Neon Genesis Evangelion Fan Fiction ❯ Guest Performance ❯ SEELE, Throng of Fools ( Chapter 2 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Disclaimer: I'm not Gainax. Eva is not mine. Thank you for your attention.




Sadao had a massive headache when he woke up. He was lying on the floor in a dark room, together with a number of randomly distributed bodies he could not identify in the sparse light. He crawled warily over to the nearest one, to his right, and scrutinized its face until there could be no doubt. It was Rinako. Behind her, he made out a silhouette that appeared to be Anja.

Before Sadao could crawl on over to her another shadow that had been lying at Sadao's feet stirred and made attempts to raise itself up, cursing with a voice Sadao identified as Gonkuro's. Gonkuro tilted his head in all cardinal directions until he saw Sadao.

"Where are we?"

"The last thing I remember is being drugged by a fan dressed as a Section Two agent," Sadao answered pitifully. "Was our entry speech that bad?"

"What are they doing here?" remarked Gonkuro, gesturing past Sadao to another group of figures on their left.

Gonkuro obviously had less problems with the lighting than Sadao, who again had to crawl over to identify the person on his left. The woman was lying on her side, wearing only a nightgown. It was Mutsuko Ishimura.

Perhaps one billion people knew the name Mutsuko Ishimura, but at least two billion knew the woman that was unconsciously lying next to Sadao under her role name: Lieutenant Maya Ibuki, member of NERV's bridge crew. The two men behind her were probably Sugita Arakawa and Masaki Hokusai - Shigeru Aoba and Makoto Hyuga, the remaining two thirds of the bridge bunny trio.

"Shouldn't they be at the con in Italy?" Sadao asked.

"Spain," Gonkuro corrected.

"Whatever."

"Last thing I remember is going to bed in my hotel room," an awaking Masaki Hokusai intervened with a weak voice, still lying on his back. He moaned and brought a hand to his forehead. "That was in Barcelona by the way, Sadao."

Sadao nodded at his movie father and smiled contently. "See?"

Gonkuro ignored Sadao's rather uncommon ideas about geography and strained his eyes. "Are those kittens and puppies on your pajamas, Masaki?"

The other man quickly looked down his body. "You didn't see this - is that clear?"

One by one, the other actors woke up too and exchanged their stories. None of the bridge bunnies could remember their abduction. They all had most likely been kidnapped while they slept - thus explaining their nightwear attire. Together, the Eva cast inspected their surroundings. They found a barely visible locked door in one of the empty metal walls of the cell, three neatly folded NERV uniforms which Mutsuko, Masaki, and Sugita gladly took, as well as some of their personal belongings they had carried along when they were attacked.

"Hey! Here's my bag," Sadao shouted as he rummaged through it. He held one of his SEELE monoliths up to Sugita Arakawa, who came from a corner where he had utilized the darkness to change in private. "Do you already know about my Sere action figures?"

"Sere action figures? Is that all you can think about in this situation?" Sugita answered, obviously disconcerted with Sadao's sense of priorities.

"It's Seele!" I've been telling you this for over ten years now, for heavens sake!" yelled Anja, who at the same time was trying to find a secret exit by knocking at the metal walls.

"It's relieving to see that at least your girlfriend keeps her mind focused on the really urgent problems," Mutsuko mumbled ironically from one of the other corners she had used to change into the NERV uniform.

"EX-girlfriend!"

"How much ransom would they demand for our release?" Gonkuro wondered aloud.

"Perhaps they don't want money? Perhaps we were kidnapped by fans that already have all the Eva collectibles and are collecting the cast now?" Sadao proposed another theory.

A hidden loudspeaker in the ceiling began squeal with feedback. "In a few minutes we will arrive at Tokyo-5 spaceport. We apologize for any inconveniences. Thank you for your attention," it blared. After another episode of teeth-grinding feedback, it became silent again.

The actors looked at each other.

"Tokyo-5?"

"Spaceport?"

"Oh God, we're in the hands of madmen!"

The door opened suddenly with a loud hiss. Everybody blinked as the searing light of neon tubes outside of the cell flooded into the darkened room. In the doorway stood a group of the already familiar Section Two agents.

"Please follow us," one of them said.

"Where? What do you want from us?" Mutsuko demanded to know.

The agent looked at his wristwatch. "We will be landing in exactly ... three minutes and twenty-three seconds. Afterwards, you will be brought to the president of Gainax."

"The president of Gainax?" Anja echoed.

"Perhaps he wants to talk with us about that Trinity project," Rinako mumbled.

The agent looked bewildered from one to another. "All your questions will be answered by the president himself. Please follow us," he repeated.

"We won't." Mutsuko crossed her arms. She looked very determined.

The actors followed the Section Two look-alikes through an empty metallic corridor, with the exception of a struggling Mutsuko, who was carried by two of the agents.

One of the guards took off his glasses and rubbed at his eyes before putting them back on. Anja elbowed Sadao. "Did you see that?" she whispered.

"What?"

"His eyes ... they were so ... large. Too large."

"Large eyes? Do you think they're on drugs, or what?" He tapped one of the men on the shoulder.

"Sa-da-o," Anja pleaded.

He ignored her. "Hey! What are you guys on?"

The guard looked at him. "We are on board the G.U.N.S. Class Rep's Orders." A sudden jolt went through the corridor. Everybody buckled a bit. "And now we are on the planet Gainax," the guard continued.

"S-sure." That wasn't exactly the kind of answer Sadao had expected.

They reached a larger room at the end of the corridor. Mutsuko was let down.

"On drugs or not," Sadao remarked, "the scene is nicely done."

Suddenly, the back wall of the room began to move upwards. A ramp covered with a red carpet became visible, leading to an ordinary looking bus. The bus was indeed the only ordinary looking thing around. The ground everywhere seemed to be made of concrete, almost stretching out to the horizon. At some distance away, objects could be seen that looked like futuristic aircraft - or spacecraft. Ahead of the actors, beyond the concrete covered plain, lay a gigantic city.

"Nicely done, indeed," Rinako agreed.

The man who seemed to be the leader of the agents made an inviting gesture. The actors went along the carpet towards the bus. Around two dozen people were standing to the left and right of the carpet, like a semi-official welcoming committee. These people were definitely not human. But they didn't look very inhuman either. The strangest feature of the creatures were their eyes. Anja's colleagues now understood what she had meant. The males' eyes were just slightly too large to make them look normal. The eyes of the females were in general even larger. The women's hair seemed to come in all colors of the rainbow. The men had more ordinary hair colors although there were exceptions.

"As if from an anime," Mutsuko formulated the thought several of her colleagues were having. "They look as if they're from an anime."

"Look there!" Sugita Arakawa shouted. He pointed into the direction they came from. One could see that the door they had passed was an airlock of a huge spaceship.

"What does all this mean?" Rinako asked one of the agents.

"Please enter the bus. It will bring you to the presidential palace," the man replied as if that explained everything.

On the way to this 'presidential palace' the actors were alone with four Section Two agents and the driver of the bus, a woman with light green hair. None of them seemed to be interested in talking, and so the members of Eva cast had no chance to reduce the amount of open questions that went through their heads.

The bus reached the fringes of the large concrete field that had been called the spaceport of Tokyo-5 and entered the city itself. Thousands of the strange creatures populated the streets between the large, hyper-modern buildings. Various posters, signs, and labels proved that this civilization clearly used the Japanese language not only in spoken, but also in written form.

"The scene is nicely done, indeed," Rinako repeated.

"Yeah, yeah, Paleface," Sadao replied pouting.

Finally, the bus drove into a quarter that appeared to be older than the parts of the city they had passed before. They reached a majestic building surrounded by a park.

"The presidential palace," the driver announced. It was the first thing she said since the beginning of the trip. She parked the bus in a garage next to the building.

The agent leader stood up from his seat and pointed to a metal door in the back of the garage. "This passage leads to the presidential office. Please follow me."

Mutsuko crossed her arms again. "We will not ..." The two agents who had carried her silently turned their heads into her direction. "Let's go meet that president," she hastily added.

After walking through a tunnel, passing several security guards and a pink-haired secretary sitting behind her PC, varnishing her fingernails, they finally reached their destination: a room with a large, mostly empty desk and a man sitting behind it. Another man and a woman stood to the left and right of him.

When the actors entered, the man stood up and walked around the desk. He shook Sadao's hand. "I am Yasuo Takudo, the president of Gainax. It is an extraordinary honor to meet you, Pilot Ikari."

"I'm ..."

"You certainly have a lot of questions," the president interrupted and went over to Anja and Rinako, shaking their hands also, like the professional politician he most likely was. "Ms. Langley? Ms. Ayanami? I assure you that they will all be answered now."

"Well, first of all ..."

A security guard entered the office. "Sir? We must advise you to speak to the crowd now. Things could get out of control if they don't see The Pilots soon."

"Alright." He looked at the Eva cast. "Please follow me for a second."

"One moment," Anja said, "you said something about answers."

"That will have to wait for a few minutes."

Anja wasn't satisfied with that. "Stop. We waited long enough. Give us just one good reason why we should wait any longer. One good reason."

"60,000 people are standing behind the building and want to see you. If you don't go out, they might try to come in."

Anja thought hard but couldn't find any smart reply to that.

From a balcony, the actors could overlook the even larger park areas behind the palace. Many thousand people were standing there, beginning to cheer as they saw the Eva cast. A number of cameras observed the balcony too.

Sadao's eyes widened. "Wow, that's like in Tokyo after we got the thirteen Oscars."

Rinako shook her head. "No, it's bigger."

The man who had introduced himself as the president of these people stepped up to a microphone.

"My fellow Gainaxians," he began. The constant cheering stopped. "You all know that after over a millennium, our nemesis has returned. Once again, the future of our whole civilization is at risk." He made a dramatic pause. The crowd waited in anticipation.

"But where is danger, there is also hope. The rumors you may have heard are true: The Children themselves have come to our rescue!"

"The Children!" a whisper went through the audience.

"And they will be assisted by The Commander and The Bridge Crew!"

"The Commander! The Bridge Crew!" the audience answered.

Sadao looked at Rinako. "I somehow have the feeling that they're talking about us."

"Really?" the blue-haired woman replied sarcastically.

"With The Pilots on our side, there is no need to fear the Angel," the president went on.

Sadao blinked. "Angel? What?"

"They will assume their duties already tomorrow. Let us all go home and look forward in confidence to the day when they will defeat the Angel. Thank you."

The audience applauded.

"Duty? Tomorrow? Defeat the Angel?" Sadao repeated the most unpleasant parts.

The president deactivated the microphone and turned to the group of humans. "That will have to do. And now to your questions."

They went back into the president's office and to a back door.

"You will now meet the highest authorities of this planet," the president announced.

"Huh? I thought that was you," Sugita replied, apparently confused.

"Well, not directly. Please come in." The president pressed a button next to the door making it slide aside. He entered the dark room behind it together with his two assistants. The actors followed hesitantly. The security guards, however, remained outside.

The door shut automatically, leaving the actors, the president, and his assistants in pitch darkness.

"Hey! What is that? Switch on some light, man!" Masaki shouted.

"Stop that immediately Sadao," Anja hissed quietly, "or you will regret it."

"I'm not doing anything," Sadao replied much too innocently.

A slapping sound was heard.

"Oww!" Rinako cried out.

"You groped me?" Anja asked confused.

"Sadao groped you, of course! But you hit me, you idiot!"

"Could we please get a little light here?" Masaki tried again.

Somebody fulfilled his wish. The room was suddenly illuminated by twelve holographic images of rectangular solids surrounding the group of actors, the president, and his assistants.

"Oh-oh."

"Scheiße."

"Fuck."

"We are Sere," the hologram labeled SEELE 01 thundered.

"Seele!" the shocked Anja corrected almost automatically.

"Well, Mr. ... eh ... SEELE," Rinako began, scratching her blue hair, "all this is a terrible mistake, y'know? My name is not Rei Ayanami as some people here are obviously thinking." Her right arm flew into the direction of Sadao, making him jump back to save his eyes from her pointer finger. "For example, I'm fortunately not a clone of the mother of that dork over there. And I'm certainly not an ..."

"We are well aware about all that, Ms. Asuhara," SEELE 08 interrupted her.

"We know everything about your true nature," SEELE 03 continued.

"We know that Neon Genesis Evangelion is just a movie tetralogy on Earth."

"A tetralogy, not counting the various side and continuation stories that followed, of course."

"Although we liked those very much, as well."

"Especially 'The Best Laid Plans'."

"That is true."

Sadao spun around, trying to always face the momentarily speaking hologram until he became dizzy. "So if you are so well-informed, then why did you kidnap us?" he asked.

"Before we can answer that question you need to know the history of this planet," SEELE 01 explained. "Mr. Takudo, please."

All holograms except for SEELE 01 vanished. The president positioned himself in front of the actors and began to explain. "About 1100 years ago my people, who are now known as Gainaxians, lived in a large number of nation states on a technological level comparable to today's Earth. It was then, when our most powerful radio telescope received the first message of an extra...ah...gainaxian civilization. Eventually, our scientists managed to decode it. It turned out to be the first Evangelion movie."

Masaki raised a finger. "Excuse me, Sir, but how could you receive a transmission of one of our movies over 1000 years before they were made?"

"That is indeed a good question," the president praised him. "As we found out later, the transmission was an ordinary TV broadcast of your movie from Earth that was projected into the past by a phenomenon that was some kind of ... anomaly."

"And that means?" Anja asked.

"It can only be explained by abstract mathematics," the president replied briefly.

"And that means?" Anja inquired further.

"Yes, thinking of it ... what does that mean, actually?" The president looked inquiringly at SEELE 01.

"How the heck should we know? We are conspirators, not scientists."

"Anyway," the president continued, "later, we also received the other movies."

Mutsuko, who was a fan of American sci-fi, was happy that her hobby finally turned out to be useful. "And then, you created a society of peace based upon the values of the Eva tetralogy."

The president looked surprised. "Ah ... no. It's quite hard to build a society of peace upon the values of mentally unstable teenagers, wouldn't you say? But Eva became popular nevertheless."

"So why ..." Sugita started.

"Eva became so popular, that our race was almost wiped out in wars between fanatic fans."

"There were the Yaoi Riots," one of the president's assistants intervened.

"And the pogrom of the Shinji/Hikari heretics," the other one added.

"The Radical Reinterpretation Revolt."

"The Dub/Sub Jihad."

"Not to forget the Crossover Crusades."

The president spoke again. "And of course ... the Evil."

"The Evil," both of his assistants repeated. All three quickly drew a strange symbol with their pointer fingers into the air.

"The Evil?" Sadao who was amusing himself by poking his fingers in and out the SEELE hologram asked.

All Gainaxians repeated the word and again made this seemingly religious symbol. Mutsuko tried to identify it. It looked like a circle or oval and an X.

"It is said that talking about it brings bad luck," the president said hastily. "Well, finally the wars escalated into a devastating global conflict between S/A- and S/R-followers. It took several centuries for the wounds of our planet to heal and for civilization to return. The source of the Evangelion myth had been widely forgotten by then. It became the basis of several religions. Only a few conspiratory groups like what is now SEELE remembered the truth. The different beliefs now coexist in peace. More or less."

"That explains at least a few things. But why are we here?" Gonkuro wanted to know.

"In the times of the great war, weapons of the apocalypse, inspired by the Eva movies, were created with bio-technological means that are now lost ..."

"Evangelions," Anja threw in.

"Not quite." A holographic monitor appeared behind the president, showing an ever-repeating sequence of low quality stills of various forms of ...

"Angels," Rinako exclaimed.

"Correct. To fight them, NERV was founded and the Evangelions were built." The looping pictures of Angels were replaced by battle scenes between Evangelions and Angels. "At the end of the war, the Angels had been destroyed, with the exception of their progenitors, Adam and Lilith. Or so we thought ..."

"But?" Masaki asked.

Another image appeared, showing a large object floating in space. The small body and the long and thin legs gave it a spider-like appearance. "This image was taken two days ago," the president explained. "We scanned the object. Blood pattern blue. There is no doubt."

"Looks like the 9th," Gonkuro said.

"Phhhhhhh. Fighting the 9th was easy." Sadao was bored.

"Sa-da-o." Anja used again her special tone. "You never fought against an Angel."

"But he will," SEELE 01 stated.

Anja raised her eyebrows. "Excuse me?"

"When the Angel reaches Adam or Lilith, it will cause Fourth Impact. Adam is lost since the old wars and was most likely destroyed like the others. Lilith is where she should be. In Terminal Dogma, inside of NERV HQ and the Geofront, below Tokyo-5."

"Why not Tokyo-3?" Mutsuko thought aloud.

The president spoke again. "After Eva became popular, a capital of one of the old nation states was renamed to Tokyo. Just Tokyo. Or Tokyo-1 if you wish. But then came the Yaoi Riots. And the pogrom of the Shinji/Hikari heretics. And the Radical ..."

"Okay, okay," Rinako interrupted. "We got it. Why should Sadao fight an Angel?"

Again, it was SEELE 01 who answered. "The Evangelions still exist. You, Ms. Asuhara, Ms. Siebert, and Mr. Inoguchi will pilot them, intercept the Angel, and destroy it before it reaches Lilith. Mr. Itagaki will take command. The others will support him in Central Dogma."

"Why us?" Masaki wanted to know.

"For many centuries, NERV existed only for reasons of tradition. We have no trained pilots." SEELE 01 sounded almost desperate.

"Haven't we already agreed about the fact that WE ARE NOT TRAINED PILOTS EITHER?" Anja shouted.

"So you are as good as anyone else, correct? Plus, the polls show that using the legendary, almost godlike original Pilots will have a positive impact upon the upcoming elections."

"Elections?" Sadao pointed at the president. "His elections?"

"The president is appointed by the SEELE committee. He has just a mere representative role. I'm talking about our elections."

"Your elections? You are elected anonymous conspirators?" Anja asked.

"Of course. We aren't barbarians, Ms. Siebert."

"And when we fail?"

"Then, there will be no elections, Ms. Siebert. No voters, no votes."

"And when we refuse to cooperate?"

All SEELE holograms appeared again all around the actors.

"If you do not cooperate, you will witness the Fourth Impact in a prison cell," SEELE 01 threatened. "Directly at ground zero."

"If you tell the people the truth," SEELE 11 added, "most of them will not believe and just laugh at you."

"The others will crucify you," SEELE 07 said.

"That is not meant as a figure of speech."

"And we wouldn't be able to prevent that."

"Even if we tried."

"Which we won't do."

"The choice," SEELE 01 concluded, "is of course, yours."

"As the official leader of the people of Gainax, I would like to express my deepest gratitude and respect for your courage to offer your unselfish help in this dark hour despite of the sacrifices that might lie ahead," the president stated with a slight smile on his lips after a rather short discussion between the actors. "There is another issue: Since the large majority of the Gainaxians don't know about your true identity, you will have to remain in character whenever you're in contact with them."

Everyone looked at Gonkuro.

"This will not prove to be a problem," he stated. "Will it, Pilot Ayanami?"

"No, Commander."

"Pilot Soryu?"

Anja grimaced. "Yeah, yeah."

"Very well. Pilot Ikari?"

"Yeah, yeah."

Gonkuro pushed up his glasses. "I beg you pardon, Pilot Ikari?"

Sadao first stared at him and blinked then adverted his eyes. "I will pilot if this is what you want from me, father."

"Very well," Gonkuro repeated. He turned his head towards the bridge bunnies.

"Yes, Commander," they all shouted in unison.

SEELE 01 joined the conversation again. "This is all for today. Mr. Itagaki will be brought directly to NERV headquarters, where he will move into a room we provided for him. The others will all live in apartments in the same building block in the city. A group of Section Two agents will bring you there. You will be informed in detail about the situation tomorrow at NERV. Afterwards, there will be a first activation test of Units 00 to 02."

The humans, with the exception of Gonkuro, were standing in front of an apartment door, together with two now already familiar Section Two agents. One of them unlocked the door.

"We unfortunately had no information about the preferences of The Bridge Crew concerning their residences," he said as they went in. "We hope that this apartment meets your expectations."

The apartment seemed to cover the whole floor. To Mutsuko Ishimura, it appeared like the presidential suite in a high-class hotel. That was understandable since even at the times of the peak of her fame she had never seen a reason to rent such a suite. If she had she would have known that this apartment made in fact most hotels on Earth look small and seedy.

"It does meet our expectations, thank you," she said while inspecting the marble tub in one of the three bathrooms. "Aoba, Hyuga, and me, we will live here?"

"Of course not. This is just for you, Lieutenant Ibuki. The Lieutenants Aoba and Hyuga will be given identical apartments on the second and third floor."

Sadao elbowed Anja. "Look what they've got!" he whispered. "And they didn't even appear under 'also starring'. I think we're gonna have a good time here."

Anja just shook her head. She wasn't exactly in the best mood as Sadao noticed.

On the fourth floor, after delivering the other two bridge bunnies at their residences, the agents stopped at an apartment identified as number 402 by a label above.

"This is your apartment, Ms. Ayanami," one of them announced as he opened the door. "We tried our best to arrange everything as in the Holy Movies."

The remaining actors looked inside, inspecting the dirty and sparsely furnished surroundings.

"We filled the mailbox with letters for you to ignore," the man went on, sounding as proud as if he had done it by himself. "The doorbell is of course not working."

Rinako looked through him in a perfectly Rei-esque way. "The apartment will fulfill its purpose."

"Very well. We will leave you alone now."

He turned over to Anja and Sadao. "You will live over there."

He pointed to the next door. Instead of unlocking it as he had done every time before, he used the doorbell. Anja and Sadao exchanged a glance out of the corner of their eyes.

The door was opened by a purple-haired Gainaxian woman of about thirty. "Hello! There you are!" she greeted cheerfully. "My name is ... I guess it would be easiest if you just call me Misato Katsuragi. Misato for you, of course. Come in."

She grabbed the 'pilots' by their collars and dragged them in.

"Oh, watch out Shinji. There are cans on the floor."

"AHHHH!"

The sound of Sadao hitting the floor mixed with the sound of the door sliding shut. The agents had fulfilled their mission and departed accordingly.

'Misato' apparently tried to squeeze Sadao to death. "I'm so happy to meet you Shinji," She looked into his face. "You look much too handsome for a fourteen year old boy."

Anja observed the scene with a pouting expression on her face. "That might be because he is a twenty-seven year old boy by now."

The purple-haired woman finally released Sadao and laughed. "Of course. This is all still a little bit confusing for me. You surely want to take a look into your rooms first. But don't take too long, we'll have dinner in half an hour."

A film of sweat began to appear on Sadao's and Anja's foreheads, condensing into large sweat drops.

Anja wasn't surprised to find the apartment to be an exact copy of the Katsuragi residence, as shown in the Eva movies. Her memory of Asuka's room wasn't very clear anymore, but she was sure that even then she wouldn't have found any difference. The actress was glad that she could switch into another dress after wearing her plugsuit since her abduction. As to be expected, there were countless pieces of clothing. Although everything was the right size, it all appeared to be more fitting for a teenage girl style wise. There was even a school uniform in her size. Anja hoped that SEELE didn't expect the pilots to attend a junior high.

After she had put on her famous yellow dress, the red-haired woman went to the door. She stopped and prepared herself to play her part for the rest of the evening: being the proud, energetic, and arrogant Asuka Langley Soryu, although she felt like hiding in her bed, alone with her sorrows and fears concerning the next days.

When Anja left her room, she heard strange noises from Sadao's. She knocked at the door with the sign 'Shinji's lovely suite'. "Sa ... Shinji?"

No answer. She opened the door. The room was dark. Dark, with the exception of a rectangle labeled SEELE 01, small enough to fit on a desk.

"Sadao Inoguchi is in our hands. To save his life, you'll have to take off your clothes immediately."

Anja inspected the apparent SEELE hologram. It turned out to be one of Sadao's action figures, dramatically illuminated by a desk lamp. Those were the visual special effects used for this prank. On the audio side, they consisted mainly of a certain actor, hiding behind the desk and speaking into a cup.

That was Sadao. Even in this absurd and dangerous situation he wouldn't behave like an adult. Childish. Irresponsible. And still, Anja felt the urge to grin. She managed to suppress that reflex. "Sadao! What do you think you're doing? What if this Misato wannabe had entered the room?" she hissed instead.

Sadao stood up, looking disappointed. "I just figured that you needed some lightening up. Do you think she doesn't know?"

"Obviously not. Could you please behave a little bit more earnestly now?"

"You never had any sense of humor," Sadao grumbled.

"Yes, I have. But at the moment it would be better if you understood the seriousness of our situation instead of behaving like the fourteen year old boy who just got the chance to play a mecha pilot, like you've done for almost thirteen years now." Anja became gradually louder.

"And moping gets us where? By the way: For thirteen years I was virtually the only one who could make you laugh every now and then. Have you ever noticed that?"

Now the actress began to yell. "THAT IS NOT TRUE!"

"You lose your fake accent when you get angry."

"MY ACCENT ..."

The door slid open.

"What's up? You're here for less than an hour and already bickering?" the Gainaxian Misato smiled.

"IT'S NOT MY FAULT!" both actors yelled simultaneously.

Misato teasingly ruffled Anja's and Sadao's hair making both of them wince. "Can't you children live in peace for once?" She contemplated for a second. "What was it that I wanted? Ah yes! Could you look after the dinner while I change into something else?"

By the time the two actors entered the kitchen Anja had calmed down a little bit. The dinner turned out to be three pizzas baking in the oven. The ex-couple used the time to get an overview of the kitchen equipment. Anja hesitated a moment at one of the two fridges and looked at Sadao. He nodded encouraging at her.

Anja flung the door open. The fridge was empty. "No bird," she stated simply.

Sadao was disappointed.

A penguin waddled into the room and looked at Anja. "The bird exists, Ms. Siebert."

The actors stared at the animal that carried a collar identifying it - not surprisingly - as Pen-Pen.

"D-Did you ..." Anja began stuttering.

"... just talk?" Sadao concluded.

Pen-Pen turned his head from Anja to Sadao and back. "Wark?"

"The penguin is of course not speaking, Mr. Inoguchi. We bugged its collar."

Pen-Pen looked down at his body to find the source of the noises that were normally produced only by his food providers. "Wark?"

"It's me, President Takudo. I'm using this unusual method of communication because I have to warn you without anybody noticing. Especially not my superiors, SEELE."

Anja kneeled down to the bird. "Warn us?" she asked, worried.

"There are signs that somebody is planning to sabotage the activation test."

"SEELE?" Anja wanted to know.

The voice from the collar hesitated. "Perhaps. Perhaps not. SEELE has its secrets, no doubt. But there are many factions with their own agendas. Just be prepared."

"How? And why should anybody ..."

The Gainaxian woman entered the room. "Oh, you're playing with Pen-Pen. How nice Asuka. But now let's eat!"

Pen-Pen waddled away as quickly as his webbed feet allowed.

Anja and Sadao sniffed suspiciously at their pizzas before putting the first bite into their mouths. The civilization of Gainax had worked miracles to construct real Angels and Evangelions that had existed before only as computer graphics in sci-fi movies. But even the Gainaxians had to respect the limits set by the laws of nature. Therefore, even this Misato double just couldn't completely screw the preparation of a frozen pizza. It turned out to be edible.

Misato - Anja had decided that it would be easiest to think about her just by that name despite the fact that she wasn't the movie character but an alien - however did her best to imitate her original. "Do you want some mustard on your pizza, Asuka?" she asked, smearing the yellow mass all over her own.

"Misato, that's gross. Can I have a beer?" Anja reached out for a can that stood on the table.

"Asuka, that's not appropriate for a fourteen years old girl," Misato reproached.

Anja's Asuka personality prompted her to begin tapping her fingers impatiently on the table. "We are twenty-seven years old, Misato."

Misato's eyes became blank for a second. "Asuka, beer is not appropriate for a twenty-seven years old girl," she replied, then took all cans out of Anja's reach.

"Say something, you dork!" Anja hissed at Sadao.

"Me? Oh ... orange juice is fine with me Misato," Sadao stated sheepishly, already in full Shinji mode.

"How pathetic."

The evening had just started.

Somewhere, later on the same day and just before midnight, unnoticed by the powers that ruled the planet, a conversation between two men took place.

"Do you have him?"

"Yes."

"When will you bring him to me?"

"Tomorrow."

"That is good."

The other man hesitated. "You will fulfill your part of the deal."

"Of course. You will be the seventh. That is our agreement."

"We will meet here again tomorrow. Then I will bring him to you." The speaker left.

The second man didn't speak until his partner was out of sight. "You fool," he then added disdainfully.

Who are these mysterious two men and who will be brought to one of them? Will our heroes survive the fight with the Angel? Or at least the activation test? Don't miss the stunning third chapter,

Author's notes: Here is the now complete list of names and role names:

Rinako Asuhara - Rei Ayanami

Sadao Inoguchi - Shinji Ikari

Anja Siebert - Asuka (Langley) Soryu

Gonkuro Itagaki - Gendo Ikari

Sugita Arakawa - Shigeru Aoba

Masaki Hokusai - Makoto Hyuga

Mutsuko Ishimura - Maya Ibuki

A G.U.N.S. is of course a Gainax' United Nations Ship. No pun intended. Once again, I would like to thank my pre-readers ChiRho, Nova, and XXXG-00W0 for trying to translate my broken English into real English.