Chapter Three

By Michael Fetter

"Now shut up or get the hell out."

This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. Shinji hadn’t been sure at the beginning what he would say, or how his father would react, but this . . . The bastard knew no limits. He could see that now. Commander Ikari was a monster, worse than the Angels that they were fighting. The Angels only wanted to destroy everything, Ikari, he wanted to pervert the world.

It started when he used the first Angel as a schematic for their savior. Then Shinji’s mother, this place, Rei, and now, "Mei."

From the door, the new girl smirked, a cocky little grin he’d seen on Ranma or Ranko, but it was more condescending. Shinji could feel her soulless eyes evaluating his moves, analyzing and cataloging for some future reference.

Probably as a butt of some joke, he scowled.

Her hair was long and curly, reaching below her shoulders, that made her look a little maniacal when the light caught her from behind, a banshee or some sick doll.

Her voice was much like Asuka’s had been, cruel and sharp, not because of her tone, but how she spoke to you, her soulless red eyes boring into you at the same time. "Ikari Shinji, seventeen, pilot of Eva 001, sync rate 73 percent, top speed 98 miles per hour, max power output 400% . . . You’re pathetic."

"Mei?" Shinji looked at his father, growling. "Another one of your dolls, Commander?!"

Mei’s expression darkened, the grin slipping as her eyes narrowed on Shinji.

~

Gendou had called them in today for a practice run to test Mei’s abilities. There was still much Ranko didn’t know about the girl, but with the way she came to be, Mei likely didn’t know that much herself. The girl’s powers were still a bit sketchy since she had so little training with them. They weren’t earned in the same fashion she and Ranma had earned their powers, but a combination of genetic knowledge and heredity.

Mei strolled cockily ahead of Ranko and Ranma, body swaying in a way to declare she was better than everyone. Ranko really doubted that.

"Try not to knock her around too much, Ranma." She whispered low enough that Mei could not hear. The girl was surprisingly strong, Ranko would give her that, but her control and focus were lacking.

Frowning, Ranma continued to watch the redhead in front of them. "I don’t know if I could hit her at all."

"Don’t give me that." Ranko hissed. "Don’t wuss out because she is a girl."

"You know it’s not just that."

Turning her attention back to Mei, Ranko looked over the contours of the gray and green suit. "We either find out how useful she is now . . . or later."

They walked a moment longer while Ranma considered what Ranko was implying. He couldn’t argue that he would likely be gentler than the Angels. Nodding, Ranma’s face turned stern as he mentally prepared himself for the sparring match to come. Despite the training with Ranko, he still didn’t like to hit girls. Knowing what Mei was, Ranma liked the idea of fighting her even less.

"I don’t see why you couldn’t have fought her first. You’re much better at this than me." Ranma argued again.

They came out onto the walkway between the Eva’s and the observation tower. Ranko headed for the latter. "My Eva is the first to go through the upgrade is why."

Ranma snorted since that hardly mattered while Ranko could easily pilot his Eva.

"And you look so much sexier in that plug suit than me." She smiled lecherously and laughed when he blushed.

Scowling at her retreating figure, Ranma walked after Mei, splitting off as she stepped into her entry plug. "Careful with the LCL. It scared the hell out of me before I learned to breathe it."

Mei snorted and sat down in her entry plug. She didn’t care for his advice and she didn’t need it, no matter how he felt about her. "All he’s going to feel is my fist in his gut after today." She smiled and donned her trodes while settling back in the plug seat.

~

Ranko held Mei suspended in the air by her neck.

Shinji blinked and did a double take before he could find his bearings again. One moment he was talking with the Commander and there was a sudden flare of energy from Mei. Before he could react, another flare from his right, a familiar blue color, charged across the hangar to Mei, though it looked more like Ranko had faded out of existence and reappeared before Mei to him.

"Ack." Mei struggled futilely in Ranko’s grip. Punches and strikes were brushed aside like they were nothing but annoying insect bites. Feeling a weight come over her mind, Mei wrapped her hands over the one holding her up in the air to relieve some of the pressure on her throat.

Seeming to be unconcerned with the other girl’s choking, Ranko held her closer and examined something beneath the surface. She watched the way Mei’s purple aura swirled wildly about her body and made note of some of the more interesting characteristics.

"Release her." Gendou ordered.

Ranko continued to hold the girl and study the aura for another minute, watching its strength to be sure Mei wasn’t suffocating completely. Finished, Ranko set the girl back down. "The next time I will not hesitate to beat you into unconsciousness if you attack anything but a true enemy."

Mei swallowed and massaged her throat, glaring at the smaller redhead and failing to hold back the bit of fear in her eyes. "He started it." She croaked.

She dropped to her knees once being released and started inhaling lung-fulls of air. Whatever fear Shinji’d been feeling to the girl doubled when she stood back up and glared at him, brushing off the recent experience as a momentary lapse of her superiority.

Looking warily between Ranko and Mei, then back to the Commander, Shinji pushed his hands in his pockets, the Sdat resting in his left, and turned to the door. "You’re right. You’ve got your pilots. I’m just in the way now."

They each watched him shamble off to the black hallway. His notion of promoting some melodramatic revolt to greater prosperity amongst the pilots shot before it took off. Brushing by Ranko, Shinji stopped momentarily to wish her luck against the Angels. She, out of everyone there, deserved much more than his respect, but it was all he had and she deserved every ounce of it.

"You’ll come to the temple if you need anything, right?" Ranko asked. It was an open-ended offering to eat, talk, or simply stay with her and her family at the temple. Shinji smiled and said he would.

"Shinji."

He turned back around. The room was still quiet with his departure except for Rei. Timidly, she was walking through the staring audience of NERV personnel. Her eyes darted from him, to the Commander, and the other pilots, skipping Mei as she went, as if pulling apart the options she was given and finding whatever she chose, people would either miss her, or simply not care.

Shinji could see Ranko smile as Rei walked closer. The shorter redhead put a hand on Rei’s shoulder, holding her still for a moment and whispered something into her ear. Smiling and nodding her head, Rei took a few steps closer to Shinji and grabbed his hand, warm against her naturally cooler skin.

They were leaving together as Misato stepped forward, looking questioningly at the Commander. "Aren’t you going to stop her?"

~

The test field was becoming filled with potholes from the fighting style she and Ranma were used to. Some of them were twenty meters wide while others were concentrated to within a couple of feet, but they bored much further into the earth. Unit 003 and 004, also known as Silver, were positioned at opposite ends of the training area. No weapons were going to be used this time because Gendou wanted to test Mei’s real combat effectiveness.

Ranko agreed that it was important to know if Fifth Child was as good as she claimed to be. She would’ve started with weapons in the Eva trainer and unarmed outside, but so much of the Eva fighting style was mental that outside fighting would be hard to assess.

Before coming to NERV, Shinji was the best pilot they had because of his natural ability and his occasional lapse into a semi-psychotic state where the Eva would go wild. Ranko had actually seen it happen, after Ranma had gone, an Angel came for them, a shadow that swallowed unit 001 into its depths.

Something happened while he was inside. The time for his life support expired and they had all lost hope, then he returned.

Unit 001 thrashed about, clawing at anything that might be the Angel. Skyscrapers of Tokyo-3 fell as the Eva went on a rampage. She’d had trouble holding him when he was clear of the shadow.

When the entry plug opened, Shinji was shivering, breathing so shallowly. He never spoke of what happened inside the Angel. No one asked.

"Syncs are up." Akagi commented, looking over her young technician’s shoulder.

"Yes." Maya replied, staring at the screen, flashing various numbers for the things they were testing that day. "Unit 004 is in the area of two hundred and eighty percent."

"Excellent." Ritsuko smiled. "Looks like we have another ace pilot then."

Ranko was silent, her eyes closed, feeling the energy in the air for herself. Mei was closer and disrupting her scan of Ranma’s aura. What she felt from 004 was powerful, a darker emotion to be sure. Nothing so terrible as what Akane had been training with, but capable of falling off either end of the ridge. Much of it was unfocused energy that could be tempered like steel with training.

Gendou had already seen fit to place her as Mei’s trainer. She would’ve insisted if he hadn’t done so. Even as pathetic as Mei was compared to herself, uncontrolled arrogance with that much insecurity would cause trouble for more than just Mei.

Turning to the monitors, Ranko asked, "How is Ranma doing?"

The young brunette sort of shrugged at the question and turned to face her. "Hard to say. He’s starting out around a hundred, but he usually picks up a lot when things get started. Doesn’t like to give anything away straight off I guess."

Ranko nodded. She did much the same herself. She and Ranma were very arrogant fighters, but unlike Mei, they were confident enough with their abilities. "I understand. Will we be beginning soon?"

Ritsuko nodded. "Finished recording. We can start now." Her hand reached up to the ear-peice, touching a concealed button to switch the thing on. "Docking clamps will release in three, two, one. Docking clamps released. Commence training sequence. Try not to do any permanent damage to each other, okay?"

"Hai." Came the chorused response of the two pilots. Speakers were placed at corners of the room so everyone could hear the pilot’s responses in case there was trouble.

Scanners of the training region threw back detailed images of the terrain, current conditions with the weather and exact locations of anyone on it. The Evas were converging upon each other at great speeds, from the feel of it both were running. Maya made a note that Mei was moving ten kilometers per hour faster than Ranma.

~

It would’ve been natural Ikari Gendou practice to keep Rei out of danger because of what she represented to him. Rei was his prized creation. She did as he told and thought of the great duty to the world before confusing her mind with a life beyond NERV.

Whatever prompted Rei to feel a need to leave with Shinji could be removed easily, he could do it. Something, a fear in her eyes, told him that a simple order would still keep her in line.

Looking past Rei and Shinji to the young girl rubbing her throat, Gendou said nothing.

Misato stood stunned for a moment that the Commander would release Rei so easily after forcing her into this life for so long. Unlike Shinji, Rei was at least useful more of the time considering the consistency of her sync rate and her steadfastness to following orders.

The silence was all the approval Rei needed to leave the hangar area and possibly her life at NERV as well. She would have to stop by the changing rooms and get into her civilian clothes, a habit she recently got from her relationship with Shinji. It wasn’t lovers as it had been, but a strong enough bond that made them both feel more complete.

Ranko had also offered the bit of cash she had tucked away in her locker. Rei had smiled when the redhead suggested she take Shinji out somewhere.

The doors swung silently shut as the two left. The gentle brush of the sweeping metal was followed by a click as they locked into place. With their passing, life slowly started to resume its natural course within the NERV center.

Eyes turned to Ranko as she slowly grew angry and let herself levitate to a level even with Gendou’s eyes. The blue of her aura took on a nasty blood red at the core of her being. Ranma was the most surprised, knowing well how difficult changing the passion of a person’s aura was.

Ranko was barely a foot away from Gendou when she began to growl in a low, dangerous tone only he could hear. He didn’t shrink back from the danger she presented, but smiled and replied with his own hushed voice.

They knew something, the two of them. It wasn’t to be shared with the others because of the unnecessary distraction it would cause. Coming to some conclusion Gendou nodded his head in agreement with whatever they were debating and Ranko dropped back to the ground. She stared at Mei again for a long time, the silence heavy upon the tense crowd who had gathered.

Mei attempted to look back at Ranko with equally cold and calculating eyes but found her attempts broken each time Ranko’s eyes met hers. The cocky attitude she had walked in with was shattered by a greater fear that the shorter redhead represented. She stood there for long moments, sweat dripping down her forehead and blinked out of her eye.

Akagi leaned closer to the event, hoping to understand what it was Ranko was seeing. So much about ki manipulation interested her since Third and Fourth arrived.

Ranko smiled as she finished her examination. "It will take some work, but not as much as those children at the high school. I expect to see you at my temple after school anytime we are not needed here. Understand?"

Blinking, Mei looked up to the Commander who nodded. "Sure." She responded weakly and felt as if she had signed some death certificate before being sent off to war.

After all of that, the meeting was over. Gendou had Ritsuko explain a large amount of the new additions to the Eva’s, but most of the people kept giving Ranko or Mei some long stares. These weren’t the usual lecherous stares, but frightened, curious looks.

Two pilots gone, one Eva left to be used, Ranko’s had been taken already for modifications to be made, the exercise was scrubbed until later when unit 004 would arrive from America.

The study of ki with the Eva’s had been very fruitful. New technologies were being introduced that could manipulate and direct the AT fields of the Evas to offer better mobility, increased speed, strength, and a new assortment of weapons.

Ranma had to bite his tongue from laughing when they displayed their solutions to the other pilots’ inability to fly. It looked like a spider attached to each of the backs, six legs sticking out at different angles to direct the flow of ki.

She and Ranma had no idea how the expected to manipulate the life force with machines, but decided to hold their disbelief until after the new models had been tested.

"Welcome back you two." Kasumi called from the kitchen after hearing the front door open and close.

"Hi, Kasumi." They called back in unison, leaving their shoes by the door and heading off into the living room to relax. There was too much tension at work.

"Don’t I know it."

"Wha!" Ranma jumped slightly as Mamoru spoke up from his seat.

Ranko clucked at him, leaning over for a kiss. "You shouldn’t read people’s minds like that. It’s rude."

Mamoru smiled, cupping her cheek as they kissed. "Sorry. It’s sort of a habit from the job."

That was an easy enough point to make that no one would question it. Ranma headed over to the couch to take a seat. "So where’re Skuld, Urd, and Bell?"

"They should be getting off work sometime in the next half-hour I suspect." He replied. Ranko was now sitting at his side, leaning against his chest and watching the backyard. Kasumi came out of the kitchen with some tea and a snack like she usually had after school back at the dojo.

~

The world we live in, the universe that holds it, from the biggest mountain, to the smallest microbe, this world is perfect. Sometimes it is just so hard to believe though. You get up from bed look around and realize your breath tastes like ass.

This should go without saying. The world is perfect in an imperfect sort of way. It was the way He intended it. If things went exactly the way we wanted it to, when we wanted it to, with whom we wanted it to, Urd would not have found her way into Skuld’s office that morning. Same said sister would not be across the void from her, staring dumbly at a free-flowing, non-contingent, orifice of space, where time neither exists, examines, nor cares how that space is used.

In the natural world, we like to think of the environment being run by three basic rules to give this imperfectly perfect world some understandable order, or we would go insane. Going insane might actually be a whole lot more fun and healthy then staring at the ‘tear’ in front of Skuld, but, as reported, time could give a rat’s ass.

It was fortunate that they were goddesses and, as such, equipped to deal with certain things in a rational, protected manner.

"Fucking shit." Urd had been muttering about the same since she first really laid her eyes on the problem they had been sent to evaluate.

Going slightly to the left of her focus, Skuld wondered how someone could think that ‘fucking shit’ made a good curse. There was a word for it, corpophilia, but that could be seen as just another kind of love. And who would go that far as to enact the term to give it reality? Was there really someone out there, right now, ‘fucking shit’?

"Damn, I’m feeling some collateral damage to the surrounding area." Skuld mentioned while rubbing her throbbing head. A tear is in essence the matter of Chaos. Not really matter since Chaos was barely defined as being made of anything or everything. It was confusing to think of like blowing bubbles underwater. That reminded her of an old joke, Urd had told it sometime after returning from Hell. She’d gotten in trouble for that one.

"Unh!" she shook her head to get the knot it had become loose again. Skuld moved quickly away from the ‘tear’ and tried to reevaluate her thoughts.

"What were you saying, squirt?" Urd asked. She looked like she was going to throw up. Her revealing leather outfit was replaced with something large and billowing to make her feel more comfortable.

"Three basic rules." Skuld repeated out loud this time. Maybe she could put her finger on where things went screwy the last time. "Humans have called them Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, and Newton’s Laws, but basically they all boil down to three rules of existence."

"So they have something to do with relatives, auto repair, lizards." Urd said, blinking.

Skuld was certain she didn’t want this particular sister helping with the evaluation. "They are: One object may exist within one are of space at one time, Conversion of that matter must result in a balanced change of energy over the system, and All things exist as an extension of the timeframe the universe conforms to."

Again, Urd blinked and waited. She was hoping some sort of strange form of enlightenment was occurring across the ‘tear’ from her and that Skuld was about to share it. She was also hoping ‘it’ was the solution to their problems.

When Skuld finished she waited, looking back across the ‘tear’ at her sister, across the point in space that filled galaxies and fit into the smallest pair of pumps, that could eat all the popcorn in a movie theater without a care for increased thigh fat, that . . .

Skuld took another step back before trying to continue her thinking.

"Well?" Urd watched her sister impatiently. "Are you going to tell me how we fix this or was that just a free tutorial to existence?"

It was funny when you thought about it. Skuld smiled and closed up her little tool kits with the neon side grips and probing rig, which was supported on her shoulders. When she finished, she screamed.

"Now what?" Urd muttered before following her sister back to the home office.

~

After a brief flash of light, the momentary silence was filled with frustrated screaming. Everyone in the house looked to the backdoor to see Skuld running into the house, her hair pulled in every direction. She scanned the room, still screaming, until she located the small source of comfort in these troubled times.

Taking it all in stride, Kasumi prepared herself to be smothered by a tearful little girl. This had happened often enough in her life after mother died that it became something of a second nature. She smiled tenderly and opened her arms to receive the small bundle of hysteria. So it was a great surprise when Kasumi only felt the wind sweep across her face.

"MOM!" Skuld cried and latched herself onto a far less prepared redhead.

Ranko blinked, struggling for a moment to remover her arm, which had been pressed between her hip and her daughters crushing embrace. Concerned, Ranko put her arms around the young girl. It was hard to tell if Skuld was crying or laughing; it seemed to be a little of both. "Skuld-chan?"

"Oh really." Urd huffed as she walked in. "You could just tell me rather than go through all of the theatrics."

"What’s going on?" Ranko looked between her two girls. "Were the two of you fighting again?"

"Erh . . ." Urd bit her lip and tried looking for the sake. "Not really."

"Then wha-"

"She." Skuld had pulled away from Ranko far enough to point accusingly at her older sister. "She." Skuld repeated, finding new ways to make words sound like profanities. "She wants me to fix the problem!"

Ranko stayed quiet until she could get some better information. It wouldn’t be wise to upset her daughter while in such a distressed state. Who knew what the right thing to say was after such a dubious statement?

"Isn’t that what you do?" Ranma asked.

Skuld screamed, making Ranko wince. "’That’ is NOT what I do!"

Floorboards creaked as Urd returned to the living room with a bottle in one hand and some glasses in the other. Ordinarily, she wouldn’t bother with the glasses, but there were others to be considered right now. "Sure it is, squirt. You’re a debugger/programmer. There ain’t a whole lot you probably couldn’t do." It wasn’t a compliment; it was simply true.

Before Skuld could scream again, Ranko clamped her hand down over her daughter’s mouth. "If you don’t mind," Ranko released Skuld when she relaxed. "you could tell me what’s going on, dear."

Skuld took a deep breath and sat down quietly at the table. "The office discovered a tear, we examined it," she indicated herself and Urd, "and she wants me to fix it."

Still not quite understanding, Ranko looked over at Mammoru who seemed pensive and thus, unresponsive. "It’s been a while, Skuld. You’re going to have to give me a little more detail."

Nodding, Skuld extrapolated a little further. "A tear, is the product of Chaos. Chaos is an unstable, unpredictable, uncontrollable force and she wants me to fill it up like some sort of hole!"

The point was lost on Ranma. "You need someone to help you with the caulking gun?"

Strangely, Skuld did not scream at that. Instead she sat at the table, a vacant look in her eyes, while she smiled at something running around in her head.

"You’re pushing your Malicious Thought Quota with that one Skuld." Mammoru spoke seriously.

"I still don’t get it." Urd groused then threw back a quick shot from her glass.

Sitting down beside Mammoru, her brows furrowed, Ranko thought. "Tears are beyond the Almighty’s capabilities because the First locked that potential off when He divided Himself." Ranko explained. "So that means this tear is being created by something more powerful than Mammoru and he has gained a foothold into His order."

"So what does that all mean?" Ranma asked. "We can’t stop it?"

"No, we can’t." Skuld growled. "Not unless we can resurrect the First and if you could, all of existence would be wiped out because He is everything."

Turning to Mammoru, "Does this have any connection with the Angels or Ragnarok?" Ranko asked. Her husband remained silent, which under the circumstances, was an answer in itself.

"I hope this all blows over soon." Urd muttered, knocking back another shot of sake.

Ranko frowned at the Almighty. "Why did you team Skuld up with Urd on this case?" It sounded disapproving because it was meant to.

Mammoru smiled sheepishly. "I was hoping it would broaden her horizons."

Ranko shook her head in disbelief and watched her youngest glare at Urd. "Hand me a glass of that, dear."

~

They met each other in the center of the valley. Most of the trees had been cleared by previous exercises so they faced each other in flat clearing. Mei was still running as Ranma stopped a hundred meters from her Eva.

004 rushed straight in, lead fist coming in for a strong punch. Ranma dodged this easily and rolled away. Mei followed trying strike after strike. Again Ranma dodged, flipping through the air and then bending before each attack. While Mei continued to miss, the margin was narrowing quickly.

All this came back to NERV from cameras placed around the boundaries of the exercise field. "Unit 004’s sync is continuing to climb." Reported one of the technicians.

Ritsuko looked over the woman’s shoulder. "And Ranma’s?"

"Same."

Ritsuko frowned and looked at Ranko. She was still standing in the center of the room, watching the incoming visual display. "I thought you said Ranma was better."

"He is." Ranko answered. "He doesn’t want to hurt Mei because of who she is."

"Just because she’s a girl? That’s not very smart." Ritsuko stated, a little annoyed by Ranma’s outdated ideals.

For the next minute or two Ranma continued to dodge, but now he was being hit on occasion and sent rolling along the valley floor. The whole time Mei was taunting him over the com. "Get up, weakling. You’re no better than that redheaded bitch!"

NERV staff looked at Ranko to gauge her response to the insult. Ranko remained silent and intent on studying the battle. They figured she was either ignoring Mei or planning to take it out on the girl during training.

"Shut up, Mei. Ya ain’t that good." Ranma yelled back, though it sounded more easy-going than taunting.

"Ha! I’d take you both on with one arm tied behind my back!"

There was silence on Ranma’s end as he continued to dodge and roll with the strikes and energy blasts Mei landed against his Eva.

"Ranma." Misato spoke into her mic piece. "Start fighting 004 for real."

"What do you think I’m doing?" He snapped back.

"We know you are capable of more than this, Ranma." Ritsuko spoke up.

There was a brief pause while Ranma was knocked across the valley.

"This pathetic dweeb isn’t better than me!" Mei screeched.

Ranko walked up and grabbed a headset off the console. "Kill Mei’s feed." She ordered the technician. He looked to Gendou for confirmation and nodded a second later.

"Listen here, Ranma." Ranko spoke very firmly into the microphone. "I don’t care if she is your sister. Stop holding back and test her for real."

The room was silent as she finished. Only Gendou remained unfazed by the accusation.

"Ranko? Is that true?" Misato asked.

She nodded once, her eyes remaining on the screens displaying battle statistics. "While I held her the day we all met Mei, I examined her aura. There is no denying it. She has a piece of Ranma and two others. Technically she would be Ranma’s daughter."

The room was again quiet, only the sounds of distant explosions made the windows rattle slightly. As one the group within the observation room turned to Gendou. No one was ready to question his authority so they turned back to monitoring the fight, making their decisions and keeping them to themselves.

More rattles, stronger this time. Ranko turned to a screen monitoring Ranma’s sync. It had gone up, but only enough to match Mei’s. It lasted another five minutes like this. Neither pilot getting the upper hand. Ranma’s more flamboyant style tucked and rolled from Mei’s AT field strikes.

Ranko observed everything, the style, technique, flaws in the defense, creating the regime she would push Mei through when their real training began. From what she saw, Mei had very little in real martial arts skill. Her offense was entirely reliant on her large source of raw ki.

As Mei continued to volley blast after blast at Ranma, the pigtailed boy only responded by dodging and negating each of Mei’s blasts with his own. While this would wear Mei down faster than it would Ranma, it wasn’t helping Ranko assess the girl’s full potential.

"Ranma." Ranko growled dangerously. This was no time for his old ideals. Mei needed this training.

There was static on the com for a moment. "Ranko, I just can’t do it. Especially not to her."

Gritting her teeth, Ranko strained to hold her tone to something low and even. "Push her harder or I will come out there and take care of both of you."

"But-"

"RANMA!" she screamed, the people inside the building wincing. "Unless you want her to die in the next Angel encounter you will push her harder."

". . ."

One of the technicians at the computer consoles gasped and fell out of her seat. Ritsuko ran over and read the incoming data. She stood back up and looked at Ranko, nodding that Ranma’s sync had gone up.

"Understood." Came the frighteningly emotionless tone. From the feel she was getting, Ranko could tell he was moving on to a level three-fourths of his full potential now.

The battle lasted only another thirty seconds while Ranma fairly wiped the valley floor with Mei’s ass. He never went for a killing blow or anything that might excessively damage the Eva. Mei attempted to adapt and dodge more, but her skills weren’t up to par and she spent most of the remaining time being tossed about like Frisbee.

"I hope this has given you enough to complete her training." Gendou spoke.

She’d sensed his approach and was not startled. Ranko watched the end, Ranma standing over the other Eva, fist poised just over its face. Ranko nodded, "Plenty."

~

It certainly was a strange couple of days, Shinji thought.

He and Rei were out on the town today, strolling around the fairly empty shopping district, window shopping and talking about the things they wanted to do. It was a liberating feeling to be out of NERV and have time to enjoy life before they died. Hopefully with Ranko, Ranma, and the new pilot that day wouldn’t be coming for a long time.

He’d been living with Misato for the past couple of years while he worked for his father. Shinji had never really understood why he had to fight or what made him so special. It didn’t matter, he thought.

After storming out of the docking area, orders were sent through quickly to have him removed from personnel rosters. The id card he gotten a long time ago was punched through, holes made in all the vital areas so it couldn’t be used any longer. Rei hadn’t gone through the same thing he did. She never actually said she was leaving and it wouldn’t be like the Commander to just let Rei go completely. They’d spent the night at her place, Shinji’s luggage arriving early in the evening.

He’d considered giving Ranko a call, but she was probably busy with the new pilot. They’d likely see her sometime when things had calmed down some.

"Let’s stop in here." Rei tugged at his arm, pulling Shinji over to an ice cream parlor. It wasn’t such a bad idea on a warm day.

He nodded and followed after her. Someone brushed passed them, breaking Shinji’s hold on Rei. "Hey!" He called after the person indignantly.

The person stopped. Shinji could see her long red hair curl in the wind as she turned to face them, glowering. "What?!"

Shinji blinked in surprise and felt much smaller all of a sudden.

"Asuka." Rei swallowed and stepped closer to Shinji. It would’ve made him feel strong, like a protector, if he weren’t facing down someone with so much hate in their eyes.

"Oh, Wonder Girl." Asuka smirked. "I didn’t see you there. And who’s this?" she stared at Shinji. "Another doll? No, to spineless."

Sweating a bit, Shinji nudged Rei towards the parlor, hoping to leave the redhead behind without getting into a fight.

"What’s wrong, little boy?" she grabbed him by the lapels and made him look at the scars on her face. "Afraid to see what a real Eva pilot looks like. I don’t grow in a vat like the doll."

Rei posed herself between Asuka and Shinji, breaking the contact. "Shinji was a pilot for longer than you Asuka." She stated.

"That so?" The redhead seemed much more interested in him now. "Why’d they drop you, Shin-kun? Took too long to recover after they sent someone to kill you?"

"Uhm." He looked about nervously for some way to escape this conversation. All he wanted was one good day without these kinds of confrontations. "No. I left on my own."

She snorted like it had been just as she figured. "Wimp." Asuka turned on her heel and left them before Shinji could think of a retort.

"Forget her." Rei suggested and led him back to the ice cream parlor. The door was kept closed to keep in the cold refrigerated air. A bell chimed as they entered, taking a place in line behind the small crowd.

Shinji looked over to Rei to see her reaction to what had just happened. It was one of those rare occasions where Rei fell back to her old stoic expression. It wasn’t contemplative or annoyed, but vacant of any feeling. Shivers went through his spine; he blamed it on the cool air.

"You’re new here aren’t you?" A customer ahead of them asked.

The woman behind the counter smiled and said she was. She seemed out of place in the pink and white parlor with her drab clothing. There was a nice figure on the woman, but it did little to distract anyone from her lifeless eyes.

A man and his little girl, walking hand in hand, were licking some cones and heading for the door. Shinji wouldn’t have noticed except the little girl suddenly went limp and dropped the cone. The man gasped and feinted soon after.

"What the hell?!" Shinji went over to the fallen people. They didn’t respond as he shook them.

"Shinji!" Rei called out.

He turned back to see more people collapsing onto the desserts. "What’s going on here?"

"Hahahahaha! Fools!"

The woman behind the counter was cackling in a deeper voice than he assumed she would’ve had. Her skin began to pale and darken, becoming a dark blue color. Eyes sealed up and the sockets themselves seemed to stretch, taking up more room on her head than they should. Muscle expanded and her body took on a segmented appearance.

Shinji gasped and grabbed Rei by the wrist, pulling her in the direction of the door. It slammed shut before they could make an escape.

"Don’t leave." The thing smiled at them. "I’m just getting warmed up!"

~

It was a tingling sensation that ran through her spine and around her shoulders. Ranko hadn’t felt anything like this in her lifetime, but the memories she’d been given by the Senshi had many instances with this as a sign.

Around her people were busy setting up for the next training phase, resetting starting positions, storing battle statistics, comparing previous harmonics and sync ratios. Lights flashed in a confusing rainbow of color, pulsing through the metallic room. Voices ordered information be sent or checks be made.

Ranko closed her eyes to block out the world. She looked inward to the sensation, noting the pull and its strength. This was the first time she ever experienced the presence of a youma.

"Is something wrong, Ranko?" Misato asked from her side, a hand placed gently on her shoulder.

Ranko kept her eyes closed, wanting to pull any information she could from the youma signal before she took off. "Fine, Major." She replied perhaps too frankly.

By now others had turned to watch the Third Child. Ranko still had her eyes closed and hadn’t noticed.

"Ranko?"

Gendou was standing before her, white-gloved hands at his side, the glasses shining with the incandescent lights above. Ranko looked at him evenly. "Excuse me, will you? There is something I have to attend to."

The slightest of nods and Ranko was walking calmly out of the room. She headed down the corridor as casually as she could, fighting the urge to transform until she was certain to be unobserved by NERV cameras.

Her staff appeared in her hand as a separate power to be called without the transformation. The suit, for Ranko, was only a disguise. Her power rested within herself. The staff was a mystical item the focused the many magics of the solar system.

A rift in space opened and she stepped through, purple energy sealing back up to restore normal space. Inside the Time Gates, Ranko called her henshin pen and called out, "Sun Power, Make Up!"

The rift emerged once again above the downtown area of Tokyo-3. She heard the cries upon stepping out onto the roof. A number of people were unconscious in the street, especially around a café below. A block in either direction she could see a throng of screaming people running as fast as they could from where she stood.

Suddenly the glass window of the café exploded in a shower of bulletproof glass as a cash register was hurtled out onto the street, bouncing off the pavement and coming to a rest in the far alley.

The creature that stepped out was not the typical youma, she recalled. All of the youma Moon faced were some sort of sick parody of the general area. By those memories, Ranko would have expected a woman cross coffee dispenser, but what she got was a real danger, looks and ability.

It stood seven feet tall, long, lanky arms and legs that fit onto a little round body with a red core at its center. The head was flat like a leaf, held onto the body by a long, wavy neck, which curled about as it struck. Despite the absurdity of its nightmare like visage, Ranko could feel the power that rivaled that of the last Angel she had fought.

"Well," Ranko thought aloud, "may as well introduce myself."

Standing tall upon the edge of the rooftop, Ranko stared down at the youma she’d come to destroy. "Hold, villain of love and justice. A coffee shop is a place for people to meet peacefully without dealing with the likes of you. I am the pretty soldier Sailor Sun, and on behalf of the Sun, I’ll punish you!"

End Chapter Three

* * *

Sorry that took so long, but I got caught up in finishing the Bengal Tale and doing a little work on my other projects.

Ja ne.