurt, though; the buildings
all looked distorted and wrong, like an entire city built by Escher.
Cross-bridges between buildings twisted like mobius strips, but surely
you weren't expected to walk upside down.  Some of them jutted at
extreme angles where they should have fallen down, but somehow they
stayed up.  Yet surely inside them you'd be constantly trying to walk
uphill or to keep the furniture from sliding downhill, right?

	Others twisted and bored into each other, like bamboo growing into
the back of a tied-down victim of the green death.  Some split into
branches as you looked up them then fused back together or joined with
other buildings.

	Hikari and Touji had seen the city in their dreams, but it seemed
even more freaky and alien now that they were awake.  It didn't seem
so alien to Shinji, Asuka, and Rei, who knew it was typical Xothian
architecture, designed under the laws of physics which held sway on
distant Xoth, where certain key principles differed from Earth;
Cthulhu's power held it all together, a tiny bubble of long fallen
Xoth on Earth. If he won this day, he would have enough strength to
remake the Earth into a new Xoth, where the laws of physics men take
for granted would no longer hold sway.  If he fell, the inexorable
laws of geometry would turn on once sunken Ry'leh and destroy it in a
cataclysmic collapse which would smite the hordes of Deep Ones and
Xothians who roamed the streets.

	"I don't like it," Hikari said.

	"Well, some of this would never have passed muster in the old days,"
Asuka said disparagingly.  "You can see that whole district was made
with substandard materials and there's little imagination.  Just look
over there, it's a total imitation of a much superior Fourth Era
monolith in the Cytorrian style.  It's pretty clear that..."  She
paused, then looked horrified.  "DAMMIT."

	Unit01 patted Unit02.  "I know, I know," Shinji mumbled.

	Misato carefully did not comment.  "Asuka, Shinji, Rei, I know you
don't want to dredge up Angel memories, but anything you can tell us
about this place from them or where our foe is likely to be would be
very good, given we don't have a feed from Polaris to guide us."

	"Probably that giant ugly as fuck palace," Touji said, pointing to
the huge pile of stone in the middle which had five evenly spaced
leaning towers.  He was pretty sure it should have collapsed under its
own weight, given the way it was built.  "I think it's a palace."

	"Language," Hikari said firmly.

	"Sorry, babe," he muttered.

	Before they could go look, another building - reddish stone, with
veins of purple - collapsed. Five giant blue humanoids erupted out of
it, sprouting metal spines from their backs. Red leathery skin
stretched between them, forming giant wings. They were Evangelion
units, blue and red, with an design traced out in gold on their chests
and brows - oval, trailing tendrils at its bottom, and ringed by the
words "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh C'thulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn."

	"Dammit, SEELE found the resources to actually make the planned
mass-production EVA units," Misato said.  "We can assume, however,
that they should be weaker than you, since they haven't been fighting
Angels."

	Touji hoped that was a good assumption.

	They were armed with long red-shafted poles, a forest of long
metallic blue blades at the end, giant quinta-tridents.  The shimmer
of AT-fields danced along the blades as the Mass Production Units drew
closer.  You could read the giant stamps on their backs as they flew
up:  Unit06, Unit07, Unit08, Unit09, and Unit10.

	As they approached, they split off, Unit06 going after Rei, Unit07
after Shinji, Unit08 after Asuka, Unit09 after Touji, and Unit10 after
Hikari.

	"Do not engage according to their preferences," Misato ordered.  "I
don't know why they decided to line up against you like this, but we
don't want to find out.  Touji, teleport behind Unit06 and slice its
wings with your Progressive Knife. Then engage it at your discretion
if that doesn't work. Hikari, engage Unit07 and keep its attention.
Rei, double-team Unit07 once Hikari draws its fire.  Asuka, I am
giving you a hard task.  Take on Unit09 and Unit10 at the same time.
Evade, dodge, and so on, attacking just enough to keep them busy.
Shinji, try to web up Unit08.  Kill it if you can, keep it busy if you
can't.  Once we have one of these bastards down, we can begin double
and triple-teaming them safely.  These things are remote controlled,
so there is no need for mercy; I don't know how they got DAGON to
work, but we have to stop these things without being weakened too much
to deal with the last Angel."

	The Children saluted, then moved into action.

	Unit02 arced upwards, then dove at Unit09 and Unit10, spewing
fireballs at them, forcing them to dodge and dive.  She chased them
downwards, shouting imprecations in German.

	Unit01 charged at an angle, parrying a thrust from a trident, then
spewing webs over the head of Unit08; it began flailing blindly.
Closing, Unit01 grabbed Unit08's right arm and bit down, trying to
chew it off; 08 clawed at its own face with its left hand, trying to
restore its sight.  Its trident flopped uselessly in its right hand.

 	Touji concentrated, and the world erupted in stars and galaxies; he
appeared behind Unit06, slashing with his knife. It turned and forced
him back, attacking with considerable skill - but he'd cut one of its
wings and, now it tended to wobble tremendously.  This kept him alive,
as he quickly realized it actually fought with much more skill than he
did and had a lot more reach with its spear.  But it was unstable and
many of its blows went wild.

	 Hikari cut across the incoming enemy line to charge at Unit07,
wishing she was better at this.  She had the least experience of any
of them, and the least power...  which is why she ended up
accomplishing her mission of drawing Unit07's fire by getting Unit04's
arm impaled on a lance.  Unit00 dived on Unit07 and took it from
behind; claws dug in and drove tendrils of ice deep into its flesh, as
it howled and Unit04 tried to get free from the trident spines.  But
now the spines were burrowing up 04's arm, following its veins,
seeking its heart.

	Unit09 broke left, Unit10 broke right - and now Asuka realized she'd
charged down into attack range of a squad of Xothians. 'Miniature'
versions of their lord, the Dream King, they were about the height of
double-decker busses, and armed with Y'glai Crystalline Rods which
produced Corgathic blasts. Which is to say, she found herself blasted
by a barrage of energy beams, and had to raise an AT-field to defend
herself.  But now Unit09 and Unit10 were above her, preparing to
dive-bomb her.

	"HIKARI!," Touji shouted, and teleported Unit03 over to begin hacking
at the trident impaling her arm.  However, this left Unit06 free to
come to the aid of Unit08, by driving its trident into Unit01's gut.

	"SHINJI!" Asuka shouted.

	"Touji, you just left Shinji vulnerable!  Unit04 already has help!
Get on Unit06 now!  Shinji, form an AT-field and force out the
trident!  Hikari, do the same thing!  Asuka, go full defensive!"
Misato shouted.

	"And I?" Rei asked from right next to her.

	"You obeyed orders. Finish Unit08.  Then we can help Shinji," Misato
said softly to her.  So did Hikari, but I will praise her later,
Misato thought.  She needs to focus.

	Rei nodded and continued to savage Unit08.
	
************

	Maya woke up, feeling soaked to her skin.  A few swishes of her hand
told her this was because she was, in fact, underwater.  Her mouth and
nose felt very strange; she quickly realized some sort of gelatinous
gunk was filling her mouth, nose, and throat, extending over her face
just enough to seal off both passages.

	Ritsuko's voice said, "It's alive.  It absorbs oxygen from the water
and passes it to you, down your throat and into your lungs."  Maya
turned to look at her; she no longer had to wear the 'breathing'
apparatus down here, but she looked very worried.

	Maya said, "Amazing.  Are you okay?"

	"I'm fine," Ritusuko said softly.  "Are you?"

	"I'm just fine," Maya said, then came over and kissed her gently - it
felt very strange, through the gunk - then rested her forehead against
Ritsuko's and whispered, "Are we being watched?"

	Ritsuko's eyes had widened but now she relaxed.  "Yes," she whispered.

	Maya could see they were lying on a bed of very soft and comfortable
moss, laid out on a smoothly polished floor of coral; the walls were
also coral - but more natural, full of holes - and the ceiling
likewise.  There were curtains, rather than doors, made of many little
beads of coral strung together on golden wires.  There was a table,
carved out of basalt, and 4 wicker-like chairs, sea-green in color.
Four gourd-like things, purple with a sort of baby bottle-like nipple,
sat on top.

	Maya asked, "What are those?"

	"Some sort of juice, very nutritious and tasty.  You suck it out
through the nozzle," Ritsuko said.  "Part of the organism extends down
to your stomach, so if you drink, it will transmit it there."

	"Is it safe?" Maya whispered.

	"I think so," Ritsuko said.

	Maya drank two of them; it tasted like cocoanut to her, and she
rather liked it.  She now felt very hungry, though.  "Aren't you going
to have one?"

	"I had some earlier."

	"Where are we?"

	"In a city of the Deep Ones, with the usual incomprehensible name
which sounds like someone sneezed," Ritsuko said.  "Or threw up."

	Maya laughed at that, and Ritsuko's concerned face briefly quirked to
a smile.

	Then Ritsuko's expression crashed.  "This is where Mother lives.  I
believe we are under the Baltic."

	Two Deep Ones entered, unarmed, and spoke to Ritsuko.  Ritsuko
replied to them in their sibilant tongue.  "Mother wishes us to dine
with her," she said to Maya.

	"Fine," Maya said.  No point in avoiding food.  If they wanted me
dead, they would have killed me already, she thought.

	They walked down a long, wide hallway, from which smaller ones
periodically branched.  Some areas had porous walls, giving glimpses
of other rooms; others had walls built to conceal.  Most of what Maya
saw looked like various kinds of craftwork - though in one room, Deep
Ones knelt and prayed, chanting to a statue of a really big Deep One.

	They passed a kitchen, and Maya paused, staring into it through a
hole in the wall.  There was no fireplace, obviously enough, but she
could see a metal box glowing as if very hot. Various fish hung from
hooks over it, the water around them boiling, all of this held within
a large stone-and-glass container.  Two Deep Ones holding carven rods
watched it very intently.

	"How are they generating that much heat underwear?" Maya asked curiously.

	"It's probably best we not know," Ritsuko said.  "It's a sign of
Mother's importance, one of her ways of showing off, that she can
actually have food cooked instead of eating raw."

	"She's a bigwig here?" Maya asked.

	"She possesses a great deal of lore which gives her a great deal of
power," Ritsuko said.  "Unfortunately, she's also assimilated, and
completely insane.  She surrendered to the monster inside her."
Ritsuko sounded angry and disdainful, but then she looked at herself,
and sighed.

	Maya took her hand and squeezed it.  "You didn't surrender," she said firmly.

	"I am sorry to drag you into this," Ritsuko said.

	"I dragged myself in," Maya said.  "I will follow you to the bitter end."

	Several passing Deep Ones paused and stared at Ritsuko, looking
confused; the two escorts shouted at them and they all bowed until
their heads nearly touched the floor, then turned and ran off down a
side tunnel.

	Maya laughed softly, while Ritsuko looked a little embarrassed.
"This place would be really neat if we weren't prisoners."

	"Don't let your guard down," Ritsuko said.  "This place is extremely
dangerous."

	Maya nodded.

	The dining room had more of the wicker-style chairs, with a long
table. A female Deep One sat at one end, with two more chairs placed
to her right and left.  Unlike most of the Deep Ones, she wore
clothing - namely a robe, made mostly of seaweed, with various gems
and pieces of coral set into it. If you studied it carefully, you
could see they formed various arcane patterns; especially the repeated
motif of an oval standing on end, with dangling, irregular lines
descending from the bottom of it.

	More of the gourds sat on the table, next to very fancy (and very
wet) cloth napkins, silver tableware, and porcelain plates.  "I would
have supplied glasses but you can't drink from them here.  My
apologies," Ritsuko's mother said with a deep voice.

	"Mother, this is my assistant, Ibuki Maya.  Maya, this is my Mother,
Dr. Akagi Naoko."

	"You can call me Naoko," Dr. Akagi said with what was clearly
supposed to be warmth, though her intonations were strange.

	"Then you may call me Maya," Maya said, trying to be polite.

	They soon sat down and made uncomfortable small talk.  Maya felt
incredibly strange; if Dr. Akagi...Naoko...wasn't an inhuman
monstrosity, this would be just like she'd imagined meeting a lover's
parents would be like.

	But Ritsuko's mother was a frog-woman, they were deep beneath the
Baltic Ocean, some sort of slime monster was in her mouth and nose and
lungs and stomach enabling her to breathe, she was sucking juice out
of some alien gourd and...how was coral growing in the Baltic?  Isn't
it tropical?

	"Some species of coral are not dependent on sunlight and algae and
can grow in much deeper, colder water.  There is, in fact, a community
of our people off the Aleutian Islands," Naoko said.

	Three covered plates were brought in now; the Deep Ones carrying them
pulled off the covers in unison, as if trying to show off.  Each plate
had a carp, some roast potatos, some kind of white and purple thing
which Maya wasn't sure what it was, a small pile of green and purple
goo, a pile of sliced carrots, and an apple.

	Naoko immediately cut up the potatos and mashed the goo into them, so
Maya did likewise, nervously.  Ritsuko ignored the goo and began
cutting up the carp.  "I take it SEELE supplies you with all the
surface foods you want?"

	"This city has always been in contact with the shores, covertly.
Ancient Lithuanians helped to supply us once, then the Teutonic
Knights conquered them, but elements within the Knights came around
soon enough.  Then the Prussians, and now the Poles.  Gold will always
get you what you need," Naoko said.  "You should try the sauce,
Ritsuko."

	"I don't like sauce on my fish," Ritsuko said a little petulantly.

	"If you would try it, you would like it," her mother said.

	Maya tried the mashed up potatos.  It had a tangy, spicy taste and
she rather liked it.  "This is pretty good, sempai," she said.  "What
is it?"

	"You always say that," Ritsuko snapped at her mother.

	"I'm always right," she said sharply.  "You close yourself off from
new opportunities too much.  How hard was it for you to get her to
open up to you, Maya?" Her voice had shifted from hard-edged to soft
and friendly when she spoke to Maya, though Maya could see she was
twitching a bit.

	"I had to ambush her," Maya said.  Maybe this wasn't going to be so
bad after all.  She'd half expected to be tied to a wall with runes
being drawn on her body for sacrifice by now.  Though she could see
why the two didn't get along.

	"I thought so.  Anyway, this is a mix of six or so spices with
liquified Shantak brain tissue, marrow, and blood.  It's a hassle to
bring it over to this side of reality, but only the best for my
daughter and her lover," Naoko said, again trying to sound kind,
though she looked ominous.

	Maya turned a little red at being referred to as such, then wondered
what a Shantak was and whether it was safe to eat.  "And this?" she
held up the purple and white thing.

	"Turnip," Naoko said.

	"That sounds rather like...," Ritsuko began, sounding angry.

	"It is in the style of Tcho-Tcho cuisine, yes, but there is
absolutely no human in any of this," Naoko snapped at her.  "We are
the next stage of human evolution, humanity perfected to live in the
majority of this planet, the ocean.  We are higher beings, but we do
not eat humans any more than you would eat a Neanderthal.  Mind you,
some of the early Cro-Magnon were not so picky, but they were
barbarian thugs and killers."  Naoko shook her head, her voice
wobbling from anger to civilized.  "I want you to join us, not turn
into ghouls."  She said this as if Ritsuko was a small child who had
to be reminded not to eat cat food.  "You and your lover, of course."

	Ritsuko paused in the middle of eating fish and stared at her mother.  "What?"

	"She is your lover, correct?"

	For a moment, Ritsuko's mouth moved soundlessly.  Maya stuffed food
in her own mouth. Eating with this stuff was very strange; she could
feel it move inside her mouth as she chewed, which was rather creepy.
But it all tasted so good.

	Even if she didn't know what a Shantak was.

	"She doesn't act ashamed of you in public, does she?" Naoko asked
Maya curiously.

	"I AM NOT ASHAMED OF MAYA," Ritsuko shouted, trembling with anger.
"I could never be ashamed of her!"

	"Sempai is always very kind to me," Maya said firmly.

	"Then kiss her," Naoko said.

	"I can't kiss her from across the table," Ritsuko said a little petulantly.

	"You have feet, you know," her mother said.

	"It's okay, sempai," Maya said.  She turned to Naoko.  "She gets
embarrassed when I kiss her in public, but that's just cute."

	Ritsuko said, "I do not get embarrassed."  Maya found this to be cute
too, though she knew it wasn't true.  But that was okay.  Maya rather
enjoyed embarrassing her sometimes.

	"Well, if you're ashamed to kiss your lover in public, I suppose
there's nothing to be done.  You always were stubborn," Naoko said,
then ate some of her own food.

	Maya put some of the sauce on her fish and tried it; it was really
good.  Then, suddenly, Ritsuko was standing over her, bending down
with her eyes shut and then they kissed and Maya got some crumbs of
fish and sauce into Ritsuko's mouth; Ritsuko tasted a little strange
herself, but Maya didn't care, kissing her firmly.  For a moment, she
thought Ritsuko was crying, but you couldn't really tell as any tears
blended right into the water.

	Naoko applauded.  "See?  Not hard at all."

	"I hate you," Ritsuko snapped at her mother and stormed back to her seat.

	"But I love you and you clearly love her," Naoko said.  "Which is why
I've brought you here to make you an offer.  Your side has lost.
NERV's main bases have been destroyed, Dr. Fuyutsuki is dead and only
Commander Katsuragi and the Children of Adam survive.  But they will
soon be defeated by SEELE's own Evangelion units, piloted by DAGON
capsules.  Then they will let our Lord, the King of Dreams, the Master
of our race, devour them and he will take their power and ascend.
This world now belongs to us.  You cannot hope to defy our Master."

	"I will sooner DIE than bow to an alien monster with delusions of
grandeur!," Ritsuko snapped, pointing with her fork for emphasis.

	"You were always stupidly stubborn," Naoko snapped back angrily, then
shook for a few seconds, then forced herself calm, though her voice
was tense.  She took a moment to gobble down some carrots, then
breathed hard until her breathing gradually calmed.  "And you bring
out the worst in me."

	"You surrendered to the worst in you and told me to surrender too,"
Ritsuko almost hissed.

	"So you're offering us protection?" Maya asked, trying to calm them down.

	"Yes," Naoko said.  "I can, in fact, make you like Ritsuko, so you
would no longer need the Abra'crtha and would be safe here. Instead of
living under the risk that the priests would select you for the
breeding pits, or insist on you being sent to the mines, or any of a
variety of other terrible things which could happen."

	"You mean..." Maya said hesitantly.  "Physically."

	"Yes," Naoko said.  "It is among the many fruits of research on
Adam," she said.  "The leadership of SEELE will be undergoing this
process once victory is guaranteed and the ability to pass in human
society is no longer needed.  It is rather expensive and requires hard
to acquire materials and supplies that are limited now that Adam is
dead, but I am quite willing to expend them to transform you as well,
so the two of you can be together forever."

	"Forever?" Maya squeaked.

	"Forever.  We are immortal and never die, barring accident, disease,
violence, and the like.  Imagine spending an eternity with the woman
you love, free of the ravages of time," Naoko said kindly to Maya.

	For a moment, Maya lost herself in a fantasy of what that would be
like.  To be with sempai forever, ferreting out all the mysteries of
the universe.

	"And what is the catch?" Ritsuko asked, stabbing her carp and cutting
it viciously.

	"What catch?  Eternal life with the one you love and all the
mysteries of the universe to explore.  You'd be working for me, which
I suppose you'd think is a 'catch', Ritsuko," Naoko said, sounding
amused.  "No signing over your soul, or murdering your friends or
whatever you're expecting me to ask of you.  Don't you want to be with
Maya forever?"

	Ritsuko said, "Of course I do!  But there's no such thing as
eternity!"  She pounded her fist on the table.  "And you're asking her
to give up her humanity!"

	"To become more than human.  Immortal and ageless, adapted to live in
the vast majority of this planet better than any human.  You think
Ritsuko is beautiful, don't you, Maya?" Naoko asked.

	Maya thought the Deep Ones were hideous and inhuman and creepy,
though it was oddly easy to almost forget that Naoko was a Deep One.
But Ritsuko was beautiful to her, whatever might happen.  "Yes," she
said softly.  She didn't know what to think.  She didn't want to spend
forever surrounded by inhuman monsters who raped human women to breed
more of themselves.  It was easy to forget, sitting her and bantering
with Ritsuko's mother as if this was a normal 'meet the parents' date.
 But they were terrible monsters who did terrible things and
sacrificed to an alien god who wanted to destroy mankind.

	But she could almost forget that, here and now.

	Which was probably what Naoko wanted her to do.

	She shivered, not sure what to do.  Eternity with sempai...but to
give up her humanity as the price.

	"Can we have some privacy to discuss this?" Ritsuko asked tensely.

	"Of course.  Yell for me when you wish me to return."  Naoko swept
out of the room, leaving them alone.

*************

 	Touji shattered the haft of Unit07's trident, but the head continued
to burrow into Unit04, snaking its way up through the shoulder; the
will of its pilot and that of Hikari clashing violently, the shoulder
of Unit04 pulsing and throbbing and distorting into hideous shapes as
energy and wills thrashed wildly inside it.

	"HELP SHINJI NOW!" Misato barked at Touji.

	"I can't just abandon Hikari!" Touji said, putting Unit03's arms on
Unit04 and trying to help her.

 	Asuka called upon the power of Rahab; and while the two EVA Mass
Production Units diving towards her resisted it, the Xothians suddenly
stiffened - no longer able to move their arms to aim, their limbs to
move, or their mouths to breathe.  Their bodies turned leathery and
darkened to brown, then grey, until finally they looked like statues
of Xothians.  But their minds lived on, trapped inside an immortal,
unchanging, ageless shell, unable to see or smell or hear or taste or
touch, locked in with themselves forever.  This was the gift of
Ghathanoa.  Unchanging immortality.  Never to age, never to die, never
to know the fading of mind and body.  Left alone forever to
contemplate eternity, until the stars went out and the universe went
cold or fell in on itself to return to the cosmic womb.

	In theory.

	In practice, Unit09 and Unit10 drove Unit02 into the ground, and
several of them were broken into shards, quickly crumbling to leathery
grey dust as the mass-production Evas pinned her to the ground with
their tridents, howling in triumph.

	Unit01 lost its grip on Unit08's arm; but the mangled arm now lay
helplessly at its side, flopping wildly as it moved. 08 switched its
trident to its left hand and prepared to press the attack which Unit06
had begun on Unit01.  Meanwhile, Unit01 grabbed Unit06's trident with
one hand, trying to pull it out as the tines began searching through
the chest cavity for Shinji's entry plug. Unit01's other arm became a
serpent, which now latched onto Unit06's face and began to pump deadly
poison into Unit06's head. It began to turn green and to distort as
every vein and artery inside it started expanding to several times
normal size. Green lines ran down its skin towards its 'heart'... but
it was clear the tines would reach Shinji before the poison reached
the heart.  And now Unit08 drove its trident into Unit01's chest, and
its tines began to seek his entry plug as well.

	The sun now set. Darkness descended upon them, the stars glittering
high above in a pattern long anticipated.  And down below them, two
great stone doors began slowly moving.

	Hordes of Xothians closed on Unit02, armed with appropriately scaled
versions of the mass production tridents, like Lilliputians preparing
to pin down Gulliver or ants swarming a sleeping man.  Unit 02
flailed, trying to force out the tridents as they sought out Asuka's
Entry Plug, to pierce it and her.

	"TOUJI!  HELP SHINJI NOW!" Misato shouted angrily.  Then she noticed
her skin was paling, and her hair starting to take on a bluish tinge.
Her elder sign necklace was shimmering and sparking, and she could see
things, flows of energy she was pretty sure no human eye should see.
"Rei, I think I'm in trouble."

	Rei made no reply, savaging Unit07 as fast as she could with claws
and ice blades and fangs at once.  It was clear her attention for
shielding Misato was flagging.  Misato didn't know what this would do
but it could not possibly be good.

	But she would have to risk it; Rei needed her attention on the
battle.  Especially since Touji was busy wildly stabbing Unit07 and
shouting INSTEAD OF HELPING SHINJI.

	Far below, a great stone door fell to the ground, crushing several
dozen Xothians.  A hideous green glow shone forth, casting shadows and
drowning out the stars.

	Misato could see the entry plug of Shinji's EVA crack now; three
tines broke through, heading for his body, and she stared in horror.
"No! SHINJI!" she and Rei shouted in unison.

	Asuka howled incoherently, and flames rushed everywhere, turning
onrushing Xothians into piles of ash.  She tried to blast Unit08 and
Unit06, but Unit09 and Unit10 shielded them with AT-fields while
driving their tridents home, and now the tines were almost to her
entry plug.

	Only a few months ago, Shinji would have simply died.  Not just
because of a lack of power, but because of a lack of will.  He had
been unformed clay, drifting with the current, not living, but
surviving.  He had nothing to live for, he was just too weak to end it
all.  He hadn't chosen to pilot EVA; his father had chosen for him,
forced the choice on him.  And he had caved in because his entire way
of life was based on caving in to all demands that could not be run
away from.

	That was what SEELE was counting on, broken Pilots, whose wills would
snap when it came to the final crisis, so their power could be
devoured by docile hunting dogs, who themselves would be eaten by
their master, the Dream King, who would reshape the Earth into the
veritable eidoleon of now long dead Xoth, the world of his birth.  In
that world, they would rule, immortal, ageless, and serene.

	This was their plan, their dream towards which they had worked for
untold aeons, piecing together clues and hints and messages from
dreams and prophecies, messages from their masters.  They would rule,
rule as Kings and Queens, as GODS, sharing in the power of their
Master, worshipped by all.

	And as the tines touched his flesh, Shinji knew their dreams for
delusions.  The Dream King did not share power and he cared nothing
for his worshippers.  They were humans who had put together a web of
delusions to give meaning to their lives, to give them hope in a cold
and empty world that did not care if they lived or died but would
inexorably kill them, however well they might cheat death for a time
with machines and the arcane sciences.

	Even now, the Dream King's mind flooded into theirs, filling them
with ecstasy, as the shields fell away which had protected humanity
from the madness inevitable when alien minds touched human ones.  But
even for the corrupt and warped minds of the leaders of SEELE, the
touch of the his Mind, the very call of Cthulhu itself, was too much.
A drunkard might consume a lot more alcohol with less effect than an
ordinary person, but if he drank enough, he would still die of alcohol
poisoning.  And so it would be with them; their pleasure would mount
until it became pain and then their minds would be scoured away,
leaving only fleshy shells to eventually be eaten by fish.  Even the
Deep Ones would perish, for they were wretched chimera, part Xothian
and part human, wretched abominations in the sight of the Dream King;
even their memory would be destroyed by him as they perished so that
they would not even haunt his dreams with their twisted, hideous,
mutated, imperfect bodies.  Their faithful service would meet the end
of all faithful service--death and eternal nothingness.  He would not
even remember them.

	And no one would remember Shinji, Unit06 promised.  Wasn't that what
he wanted?  Sweet oblivion, never to have to struggle or strive or be
forced to do things again?  This world was doomed; even now, the Dream
King's power was beginning to touch the world, even now, the visions
of his glory flooded every mind, even now, humanity was prepared for
the slaughter.  Did he really want to fight on and have to see all
that and know it was his fault?  Why not just give up?

	The final door shook and cracked and rumbled and a single star slowly
crept across the sky, seeking its destined place for all things to
find their perfection in the one who had slept in death and now came
to life, the King of Dreams and Flesh, the last of the Children of
K'kansh on ancient Xoth, who had risen from a hapless child to the
final master and avatar of his race.

	Bow to him and perish, Unit06 whispered to Shinji.  Then you will be free.

	The Shinji believed in by SEELE would have given up.  He would have
caved in and snapped under the pressure and surrendered.  That Shinji
was a weak and lonely boy with no friends, no family, no hope and no
reason to continue to exist but pure animal instinct.

	That Shinji was the last and most fatal of the delusions of SEELE and
their creations, the DAGON units which drove the Mass Production Evas,
which responded now not to SEELE's commands but those of their master,
the Dream King.  And so it was his delusion too.

	That Shinji was dead.

	The Shinji who grabbed the tines with his hands, forcing them
together into a single long spearpoint, was another Shinji entirely.
He didn't really fight for humanity.  He didn't fight for faith, for
he didn't really believe in anything he couldn't see.  He fought for
people, not for abstractions.  He fought for his family.  Asuka.  Rei.
 Misato.  Touji.  Hikari.  All of them here.  All of them depending on
him.  All of them fighting by his side.  He would not fail them.

	His entire body glowed with an AT-Field, and now it rushed up the
spear towards the hands of Unit06.  He fought for the dead.  His
mother, Yui.  His father, Gendo.  Commander Fuyutsuki.  Makoto.
Shigeru. Kaji. Anna.  Kensuke.  And all the others who had perished
because of this endless, stupid game of the gods!

	They had not died just on Earth.  World after world had been put to
the test by the Herald of the Outer Gods, the Crawling Chaos, the
Blind Ape of Truth.  Nyarlathotep.  Who put every world to the test, a
test that was always failed.  A test he believed must inevitably be
failed, and every failure reassured him that it was not his fault his
own world had been destroyed. That he was not a filthy traitor who
sold out his own race for power; that it was nothing but the
inevitable way of the world.

	Xoth. Celeano. Yuggoth. Alabraxas.  M'kare.  Shirrioth.  Calabnur.
Sarnath.  The Kingdom of Joy. World upon world destroyed by outside
conquest - or destroying itself, by fighting fire with fire, and
burning alive as its defenders became what they fought.

	The spear now turned into another giant snake, its head next to the
hand that weilded Unit06's trident.  He fought for all these worlds in
his memories, the worlds destroyed by those whose power he bore, that
the Earth might not join their ranks.  And he fought especially for
the dream of the Kingdom of Joy, in whose story he was now entangled.

	And now that head vomited spiders and snakes and disgusting creepy
crawling things which mixed aspects of crab and snake and bat and cat
and dog and wolf and chicken and pig and fish and all the other living
things of Earth, and they swarmed over Unit06 and ate it alive, for
all animals must kill to continue to live, in the end, all things are
the vampires they fear.

	And Shinji felt another will beside him, inside him, outside him,
moving through multiple dimensions at once and now Unit01 moved of its
own accord and seized Unit08's trident, pulling it out of Unit01 and
hurling the trident to Unit00, which caught it.

	"Through the head, Rei!" Misato commanded, and she felt the trident
pierce Unit07's brain, felt the ecstasy of power as she and Rei and
Unit00 found its soul and drained it, crumbling it to dust which
turned to dull flakes of flesh, that rained down upon the lone,
crumbling giant door below, which was now breaking apart into rubble.
Misato screamed with pleasure the likes of which she had never known.
Her flesh rippled and shifted, barely keeping its integrity and she
and Rei lost themselves in the pleasure of victory.

	Unit06 was dying now as it was eaten alive and Shinji drank down the
power and moaned as the pleasure of victory flowed through him.
Vengeance and victory at once.

	Unit03 was freed by Unit07's death, and now Unit03 and Unit04
attacked the unarmed Unit08 in unison, mauling it in a crazed frenzy.
They held Unit08's spear together; it had repaired itself by their
power, and they drove it deep into Unit08 and began to devour his
essence through it.

	Unit02 now stretched its arms and grabbed her foes, impaling them on
their own tridents, which now connected both of them to her.  One of
the tridents sprouted into feeding tendrils and began to suck the
fluids and power out of Unit09.  The other turned into black, inky
fluid and flowed up into Unit10's brain; Unit10 then turned on and
began to eat Unit09 alive, even as the black inky fluid, connected to
Unit02 by a slender thread, consumed more of its own flesh, hollowing
it out into a mere shell full of inky darkness.

	The Dream King emerged. A cyclopean beast with the rough form of a
man - though great green greasy tentacles protruded from his chin,
acquired when he slew one of Rhan-Tegoth's kin. And great gelatinous
wings, stolen from the fallen world of Alabraxas, and long claws on
his fingers which once had belonged to Ytur'gna, who had tried to
defend Celeano from his hunger.  He was larger even than the EVA
units, towering over his Xothian kin, themselves large enough to dwarf
an ordinary human.  And his mind now shone forth unhampered over all
the world, even as his defenders fell.

	But he was confident, for the Earth was not the first world he had
smashed to splinters and remade in his own image in accord with his
fantasy of what his own world had been like before he had annihilated
it in his quest for power.  He was confident, for he had always given
death and never tasted it.

	He gazed upon the Children as the last bits of the Dagon Units were
either devoured or subverted.  That did not make him afeared.  He
feared nothing; all other life was contemptible and only the Stars and
the Outer Gods could not be defied and devoured in his experience.
His mind rushed against them, but it bounced off their AT-fields.

	Across the Earth, heads exploded as he pushed against them and
against all of mankind and many others collapsed in agony.  Riots
erupted across the equatorial belt as already stressed humans slid
into primal rage.  His rage, riding them.  They could not resist his
power.

	But these before him were not the broken, empty, weak fools he was
used to fighting and devouring.  They had lost everything, everything
but each other.  Their dead formed a nearly endless litany, but they
had not been broken by death.  The memories which haunted them had not
devoured them.  Rather, they had been forged into weapons by their
joint suffering and death and pain, but they had also been forged into
a family, a pack, a nakama by the power and the love they shared.

	They wanted his heart and THEY WOULD HAVE IT.  This ended here and now.

	Misato could hardly think.  The hunger was upon her and her body kept
changing, and it terrified her and it felt so right.  These were her
children, and she had taught them and she had loved them and she would
lead them.  But she could feel the instincts of Unit00; it had been
prepared for this day.  They could all feel it, their EVAs moving
without the need for concious thought, guided by a common purpose, a
common mind, a common soul.

	They spread out around the Dream King as he took to the skies, as his
mind pressed upon theirs, as his worshippers and followers clutched
their heads and died of ecstasy and agony at once in the streets below
as he threw all his strength at them.  Without their presence, this
would have slain most of humanity in a storm of thought.

	But they had formed a pentagon around him and now they held out the
lances they had claimed for themselves, Unit02 tossing its extra lance
to Unit04, so all could wield one.  Lines of light, shimmering
AT-Fields rushed out between them, forming a five pointed star and in
the middle was the Dream King.

	And a woman's voice began to speak the words of an ancient rite and
Misato's Elder Sign necklace glowed like the sun, but she no longer
needed eyes to see for she could see with her skin and her hair and
the visual spectrum is so limited anyway.

	Unseen and ignored, screens within the EVAs blinked the message
'CEREMONY OF INNOCENCE INITIATED.  Hearthstone:  IKARI YUI.'

	  Five AT-Fields closed in on the Dream King, crushing him ever
tighter and tighter, five crossing fields forming an ever shrinking
inner pentagon to match the outer, constricting him until his flesh
became so dense, it ignited into flame of a kind unnatural to the
Earth, but sweet nectar to the Children.

	They spoke in unison, allowing themselves to be guided, and Misato
spoke too, for she had been there at the beginning, the last witness
to the end of the old world and the beginnings of the birth pangs of a
new one.  And now the final remnant of the old world was under attack.

	The Dream King's dreams all turned to nightmares and his power turned
in on itself, as the Children began to devour it and to weave it into
great throbbing webs of dream, bridging the gap between dream and
waking once guarded by Matriel, Atlach-Nacha, whose soul now rested
inside Unit00 and Unit01 and the First and Third Child.

	His flesh became a doorway of light between dreaming and waking and
his mind collapsed in on itself and his final sight before oblivion
were once gentle brown eyes through which now he glimpsed the center
of the universe where great Azathoth howls and thrashes and burbles
idiot melodies to the blind, arrythmic pipings of twisted
monstrosities whose job it is to keep the King of Creation from
destroying it in his mindless rage and whim.

	The universe was a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
signifying nothing.

	And that was the last thing he would ever see or realize.

	As his body became living flame, a living doorway where dreams and
flesh could meet, the Ceremony of Innocence was loosed upon the world.

**************

	"Mother cannot be trusted," Ritsuko said flatly.  "She's given
herself to the darkness.  And she wants us to do the same.  Sell out
the human race for our personal benefit."  Her voice was tight with
anger.  "She let it slip, just a little.  Mines, breeding pits...they
may not eat humanity, but they'll rape half of it and work the other
half to death."  She shivered.  "And Mother approves of that."

	Even an eternity with Ritsuko would be no good if it meant being part
of that.  "You're right, sempai," she said softly.  "I wouldn't mind
spending forever with you, but not like that."

	"There is no such thing as forever," Ritsuko said harshly.  "That's
nothing but a delusion."  Her voice now softened.  "But I would gladly
spend the rest of my years with you, Maya.  Unless we are lucky,
however, that will be more like the rest of my minutes."  She sighed.
"I am sorry, you would not be stuck here if not for me."

	"While there is life, there is hope," Maya said.  "If we're going to
die anyway, we have nothing to lose by trying to escape."

	Ritsuko nodded.  She placed herself by the door, holding two of the
sharp knives for cutting the fish.  "Come in!" she shouted.

	Naoko walked in.  "What is..."

	Then the knives plunged into her eyes.

	"I will die a woman instead of a thing," Ritsuko said, pulling out
the knives and slashing Naoko's throat with them.  Naoko made gurgling
noises and slowly fell down, clutching at her throat as blood poured
everywhere.  Maya stepped forward, but Ritsuko waved her back and kept
stabbing until Naoko's blood was rising everywhere in streamers,
obstructing vision and spreading out to darken the water.

	"It's just like you, Mother, that the one time you do something nice
for me, I have to kill you."  Ritsuko was shaking and laughing
hysterically.  "You're a monster.  I did the right thing..."  She was
crying and laughing at once and this scared Maya more than any of the
physical transformations ever had.  "Damn you, Mother.  Damn you."

	Maya forced herself past her fear to hug Ritsuko, though Ritusko
quickly shook herself loose and now Maya felt some of the blood wash
onto her, staining her soggy clothing.

	"We can't stay.  We must go, even if we don't know where to go."

	They started running, but very quickly, a horn blew and increasing
numbers of Deep Ones began to chase them.  They swam as fast as they
could, but the Deep Ones were in their element, abandoning the habit
of walking to swim after them.  More moved ahead to road block them
and they found themselves trapped at a four way intersection.

	"This is the end, I'm sorry," Ritsuko said softly.

	"There is no one I would rather die with than you," Maya said,
swishing around the table knife she'd taken with her, in a manner she
hoped was menacing.

	"I would rather die and you live but if we must both die, then to die
with you by my side is best," Ritsuko said.  "I...I love you, Maya."

	"I love you too, Ritsuko," Maya said softly, then quickly kissed her,
though the goo in her mouth and nose got in the way and it ended up
like trying to kiss through jelly.  An entire jar of it.

	The Deep Ones were approaching, but oddly slowly.  Why weren't they
finishing this?  Ritsuko tried to figure it out, but unless they
feared...

	They must fear I possess some of Mother's lore and will do something
hideous to the first to attack, she thought.

	Ritsuko began babbling, half-remembered fragments of words.  "Y'nagg
Achtir'neh K'ylagh Brazzt Mic'ir'los!" she shouted and waved her hands
in a wide arc.  Her own veins seemed to ignite and she gave a blood
curdling howl of pain, praying she hadn't just killed herself somehow.

	Then a voice spoke in her mind, a woman's voice, one she'd known
somewhere, some time, hadn't she?  BRK'NAK.  And the burning in her
veins ceased.

	And now the Deep Ones staggered, howling and clutching their heads,
eyes rolling back as they fell to the ground writhing. Soon were they
were still; though clearly alive, as their gills worked busily.

	Be not afraid, the voice whispered in Ritsuko and Maya's minds.  You
have fought valiantly and well and in the new world, virtue will be
rewarded as it was not in this one.  Now rest.

	Exhaustion took Maya and Ritsuko as they stared around in confusion
and tried to figure out if they were going crazy.  Maya landed on
Ritsuko and then there was only silence and the working of many gills.

**************

	SEELE had gathered for its moment of triumph.  More precisely, they
were meeting virtually, each of them esconsced in their own place of
power, but projecting their images magically or electronically to a
single location, where Keel Lorenz sat at the head of the table
enjoying the fruits of centuries of work.  He had sustained himself
through the lore of SEELE in a variety of ways, defying the passage of
time -- stealing bodies, being resurrected by the same ancient alchemy
Fuyutsuki had once used to revive Gendo when Gendo had first died,
rejuvenating those bodies which had proven most useful by arcane
means, whatever worked.

	He had even been forced to turn to cybernetics to sustain himself
after Second Impact; the alchemical resurrection had brought him back
afterwards, but was warped and twisted by the energies he had
absorbed, forcing them to cut away portions of his flesh and replace
them with metal.  When his God triumphed, when the world was remade,
then he would be given new flesh.  True immortality for himself and
all the leaders of Seele.  The technicians stood by for the moment of
triumph.  Finally he would be free of these clumsy, aging, dying
shells he had haunted for so long.

	He could feel the power of his God in the air, feel the visions which
rushed through his mind and those of his compatriots.  They sat
silently, lost in ecstasy as they experienced visions of their
Master's home and his triumph over the Children.

	It was the greatest pleasure he'd ever experienced.  The greatest
imaginable.  His body was too dried up for any sort of sexual release,
indeed, it just barely functioned, as he'd neglected it in the rush of
work needed to get to this day.  And after so long, even the arcane
was failing him in terms of life extension, and technology could only
do so much.

	Except then...

	There was a presence, a woman.  He could see her in his mind's eyes,
standing in the middle of the visions his Master gave him, though she
could not be seen with his physical eyes.  She blazed with light,
light that forced him to his knees within his mind.  The AT-Field
pinned him in place and she stepped into the cockpit of his mind and
he knew her.

	Ikari Yui, the wife of Gendo, who had died in the first experiments
with Unit00.  Or so they all had thought.  And in the knowing, his
mental speaking of her name, she took the mastery over him, totally
and completely, casting him down from the seat of his reason, to
grovel before her, wicked and withered.  For she wielded the
Violator's power now, along with that of many other gods.  This vision
of glory and triumph was only an illusion she had fed them to keep
them from being aware of her victory until it was too late.

	He tried to rise up but he could not; she held him down with
contemptuous ease, and then she took command of his physical form,
raising his withered hands into the sign known as the Dragon's Tail
descending.  Then, slowly, painfully, she forced his lips to move in
the ancient formula whose first half had helped to return him from the
grave so many times.

                                        OGTHROD AI'F

 	He grovelled before her on the floor inside his mind as she spoke
through him in the world of flesh.  "No!  Please!  Mercy!"

                                           GEB'L-EE'H

	With the second word, his body froze in the sign of the Dragon's
Tail, but all his allies were lost in imaginary ecstasies, unable to
percieve his plight.

                                        YOG-SOTHOTH

 	The Dread Name of Yog-Sothoth echoed through his mind and through
the meeting room, but none could hear it, though his allies felt a
nameless dread overcome them, even in the middle of the dream-forged
ecstasies of victory which still shielded them from the deadly truth.
Unseen by any, tiny bubbles began to rise out of his clothing and his
body began to twist and bend, shrinking in on itself, limbs
contorting.  Several fingers fell off and his visor now burned with
tiny stars.

                                         'NGAH'NG AI'Y

	The fourth word echoed and the room shook and his body fell to the
floor, parts of it swelling hideously, others shrinking and yet others
crumbling to dust.  The stars blazed in his visor and shone before his
vision within the dream, and now all doubt was gone, the ecstasy
shattered and he saw the great starry void and the tiny bubbles of
light within it, the pleasant dreams of all his ancient allies, all
the masters of SEELE, and the strings which connected them and
billions of other dreams in a great web, and at its center sat a
throne and on the throne sat Ikari Yui clad in glory, wearing the
rainment of the stars.  Upon her brow was a crown of orichalcum and
set into it were stars and planets and galaxies and her eyes blazed
with fire and ice.

	"Mercy," he begged.  "I can serve you well."

	Flanking the throne were two men, and he knew them as well and in the
knowing, he knew there could be no mercy for him or for any within
SEELE.  "TRAITORS!" he shouted.  "You will..."

	And his lips in the physical world betrayed him.

                                                ZHRO!
	
	And with that final syllable, the body of Keele Lorenz, the Ancient
of Days, the Eldest of Men, crumbled away into a fine blue-grey
powder. A few cybernetic parts sat atop the dust, caving in on
themselves as the gravity of a thousand tiny stars tore them apart.
And then the lights winked out and there was only darkness, and the
agonized howling of the rest of SEELE as fate took them.

	DOOM came to SEELE.

****

	For in the end, none may resist she who sits upon the throne, the
Hearthstone of the Ceremony of Innocence, the Queen of Light and
Darkness, the Victor of the Game of the Gods, the new Soul of the
Elder Gods.

	And she spoke her command.  LET THERE BE A NEW HEAVEN AND A NEW EARTH.

	As she commanded, so it would be, for there were none to resist her,
no not one.

	And she looked upon her works and judged that they were good.

	Goddess is in her heaven...all's right with the world.

***

	Shinji stood on the deck of the UNSS Darwin, staring out at the
stars. They were so crystal clear here in space without the atmosphere
distorting them.  You could breathe in space, thanks to...the stuff he
hadn't actually paid enough attention to when Asuka was trying to tell
him because of how pretty she was.

	Her father, Pieter Langley, was here at the wheel of the ship,
staring off into space as sailors of the United Nations Space Service
hustled about the ship doing sailor things - which Shinji knew he
ought to know by now, but much of it was rather strange to him.

	Asuka was up in the crow's nest, observing the movements out beyond
Saturn.  Was it a fleet?  And if it was, was it friendly?  That was
the question on everyone's mind.

	He could hardly believe she'd talked him into stowing away on the
ship and he really couldn't believe they had actually gotten away with
it. Of course, it meant being put to a ton of scutwork, since he
hadn't been training to enter the Space Service from youth the way
Asuka had; but he was off shift now - and thankfully, Asuka's father
liked him - so he got to hang out here and watch them move out beyond
the orbit of Saturn.

	"Father, it's definitely a fleet.  They're armed, but they don't
appear to be particularly preparing for battle," Asuka's voice came
down to them from their earpieces.  "They're flying a flag of an angel
silhouetted against the moon, which is held up by an elk and a hound
rampant."

	"What do they look like?" Asuka's father asked.

	"They look human," Asuka said, confused.  "Surely aliens shouldn't
look just like us, should they?"

	Then she said to Shinji, "Wake up, you idiot, we're late for school!"

	"What?" Shinji asked in confusion.

	There is no school in space, which was half the reason he'd let
himself be talked into stowing away on the Darwin before its launch.

	"WAKE UP!"  Suddenly an earthquake broke out.

	Then Shinji opened his eyes and Asuka was standing over him, shaking
him as he laid in bed in his pajamas.  "Wake up, Shinji!  We'll be
late for school!  Rei is probably already there and is going to make
fun of us again!"

	"Rei never makes fun of anyone," Shinji mumbled as Asuka physically
lifted him out of bed and carried him to the door to his bathroom.  "I
can walk, you know," he said.

	"Too slow," she said.  "I will pack your stuff while you get clean so
I don't have to smell you all the way to school."

	"Hey!" he said as she put him down inside and closed the door.

	He quickly took a shower, discovering somehow his uniform and some
underwear and socks had migrated into the bathroom while he was
showering.

	So he got dressed and came outside just in time for Asuka to slap his
backpack on him, then take him by the hand and pull him down the
hallway, down the stairs and into the dining room where she grabbed
the paper plate with his breakfast on it.

	Shinji's father, Ikari Gendo, looked up from his newspaper, his
breakfast untouched and slowly cooling.  He was trying to reach for a
cup of coffee, but it wasn't where his hand thought it was.  "Hello,
Asuka-chan, Shinji-kun.  You'd best hurry."  His hand continued to
fumble around, trying to find the coffee without him looking.

	"Good morning, Gendo-san, Yui-san," Asuka said.  "Don't mind us, we
have a train to catch."

	The woman across the table from Gendo pushed the coffee over to his
hand.  "You'd better hurry or you'll miss first period and get
detention again," Ikari Yui, Shinji's mother, said, smiling.  She now
turned to covering her waffles with syrup while her crossword puzzle
of the day sat ready with a pen awaiting her pleasure once she
finished prepping her food.

	"God in Heaven, don't remind me!" Asuka said, speeding up.  They
blazed out the door and into the street with Shinji desperately trying
to eat while running full tilt.

	"We'd be in space right now if you hadn't wussed out," Asuka grumbled
as they headed up the steps of the train station.

	"Mother would have worried about me the whole time," he said
defensively, eating the last bites of peach and tossing the paper
plate into a garbage can as they ran past. He wished this didn't
happen so often; lately his mother had just started putting his
breakfast on a paper plate, so he could throw it out at the station.

	"What's the point of knowing about a TOP SECRET space mission if you
can't stow away on it?" Asuka demanded as they ran for the train.

	The train was pulling out of the station, so they poured on the
speed.  Dust kicked up around their feet and people grabbed their hats
and newspapers as the two blazed forward and jumped onto the back of
the train, then climbed up onto the top to ride there.

	"Just once I'd like to ride to school inside the train," Shinji said.
 "I hear it's very nice."

	"Don't act like this was MY IDEA," Asuka said.  "You're the one who
sleeps in, dreaming all the time."  She sighed, then took his hand.
"But isn't it kind of cool to see everything go by and be just the two
of us?"

	"Yeah," he said, smiling.  "I can handle anything when you're with me."

	Her hair whipped wildly in the air and she laughed, happy to be
alive. This might not be space, but she'd rather be on Earth with
Shinji than in space without him.

***

	Touji walked down the street with Hikari, busy dribbling a basketball
and doing tricks with it.  It slowed them down a bit, but Hikari
didn't mind; she knew he loved showing off how good he was and seeing
him so happy made her happy.

	And unlike people she wouldn't name, she always made sure Touji got
up in time so they could leave with plenty of time for a long
leisurely walk.  Instead of a mad, desperate flight for their lives to
make it to school on time.

	"I picked out the movie for this Friday," he said.  "You are free, right?"

	"Yes," she said.  It was his turn; she prayed it would not feature
explosions and bullets.  But they each took turns picking and paying
for it, so fair was fair.  She braced for explosions.

	"Full Court Showdown!  It's a basketball movie," he said.  "Zat good with you?"

	"Great," she said, smiling.  Sports movies were okay.  Not as good as
a love story, but much better than two weeks ago when she got stuck
watching "Stack Them To the Ceiling III" - though at least that had
been a group outing.  Unfortunately, Asuka had also voted for Stack
Them To the Ceiling III, so she and Anna and Rei had lost 4-3... since
Asuka had, as usual, gotten Shinji to go along with her.  That Touji
and Kensuke would endorse Stack Them To the Ceiling III was pretty
much inevitable.
	
	There was now a noise behind them rather like a thundering herd of
elephants.  This could only mean one thing.

	"Yo, Shinji, hi!" Touji shouted.

	"Hello, Asuka and Shinji," Hikari said to them.

	"Guten Tag!," Asuka shouted cheerfully.  She'd been living in Japan
for years, ever since her father had been chosen for the United
Nations Space Service, which had one of its major bases here near
Tokyo.

	The UNSS had been created after the most important event in modern
history--The Second Tunguska Incident.  On September 22, 1999, an
alien space ship had crashed into the Tunguska swamp and been
recovered by US and Russian scientists.  Its discovery had led to a
variety of massive technological advances - many of them
nigh-incomprehensible to the average person - and the creation of the
United Nations Space Service.

	For nearly seven years, USSS ships had been cruising around and
exploring the Solar System.  Shinji, Asuka, and all their friends had
all been drawn to Tokyo because their parents were involved with the
program.

	Hikari was very proud of Japan's role in the Space Service, and glad
it existed; it had brought all of her friends together, from Japan and
from other countries too.

	Even if it sometimes meant putting up with Anna's younger brother Oscar.

	Asuka now grabbed Touji's basketball and started dribbling it as she
ran at high speed.  "Hah!  You stink!" she said.

	"Give it back!" Touji said, running after her.  He was about to get
it when she passed it to Shinji.  How a boy as skinny and scrawny
looking as Shinji could move so fast, Touji didn't know.

	But Touji didn't intend to give up either.  "Hikari, cover the Kraut!
 I'm goin' in!"

	"I AM NOT FOOD!" Asuka shouted as Hikari moved to cover her.

	"Sorry, Asuka," Hikari said, doing her best to block any return passes.

	Asuka laughed.  "That's fine with me," she said.  "Competition makes
us all stronger!"

	Shinji was trying to find Touji, and suddenly Touji was in his face
and on his case and stealing his basketball.  But Shinji managed to
knock it out of his hands and it went flying wildly.  Hikari jumped
and got it, then took off in the lead with all of them laughing as
they raced through the gates of Tokyo Space Academy, the school where
the children of the pilots and support crews of the UNSS all attended,
a huge international polyglot facility.

	They soon reached room 1-A, their class. Their homeroom teacher, Frau
Doktor Himmelfarb - Biology Teacher, and vastly overqualified for her
job - was here, setting up some sort of fancy TV with Kensuke's eager
assistance; while Anna sat at her desk, frantically finishing her
homework.

	Rei pushed her glasses up her nose as they came in, smiling a little
and putting down her copy of William James' Principles of Psychology.
"Hello, everyone," she said quietly.  Her voice was rarely raised,
unless perhaps she grew enthusiastic in answering a question.

	"Ya gotta save my ass, Rei.  Hikari's damn psycho-cat ate my notes
from yesterday while I was trying to fix her bike," Touji said to her
desperately.  "I need a copy of yours.  Mine sucked anyway, so maybe
this was a blessing."

	"I would be happy to..." Rei began.

	Hikari grabbed him by the ear.  "I offered you mine and you said
no!," she said, pulling him back.

	"Oww!  Leggo!  I needed really good notes, oh god LET GO!" he said as
she twisted his ear around.

	Asuka laughed and laughed and laughed as she sat down two chairs over
from Rei, with Shinji in the chair in between them.

	"Should I go make copies for both of you?" Rei asked Shinji.

	"Oh, yes, please, I'm afraid I fell asleep during math yesterday,"
Shinji said.  "So I only have a page of facial impressions to study."

	"I will make a copy of..." Asuka began.

	"MY EAR!" Touji howled as Herr Doktor Himmelfarb turned to everyone.

	"That's enough, children.  Sit down and stop mutilating each other."
Her voice was strict and everyone darted to their seat.

	"Today, we begin our Xenobiology Unit.  As you may know, I was among
those who studied the life forms discovered in the Second Tunguska
Incident, also known as Second Impact, before the powers that be
decided my talents would best be used teaching junior high students
biology."  It was clear she found this disappointing, but everyone was
used to her being unhappy about it.  Her presence, however, made Anna,
Asuka, and several other German students very happy, as they had known
her for a long time.  And she really was a very good teacher.

	So they never asked themselves why she was here teaching a junior high class.

	She flicked on the TV and images appeared, showing what rather
resembled a cat made out of some kind of neon tubing twisted around in
many folds.  "So far as we can tell, the assault of these creatures
led to the death of the crew of the space ship found at Tunguska.
They appear to be native to Saturn..."

	This got the children's attention, given all of them were kin to
someone involved in the 'Recon Mission to Saturn' that only Shinji and
Asuka knew was actually going to be First Contact.

	Hopefully not with these cats.

	Still, they were all pretty optimistic.  Humanity had entered what
seemed to be a Golden Age ever since the discoveries that came from
the Second Tunguska Incident.  What could possibly go wrong now?

	"So this is Toonces' family," Touji said.

	"Please keep your juvenile humor to yourself, Mr. Suzuhara," Frau
Doktor Himmelfarb said.  "Now, these creatures seem to trigger some
primal instinct of hatred in Earth cats..."
	
***

	Makoto finished off his rice and vegetables; he'd already eaten his
fish.  As he finished off his tea, he noted that Akane STILL was in
bed.  How she had ever met any deadlines before they started dating,
he didn't know.  She had several thousand more words to churn out by
Friday.

	He put the dishes in the sink then went back to their bedroom.  She
was sprawled naked under the covers, fumbling about with one arm
trying to find him.  Which wasn't going so well, given he'd risen an
hour ago for breakfast and his shower.

	He shook her gently, then kissed her awake.  "Hey, honey, better get
up before I get home for lunch, or you'll never make that deadline."

	She yawned.  "Getting up alone is boring," she mumbled.

	"I know, I had to do it myself," he said.  "I'm off to work.  Did you
finally decide how it ends?"

	"The Prefecture Governor's wife punches him in the face for cheating
on her, then runs off with his mistress into the sunset, proclaiming
eternal love."

	"..."

	Akane giggled.  "Seriously, he resigns and goes to Brazil to be with
his lover, and his wife robs him blind in the divorce settlement, but
he doesn't care because he's finally happy with the one he loves."

	"It sounded like you were taking ideas from your fans again," Makoto
said, kissing her one more time.  "I've really got to go."

	"Now, now, you know I NEVER read the fansites for legal reasons to
avoid lawsuits.  Never, ever," she said, then laughed and got out of
bed, which is what he'd been waiting for.  "I'm going to go shower."

	"See you, my love," he said, and headed out.

	She took a leisurely shower, then stared at herself in the mirror,
smiling.  She'd never been as happy before as she was now.  I didn't
think I could settle down with anyone, she thought, but somehow, it
had just all worked out with Makoto.  She tapped the golden squiggle
on her cheek; the Golden Sign, they called it, an ancient symbol of
good luck.  Getting a tattoo of it had certainly brought her good
fortune.

	Unfortunately, once she finally got this book done, she'd have to go
on another tour.  Which would be fun, but his job meant he couldn't
travel around with her, which she would have preferred.  But he never
complained about her travels, and the absence would make the return
all the sweeter.

	Time to go type naked, she thought, laughing.

	She loved working from home.

***

	Akagi Systems Engineering was crammed full of hard-working people;
ever since UNSS had commissioned the creation of three massive
inter-linked bio-computers, they had been working their asses off.
But they were all very proud of their work.

	Makoto just wished the interior crawlspaces had better ventilation.
The interior always smelled like a mixture of brine and wet cat.  How
Maya and Dr. Akagi could scramble around in here as if it smelled like
springtime cherry blossoms, he'd never understand.

	Indeed, most people couldn't handle it for long, which was one of the
reasons he worked under Dr. Akagi's direct supervision with Maya on
the internal work.  Dr. Akagi sat on a metal shelf above them with a
laptop, communicating with the main hardware team by headset and
giving orders to Maya and Makoto to make adjustments.

	Dr. Akagi's long green hair had been pulled up into a bun as usual
during work, though as always, a few stray locks escaped.  "Section 58
is getting too much nutrient, while Sections 43 and 12 are getting too
little.  Maya, check Section 12's filter, Makoto check 43, I will
climb up and check 58."

	The bio-computers were alive.  Unfortunately, they were STILL
struggling with keeping them all fed properly, as the more they
worked, the more they ate and the filters seemed to clog up far too
often, leading to starvation or even death.  He was reminded of the
problems with vaccum tubes burning out constantly in Eniac, the first
computer.

	But Eniac was a digital wrist-watch compared to the complexity and
power of the MAGI, the three super-bio-computers based on salvaged
technology from the Second Tunguska Incident.  Once completed... if
ever completed... the MAGI would vastly speed the rate of study and
comprehension of the new technologies and be useable for a nearly
infinite number of problems.  Smaller versions would become standard
on future ships.

	For all that Makoto spent much of his time breathing in stink and
climbing around like a monkey switching filters, moving cables, and
rewiring things, he knew he was making history by his work.  And Dr.
Akagi was a great boss and Maya was a good friend to him.

	He could hardly have been happier, and as far as he could tell, the
same applied to them.

***

	Gendo and Yui clinked their glasses together, enjoying the view of
Tokyo from the restaurant atop the Tokyo Tower.  You could see the
whole city from here and far beyond; those keen eyed enough could even
spot their son's school, if they knew where to look.  They were busy
looking at the Imperial Gardens, which they planned to hit next.
They'd both taken the day off because they could.  They could do
whatever they pleased, in this, the world they'd always hoped for.

	"I am the happiest man on Earth," Gendo said, his face lit up with a
warm smile."

	His wife smiled back at him and sipped her wine.  "And I the most
fortunate of women," Yui said, then began cutting up her yakinasu.

	Gendo ate a little of his harusame salad, then worked on his tempura.
 Finally, he said, "You know, I've never been to the Imperial Gardens
in all my years of life."

	"We finally can do all the things we had to sacrifice to save the
world," she said.  "Finally live the lives we were MEANT to have."

	"Yes," he said, then sipped his wine and ate some of his fried pork.
"Though if this was the very best of all possible worlds, Shinji would
have better grades."

	Yui sighed.  "There are limits, I think, to every kind of power."

	They both laughed and Gendo said, "It's nice to have such small worries."

	"Yes," she said, and began gobbling up her eggplant.  "It's been so
long since I had a good yakinasu."

	"May I have a bite?  I haven't had a good one ever since the last
time you made it for me."

	They both looked melancholy for a moment, but then she snared a piece
with her chopsticks and passed it to him.  He ate it quickly.  "Very
good."

	As they sampled each other's food, JNN (Japanese News Network) played
in the background, discussing the massive outbreak of fire in Lima,
Peru, but they were too busy having fun to notice.

********

	"Alright, boys and girls, it's time for SOCCER," Coach Kaji said cheerfully.

	"Soccer sucks compared to basketball," Touji complained.

	"Too bad for you then," Coach Misato said dismissively.  "Two team
captains, Asuka and Touji.  Each of you pick a team, taking turns."

	Asuka soon ended up with all the women except Hikari, along with
Shinji.  Touji got Hikari and all the boys.  This didn't really
surprise anyone as it was what usually happened when those two were in
charge.

	"Time to crush those weaklings, right, Anna?" Asuka said cheerfully
to her best female friend.  She and Anna had come over from Germany
together; they'd known each other since they were tiny.

	Anna pushed her glasses up her nose.  They glittered, hiding her
eyes.  "Victory WILL be ours."

	"I'm gonna make a reuben out of you!" Touji said, looking proud of himself.

	"What the hell does that mean?" Asuka demanded.

	"Language, young lady," Coach Kaji said, waggling a finger.  "Only
athletes who make millions are allowed to set a bad example for the
kids."  He laughed.

	Coach Misato said, "What's your excuse, Kaji?" and stuck her tongue out at him.

	But they both laughed cheerfully.

	"I think he is referring to a kind of sandwich with sauerkraut on
it," Hikari said apologetically to Asuka.

	"A KRAUT SANDWICH, WITH SAUSAGE," Touji said triumphantly, then began laughing.

	"You want to put your sausage in Asuka?" Kensuke asked impishly.

	There was a deep and terrible silence.

	Shinji licked his lips nervously, looking over at Rei, who smiled at
him shyly.  This was going to turn into another one of those games
which got wrecked by a little too much fighting spirit.

	Asuka said, "IN YOUR DREAMS, BASKETBOY!"

	Before the riot could start, Coach Kaji and Coach Misato got everyone
into a starting position for the game.

	Only Rei noticed Coach Kaji didn't cast a shadow like Coach Misato,
even in the brightest light.  But it must be an optical illusion,
right.  Not worth worrying about.

	Touji charging right at her kicking the ball...

	That was worth worrying about.

****

	"Random seasons are a pain.  Weather needs to be simple and
predictable to help people live their lives, while maintaining the
balances necessary to the ecology," Yui said, then ate some of her
cream anmitsu.

	Gendo, being the sort of man he was, had chocolate instead of vanilla
in his cream anmitsu, which drew a few stares.  But he liked it like
that.  "Sounds reasonable to me," he said.

	Fuyutsuki frowned over his cup of coffee.  He had a nice bean pastry
but didn't eat cream anmitsu any more as it seemed too childish to
him.  Not when anyone was LOOKING, anyway.  "Do any of us have the
knowledge of meteorology to actually do it right?"

	"Well, it would require some study," Yui said, frowning.

	"If we're not careful, we'll break people's belief too much and
everything may unravel," Fuyutsuki said, then sipped his coffee.

	"Well, we can remove the global warming effects easily enough; people
don't look gift horses in the mouth," Gendo said.  "The scientists
will notice, but they still don't fully understand the weather
anyway."

	Yui concentrated for a moment, and a nice cool breeze rolled in.  She
smiled a little.

	Fuyutsuki rubbed his forehead and drank his coffee, but said nothing.

	"Okay, most weather on hold.  Let's talk about Africa," Yui said,
moving onto the next topic.

	Fuyutsuki ordered three more bean pastries; this would take a while.

****

	Touji was worn out and ready for bed.  He flopped down, not even
bothering to change into something for sleeping or even to pull back
the sheets.  Soon, he was fast asleep.

	But not for long, as he heard a bumping noise downstairs.  A burglar?
 He crept out of his room and down the hallway to the top of the
stairs.  What he saw was a trio of malformed dogs; one had two heads,
one had a face on the side of its torso and one had six legs.  They
were ripping up and eating a five-legged dear which was purple.

	For a few seconds, he stared blankly.  What the hell was this?  And
why were they inside the house?

	Then he heard the sound of breaking glass and a door falling down and
the sound of more animals coming in.

	Crap.  He ran down the hallway and pounded on his father's door.  The
door swung open, revealing a pack of monkeys with snakes for tails and
the heads of wolverines feasting on his father's entrails.  Two of
them looked at him and barked loudly.

	"You bastards!"  he said, then charged at them.  The first punch sent
one of them out the window and he grabbed a second and began beating
the others to death with it in a frenzy of rage.

	Until his father's entrails moved like snakes and grabbed him,
pulling him down.  "What the fuck!" he shouted, and then he could
hardly breathe.

	Have to get away.  Have to get away!  He was desperate to escape.

	And then the world dissolved away in a spray of foam and he found
himself down the street from his house; deformed mutant animals were
swarming through the neighborhood.  Worse, he could see something
coming for him.  A huge tide of blackish liquid shot through with
veins of silver, the surface of it shimmering with bursts of rainbow
that came and went as it moved past or engulfed street lights.  It
gibbered from a hundred thousand mouths, constantly forming and
reabsorbing limbs and organs.  At times, more deformed creatures
erupted from it and at other times it devoured its own spawn.

	COME TO ME COME TO ME FROM WHICH YOU CAME, it commanded and he
started to walk towards it, unable to resist its call.

	The animals parted to let him by; he struggled to escape but his will
was too weak to command his limbs.  He could see his sister's severed
head now stalking around with long spidery limbs extending from the
base of her neck; small creatures stuck to the hairs on the limbs and
she would contort about to devour them; slowly, a bloated sack of
flesh was growing under her, the legs spreading out around its
perimeter, her still mostly human head perched on top.

	"Father!" she cried out in an ecstasy as she devoured her way through
the swarms of twisted creatures.

	Touji could hear death all around him as he drew ever closer to the
great bloated sea of death from which all life on Earth once came.
His sister's happy cries as she fed made him want to puke, but his
body wouldn't even obey its instincts to vomit.  He strode steadily
towards his master, his father, Adam, ready to return to the womb to
be devoured and reborn.

	Adam rose up over him like a great tide, and inside his head, Touji
was screaming in terror.  GET ME OUT OF HERE.

	Fire erupted everywhere and the world started to go foamy, even as
Adam crashed down on him like a Tsunami, and then the world dissolved
away and he found himself on a desert island, the sun glaring down at
him, butt naked, chunks of his flesh simply gone, blood pouring out of
him and the last thing he ever did was to scream in agony.

	And then his father said, "Dammit, boy, if you keep waking us up
every night screaming, we're all going to die of exhaustion.  Or I'll
wreck on the way to work or something."

	Touji opened his eyes and his sister and his father, both in their
pajamas were staring at him, while he was somehow butt naked.  In a
panic, he pulled the sheets up.  "It was a nightmare!"

	"Every night, you wake us up screaming," his father said, yawning.
"Get over it."

	Touji groaned. This had been going on for a week.  At least he hadn't
woken up in Hikari's bed somehow this time.  His ass was still sore
from the beating her father had given him.  "I'm tryin'," he said.

	His sister patted his head.  "I keep telling you, drink some warm
milk and you'll be fine."

	"Allergic," Touji said grumpily.

	"Well, maybe the gas and sickness would keep you too busy to have a
nightmare," his father said, then sighed.  "Let's all get back to
sleep."

	Touji eventually managed to sleep.

***

	Rei stumbled blearily out of bed and went to her bathroom and took a
shower, then went to try and make herself presentable for school.
However, something was wrong with her face in the mirror. She was
pretty sure she didn't normally have flaming eyes, with some kind of
pentagram-rune things glowing blue over them; nor did she normally
have fangs and claws, and the third eye was right out.

	The mirror-Rei spoke.  "Rei, you have to listen to me, before
everything goes to hell."

	Rei stared, eyes wide.  I must be dreaming.

	"You're not dreaming, Rei.  I am you and you are me, but we've been
split apart.  They're coming back, Rei.  They're not dead, just
sleeping.  Because of what Yui did.  Did to us.  Did to everyone."
The monster-Rei's voice was urgent.  But it also made Rei's skin
crawl.  That wasn't her.  She wasn't a monster, she was a cute, sweet
young girl who people liked.  Not a hideous beast who hurt people.

	"You have to wake up, Rei.  This is a beautiful dream, but there are
nightmares trapped inside it, and soon they will destroy everything.
You need me.  We can fight this together, but alone, we can't do it,"
the mirror-Rei said desperately.

	"No, this isn't a dream!  You're not me and this is the reality!  I
can't be you again!  I can't!" Rei said desperately.  "You hurt Asuka!
 You did terrible things to her!  You just want to destroy my
happiness again!"

	"No, wait!" mirror-Rei said, but Rei turned and fled, trying to get
as far away from the monster as possible.

	She had to get away.  Far, far away, where no one would remember the
things she...the monster in the mirror, not her...had done.  Or they
would hate her.  She...it...it was terrible.  A liar.  It just wanted
to wreck everything like it always did.

	She fled without looking back.

********

	Touji felt better in the morning and sat and stuffed his face with
rice and fish.  His sister had woken up early and cooked them a
traditional breakfast.  His father was watching the news as they ate.

	"Tragedy in Osaka," the newsman reported.  "Fire destroyed an entire
city block, apparently set by a crazed serial killer who also
dismembered an unfortunate family.  Their names are being kept
unrevealed to allow their kin to mourn in peace.  The killer also
scattered bits of dead animals everywhere before burning to death in
his own inferno.  Investigation continues."

	"Ugh," Touji's sister said, looking up from her food.

	"Five will get you ten the police accidentally set the block on fire
trying to stop the guy," Touji's father said, grimacing.

	The footage of the burned buildings looked a lot like Touji's own
neighborhood.  But of course, all these bulk housing developments
looked alike.

	Were those dead monkeys?  Surely not.

	Touji rubbed his forehead and decided it had to be all a coincidence.
 I can't shoot fire or teleport around and there are no giant black
slime monsters that spawn mutant freaks.

	Just a dream.  A freaky dream.

********.

	Shinji was very worried when Rei missed first period and second and
half of third, creeping into class right in the middle of a math
lecture.  Though as he would expect, she immediately answered a
question the teacher asked the class.

	At lunch time, he and Asuka pulled her aside.  "What happened?" Shinji asked.

	"It was terrible.  This horrible thing was in my mirror, pretending
to be me," Rei said, shivering.  "It wanted to take me over, to make
me a monster like it."

	Shinji put a hand on her shoulder.  "It's okay.  It was just a dream.
 There are no monsters in mirrors.  I've had some weird dreams myself,
lately."  Though his were of sailing with Asuka in space to meet the
incoming fleet from beyond the solar system.

	Asuka put a hand on Rei's other shoulder.  Rei started crying and
Asuka took her hand off, worried, but Shinji took Asuka's hand and put
it back on Rei's shoulder.  "It's okay," Asuka said. "There may be
monsters in outer space, like those cat monster things, but the
closest thing to a monster in this city is Touji."

	"I HEARD THAT!" Touji shouted across the room.

	Rei half-giggled and half-cried, then leaned on Shinji and Asuka.
She felt better with them.  Safer.  She was meant to be with them, she
was sure of it.  They always made her feel better.

	Pretty soon, she felt much better.  It had just been a nightmare,
that was all.  Just a bad dream.

	"Let's get some lunch," Asuka said kindly to her, helping her up and
they went off to get some food.  Rei was hungry enough to eat a horse.

	But a cute girl like her would never do that, of course.

*************

	Asuka liked to watch the news when she and Shinji did homework
together.  He tended to find it distracting, but he put up with it for
her sake.  "And now, let's go to George Marlin on location in
Oklahoma," CNN anchorman Katherine Blake said.

	The camera opened on a scene of devastation.  Corpses of CNN
journalists were strewn across a parking lot and George Marlin was
laughing maniacally as he hacked at the corpses with an axe, ranting
about black serpents with eyes of flame.

	Blake stared, mouth open wide, then the split screen went blank and a
sign appeared 'We are experiencing technical difficulties.'

	Shinji and Asuka stared and switched over to Japan International News
Network to see if they had any coverage.  JINN featured ace reporter
Kunzama Megumi.  "It's chaos here in Rotterdam at the mouth of the
Rhine River.  There are massive reports of fishmen raiding boats and
many claim a giant fishman rose out of the sea and invaded the Red
Light District, carrying off many of the prostitutes."

	"Rotterdam is not at the mouth of the Rhine!  It's at the mouth of
the New Meuse, dummkopf!  The Rhine splits and merges with several
other rivers into a huge delta!  Don't you know ANYTHING about
geography?" Asuka ranted at the TV.

	Shinji was more worried about the fishmen.  Were they aliens from
another planet somehow slipped past the UN Space Fleet?  And what was
going on in Oklahoma?

	Asuka switched over to BBC International.

	"King Charles III has been tied to one of the pillars of Stonehenge,
but the army is quite sure they can rescue him before he is sacrificed
by a group of cultists who claim to be an ancient order of druids who
worship Diana," Oscar Hamilton, the anchorman, announced.  "The Roman
goddess, not the princess, I am informed.  They assert he must die in
order to restore 'the old ways'."  He sounded dismissive.  "I'm sure
this will end quickly with only a little muss."

	Shinji wasn't so sure.  They kept flicking channel to channel and
each brought new news of trouble around the world, from riots to
fishmen to rabid wolverines.

	"Okay, maybe we'll just switch to a music channel," Asuka said,
frowning.  "This is..."  It fascinated her and made her uncomfortable
at once and she decided to focus on homework before she got frustrated
by things she couldn't do anything about.

	I'm just a kid, she thought.  Which sucked in times like this.  What
was going on?
	
	She wasn't sure if she wanted to know.

************

	At a casual glance, the Blue Sea Cafe would have appeared quite
normal; the fish still swam in the huge aquariums which formed the
walls and cruised between them in large elevated pipes.  You could
still even see several small sharks in the shark room.  The seafood
was still excellent, the tempura continued to deserve its high rating,
and their pastries were to die for if you like bean paste.  It still
had customers and staff.

	But if you observed carefully, you would notice every room but the
shark room was full; there, only a single table was occupied - in the
very middle - and the piano player in the corner was asleep, with
earplugs in his ears.

	Yui, Gendo, and Fuyutsuki were eating shark and mackarel and soba and
tempura.  With a nice bean paste pastry waiting for each of them when
done.  Gendo's had a smiley face on it in icing.  Not his idea.

	"They should be dead," Yui said angrily, stabbing her mackarel with a
knife and cutting fiercely.

	"My auguries say that they live," Gendo said flatly.

	"I fear the pieces of power the Children absorbed are now manifesting
in this world we have made with their power," Fuyutsuki said.  "They
gazed into the Abyss and now it lives inside them."

	Yui grimaced.  "But without that power, mankind can never be safe."

	"So we kill them," Gendo said.  "We've done it before."

	"Yes, but if we do purge them, the Children lose their powers and all
of this reality evaporates," Fuyutsuki said.  "We have to find some
way to contain them, so we can still use them."

	"Once we make first contact with the Kingdom of Joy, it should be
easier to acquire Elder power to try to contain them," Yui said.

	"If that is enough," Gendo said, then ate some soba.

	"It will have to be," Fuyutsuki said.  "The Grand Unity is our only
hope for a world free of invading gods and other horrors.  We can't
destroy these things without destroying it.  But hopefully, we can
imprison them and put them to sleep."  He poked at his tempura.

	"We must move quickly before they gather more strength or the
Children wake up," Yui said.  "Still, we have vast power.  We have to
try."

	They began laying plans.


***************

	"My uncle called," Anna said to everyone before class.  "There are
reports of weird mutated people attacking boats on the Rhine.  And in
the Baltic.  Or possibly Creature from the Black Lagoon otaku
attacking people."  She frowned.

	"All that sour kraut and sausage warped their brains, made them
hallucinate," Kaji said.  He didn't want to think about the dreams or
the rumors he'd heard.

	"Asuka's sausages are usually very good," Shinji said.

	"They are," Hikari said.  "She's a good cook."

	"Thanks," Asuka said, smiling.

	"So, yer saying your sausages bring all the boys in the yard, Asuka?"
Kaji asked, grinning.

	There was about to be another brawl when Rei arrived and said
quietly, "I went and checked with the nurse; we're low on snakebite
antivenoms."

	"Uh, what?" Kaji asked.

	"There's an epidemic of snake attacks in the southwestern United
States.  Which isn't here, but better safe, right?" Rei asked sounding
worried.

	"Yes," Shinji said.  "I'm sure we're fine," he said reassuringly.

	"You're not Indiana Jones; no need to fear snakes," Misato said.
"Come on, kids, time to change for gym class.  And try not to let the
soccer ball bite you."

	She hustled everyone out, though she was worried herself.  But best
they not waste time on things beyond their power, right?

*****************

	Since before the last ice age, Deep Ones dwelled in Kshr'garga, deep
below the waters off the coast of Madagascar.  Some had lived there
the whole time, for they were immortal, though most either go mad or
get eaten (or both) long before that.

	The great sage Uil'or'GR'gas knew something was terribly wrong with
the world.  His dreams no longer were visted by those of his lord and
master, the Sleeping King.  And now, every night, he dreamed of fire.
But what could burn so much to consume their great city?  Unless
perhaps the surface people had a nuke aimed at them?  But he could
find no one who dreamed of such a thing.

	He studied the entrails of the giant penguin he'd gutted for oracular
purposes.  The purple stones in its kidney had to mean something
beyond excessive Vitamin D consumption.  But what could they mean?

	He was still trying to consult the Book of Eibon (his version was
stitched with dyed threads of shark cartilage into tanned whale hide;
it was massive but water-resistant) when flames roared through the
entire complex from three directions.  The Purple Sign sufficed to
repel one jet but not the others; now the water all boiled, turning
the Deep Ones into a really huge, nasty stew.  Or perhaps soup, given
how liquid it was.

	His answer was found only in death, as is so often the case.

******************
	
	"One more menace removed," Yui said to her companions as they watched
Deep Ones boil alive.  It felt strange to talk underwater, even now.

	"Let's land in Johannesburg, check the news," Gendo said.

	A quick bath in galaxies and stars later, they were there, watching
the news in a cafe.

	"Have you seen the yellow sign?" the ad asked.  "Come to Mardi Gras
in New Orleans and find out!"

	"An ad for Mardi Gras in New Orleans in Johannesburg?" Gendo asked dubiously.

	"I cheated a little to make something relevant come up," Yui confessed.

	"We already imprisoned him inside the secret chambers under the Great
Pyramid," Fuyutsuki said, frowning.

	A trip to Egypt revealed he was still there, in fact.  And now they
had a report of an Incan ruin on fire from some kind of 'ball
lightning made of fire.'

	"We imprisoned Cthugha inside Ithiqua and vice-versa by extending
them into fifth dimensional prisons for each other," Yui said,
frowning and cracking her knuckles.

	Gendo winced.

	"Sorry, dear," she said.  "Let's hit New Orleans, then Peru."

******************

	A first casual glance would have shown you this was a teenager party.
 A second glance would make you wonder why the kids were listening to
'Burning Down the House', recorded before they were born by a band
from another country.  A third would show you a mix of German and
Japanese kids.  A fourth would show you that the city was on fire, but
they didn't care.

	The roof caved in as a support burned, leaving a huge flaming pillar
lying at a 45 degree angle; Shinji and Asuka tangoed up it, even as
Rei, Anna, and Kensuke formed a dancing line, doing a series of
advances, kicks, and retreats, nimbly leaping between pieces of
burning roof.  Hikari and Touji spun, clasping each other with one
hand; the other hand of each of them  contained black pitch, which
they tossed onto any fire which ebbed.

	Distantly, people screamed and alarms howled to the beat.  Shinji and
Asuka leaped from pillar top to a car, leaving flaming footprints; the
driver fled screaming as flames rushed along his car and it caught
fire and they moved through the middle, reversing position to be back
to back, fingertips touching.

	They were going for a full court rush when Asuka woke up with Shinji
shaking her shoulder.  She blinked in confusion.  "Shinji?"

	"We have to hurry," he said, picking her up and tossing her in the
bathroom, then throwing in her towel from the floor.  "Get clean, we
have to run."  He was relishing this.

	"Did I..."  She turned the hot water on.

	"Yes, you overslept," he said.

	"I dreamed of dancing in a city on fire," she said as she bathed.

	"Really?" he said.  "Me too. You danced very well."

	She smiled a little; it was kind of nice to share a dream.  Weird as it was.

	She felt less special when Anna told them, "Berlin had some major
fires.  Someone reported arsonist kids spreading pitch and dancing on
burning roofs."

	The many people who had dreamed of this squirmed uncomfortably.  But
surely it was only a dream, right?

	Right?

******************

	Maya, Ritsuko, and Makoto stared at the odd activity report.  "These
processes started themselves, ran, and then stored some - but not all
- of the data generated," Maya said.  "It stopped as soon as the
scheduled 3 AM backup began."

	They spent some time fiddling with the MAGI's systems, then started
playing one of the mystery files. It showed a race car driver, Melvin
Mason, in the Raleigh 500; after a hard-fought race against tough
competitors, he finally pulled ahead to win.

	A quick check showed that the file was time stamped 1:15 AM, hours
before Melvin Mason actually won the Raleigh 500.

	They all stared.  How was this possible?  Many of the generated files
were gobbledygook with talking penguins dating talking dogs, or weird
efforts to splice ads for Pizza Palace with a giant robot show.  But
there were also predictions of the fires in Berlin, and of the tsunami
just now starting to hit Indonesia.

	"How is this possible?" Ritsuko asked, frowning.

	Maya studied a garbled mix of security camera footage of the three of
them, which had been combined with snippets of dialogue and some
music.  "It's like a dream.

	"They can dream?" Ritsuko asked in surprise.  "That wasn't part of the plan."

	"Well, dreams do serve useful functions in real human brains," Maya
said.  "I'm not sure how this happened, though."

	"We need to comb through this. It seemed to predict the winner of
that race and the fires and the tsunami somehow; there may be other
predictions," Makoto said.

	"Surely it's coincidence," Ritsuko said, frowning.

	"Best to take no chances.  We might try staying tonight, observe the
workings, see if we notice something," Makoto said.

	Ritsuko nodded.  "We'll quit early, go nap, then come back around
when it should finish processing tasks and possibly start...dreaming."
 Her voice sounded odd; it felt odd to her.  On the other hand, maybe
they'd advance the science of dreaming; that could get them some
serious grant money and, well, Ritsuko wasn't vain, but she wouldn't
turn down any awards either.

	She smiled a little.  I am being vain, she thought.  But the feeling
of discovery, it was nice; she could see the others were intrigued
too.

	A little mystery would definitely make things more interesting.


******************

	"See, the Liber d'Ivonis indicated that there is this ceremony for
pooling dreams together.  Assuming the translator program worked
right.  So people could have the same dream," Kensuke said.  "It
sounded kind of cool."

	They were at Shinji's house, drinking tea, eating little sandwiches
Yui made for them (salmon, cheese, mustard, yum!) and sort of
studying.  Sort of.

	"That sounds like occult crap to me," Asuka said, frowning.  "Also,
none of us did a ceremony but we had the same dream."

	"Maybe...there is a bond of destiny between us," Rei said hesitantly,
looking at Shinji, then Asuka.

	"It does sometimes feel like we're meant to be together," Shinji
said, then finished his tiny sandwich and got another.

	Rei blushed a little and smiled.

	"So, like, in this liver and ivory thing, did it have instructions or
just vague mystic shi...stuff?" Touji asked dubiously.

	"We could try it maybe Friday, have a big sleep over.  The
instructions looked thorough," Kensuke said.  "Anyway, if we tapped
into the dreams of people who were there, it would explain everything.
 I mean, Asuka was still dreaming this stuff after it happened but
before she could know about it.  Remember, time zone differences.  But
there seems to be a collective unconscious, I think.  The translator
struggled with that."

	"The collective unconscious is part of Jung's drooling idiocy," Gendo
said crisply.

	They all jumped as he sipped his coffee, then stole a sandwich with
one fluid motion.  "There is no such thing as magic; and if there was,
monkeying around with rites in ancient books you translated with
Moogle Translator would be a recipe for disaster.  Remember the cake?"
 Gendo rubbed his forehead; he clearly did.

	Anna cringed.  "I didn't realize it had lost the 'mili' in mililiters."

	"I like spicy food," Touji said.  "It was great."

	"I think Asuka literally breathed fire," Shinji said, laughing.  "I
actually cried.  Over cake."

	"Anyway, it is best not to fool around with things created by
madmen," Gendo said.  "I'm going upstairs; I had best not find chalk
scribbles on everything on my return."

	He stomped out.

	"Man, who pissed in his cereal today?" Touji asked.

	"Well, he's right," Hikari said.  "It sounds like nonsense to me."

	"Got a better idea?" Kensuke asked.

	"No," she mumbled.

	They continued to debate the idea without a real conclusion.

*******************

	Misato rolled over and woke up.  She smiled at her husband, Kaji.  He
looked so...was he breathing?  He was so utterly still!

	Total panic hit her and she checked his pulse.  For a moment, she
thought he didn't have one but then it started like normal.  He
stirred and looked over.  "Honey, what's wrong?"

	"Umm...nothing," she said.  "Bored so I checked your pulse."

	"..."

	"It's nothing, go to sleep."  She kissed his forehead and went to the
bathroom.  There were times when it seemed like he...she shook her
head.  He's fine, I'm just jumpy from all that bad news.  The world
was full of trouble and she felt oddly responsible to fix it, given
she was just a gym and English teacher at a junior high.

	I probably just need a vacation, she thought.  But it wouldn't be
vacation time for a while.  Eventually, she went back to sleep and had
the odd dream where she commanded kids in giant robots again.  How
silly.  What kind of lunatics would send teenagers to fight invading
aliens, anyway?

*******************

	"Most of the dreams seem to be nonsense, but several of them were
successful predictions," Maya said.  "No clear pattern."

	The three of them had stayed up all night, drinking coffee and
watching the MAGI dream.  They were exhausted but intrigued.

	"We need to get breakfast," Makoto mumbled.

	To his surprise, Akane entered on cue, with several boxes of pastries
and fruit and FRESH COFFEE.  "I figured you all would need this," she
said, then draped herself on Makoto who leaned back, kissed her, and
thanked her.

	"Thank you," Ritsuko said.  "We've been monitoring the MAGI's dreams."

	"It dreams?" Akane asked in shock.

	"Yes.  It has very complex dreams," Ritsuko said.

	"Tell me all about it," Gendo said; they nearly jumped through the
wall in surprise.

	"Okay, let me set up the projector..." Maya said, scrambling to get ready.
	
	Soon, they were knee-deep in explaining things they didn't understand.

*****************

	All the kids filed nervously into the auditorium, wondering what was
going on.  The Principal came out and said, "We have received a great
honor.  Only the major heads of state have seen this; you see it now
and at noon, it will be announced to the news media.  Many of you
likely knew this was coming."

	Asuka tensed up.  Father's mission.

	Shinji patted her shoulder and smiled, though a little bit of him
wished he'd gone into space with them like Asuka wanted.

	"Asuka's gettin' expelled?" Touji said hopefully.

	Anna elbowed him in the gut.

	The teachers got everyone to shut up, then began the transmission.

	Asuka's father, Pieter Langley, appeared on the screen, in his UNSS
Uniform.  "Hi, Kyoko, Asuka."  He smiled.  "This is Captain Pieter
Langely of the UNSS Darwin," he said in English.  Subtitles in
Chinese, Spanish, Hindi, and Arabic flowed around him.  "I speak to
you today to report we have made humanity's first contact with living
sentient beings from another world."

	Everyone's breath caught.

	Footage rolled of an armada of eighteenth century style sailing
vessels, flying a flag of an angel silhouetted against the moon, held
up by an elk and a hound rampant.  A hundred ships, large and small,
staffed by humans with great wings.

	"Angels?" Anna said in shock.

	"C.S. Lewis wrote a series of books in which Earth was quarantined to
keep the evil on it from spreading with angels living openly among men
on other worlds," Rei noted.

	"We have established peaceful contact; fortunately, they learned some
of our languages from our radio and TV transmissions," he continued.

	The video showed him greeting three people; they looked rather like
versions of Rei, Asuka, and Shinji in their thirties, with wings
colored to match their hair.  Everyone in the auditorium stared at the
screen, then turned to look at Rei, Asuka, and Shinji in shock.

	"King Alars, Field Marshall Uoht and High Priestess Cassilda lead the
expedition and helped us to repel an assault by strange creatures from
Saturn."

	Battles played on the screen, showing the UNSS and the angel-people
fighting together against what looked like cats made out of neon
tubing.

	"Scientific study has begun; we cannot yet explain the eerie
similarities between our peoples," he said.  "But we are not alone.
More news as things develop and we learn more."

	"Damnation, it's Space-Shinji and his Space-Harem," Touji now said.

	An utter chaos of questions and conversation ensued.

	"Don't get any crazy ideas," Asuka told Shinji flatly.

	"I don't have any crazy ideas!"

	Rei smiled; she had crazy ideas.

*********************

	"I have an idea," Gendo said over ramen and pork.

	He, Fuyutsuki, and Yui were meeting for lunch to discuss options.
This was a quiet noodle shop.  With no other customers.

	Fuyutsuki sipped his coffee.  "Go on?"

	"I am thinking that since I believe the MAGI are strong enough to
actually affect this dream, we need to redirect its dreaming to make a
dream prison.  We can trap the pieces of non-terrene life the Children
had absorbed and lock them in MAGI's dreams, so that they will remain
isolated in a sub-universe, unable to hurt us," he said.

	"What happens when MAGI eventually ages and dies?  Organics don't
live forever," Yui said.

	"That won't be for a long time, giving us time to make something even
better," Gendo said.  "What we most need is breathing space,
especially with first contact now in progress."

	"It is worth trying," Fuyutsuki said.  "However, they are having
problems keeping it adequately fed."

	"I can solve that," Yui said confidently.  She slurped down some
shrimp and noodles.  "Compared to what we've been through before, this
should be easy."

******************



 	Rei was glad to be in Unit00.  It was an escape from her body, which
was in agony from the recent training disaster; while Unit00 was
damaged like her, it felt no pain.  LCL held no terrors for Rei - it
was an escape from a body which usually succeeded only in getting in
her way.  The fluid that she knew had driven at least three potential
pilots insane made her more sane, she was sure.  It held something she
needed.

        Or perhaps it was just the pleasure of piloting Unit00 which
she liked.  Few things gave her normal body any enjoyment, but
piloting Unit00 was always enjoyable.  She sprinted through Tokyo-3 at
speeds of which her usual body would not have been capable.  Buildings
whizzed by, and a few cars crunched under her feet; it was like
running through a forest and accidentally stepping on some beetles.

  	She paused to assess the situation.  Unit01 was webbed between two
buildings.  Her target, the spider, was wandering around aimlessly,
spinning webs and smashing buildings.  Millions of spiders danced
around the area, imitating their...master?  father?  leader?  Perhaps
the pattern of the webs would mean something.  She activated Unit00's
radio.  "Katsuragi-san, I need an aerial view of the city."

        A tiny box appeared in the right corner of her sight, showing
Captain Katsuragi's face.  "Yes.  We've got planes over the area.
I'll have it patched through to you."

        Webs which had seemed aimless from the ground took on a
different visage from above.  The webs formed a roughly v shaped
pattern across the city, with some sort of oval sigil in the middle
with a dot in its midst where Unit01 was trapped and where the giant
leader of the spiders was meandering about, clearing an open space
inside the oval.  While the sigil remained meaningless to Rei, she
felt it must be some sort of meaningful pattern.  Perhaps a signal to
more of these creatures, whatever they were.

        Half-remembered bits of biology studies surfaced in her mind,
and she decided to experiment.  Wrenching a power line support pole
loose from the ground, she hurled it down onto the webbing, then
stepped back.  Sparks flew from the damaged lines and the webbing
ignited.  Soon, the city was ablaze with a short-lived fire; the
webbing was highly fllammable, but burnt away very quickly.

        Shinji was snapped out of his half-trance of doomed apathy by
the sudden feeling that he was on fire.  Instinct took over, and he
stopped, dropped, and rolled.  This was rather more destructive when
piloting Unit01 than would normally be the case.  Countless spiders
burned to death, were crushed, or combined the two death
methods.

        Unit00 drew its progressive knife and charged forward while
the Spider-Angel was still ringed in flame.  She hailed Unit01's pilot
by radio while charging forward.  "Unit 01, attack now."

        Her knife plunged down into one of its faceted eyes, gashing
it open and spewing viridescent mauve ichor onto Unit00's hands and
arms.  Putting the Unit's weight into it, she plunged the knife deeper
into the creature's head, trying to get to its brain.  Shimmering
auras of fluctuating color began to form upon Unit00's hands, arms,
and knife, eating away at the Angel-Spider's flesh.

        In her peripheral vision, she could see Unit01 was hacking
away at one of the huge spider-thing's legs, but her attention was
focused on her blade.  The deeper it sank into the creature, the
harder it was to push it forward and the brighter it shone.  Perhaps
it stole its color from the huge spider-beast, which was turning grey
where the shimmering light shone upon it, its flesh flaking and
crumbling away.  It struggled forward, trying to bite her, but she was
standing to one side of the mandibles and with the knife pressing into
its eye, it couldn't turn successfully to bite her, especially with
Unit01 hacking off some of its legs.  Nor could it turn to attack
Unit01.  Nor could it retreat, as its legs weren't well designed for
trying to move straight backwards, and as fast as it could move,
Unit00 simply pressed forwards.

        Rei could no longer see her knife through the glow of colors,
but she could feel she was pressing against... something.  The
exoskeleton, she guessed.  "I'm encountering resistance."

        "It's generating an AT-field.  Press harder,"  Misato said.
"Shinji, stop playing with its legs and help Rei."

        "How?"

        "STAB IT IN THE HEAD WITH YOUR KNIFE!"  Misato pulled herself
together when several staff members stared at her.

        Unit01 stood up and stabbed its knife down into the creature's
head, easily fending off its feeble and now maimed legs.  Out of the
corner of his eye, Shinji could see more spiders approaching, but all
the ones nearby had burned up.  "So how did you know the fire wouldn't
burn up my EVA too, Rei?"  he asked, hoping she knew more about this
creature than he did.

        "I didn't."  Rei gritted her teeth, or perhaps it was Unit00's
teeth; there was no way to tell.  The darkness inside the creature was
struggling with her light and losing; more and more of its flesh was
turning a colorless grey and flaking away; the eyes were completely
gone, and the colors were swallowing up her sight.

        "..."  She didn't know?  Shinji thought.  It took a lot to
snap him out of apathy, but that did it.  "You could have killed me!"

        "If I did nothing, the situation would not have improved," Rei
replied.

        Misato cut in.  "Are you generating an AT-field?"

        "I have no idea.  My arms and knife are glowing.  Am I doing that?"

        "Very good, Shinji,"  Misato said.

        "The Angel's AT-field is wavering, wavering...gone,"  the
technician reported.

        The Angel popped like a balloon.  A wave of grey rushed
through its already dark body and it fell apart into huge flakes of
dried flesh which began to crumble even as it tumbled to the ground.
Energy played about Unit00 and Unit01 like Saint Elmo's fire.  Both
Rei and Shinji felt a jolt like they had just stuck a fork in an
electrical socket.

        While they couldn't see the changes in their own units, they
did see changes in each other's EVA.  Shinji's changed color to silver
and became perfectly smooth.  The few bits of web that remained on it
fell off.  Meanwhile, Unit00 sprouted protuberances around its mouth
that looked suspiciously like the creature's mouth mandibles.  They
knew its true name now, though they didn't know how they knew.  Or
what exactly it was.

*************

        The two walked through the endless maze of corridors of the
base, their footsteps echoing throught the empty spaces.

        With the nausea far less severe than it was earlier, Shinji
had enough presence of mind to relfect on the day so far.

        He had...

        ... seen his father for the first time in years.

        ... inhaled toxic sludge.

        ... almost been killed while piloting a giant robot.

        ... and killed a giant monster.

        On the whole, the day was far less pleasant than that quick
summary expressed.  It wasn't a day he'd care to repeat.

        Except for the killing.

        There was an odd feeling that had run through him when the
creature died.  As it sagged to lifelessness, he'd felt a rush course
through his body.  Disturbingly pleasant.  He wondered if the battles
would always end that way.

        Misato derailed his train of thought easily.

        "Oh, I forgot to mention.  You've been put in my care, Shinji."

        He blinked.  "I won't be staying with Father?"  He wasn't sure
if he shouuld be angry at his father or relieved.

        Her voice was a little uncomfortable.  "He's often gone and
very busy and can't take care of you properly.  Also, I have two spare
bedrooms.  The other one will be occupied by the Second Child when she
arrives from Germany."

        "The Second Child?"  he asked.

        "Named in the order we recruited you.  The First Child is
Ayanami Rei.  The Second Child is Asuka Langley.  And the Third Child
is you."

*******************

	Salgiel's body shimmered, beginning to shift colors across the darker
end of the specrum, shaking and twitching as it howled.  Winds were
picking up and snow erupted in a torrent from the sky, battering at
the three EVAs, but their grips did not falter.  It tried to
discorporate, to let go of its body, but it was trapped by their
AT-fields, which had flowed together into a prison built of constantly
changing light.  It could not escape, and inch by inch, they were
devouring it.

	Shinji could hear Asuka shouting, though he understood none of it,
and as the LCL around him began to pulse, he started to understand
why.  He felt hungry, or maybe his EVA was hungry; it wanted to feed,
to feed on the light.  He felt the urge to rip out the Angel's heart,
to dig his teeth into its flesh.  His own hunger echoed his EVA's
building frenzy, for he had not eaten in over a day, and the LCL could
keep him alive, but not really satisfy his stomach.

	Salgiel's body lost its color and turned gray, then great, dry flakes
began to fall off it.  It dropped the tree cane, and the tree it had
shoved through 02 crumbled to dust in a second as the AT-field that
sustained it failed.  The snowstorm around them built to a frenzy that
would have levelled a city in seconds, but the snow melted to water,
and water to steam, and steam broke apart into hydrogen and oxygen the
instant it struck the surging fields of light that surrounded the four
huge humanoid figures.

	His head suddenly collapsed, caving in on itself, and 00 greedily
devoured it, sweeping gobbets of pinkish flesh fading to gray into its
gullet past the mandibles which now tore into its shoulders.  And with
that, the other EVAs began to devour the great beast as well.

	Shinji said, "I can't stop it!  What the...What do I do?"  01 drove
its fist through the things's ribs and ripped out the creature's
heart, which was still limmed with a dwindling nimbus that shone
across the spectrum, then ate the heart in a single gulp, shoving its
head in where the hand had gone to devour more flesh.  The LCL around
him surged with every bite, and to his horror, he found himself biting
at the LCL, though he quickly stopped himself, the urge to feed
continued.  It took a lot to make Shinji curse.  This was enough.
"SSSSHHIIIITTTT!!!!  I CAN'T STOP!!!"

	"Gott in HIMMEL!"  Asuka shouted as her EVA began to devour the Angel
of Snow's legs, its head tendrils sucking up every droplet of fluid
they could find.  "PAREN!  PAREN!   SCHEISSE!!!"  The LCL boiled
around her, now a deep red in color, as if she floated in a sea of
blood.  It tasted better, or perhaps she simply was liking the taste.
She didn't like liking it.

	The storm ceased in an instant, the winds vanishing and the snow
stopping as Salgiel's body went totally limp, being ripped apart by
the three out of control EVAs.  02 got up onto its knees and tore into
the beast's flesh, its own leg injury now apparently forgotten, while
00 chewed its way down the body, and 01 split the middle.  Two
Children continued to scream over the comlines.

	The blue of 00's flesh faded to a snow-white color as it continued
its meal.  01 sprouted fangs and claws as it continued its disgusting
feast of grey, crumbling flesh.  02 seemed unchanged if you didn't
count the fact that its leg  was clearly not broken anymore.

**************

	Hikari's eyes lit up the moment she stepped out of the school gates.
Waiting for her, leaning on the concrete fence, was her man Touji.

	"Touji!"  She ran to him and leapt into his arms, but her smile soon
faded when she noticed he wasn't nearly as happy.  "Touji... what's
wrong?"

	"Can we... can we go somewhere'n talk?"
	
	She silently nodded.  They took Touji's bike across the city, Hikari
embracing Touji from behind tightly. Through the city streets and
across sun and shade they walked, until they came to Kensuke's point,
as they called it, the stretch of highway that he and Touji used to
admire the city from, where the road snaked along a jutting cliff,
providing an uncomparable view of Tokyo-3.

	Touji brought the bike to a stop, then walked with Hikari to the
guardrail, gazing out at Tokyo-3 with an intensity she'd never seen on
him before.

	He asked, "Hey, tell me, what're they sayin' about what we did on the news?"

	"Not much," Hikari answered.  "NERV ran into an Angel, there was some
fires, some deaths, but NERV saved the day."

	"Issatso?" he asked, his tension rising.
	
	"Touji... what's wrong?"
	
	"I don't know if I oughta be glad hearing that, or pissed off."

	"Touji?"
	
	He finally faced her, anger setting into his features.  "It was all
fucked up, dammit.  Everything.  Nobody knew what the fuck they were
doing, I tell ya.  They sent Shinji out there doped up and taped up,
that goddamn bitch Asuka woulda let Shinji die-"

	"Touji!  Don't say that!  Asuka wouldn't-"
	
	"YEAH SHE WOULD!  She would and she did, and I get my ass busted for
sticking my neck out for a friend and... and... dammit."

	His anger gave way to weary sadness.  "Y'know, I joined up so my sis
could get better medical attention, but this damn deal's looking worse
every fucking day."

	She reached out slowly, giving his arm a gentle squeeze.  "Honey,
just tell me..."

	"Baby, we fucked up.  We really fucked up."
	
	"How... how bad was it?  Are the others okay?"

	"Oh... Shinji's wrapped up like a mummy 'cos he's burned all over his
body, the entire nation of Peru wants all our asses in a firing squad,
and I think I'm gonna be docked outta my first paycheck."

	"Shinji's burned?"
	
	"Oh," he said, his voice cracking slightly as his eyes welled up into
tears.  "Did I tell ya two million people died?"

	Hikari stared at him.
	
	Touji sank to the floor, leaning on the guard rail. He curled his
arms over his head as he began to cry. Hikari sat next to him,
embracing him gently as he did.

	"Two million peope, man!" he yelled.  "Two million..." He sank into
Hikari's embrace, still crying, as she gently rocked back and forth,
her hand stroking his hair slowly. She couldn't think of
anything to say.  With two million dead, words like 'you did your
best' and 'it wasn't your fault' felt hollow and empty.

	Instead, she did the only thing she could do, and stayed by his side.

********************

	"Then who the hell is in Unit00?!  Turn on Unit00's cockpit camera!"

	A new window opened up before the bridge, static at first, then
resolved itself into the image of two red eyes, light blue hair and
pale white skin.

	Misato stared, gaping at the screen.  The altered visage of Horaki
Hikari stared back.  The collective bridge crew fell silent at the
shock of the sight.

	"Unit... Unit00," said Misato, gathering her wits.  "Unit00, report.
This is an order."

	//"The Angel is coming to the Geo-Front, from the west."// replied
Hikari, in the unmistakable monotone of Rei Ayanami's voice.  //"It is
my duty to stop it."//

	Misato's mind reeled on how to deal with this new, alarming and
unexpected development.  She turned to Fuu, one of the newer bridge
crew.  "Cut off Eva00's video."

	"Cut it off?" she asked.

	"They're fighting for their lives as it is, they don't need the
distraction," she replied impatiently. "Keep the audio, cut off the
video feed!"

	"Y-yessir!"

	She turned back to Rei.  "That's a negative, Rei.  Stand down
immediately and evacuate Hikari's body!"

	//"The Angel comes."//

	This, thought Misato, was just getting worse by the moment.  "Rei, if
anything happens to Hikari-"

	//"She is safe.  Time was short."// Hikari-Rei paused for a moment,
then cocked her head to the side.  She frowned.  //"They're here."//

	"Rei!  Are you listening to me!  REI!"

	"We've got bogeys coming at the Geo-Front!" cut in Makoto.  "Lots of them!"

	"What?!  How close?"

	The bridge trembled under the might of the tremors, knocking everyone
off of their feet.  The lights faded, then came alive again as the
power backups kicked in.  Makoto scrambled to his feet and checked his
monitors.

	"They're in."

***************

	Shinji awoke on the roof, wondering how he'd gotten there.  What a
bunch of strange dreams, he thought, looking up at the night sky. The
stars were shining down brightly, and you could see the city spread
out all around; it was a comforting sign of human presence to him.

	He felt less comforted when he thought about his disturbing dreams
and the things they hinted at.  Or didn't bother hinting.  But surely
they were just dreams.

	Looking, he couldn't see the ladder anywhere, and he had no phone with him.

******************

	Touji was quite confused to wake up with two other people in his bed.
 He was doubly confused when he realized this wasn't his bedroom, it
was Kensuke's.  And Anna was also in the bed.

	WHAT THE HELL WAS GOING ON?

	They were cuddled up in pajamas...surely Kensuke's parents wouldn't
let them just sleep together...he knew they kinda liked each other, or
at least, it would have made things easier but neither of them
was...well, obviously they had something going on.

	Why hasn't Kensuke's mother come and killed us yet?

	Kensuke's mother now opened the door.

	Touji screamed and suddenly, he was back in his own bed and the phone
was ringing.

	Geez, first nightmares about fighting hideous monsters and people
dying and now...jeez.  Couldn't I at least have a fantasy about being
in Hikari's bed?

	He was trying to sleep when his father stuck his head in.  "Touji, you awake?"

	"Phone woke me," he mumbled.

	The phone was shoved in his hands.

	"Uhrgle, what?" he mumbled.

	"You can't be there, you were here seconds ago," Kensuke's mother said.

	Okay, something really fucked up is going down, he thought.  "How the
fuck did I supposedly get from your house to mine since our phone
rang?" he asked.  "You dreamed it."  But I dreamed it too, he thought.
 But there's no way I could make that journey, anyway.  Ugh, this is
probably a dream too.  "Good night," he said, and passed it to Dad.

	"No cursing at Kensuke's parents.  500 yen dock on your allowance,"
Touji's dad said.

	"Shit."

	"And another 500."

	Some days, Touji ended up owing on his allowance.

*************

	Hikari stared at the picture in the living room, from their trip to
Hawaii a year ago.  She tried to remember the details, but they were
jumbled.  Part of her mind said she'd gone with just her family; part
said Asuka, Shinji, Rei, Anna, Touji, Kensuke had all been there.  And
their parents too.  They'd had a ton of fun and Touji had taught her
to water-ski.

	She had pictures.

	But she couldn't remember anything she didn't have pictures of.

	Something was wrong.  But what was it?	

*************

	Asuka clutched her pillows, staring at the wall.  It couldn't be
true.  It couldn't.  She didn't want it to be.  She liked her life.
She didn't want...

	It must be a dream.  It had to be.

	But she had to know the truth.

*************

	Rei curled up in her bed, crying.  No, no, no.  It couldn't, shouldn't...

	But in her heart, she couldn't deny all of this was a lie.

************	

	Misato sat up in bed, shivering; Kaji slowly stirred to life and sat
up and embrace her.  "What's wrong?"

	"I dreamed you were dead," she mumbled.

	"I'm not," he said.

	She wasn't so sure.  Something...those dreams felt like memories, not
dreams.  Though some of them were from other people's perspectives.

	And the worst, the one that woke her up, of being a rampaging ball of
fire and then being eaten alive by the giant robots who were the
heroes and heroines of most of the dreams...

	What is going on?

***************
	
	They'd skipped school and met at Kensuke's house; his parents were
gone.  Rei was very depressed and the rest were nervous, but none of
them could deny that something was terribly wrong.  Those dreams felt
so real, but how could they be?

	They'd spread out newspapers in the living room and drew all the
mystic sigils on it, so they wouldn't get killed by his parents later.
 Hopefully, this would work.  They formed a circle around Kensuke in
the middle with six smaller circles around it, each with one of the
others in it.

	"Interesting way to skip school," Misato said.

	They all jumped and Kensuke dropped his ebook reader down his shirt;
he'd loaded the books he'd found on line onto it and made copies for
everyone to follow along.

	Kaji handed Misato a thousand yen.  "You win."

	Asuka asked, "Did you bet on us?"

	"I thought you all were off making out," he said, then sighed.  "I lost."

	"What is this?" Misato asked.

	"It...um..." Kensuke said.

	"Something is terribly wrong," Asuka said.  "Don't pretend it isn't.
Everything is going to hell and it has something to do with dreams and
stupid as this is, I'm willing to try in order to find the truth."
Her voice was determined.

	"All right," Misato said.  "How do I help?"

	"Misato, we have to take them back to school," Kaji said.

	"I've been having dreams too," Misato said.  "Being other people,
being all of you...," she said softly.  She fingered her necklace.
"What do I do to help?"

	"Here, join me," Kensuke said.  "Coach Kaji, if you can keep us from
having more visitors...?"

	"Okay, if you want this, Misato," he said.  "If we get fired, though,
it's your fault."

	"That's fine," Misato said.  She felt...she knew they had bigger
issues.  She kissed his cheek and joined Kensuke and read along with
him.

	They began to chant and wave lit candles and they felt their eyes get
heavier and heavier...

*****************

	They floated in the void.  Their voices echoed to the distant stars
and the Earth hovered below them, the Moon far off to the left, huge
in their sight.  And before them floated a lantern.  Ariel's lantern
which reveals the truth.

	Kensuke reached for it, but felt a sudden dread.  They all did.  Once
they used it there was no turning back.  No escape.

	"Maybe we should stop," Hikari said nervously.

	"I got a bad fu...bad feelin'," Touji said.

	"We need to know the truth," Asuka said.

	"Do what you think best," Shinji said.

	"I can do it if you don't want to," Misato said kindly to Kensuke.

	"No, it has to be me," Kensuke said.  "I'm sorry, everyone.  This is
the last time I'll ever see you.  But the truth must out.  Or everyone
is going to die."

	He seized the lantern and it came to life and he became light and the
light was the truth and the truth was revealed.

	Everything was a lie.  Yui had used the power of the EVA units and
the Children according to a pre-determined plan.  The Ceremony of
Innocence had used the Dream King's power to fuse dreams and reality
to reshape the world into her vision of a perfect world.  The dead
walked again and all humanity's worst problems were solved with a
brilliant future ahead of them.

	But this also meant that all the pieces of the Great Old Ones the
Children had defeated were part of the dream, for they suffused the
Children and the EVA units.  Their power made the dream possible and
so they would constantly threaten mankind, for this was their dream
too.  They could not be eradicated for long from a dream dependent on
their power.

	They could see Gendo and Yui and Fuyutsuki's plans to use the MAGI,
but the MAGI were too crude to contain them for long; they would
simply devour its unshaped mind and use it to amplify their own
control, reshaping portions of the dream by raw dream manipulation
instead of being limited to their 'normal' powers.

	Humanity would be utterly doomed.

	And then the light guttered and went out as the dream of Kensuke was
spent.  Kensuke was gone, and so were Anna and Kaji, all of them truly
dead... and so the truth had been restored.

	The kids and Misato stared about them, aghast as their memories had
returned.  Yui had recreated Misato's love and their two lost friends,
but it had been a lie.  There had been hints, but they'd ignored them.

	They could ignore them no more.  But to be hurt with the truth, all
at once, was painful.

	"We have to stop them," Misato said, though she started to cry. "This
is all a lie.  A happy lie, but a lie.  And it's doomed."  She
shuddered.  Kaji...KAJI.  She wanted him back, but she'd spent too
much of her life lying to herself already.  It's never that easy.
"Humanity is better off in the real world, than in a dream built on a
foundation of inhuman monsters who want to eat our souls."

	"But a lot of people are going to die," Hikari said.  "Maybe there is
some way to trap these things safely."

	"We have to KILL them," Asuka said fiercely.  "Surely we can kill them."

	"If they die, this dream collapses anyway," Shinji said softly.
"It's a pretty dream, but it's a dream that has monsters and monster
power at its core.  And that will eat up the rest in the end."

	"But won't they get free if we end this?  Do we even know how?" Touji
asked.  "I saw that whole vision shit and I'm still not sure what the
hell is going on."

	"We have to stop them concentrating all the fallen gods in the MAGI
first," Shinji said.  "We can figure out what to do after that next."

	"I don't want to go back to the way things were," Rei said piteously.

	Shinji took her hand.  "I don't either, but I don't see another way,"
he said softly.

	Asuka took her other hand.  "Me neither," she confessed.  "I
finally....I'm finally happy here."  She was crying.  "But it's all a
lie."

	"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," Rei said to Asuka.  "I can't...I wasn't,
I'm sorry..."

	Rei had lost control.  And done terrible things.  But she'd sought
out the power that had made her do it.  Could they handle that power
any better than before?

	They had no choice.  They knew, now, that this couldn't last.  It
could end now, while most of humanity wasn't tainted, or it could drag
on until everyone became gods and monsters at once.  This was the
final sacrifice; they would have to take the burden upon themselves
again, that everyone else might be free.

	"Whatever happens, Rei, we won't abandon you," Shinji said firmly.
"But you don't have to go with us."

	"I will," Rei said, rising, growing determined.  Her weakness would
not hold them back, damn mankind.  Even if...  It had been so nice to
be normal.

	But that was a lie, and in the end, lies end up exposed, one way or another.

	"Let's go," Rei said.

	"Dammit, I don't want to die a virgin," Touji mumbled.

	"I won't," Shinji said, then smiled just for a moment.

	"Oh kiss my ass," Touji grumbled.

	"We're not going to die," Misato said.  Though we may wish we had.

******************

	Ritsuko had a very bad feeling about this.  She only vaguely
understood what her bosses wanted to do, but the MAGI were
experimental and not ready for 'confining dream entities', whatever
that meant.  But she couldn't challenge them.

	Literally.  Her body went around making the adjustments while she
rode around in it.  She could see from the trapped looks on her
employees' faces that they were in the same boat as her.

	And for some reason, Makoto kept vanishing if she wasn't looking
straight at him, which was making her more nervous.  Maybe I'm going
crazy, she thought.  She'd had nightmares of being some kind of
mer-woman.  How crazy.

	Loving the sea doesn't make you a mer-woman.  And she didn't even get
a tail.  What use was that?

	I've been enslaved somehow and I am thinking about being a mer-woman
in my nightmares, she thought.  FOCUS!  There has to be some way out
of this.

	She didn't know what it was.

*******************

	"Twelve more hours and MAGI will be ready," Fuyutsuki estimated.

	"Good," Yui said.  "We don't have much time."

	"This stops now," Misato said.  "You're going to destroy humanity.
This thing can't possibly contain the Angels, and you ought to know
it.  We've been playing with fire from square one.  The fire that
consumed my own father and flooded the world.  We're not ready for all
this.  It's time to wake up."

	The Children were spread out behind her, not sure what they could do
right now when they didn't have any of their powers back, but
determined to do SOMETHING.

	"How did you get in here?" Yui demanded.  This place had pretty good security.

	"Duplicating NERV security equipment I already knew the codes for
wasn't very wise," Misato said.  "But then, none of you three actually
know much about security."

	"Please, Mom, we have to end this," Shinji begged.  "The MAGI isn't
strong enough to hold the dead gods we fought.  It'll just corrupt it
and wreck the world."

	"Inevitably, innocence is destroyed by reality," Rei said softly.
"The Ceremony of Innocence was noble, but you can't go backwards.
Humanity has to grow up and live in reality and solve things the hard
way or it will perish."

	"I thought...I don't want to be a monster again," Asuka said.  "But
better me than that everyone's dreams be shaped by monsters."

	"I just want to GET THIS FUCKING SHIT OVER WITH," Touji shouted.

	"Thank you for giving me back my family," Hikari said softly.  "But I
have to stop lying to myself and this doesn't help.  I can't go back
to the past and neither can you."

	"This is the perfect world!," Yui said.  "If we let it die,
everyone's happiness will be destroyed.  Millions will die and stay
dead!"

	"They are dead," Misato said firmly but sadly. "I wish...I would
gladly sacrifice myself to let Makoto, and you, and Commander Ikari
and Commander Fuyutsuki, and everyone else who has died who I ought to
have saved come back to life.  But this is a false life and the dead
are..." She paused, looking inward with a tiny shudder. "Kaji would
sometimes stop moving if I wasn't looking at him.  He had no life of
his own...he was just a puppet. The dead don't come back to life.  We
have to mourn them and move on.  And if we don't move on, all of
humanity will die or become something worse than dead." She looked
down, then back at Yui. "I'm sorry.  I'm so sorry."

	Gendo's eyes flared and he stared at them.  "You will forget all of
this.  Go back to your lives and let us fix this."

	His will pressed down upon them, but they pressed back, their wills
joined.  And in the air, a shimering field formed and it repelled the
mental assault, pushing it back at Gendo.

	"Father, I'm sorry," Shinji said.  Rei was shivering next to him, her
skin paling to its true shade, her body returning to normal as the
dream that enfolded her in a comforting lie began to fade.  They were
all changing, looking more weary and battle worn.  The truth was
outing.

	"I love you, Father," Shinji said softly.  "But you are dead and if
this lasts, humanity will go down with you."

	And then he gestured and pieces of the brainmeat of the MAGI exploded
as spiders and snakes and other things burst out and began to devour
it, making more of their kind.  And the other Children gestured,
looking weary and frustrated, and there was fire and lighting and cold
and death.  The building turned translucent as the dream began to
unravel.

	As they reclaimed their powers, reality wobbled as the dream
dissolved.  Gendo and Fuyutsuki screamed, fading in and out, trying to
run.  And now the Children were crying and Yui rose up before them,
wrapping herself in power, in waves of darkness and light.

	THIS DREAM MUST ENDURE!  STOP!  PLEASE!, the Queen of Light and
Darkness shouted.  Her voice was pleading and threatening at once.

	Touji gestured, whisking Ritsuko and Maya and the other workers away,
spiriting them from inside the MAGI as it self-destructed, galaxies
carrying them to safety.  It started devouring itself faster and the
world was crumbling into void, a swirling chaos.  Most of the dream
was intact, but here it was unravelling.

	"We can't," Misato said, her hands outstretched, her necklace
floating before her; waves of shimmering light rolled from it.  "It is
time for humanity to wake up before it is too late."

	THEN I WILL CRUSH YOU AND MAKE YOU OBEDIENT ONCE MORE!

	She hurled all the power she could at them, but this time they were
ready; their dream had enabled them to rest and recover their strength
and now they were coming into the fullness of their power, instead of
being exhausted and vulnerable.  Two great AT-Fields strove in the
swirling void which had once been a laboratory.  But the power Yui had
usurped was theirs by right.

	Slowly the field pushed back on her, surrounding her, and inside her,
Rei attacked, storming into Yui's flesh, for Yui knew Rei's name and
thus she was vulnerable to Rei's power.  Yui's lips moved in ancient
syllables.  Rei's voice echoed with hers.

                                        OGTHROD AI'F

	"NO!" Yui screamed, then lost control again.  She spoke and now
Asuka's voice echoed with hers.

                                           GEB'L-EE'H

	Her body froze up, locked in a mystical sign she knew full well, the
sign of the Dragon's Tail.  But her lips moved, in synchronicity with
Touji's.

                                        YOG-SOTHOTH

	Bubbles began to erupt out of her finery, the garment she'd wrapped
herself in, as it began to dissolve into star stuff.  The bubbles each
contained the universe and imprisoned a bit of her self.  Hikari spoke
the fourth word with her.

                                         'NGAH'NG AI'Y

	More and more of her was dissolving away and she could see Misato
before her, clad in light, the Elder Sign throbbing before her.  And
now Yui understood too late the turning of the wheel.  "Please, mercy.
 Mercy.  Shinji, I beg you."

	"I'm sorry, Mom," he said.  He was crying and his tears became
spiders and snakes and twisted inhuman things.  "I'm so sorry."

	And then his voice moved with hers.

                                                ZHRO!
	
	And Ikari Yui, the Queen of Light and Darkness, went to find out the
greatest of mysteries; what lies beyond the grave, if anything.  And
with her, her dream came to an end and the world returned to
wakefulness and it hung on the knife's edge as the fallen gods rose up
to make their final bid for power.
	
********************

	The Children awoke within their EVAs, which had fused together into a
giant, obscene, multi-headed and -limbed monstrosity that extended
through nine dimensions.  Though they wished they could not, the
Children could perceive them all.

	As the dream-world dissolved, the Children had to try to ensure that
the world returned to normal, properly.  This would be hard enough;
but now, the fallen gods they had devoured rose up to try to assert
control over EVANGELION, the new God of the Earth.  If they took
control, they could reshape the world to their dream.

	Misato took command of reshaping the world; she knew the most of it
of any of them.  The rest turned themselves to fighting against the
Dead Gods, sharing their strength with each other and with Misato.

	They might have lost the battle, but their foes hated each other as
much as they hated the Children.  Atlach-Natcha might have snared
Touji in her webs, but Gathanathoa's dread gaze turned part of her
body to stone and Asuka burned away the webs and Rei possessed her and
made her consume herself, while Touji gestured and space bent and
Gathanathoa fell into the dream of the Sun and burned away.

	The battle was half mental and half-real, for as they fought,
EVANGELION reshaped the world to call up new flesh and then destroy
it.  Its power was vast and hard to restrain.

	Worse, Yui's mind had suffused it, given it purpose - and now they
realized that if they left it here without someone to control it, it
would randomly shape the world according to the whims of its strange,
multi-dimensional mind.  Its dreams would remake the world.  And if it
died, the powers it had absorbed would be free and what happened in
the dream would happen in reality.

	Someone would have to stay behind to be its Soul, the master who
controlled it and guided its madness in constructive ways, restrained
its whims and kept it ready to protect mankind if new menaces arrived,
without it destroying mankind in a dream of death.

	"I...," Misato began.

	"I will do it," Rei said.  "I was made for this battle; the normal
world has nothing for me, for I cannot be normal.  I am a hunter.
Best I remain to hunt humanity's enemies.  And atone for my sins."

	"We can't leave you alone," Shinji said.  "We won't."

	"You must go and go quickly, or you will never be able to leave," Rei
said.  "I will be fine."  Her voice was brave, but it wobbled.

	"I don't want to stay in this freaky thing forever listening to it
gibber but there's no fucking way I'm leaving you here," Touji said.
"You deserve a normal life too."

	"For me, a normal life is only a dream," Rei said.

	The King in Yellow made an effort to wrap them in the Yellow Sign.
They squashed him without hardly noticing.

	"Rei...I.." Asuka said.  Part of her hated Rei and part of her knew
she could have ended up doing the same thing.  She could feel the
hungers which raged inside her now.  She was chained by them again.
"I don't know if any of us can be normal."

	"You have to try," Rei said.  "You will all become like me if you
stay.  I will take the fall.  Go, go while you still can."

	Misato touched her star to Rei's forehead.  There was a flash of
light.  "There," she said softly. "Give her a piece of yourself, each
of you.  So she won't have to be alone."

	Touji went next, wondering if life was ever going to stop being part
of weird shit.  "You're a good friend, Rei," he said lamely as he drew
a basketball crudely on her forehead.

	Hikari embraced her and touched their foreheads together.  "I've been
you," she said softly.  "Now you can try being me."

	Asuka hesitantly stepped up, staring at Rei's feet, then took Rei's
hands and squeezed them and touched them to her forehead and fire
ringed them.  "I wish it could have been like our dream," she said
softly, then let go.

	Shinji embraced Rei and kissed her on the lips.  She froze, then
turned red and he smiled a little and stepped back.  "We love you,
Rei," he said softly and she smiled weakly, then turned serious again.

	"Now go, go while you still can."

	A nameless dread washed over them, Rei's fear for them, that they
would become like her if they stayed.  They ejected the plugs and fled
as normality returned and took its revenge on R'yleh.

*******************

	Maya groaned, her body stiff and aching.  The gelatinous thing still
filled her mouth and nose, which was probably for the best, since it
was keeping her alive.  Deep Ones laid everywhere, sprawled in
contorted positions, a few impaled by their own weapons, dead in a
cloud of their own blood.  Most just lay where they fell, gill slits
working slowly.

	Ritsuko was alive, but not moving. Maya lifted her, not sure if
Ritsuko was strangely light, if the water gave buoyancy - or perhaps
desperation just gave strength.  She ran, carrying Ritsuko away from
here, even if she didn't know where.

	She ran through endless halls of coral and stone, past an array of
Deep Ones, each unconscious, most still alive but a few dead.  Or
something close enough to death she couldn't tell the difference.

	They would wake.  Surely they would not sleep forever.  She had to
find her way out, while she still could.  When they woke...if they
woke...their wrath would be terrible.

	And she and Ritsuko had killed the only person likely to protect them.

	Fear ringed her heart and drove her feet.  But she did not give up.
She would not fail Ritsuko, not now.

	Somehow, she would find a way.

*************

	Sgt. Volkritter held his hand up as his men moved warily through the
ruins of NERV-Germany.  They could hear a woman, talking to someone.

	<It's okay,> she said in Japanese.  <We're free.  It's over and we're
free.  He's dead, I can feel it.  Just wake up and we can go home.>

 	He stared at her, uncomprehendingly.  He knew some English, and he
was a native German speaker ,and he knew enough French to curse
someone out - which was what French people were for, in his opinion.
But he wasn't even sure what language she was speaking; for all he
knew, it was just gibble-gabble.

	He peeked around a pile of rubble and saw a naked woman with long
hair, kneeling by the corpse of a short dark haired man, talking to
it; its chest was ripped open, but she continued her spiel, shaking it
gently.

	When they approached, she got violent, kicking and screaming and
clawing at them; but unable to do them any damage.  He felt bad,
clubbing an insane woman, but she was the only survivor; hopefully,
she would know something useful.

	Unfortunately, even when they got a translator, all she could do was
babble about cults and being enslaved and being free.  Her name, she
insisted, was Akane.  Records showed the corpse was an Alf Blauen; but
she insisted it was her boyfriend 'Makoto'. There had been a Makoto at
NERV-Germany, they learned; but he didn't look like this, and she
wasn't a NERV employee.

	They never did figure out what she was doing there.

	She stayed in the asylum to the day she finally died, decades later,
a rose in her hand.  No one knew where it came from; but her smile was
the most peaceful one anyone in the asylum had ever seen within its
walls.  So they buried her with it, and tried to forget what the worms
would do to her smile.

**************

 	R'yleh was nothing more than a dream forced into reality, a memory
of a place long destroyed - reduced to dust by the dream's creator, in
his arrogance and power.  And now the dream was over and reality
surged in, and the laws of Earth asserted themselves.

	Buildings which twisted through five dimensions suddenly were
confined to three, and fell in chunks or crumbled to dust or toppled
over because the supports in the fifth dimension were no more.

	The very ground below it evaported or inverted or became
one-dimensional threads which snapped under the weight.  The sea
rushed in and the Children flew, with Shinji carrying Misato, as the
city plunged into the depths and portions of it faded back into the
world of Dreams.

	On one such chunk the EVA units, now fused together into a twisted
monstrosity, sank out of sight.  Rei was inside them, keeping them
under control, that they might imprison the last remains of the gods
they had slain.  They would soon shift out of the physical world and
into the dreaming, to become a living prison for ancient evils.
Humanity would finally, truly, rule this world.

	But victory was not cheap.  Rei would never return.  And now they
could feel the price of the gift they had given Rei, a hole inside
them, longing for a return to unity.  They feared it and ached for it
at once.  For now, fear was stronger.

	Fear drove them onwards as water claimed the city, swallowing it up
and burying it, below the waves and beyond them.

	They could see ships in the distance, and they headed for them,
flying at high speed.  Asuka could feel the electromagnetic waves of
devices trying to call or radio them, so she wove the strands of power
and now they heard the commander of one of the ships.  "This is
Commander Lovell of the USS Hunt.  Do you read me?"

	"I read you, Commander.  This is Commander Katsuragi and the
Children.  Do we have permission to land?" she asked wearily.

	"Permission granted," he said.  "I take it you won?"

	They could see the bodies of sailors everywhere; some had killed each
other, some merely unconscious.  A few people were circulating, trying
to check who was alive and who was dead.

	"We won," Misato said.  "This world now belongs to mankind."

	"So, basically, we're screwed," he said, clearly trying to make a
joke but also clearly exhausted.

	"There's still basketball, right?" Touji mumbled.  "Then life is worth living."

	Commander Lovell laughed.  "Thank you...which one are you?"

	"Call me Touji," he said.  "I just want to be Touji now.  We're done,
right?  Tell me we're done."

	"We're done," Misato said.  "Bidi, Bidi, Beechi...no, wait, that's not it..."

	"Veni, vidi, vici," Asuka mumbled, exhausted.  "I came, I saw, I
conquered.  Now I just want to sleep."

	"I hereby declare victory and a big victory nap.  Take us down, everyone."

	They landed on the Hunt and were soon fast asleep.

*******************

	Touji paced back and forth.  He would have been excited to see
Philadelphia; Kensuke had told him they had these great sandwiches
that were to die for.  But he wasn't seeing Philadelphia; he was
seeing the inside of a hotel room.  A well stocked room with snacks
and drinks and a staff that kissed their ass and brought them the
latest games... but it was still a prison.

 	At least the ladies were with them. It felt weird to be glad of
Asuka's presence, but he was.  He didn't know if he'd ever...she
understood.  Only she and Hikari and Shinji and Katsuragi could ever
understand him now.

	He could leave; nothing could stop him. But what if that fucked
things up for Katsuragi?  She was pretty much on trial now, being
grilled ruthlessly by the UN Security Council; they'd had to move
their headquarters here after New York City drowned in Second Impact.

	"Shouldn't we be making some kind of statements?" he said, again.

	Shinji and Hikari were playing some kind of real-estate game on the
SuperFun4 machine; Asuka seemed to be busy browsing some hardware
website.  Why was she looking at rotary saw blades?

	No wait, now she was looking at weed whackers.

	"They don't care about the truth," Hikari said bitterly.

	"They're probably scared of us," Asuka said, grimacing.  "Damn, this
stuff is expensive."

	"Yeah, having a house costs a bunch of money," Touji said.  "Just
listening to my old man told me that."  His old man was dead.  All
their families were dead.  All they had left was each other and
Katsuragi-san.  Even the NERV people they'd known were all corpses or
missing.  No one knew what happened to Akagi or Maya; no bodies were
ever found at NERV-Germany.  In his dark hours, he feared the Deep
Ones were raping them right now or had eaten them.

	"Asuka, what is a 'Marvin'?" Hikari asked her.

	"It's an English name," Asuka said.  "For boys."

	"Oh, so this garden is named after him."

	They all turned and looked at the game on the screen; it was just an
adaptation of a boardgame, really, with some fancy 3-D bells and
whistles and animation and cut scenes.  Hikari clicked on the square,
and they got a short animation of actual footage from the real street
in the real city the board was modeled on (vaguely).

	For a while, they fiddled with the special features; it was something
to make them feel normal and forget their problems.

	"Why is it called 'Park Place' without a park?" Touji asked.

	"Park can be a family name in English," Misato said.

	They nearly jumped out of their skin at that.

	She grabbed them all into a tight group embrace.  "Well, that was
better than trying to climb a mountain naked.  Sort of."

	"Is it over?" Touji asked.  "Tell me we ain't gotta stay in here for longer."

	"It's over," Misato said.  "They rejected putting me on court-martial
by one vote."  She frowned.  "So I've been appointed the legal
guardian of all of you and we're moving to a place called
'Livingston'."

	"Never heard of it," Asuka said.

	"That's because it's a quiet seaport of about 20,000 in the woods of
East Texas," Misato said.  "About an hour's drive from Neo-Houston, I
think.  When the water levels rose, it became a seaport.  Used to be
just a county seat by an artificial lake."  She sighed.  "So I get a
large pension and we all get to live in a quiet little port in a
country none of us are from while people nervously watch us the rest
of our lives to see if you're going to rampage."

	Asuka frowned.  "We deserve better than this."

	"I dunno," Touji said.  "We fucked up a lot too."

	"WE SAVED HUMANITY," Asuka said, fire in her eyes.

	Shinji touched her shoulder and the fires went out and she sagged
onto him.  "It's okay," Shinji said softly.  "I'm ready to be...well,
as normal as I can.  No more fighting, no more monsters.  We won.  We
may not be hailed as heroes, but I don't want glory.  I want you all
with me and that's what I have.  What we all have."

	"Rei," Asuka mumbled softly.

	They all stared at the floor; no one knew what to say.  They
couldn't...they didn't want to...but without her...it wasn't the same.

	Misato touched her necklace, then her heart.  "She's with us here.
We've all..."  She pulled them in as tightly as she could.  "Rei chose
her fate.  We've all sinned but we've paid the price.  And humanity is
free.  And we'd all just end up strung out on drugs and trying
desperately to keep our weight down if we were famous.  This way, we
can pig out all we want."

	"They play basketball, right?" Touji asked.  "Also, my English is
pretty shitty.  How do we go to school?"

	"I don't NEED to go to school!  I have a college degree, dammit,"
Asuka grumbled.

	"Asuka and I will work on everyone's English; once you're ready, in
you go," Misato said.  "We all deserve some time off, anyway."

	"I gotta get...what's those things called..." Touji said.

	"We're going to take tomorrow and sight-see," Misato said.  "We can
get you a Philly cheesesteak."  She smiled at that.

	"A what?" Shinji asked.

	"Trust me, it's to die for," Misato said.  It had been a long time
since she had one that was any good.  She was looking forwards to
that.

	"So we'll live in one big house?" Hikari asked.

	"Yes," Misato said.  "Everyone will have their own bedroom.  I don't
care if you sleep with each other, but if you don't use birth control,
I will kill people."

	Hikari and Touji turned red.  Shinji said, "I think I know how we can
turn our...ummm...baby-making ability off and on," he said, then
turned a little red himself.

	Asuka said, "Misato-san, I hope you won't be lonely.  I know...I
mean, we have each other, and you have us, but I know...it probably
won't be easy for you to get anyone your own age to want to be friends
with you if we're with you."  She sounded very sad and regretful.

	"If they don't like you, FUCK THEM," Misato said hotly.  "I'll be
fine.  And I'm sure people will get used to us.  I could probably use
a break from intense romance, anyway," she said, trying to laugh, but
it fell flat and now she started to cry as it all sank in, everyone
she'd lost.

	They held her until the tears stopped.

*****************

 	"I still don't get why anyone gives a damn over a busted bell,"
Touji said, looking at the Liberty Bell.

	"I could explain a third time but my life isn't that long, Suzuhara,"
Asuka said irritably.

	Everyone else had gone to the bathroom and it was just them.

	"Look, Asuka," Touji said, gripping the rail.  "Call me Touji.  I
know we fight a lot, but you know, we're all we've got.  All of
everything...it just seems kinda small compared to all the shit we've
seen.  All the..."  He hung his head.  "We're family, now, right?"
	
	Asuka started, then held out a hand to him and he took it.  "I can't
believe I'm saying you're right, but yeah, you're right," she said,
smiling just a little.  "I could use a little brother, anyway."

	"LITTLE?  I am NOT little!," he said.

	"I was born December 4, you were born December 26, so I am the big
sister," she said, smiling broader.  "Big sister it is."

	He started to say something, then stopped.  "Okay."  He squeezed her
hand and released it.

	"It hurts," she said softly.

	"Fuck yeah," he said.  "It hurts like hell.  But at least we're not
alone.  I'd be crazy if I was alone."

	"Me too," she confessed.  "Take good care of Hikari."

	"I will.  Gonna do my best.  You take good care of Shinji."

	"Of course," she said.

	People were staring at them, whispering.  Touji ignored it, unable to
tell, but Asuka could understand.  Some were afraid of them, others
sounded admiring, but no one came close.  There were so many people
but she felt so alone.

	She was going to have to get used to this.


*****************

	Maya said, "Well, there is a fundamental problem here."

	"Go on?" Agent Wilhelm asked.

	"LCL was the blood of an alien lifeform found in Antarctica.  Said
organism is dead.  These reserves will help but it may take me a long
time to figure out how to make more, especially since the main
electronic media with the research data was destroyed.  If you can
find where those other EVAs came from, they might have had another way
to make it.  Without it, it's going to be hard to progress.  Also, I'm
going to need a lot more people."  She sighed.  Ritsuko would know
more but she was still in a coma.  So were all the Deep Ones the UN
had found.

	The UN forces had rescued her and Ritsuko - having tracked them,
somehow, from the Rhine raids back to the Deep One city - and now
they'd put her in a lab and wanted her to work on measures to deal
with future threats.  Under pretty strict supervision, of course; NERV
had been too independent and too sloppy. But she couldn't help Ritsuko
by her own resources.

	She also had the impression they were afraid of what the Children
might do in the future.

	Maya liked the Children, but she could understand their fear.  She
knew enough now to know it wasn't unreasonable to fear them,
unfortunately.  Power, as they say, corrupts.

	"We can get you the people.  We have to vet them for security risks
first, though." He sighed. "Unfortunately, the hunt for SEELE's
facilities is not going well.  The only one we found, with our
information from Commander Katsuragi, was completely annhilated;
nothing was left but dust and blast marks."

	Knowing Misato was alive made Maya feel a little better.  So many dead.

	Agent Wilhelm handed her a handkerchief; he'd somehow seen she was
crying before she realized it herself.  She wiped her face.  "Thank
you."

	"You lost a lot of friends, right?" he said sympathetically.

	"Yes.  Many good friends of mine at NERV are dead," she said.  "Even
the people I didn't like...we were comrades, you know.  Fighting
together to save humanity.  You swallowed your irritation because
everyone was needed.  We wanted to save the world," she said,
frustrated and sad.  "And then we fell, one by one."

	He stared out the window.  He started to ask something, then fell silent.

	"Is this about the global hallucination?" she asked softly.

	Most people didn't want to talk about it or pretended it never
happened.  The world had changed and then changed again and no one
understood why or whether it might happen again.  Given there was no
evidence it happened but memories, many were trying to forget it.

	"Did you meet anyone you knew was dead?" he said softly.

	"Ritsuko and I were happy together, working peacefully in a land not
torn by war, and all my dead friends were alive again and enjoying
themselves," Maya said.  "And then suddenly I was back underwater in a
city full of catatonic monsters who would rape me or eat me if they
woke up," she said softly.  "And Ritsuko hasn't woken up since."

	He mumbled something about his parents, then said, "I'm sorry."

	"Me too, but that's how dreams are.  Illusions that vanish when you
wake up."  She looked around her lab and sighed.  "Fertility rates are
up," she said.  "The ice cap restored itself.  Something flushed a lot
of the carbon out of the air.  We have a second chance.  But I fear we
will fuck it up like we did our first one.  Humanity is still the
same, part angel and part monster."  Literally.  The blood of
Ubbo-Sathla flowed in humanity's veins.  The stars had changed; we
won.  But for how long?

*****************

	"It's still hard to accept the idea of aliens on Earth," John Carter
said; he was one of the new newsanchors on CNN, replacing one of the
many who died in the chaos of the final day of war on the Angels.

	"Well, you've seen the footage," Megumi Kunzama said.  She was a
guest on Carter's show, talking about her experiences in covering the
Angel War.  "They were unleashing these bio-war-machines on us from
their undersea cities.  Fortunately, they didn't seem to realize we
could stop their first one - and then they kept frantically sending
them as fast as they could make them, before we could find their
cities and neutralize them.  But the Children destroyed their main
city and the mer-men all went catatonic."  She grimaced.  "Not before
too many people died."

	"But how did they get here?" Carter asked.

	"My theory is that Second Impact woke them up," Megumi said.  "The UN
reports indicate they don't seem to need any sustenance to stay alive
in their comas.  So probably some idiot managed to trigger a 'wakeup'
signal - and they woke up, and started getting ready to attack.  Then
it was a race to see who would be ready first; and, very narrowly,
NERV won."

	"Do you think it's true that NERV's leadership knew the attacks were
coming?" Carter asked.

	"Yes.  They had to have known.  And whatever the UN leadership claims
now, people in the UN leadership had to have known.  No one would have
funded NERV and gone to such lengths to keep its secrets unless they
knew.  But it's pretty clear that Commander Ikari was pretty much a
loose cannon and fell out with the governments that sponsored NERV.
Given how much collateral damage typical NERV operations had, I'm
stunned he stayed in charge so long," Megumi said, frowning.  "NERV's
staff was pretty hostile to outsiders.  Covering them was rough."

	"What about the rumors about some kind of alien collaborationists?"
Carter asked.

	"Oh, it's inevitable," Megumi said.  "Some people will do anything
for money and the mer-men had been hoarding gold for a long time."
She grimaced and shifted in her chair.  "You're a reporter, you know
how people are."

	Carter shook his head sadly.  "I know.  And the giant hallucination?"

	"I don't know enough about psychology to speculate, but it seems to
have been an aftershock of the destruction of the main mer-man city.
It was probably intended to be a psychic weapon to destroy us."
Megumi frowned.  "Saying 'psychic weapon' sounds so stupid.  But what
else can you call it?"

	"It's quite clear they unleashed something in the last hours intended
to drive us all mad," Carter said.  "Roll tape 6."

	Images played across the screen behind them of riots in major cities,
arson, lynchings, group sex, and even one group using construction
cranes to pile up cars like a giant version of Stonehenge made out of
vehicles.

	"It must have been some last-ditch weapon; they didn't use anything
like that at NERV-Germany," Megumi said, shivering.

	"Is it true they had EVA units of their own deployed there?" Carter asked.

	"They weren't the same, but I think they were similar.  There was a
huge humanoid leading the attack, who probably was something
equivalent to an Evangelion unit," Megumi said.

	"We have to go to a commercial, but we'll be back after the break,"
Carter said to the camera.  "Stay tuned to CNN for the latest news in
the aftermath of the end of the Angel War."

	They then went to a commercial.

*****************

	It is, not just law, but virtually a constitutional mandate that all
grocery stores in the US South must have tables in front of them for
old men to sit at, swapping lies and talking about the good old days.
Old Man Blake, Joe, Abadiah, and Fish Hook Fred were the obligatory
old men usually to be found at tables in front of the west side HEB
grocery store in Livingston.

	"Mighty fine summer we're having," Abadiah said lazily.  He was an
old black man, with hair long gone grey, who usually looked like he
was asleep - even when he was talking.  The four of them had fought
together in Vietnam, when they were young and the world had seemed
like anything was possible. Now they were getting old.

	"You know, for all the mess of the War," Joe said, pushing his hat
back up, "every summer we've had is just damn nice."

	Ever since the War - the Angel War - it never got more than about 85
degrees at worst. The humidity was amazingly low for a seaport, and
the winters were mild too.  It rained, but never horribly, and
hurricanes never seemed to get this far west these days.

	Mind you, if you went more than 20 miles from Livingston, the bone
crushing heat and humidity would close in on you like a blanket and
try to suck the life out of you.  But if you choose to live in East
Texas, you got used to that.

	They were happy to have it this way.  Whatever the cause was.

	"I guess it's probably 'cause of them," Fish Hook Fred said.  He was
a grizzled old white guy with a terrible white beard and a hat with
lots of fish hooks stuck in it.  He was a great fisherman; some days
they went out in his boat and fished.  You could catch all kind of
fish around Livingston that weren't normally native to the Gulf of
Mexico.  Fish Hook Fred had developed a great fondness for ayu, a very
sweet-tasting fish.

	And shrimp...shrimp seemed determined to practically jump into
people's laps.  Or maybe that was just Fish Hook Fred lying about his
exploits again.

	"Probably," Old Man Blake said gloomily.  "They're gonna kill us all
one of these days."

	"C'mon, it's been two years and no one is dead," Abadiah said.
"They're good kids, quiet, well behaved.  Well, except for Tobias."

	"Touji, I think," Joe said, then tried to get some more chewing
tobacco.  To his frustration, his can was empty.  "Dammit."

	"The boy's a great fisher," Fish Hook Fred said.  "Togi, that is.  I
ran into him and his Mom and the rest of them a couple a' weeks ago.
Togi's girlfriend got a mackarel to the face."

	"Oh come on, there are no mackarel in the Gulf," Joe said.  "They're
river fish."

	"They're sea-going," Abadiah said.  "Mackerel live off-shore.  We
caught some last month, remember?"

	"Those were tuna," Joe said stubbornly.  Once he screwed up, he
couldn't admit it.  "They any good at fishing?"

	"The other boy, the quiet one, he was damn good.  Togi, he was okay,"
Fish Hook Fred said.  "Really, they all seem pretty normal.  You'd
kinda...well, you know."

	"Yeah," Joe said.  "Dammit, I need more chewing tobacco."

	"I'm not getting punched by your wife for giving you more money for
it," Abadiah said, waving a hand dismissively.  "I'm too old to get
hit."

	The sound of an engine in bad shape being driven at high speed came
into focus in the distance, then drew closer.  What had once been a
nice sports car...in the early 90s... roared into the lot, pulling up
in a cloud of dust that left the men coughing. Touji got out, with a
slightly wobbly looking Hikari, then sauntered up to the old men.  "Is
that car FINE or is it FINER?" he asked.

	Hikari said, "It *sounds* like it's going to explode, Touji. I think
you got ripped off."  She seemed a little disoriented.

	"I think it needs a tuneup," Abadiah said.  "You ought to bring it by
my son's shop, let him fix it up for you.  That was a mighty fine car,
back before I had grandkids."

	Touji went to school with said grandkids; this made him wince a
little.  "I'm not rich, you know."  His English had a thick accent,
but people living in Texas are used to thick accents.

	"Me neither, son," Abadiah said.  When you're old, you get to call
people son.  It's the law.  "It's a fine car, but I think it needs
some engine work.  What did you pay for it?"

	"A thousand five hundred.  Mom loaned me most of it," Touji said.

	"I can hardly believe we can legally drive here," Hikari said.  Her
English had only a faint accent, though no one would mistake her for a
native.

	"If you can drive a giant robot, you can drive a car," Abadiah said.
"You turn sixteen here, you get to drive."

	Joe mumbled about his grandkids and Fish Hook Fred laughed.

	"Your mother send you to the store?" Old Man Blake asked.

	"Yeah, she's got a craving for traditional Japanese food, so she's
sent us here for stuff I doubt we're gonna be able to find in Texas.
Or at least not a town this size."  Touji sighed.  "I would fucking
kill for some decent soba."  Hastilly, he said, "Metaphor.  Or
simile...I mean..."

	"They know," Hikari said, then smiled at the old men.  "I hate to
ask, but could one of you help us look?"

	"I'd be happy to," Abadiah said, then took the list.  He stared.
"What is this?"

	"Oh, it's in Japanese, sorry," Hikari said, then began scribbling
translations.  "We're very grateful."

	"You're good kids," Abadiah said.  "Your family doing well?"

	"Oh, Asuka and Shinji are being kind of mopey again," Touji said.
"They usually get like this around this time of year."  He sighed.

	"Well, let's go," Hikari said.  "Good day to you all, honored
elders."  She bowed and hustled the two men off.

	"You know, it's kind of weird when someone who could probably destroy
this whole damn town treats you better than your own kids and
grandkids," Joe said.

	"Ain't it always the way?" Old Man Blake said.

	"I guess so," Fish Hook Fred said.  "I guess so."

***************
	
	A lot of the teachers complained that Asuka never seemed to pay much
attention in class, though her grades were pretty much flawless. She
just generally seemed bored out of her skull. Mrs. Watson never had
any trouble, though.  Asuka read every book for her English class, and
was very active in discussion; eager, even.  It was infectious; her
section with Asuka was far better and studied much harder than any of
her others.  She'd been worried...everyone had worried about the
Children attending school here, but they were all pretty well behaved
and respectful.

	She stopped Asuka from leaving at the end of class, just to talk to
her a little.  "Have you thought about college?" she asked.  "I mean,
which college, what career, all that?"  Of course a smart girl like
Asuka would go to college.

	"I already have a degree from the University of Berlin in Physics,
but no one seems to take it seriously, and they've made me redo
education I already have," Asuka said, her voice rising; she visibly
forced herself to stay calm. "But I really like your class, Frau
Watson.  It's all totally new; I haven't read any of this and we have
really good discussions so I'm not bored out of my skull."  She bowed.
 "I'm not angry with you," she said quickly.  "But this school bores
me to tears.  I've already done all this."  She sighed. "I do like
your class."

	"I'm sorry," Mrs. Watson said.

	"I will go where Shinji goes, most likely," Asuka said, then stared
out the window towards the ocean.  "Do you still love your husband?"

	Mrs. Watson blinked.  What?  "Yes.  The initial fire ebbs, but I
can't imagine living without him."

	"You can't imagine what it's like," Asuka said softly.  "I
can't...I'm sorry.  This isn't your problem."  She turned to go.

	"It's okay.  Talking helps, right?" Mrs. Watson asked.

	"I tend to scare people when I'm honest," Asuka said softly.  "If I
don't pretend to be totally normal, it scares people.  Sometimes it
scares me."

	"My husband, he fought in the Gulf War.  Sometimes it all comes back
to him," Mrs. Watson said.  "Once you fight in a war, you'll never be
entirely out of that war, right?" she added softly.

	Asuka blinked, then nodded.  "Exactly."  There was more, Mrs. Watson
could tell, but Asuka seemed reluctant to speak of it.

	"If you ever want to talk about it, I'm here," Mrs. Watson said.

	"I can't," Asuka said, and sighed.  "But thank you.  You're a good teacher."

	"And you're a good student.  Good luck."

	Asuka left and Mrs. Watson sighed.  Poor girl.  She's been through
hell and back.  I'm surprised she handles it so well.

*****************

	Misato had tried to talk them out of it, but couldn't, so she just
went down to the docks to see them off.  She had a strong feeling this
was goodbye.

 	Touji and Hikari came, of course.  They were off to California -
Touji to play college basketball and maybe learn something, and Hikari
to definitely learn something - but that wouldn't be until the fall.
They'd all graduated from high school, and now Shinji and Asuka were
going to go sailing 'around the world'.  But Misato knew they weren't
coming back.

	 Hikari and Touji had more or less adjusted, though they had bad
days. Asuka and Shinji...it was too hard for them to hide their
abilities, and if they didn't, people freaked out.  She'd tried, but
she didn't know what else she could do for them.

	She drew both of them into an embrace.  "Be careful, okay?" she said,
trying not to cry.

	They held her tightly.  "Of course," Asuka said.

	"Very careful," Shinji said.  "We'll miss you."

	That's when Misato started crying, while Touji shifted uncomfortably
and Hikari came over and hugged Asuka.

	"Hey, man, I..."  Touji didn't know what to say to Shinji.

	"I'll miss you too," Shinji said simply.

	"Yeah," Touji mumbled.

	"You could come with us, you know," Shinji said softly.

	"I can't, man.  Not now, anyway," Touji mumbled.

	"Don't go," Misato begged, ashamed of herself for begging.

	"I don't want to be watched the rest of my life," Shinji said.  "Is
there really anything for you three here?"

	"Yeah, there is," Touji said.  "I'm sorry, man."

	"I know how you feel, but I'm not ready to give up yet," Hikari said.
"Are you..."

 	"Yes," Asuka said.  "But we'll see you in our dreams. And one day,
we'll all be together again."

	"I..." Misato began.

	"You too," Asuka said softly.  She kissed Misato's forehead and there
was a tiny burst of flame shaped like a phoenix.  Misato shivered.
"Until we meet again."

	They each put a hand out and stacked them, Misato's on the bottom.
Then Shinji said, "Until we meet again."  Then he took Asuka's hand
and they walked onto the boat and sailed out to sea.

	They never returned to human civilization, but one day, they all did
meet again.

********************

	Ritsuko's eyes opened.  She blinked in surprise; this wasn't her
Mother's city, was it?  In fact, it felt rather like a table and those
were definitely flourescent lights.

	Also, she seemed to be breathing normally without being underwater.
Though there was something...  She touched her neck and felt some sort
of jelly-like substance.

	There was an odd noise and a book suddenly flew over her head and
then Maya was standing over her, smiling nervously.  "You woke up."

	Maya looked to be in her forties now, and she had a long white streak
in her hair which rather reminded Ritsuko of a skunk.  Her smile was
still so bright; she was starting to cry, though she smiled.

	"Has it been twenty years?" Ritsuko asked softly.

	"Five hundred and twenty-eight," Maya said.

	"..."

	Maya took Ritsuko's hands nervously.  "We figured out how to enable
you to breathe in air centuries ago, but you wouldn't wake up no
matter what.  I guess the current situation somehow revived you."

	"The thing on my throat?" Ritsuko asked, her scientific curiosity aroused.

	"We figured out how to change the biology of the substance I used in
the city so it could enable water breathers to work out here.  In
fact, variants of it can enable anyone to breathe just about anything
with the right form," Maya said proudly, then looked down.  "Anyway,
welcome to NERV-2."

	"How..." she began.

	Maya sighed.  "We have very advanced ways to stave off aging, though
nothing works perfectly.  I likely have a few more centuries in me, if
I survive this.  But I feel better facing it with you."

	Surely she hasn't been waiting for me all this time, Ritsuko thought,
not sure if this was romantic, creepy, or both.  "I hope you haven't
been pining away for me," she said, licking her lips nervously.

	"I haven't been celibate for six centuries," Maya said.  "I always
hoped, but I eventually concluded that you wouldn't want me to just
wait forever."  She sounded guilty.

	"Good," Ritsuko said, relieved.  No one could wait for another person
for centuries.  She felt a little jealous, but Ritsuko was not a
romantic at heart who thought anyone could have one true love sustain
them forever.

	"But I'm not seeing anyone right now, so...But come."  Maya helped
Ritsuko stand up.  "Good.  I thought your legs would still work.  We
kept them exercised so you wouldn't atrophy," she continued.  "Let me
show you everything, then I'll explain what's going on."

	"So humanity survived?" Ritsuko asked.

	"And flourished," Maya said.  "Unfortunately, this universe still
doesn't like us very much.  And humanity's struggling with the legacy
of the Children."

	"Go on?"

	"People have been seeing visions of them, and some are developing
powers," Maya said.  "Cults are arising again, and the stars are
moving unnaturally.  If we don't figure out some way to handle this,
we may well destroy ourselves."  She sighed.  "But that's always the
way with advances.  Humanity is about to take its next step in
evolution, I think, and we have to ensure it survives it without
self-destructing.  Not an invasion like last time; this time, we have
to fight and overcome what's inside us.   Our own darkness, made worse
by the legacy of Adam and the powers in this universe."  She sounded
rather worried about whether they'd win.

	"I know," Ritsuko said, taking Maya's hand.  "Brief me.  I'm ready to
do something beyond sleep."  She paused.  "I don't suppose Misato is
here too?"

	"She's with them, wherever they are," Maya said softly.  "She went
out to sea with Touji and Hikari centuries ago, when she got old and
they should have but didn't."

	I hope they're happy, Ritsuko thought.  "My condition hasn't changed?"

	"I think we can cure you," Maya said.  "I didn't want to experiment
on you while you were unconscious.  You'll be amazed what we can do.
But I'm sure you'll soon get up to speed."

	Ritsuko wasn't so sure; five centuries of science was not likely
something to learn quickly.  But she was certainly willing to try.
"So do you have any descendents?"

	"I never had time for kids," Maya said.  "We can think about having
some after this crisis is over."

	"I didn't mean..."  Ritsuko's eyes crossed.

	"You're still fun to tease," Maya said, smiling.  "Anyway, follow me!"

	Ritsuko let Maya lead her on into the future.  There was work to do,
and Ritsuko needed that.

 	Good luck, Misato, Ritsuko thought.  Perhaps we'll meet again.

****************

The End.