Neon Genesis: Alternation
Episode I: An Unexpected Prophecy
Shinji opened his eyes at the sound of his name. "What is it, Misato?" he asked.
"The sync test is finished. Asuka still has a higher score than you...but you're catching up fast."
He smiled. "But I'm still better than you are, Shinji Ikari!" Asuka's voice came over the holographic com-panel.
"Asuka..." Misato began.
"But it's true!"
"You might have a higher score, but..."
Shinji sighed. He vaguely listened to the conversation...Asuka asserting her superiority...Misato trying to calm her, in his defense...when, as far as he was concerned, she was right. Asuka was better...Asuka was always better...
The girl gathered her coat around her body. It so rarely snowed here in Tokyo 3...but today it came in flakes as big as bottle-caps. And it was cold. She glanced up at one of the scrolling signs that girded some of the buildings...11:30 AM...30*F... In her entire life, it had never been so cold.
"Hey!" She turned her head in the direction of the summons. "Over here! What are you doing out here...with only that thin jacket!" The girl approached the woman that addressed her...from a blue sports car that looked rather...uh...like it had seen better days.
"I...I'm looking for NERV headquarters...I was ordered to report there as soon as school finished."
"But it's only eleven thirty in the morning," the woman replied.
The girl visibly cringed "Classes were canceled about half an hour ago..." she said hurriedly, "be...because of the snow."
"Then they should be home by now..." the stranger muttered under her breath...then louder: "Well...get in the car, and..."
"What...? Wait...I...who are you...!?"
"Oh...Did I forget to introduce myself? I'm Major Misato Katsuragi, head of EVA operations at NERV..." She stated, thrusting her hand out the car window.
"Ohhhhhhh..." the girl replied...quite awed. She took the proffered hand and gingerly shook it.
Now...get in the car before you freeze out here."
"Yes, ma'am"
"Why is it so cold?" Asuka queried as she sat huddled next to the small apartment's heater, holding her mug of hot chocolate like it was the Holy Grail.
"Asuka," Shinji said mildly, "you have every blanket in the place wrapped around you..."
"And I suppose you're warm and toasty..." It took her a moment to realize what she'd said...but by then it was too late...
"Did someone say 'toast'?" came a particularly annoying voice from a red and chrome box on the kitchen counter. "I know I heard someone say 'toast'..."
Shinji thought for a moment..."Actually...a piece of toast does sound nice right now..."
"You idiot...what do you think you're doing!?"
"I was just..."
Asuka cut him off. "Don't encourage the thing! Now it'll never shut up!! I still can't understand why Kaji bought that thing for Misato in the first place...it doesn't even make good toast!!!"
"Hey...you watch it missy...I make perfectly good toast! I toast...therefore I am! I also make excellent crumpets...biscuits...tea cakes..."
Shinji sighed and left the room, for the relative sanity of his Walkman. The only intelligent being able to out talk Asuka...and it had to be a toaster.
"With Shinji, Asuka and I all living in my small apartment...I don't know if there's enough room for one more..." Misato thought out loud as the two of them walked towards the testing facilities..."And you don't have another place close to stay...?"
"Well...I...uh..."
"Hmmm...well...You can stay the night with us...but..."
"That will not be necessary, Major Katsuragi..." Rei interjected in her usually detached voice, meeting the two as they rounded a corner. "The new pilot may stay with me if she wishes."
"Thank you." The new girl said, respectfully bowing. "May I ask your name?"
Misato gave an embarrassed giggle. "I guess I should introduce the two of you..." she indicated Rei..."This is Rei Ayanami, Pilot of EVA unit 00. And this is...this is...um...what did you say your name was?"
"I...I don't really have a name...But since I was little...everyone has called me Holly."
"Well...I guess that'll have to do, then. Rei'll show you to the locker-room...you've got number 23. I'll see you once you've changed." With that, Misato hurried down the hall.
"Ok...I...um..."
Rei wordlessly turned, and headed down the corridor.
"Hey...wait...where're you going?"
"I am going to change. This way."
Holly took a deep breath and tried to relax. She remembered walking on the framework of restraints that kept the new EVA...her EVA in stasis. She had seen the other four robots...each stranger looking than the last. And, she thought, the tradition has carried through to this one. Although the most humanoid looking of the lot, it was still ugly. It had a body as black as Unit04, but its hands and head were almost flesh-colored...and the head was the most bizarre, angled and flat. The thing looked like a gigantic chewed-on-rubber-tipped-pencil
The cockpit of her EVA, in which she now found herself, was surprisingly comfortable...despite the fact that the air was a bit stale. But she could live with that. What she couldn't live with, though, was the feeling of the new plug-suit against her skin. It wasn't normal cloth...it had a rubbery, polyester feeling to it...and it...it was clingy! (She did have to admit, however, that the iridescent green color was rather snazzy) At least she wouldn't be getting wet in here...that would be really gross. She looked around, taking in the sight of the inside of her entry-plug. Although standing, she leaned at an angle against the rear of the cockpit...she looked down to see how far it stretched...
"MISATO!!!"
"What? Is there a problem?" The Major's face appeared small and two-dimentional.
"No...no, there's no problem. No problem at all...none at all...except that MY ENTRY PLUG LEAKS!!!"
"Um...Holly..."
"IT''S FILLING UP WITH...EWWWWW!!! THIS ISN'T WATER!! GET ME OUT OF HERE!!! IT'S BROWN...AND IT'S WARM...AND...AND...
"AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!"
She could hear Misato and Asuka snickering at her...Shinji was sighing and shaking his head. She resumed her screaming...
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!"
"Holly..."
"AAAAAAAHHHHHH- wha...huh?
"Holly...please breath...take a deep breath..."
"Breath? Breathe WHAT! THIS...THIS LIQUID STUFF IS ALMOST UP TO MY CHIN...SOMEBODY GET ME OUT OF HERE!!!!!!!
In the control room, Ritsuko looked at Misato. "Aren't you going to tell her that the LCL is what she's supposed to breath?"
"Hmmmm..." she replied over the continued cries, "What do you think?"
"It might be a good idea."
"Thanks again for letting me stay with you, Rei."
"It is no problem," she replied, opening the door to her small apartment. Holly followed her in, taking her shoes off at the door, just as Rei had. "Help yourself to something to eat."
Holly blinked. There was no kitchen to speak of...just a small refrigerator, and some cabinets. The girl searched these...and to her dismay, found only a bottle of salad cream in the cupboard and a cup of brown, glopply-looking mold in the fridge. Sighing, she took the salad cream, and replaced the mold with it. "Rei...there's a moldy coffee cup in the refrigerator...can I through it out?"
"I would prefer it if you didn't," the other replied.
"Why?"
Rei thought for a moment..."It was a gift. Some of my classmates thought I needed to lighten up a little." Holly stared at it. "They told me it was called 'Gerald'."
"Gadies and lentlemen!" Misato cried from the top of her coffee table, "Welcome to the welcoming party for Holly, the Fifth Child!!!" She bowed, as thunderous applause rang in her ears.
Well...it would have been thunderous...if there had been more people in her apartment...and more of them had been sober. In reality, all four of the children clapped...Ritsuko was asleep with her head on the table, a small puddle having collected...and Kaji was...well...shall we say...not being vary lentlemanly. And, for some odd reason...the toaster was, vary softly, and vary sadly, singing a chorus of an old song called "Fly Me To The Moon"...and it sounded quite like the new version by a British group called Colostamy Explosion, although Holly couldn't quite tell. She leaned over to Shinji, "Major Katsuragi sure has a taste for beer," she quietly observed.
The boy simply nodded.
Suddenly...Holly saw something odd out of the corner of her eye. It was...what looked like...a penguin...carrying a sledgehammer...Before her mind could register how odd that really was, however, Pen-Pen had already taken the hammer to the lamenting toaster, to the delight of everyone in the room. Thunderous applause rang in Misato's ears.
Holly was very board. The teacher had been endlessly talking about Second Impact now for at least four hours. Hardly able to keep her eyes open, she tapped at random keys on the computer that sat on her desk.
Tap...tick...
tap...tick...
tap...EEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEE
She snapped to attention at the sound of the siren. Everyone in the classroom, save the pilots, was being herded through the door...to the shelter under the school. An angel was attacking!
***
"Commander Ikari!" Ritsuko shouted, "this angel is like nothing we've ever encountered before!"
"Explain."
"All of the angels so far have had DNA that's over ninety-percent compatible with our own...but this one...this one is totally alien."
"Search the computer for a match. It has to be similar to some kind of Terran creature."
***
"It's what?!" Asuka fumed.
"The Magi have confirmed it. This angel had DNA that's eighty percent compatible with that of a chicken."
"But, it doesn't look like a chicken..." Shinji observed.
"Nice observation." Asuka retorted.
"The reason that it's still humanoid," Ritsuko replied, "is that it still has some of the DNA that's like that of other angels."
"So...where is it?" Toji asked.
"Probably heading for NERV headquarters..."
Misato's face appeared on all of the EVAs' comm-pannels. "No...it's not heading here...for some reason...it's away from us."
Toji was confused. "But isn't the objective of all angels to merge with Adam...who's kept under NERV?"
"Well...so far, yes...but this one seems to have another agenda. The Magi are tracing it...to the corner of 6th and Main street...heading due west..."
Rei blinked. "The angel is moving towards my apartment," she said, simply. "I wonder why..."
***
"Ikari...this angel and the new pilot were predicted events...but the result was not. How do you explain this?"
"I cannot at this time," he replied, unperturbed.
"We have found that if this angel comes in contact with a life form now in Ayanami's possession, it will cause a white hole to form and time will begin to run in reverse. This is not in our plans. It cannot happen."
"But," Ikari countered, "you said that it was predicted. Are our plans not predestined as well?"
"Yes...but there is still one loose end...the section of the Scrolls that laid out these events was only recently found...and it doesn't fit with the rest of the text. Can you explain this?" One of the men that had just started wearing green paper hats held up a worn sheet of paper with Hebrew characters for Ikari to identify.
"Oh." He said. "This is bad. This is vary bad."
***
"Cover me, Shinji."
"Asuka...a direct attack might not be the best idea."
They were in sight of the angel. It was at least as tall as an EVA, and twice as ugly. A brownish-tannish color, it had a head similar in shape to a horse's skull...with no lips...and it's skin was some sort of liquidy substance that glooped and gloped when it moved.
Holly made a face. "That thing is disgusting! How are we supposed to destroy that thing?"
Asuka raised her weapon, a very large projectile gun, and fired a couple rounds at the creature. The bullets simply went through it without stopping...or effecting the angel. Rei tried next...with an energy weapon...there still was no effect. Even after Holly fired at it with something she affectionately termed a "bazookoid"...it was still in one piece. "None of our weapons even slow it down!!! What do we do now?!"
Gendou Ikari took his seat in the control room of NERV. "Rei."
"What is it, sir?"
"You have a strange life-form in your possession...I want to know what it is."
She thought for a moment, "I don't know what you are referring to, Sir..."
"I think I do..." Holly interjected. "Gerald. It's Gerald."
"Elaborate." Ikari ordered. "What sort of creature is this 'Gerald'?"
Rei explained. "Could that be what the angel's after?" she asked.
"Yes. The angel must not come in contact with this mould. We must prevent that at all costs."
"But...we can't even slow it down!!!" Asuka protested, "How are we supposed to stop it!?"
Holly thought for a moment...the color and texture of the creature seemed curiously familiar...as did the smell... "Misato! You said that only eighty percent of the creature's DNA was that of a chicken...what's the rest?"
Ritsuko spoke up..."various organic matter...animal...vegetable..."
Holly smiled. "I think I have a plan."
"Nooooooooooo!!!!!!! You can't! You just can't!!!"
"I'm sorry, Major...there is no choice."
She nodded, still sobbing.
***
"We're ready on this end," Shinji reported. All five EVAs had taken up a circular formation around the new angel...their weapons ready.
"I...I think we are, too..." Katsuragi said, small tears still streaming down her face.
"Alright, then..." Ikari took a breath..."Fire the catapults!"
The minute he said this, a large tank was launched into the air, in front of each EVA. All at once, they were fired upon, sending a shower of dark-yellow, frothy liquid down on the creature. In seconds it began to melt...with a deafening cry. Only to be drowned out by Misato's weeping.
Later that day, as they sat around Misato's coffee table, drinking tea, Shinji asked: "Holly...how did you ever come up with that plan to destroy the angel? And why did it melt when it was drenched with beer?"
"Well..." she said, proudly, "Remember that dinner I cooked for everyone the first day I got here?" Everyone nodded.
"Everyone else liked it...but Misato had to down three cans of her beer to get the taste out of her mouth!" Toji laughed.
"Somehow a chicken curry must have mutated into that monster."
Shinji looked confused. "So it...it wasn't an angel at all then?"
Misato shook her head. "I guess not." She sipped at her tea. "I still don't understand why I had to give up my stockpile...there isn't even one can left!!!"
"We have a saying in England," Holly stated, "Lager is the only thing that'll kill a vindaloo!" At that, everyone laughed.
"Ikari..."
"Yes," he answered
"We still expect an explanation." The oldest one at the table looked slightly disenchanted.
As did the one in the VISOR. "The events that have been occurring since the last pilot was recruited have been predicted in a text that is not part of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Furthermore, these events are not even mentioned in the Scrolls at all." He handed Gendou the offending sheet of paper. "Read this for us, will you, Ikari?"
Gendou gulped, and began to sweat a little.
"Well...we're waiting..."
He cleared his throat. "Um.... one pair of argyle socks...three uniforms...uh..."
Everyone stared wide-eyed at him. "You mean...you mean to say that this is your laundry list!! Why is it in Hebrew...and why do you say it says something different than what we translated it as? You've run out of time and excuses, Ikari!"
"I...I guess I'm not as fluent in the language as I thought..." he responded uncomfortably. "After all...translation isn't my job..."
"Ikari..." the one in the VISOR addressed him again "I think we're all glad about that one."
The End
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