2010-07-18 - Third Impact Epilogue: A New Morning, Changing Weather

Mother is dead. We killed her.

Lives slowly reshape. The pain ends. The shockwave reverses, instantly and completely recalling back to the epicenter. The unholy /thing/ looming above the Earth shatters into particles too fine to measure. Those who lost their shape regain it. Those who lost their minds...perhaps will have something like peace.

True peace is lost. True unity is gone. But perhaps it is not a unity that humanity ever wanted to begin with.

The universe resounds. Somewhere far away, sketchy white eyes look back across a sea of planets and stars and galaxies, sensing more than seeing single resonant dot.

The stage is set. The prologue has ended. It is time for war to truly begin.

Humanity has been seen.

At the bottom of a crater that was a lake a second ago, the battered Vesalius lies still.

The crewmembers reform from the strange mass, gradually, slowly sitting up in a daze and mumbling. Some are crying, some rejoicing. Some are completely silent. Some don't rise at all; a number were dead before the change took place, and dead they are still.

The captain wakes, slumped on the floor of the heavily damaged bridge, eyes focusing. Joshua Shardul neither rejoices, nor cries. He sits up, gazing at nothing, trying to remember his dream.

ELSEWHERE

Far away, in Canada, the people around Rocbell stop screaming. They're quiet. Safe? Perhaps, that means that somewhere, he is also...

ELSEWHERE

Muspelheim flew out of the way of the explosion on its own, after making one last...gaze at Akira. It saw him.

It lands on the ground, curling up again and "sleeping," bleeding hot red metal from the battering it's taken. Within, its pilot reappears, shivering, pure red eyes distant and skin pale. But he's...there. He feels the wall, to see that it's real. The controls. The shield. His own skin. And he looks to his radio, wondering if he has the strength to speak again.

He lives, as himself, as Pascal Ambler.

There is a new /light/ behind his eyes.

Toji Suzuhara lives as nothing in particular, a few particles within the mass of humanity that is Humanity. It's pretty great, all things told. Nothing to worry about. Nothing to do. Just be, as a part of the great whole.

But it's not fulfilling.

It's not Toji's dream.

It's not what Toji is destined for.

He feels these feelings as he begins to become he again, as Shinji rejects Instrumentality and returns the world to the way it was. Toji slowly coalesces into Toji once more, reforming from the LCL in the cockpit of Evangelion Unit-03, still dangling from the strained power cord.

Toji looks at the plugsuit floating in the orange goop next to him. He looks at the hairclips. He looks at the blood on Unit-03's hands.

Toji knows that he will not ever have to enter this machine again. That thought sets him free.

He looks down at the scene below, people waking from the universal dream, becoming People again, instead of just Person.

He sees Unit-01, and he knows Shinji is inside. He knows Shinji is alive.

He knows that Shinji saved the world, in his own way.

For the first time in nearly a year, Toji Suzuhara smiles. He smiles, and he laughs. And he opens a channel to Unit-01.

"Yo, Shinji," he begins. A pause. He takes a breath, feeling his life beginning anew. Feeling everything starting fresh. What does one say in this situation? It takes him a moment, but finally:

"Congratulations."

Some element of Shine stings.

In her seat on the Neo Riksent palace, she presses her hands to her forehead. Latooni, still adorable but older, mature, puts a hand on her shoulder. "Shine...?" she says, as she always does when they aren't in public.

"I," Shine breathes out, thinking to all the wonderful things that happened in the world, the turnaround, the peace, the - the - it all starts falling apart. She squeezes her eyes shut and breathes in deeply.

She gathers what strength she has, and finds it is far more than she might have truly thought. She leaps from the silvery throne, towards Latooni, but with intent to embrace, not to attack. It may just be a dream. There is that feeling, somewhere, that a head as turned, somewhere outside that window sealing out the void, looking towards her for that moment, seeing her--

The seat of the Fairlion is dry, though the flowering fennel plant sitting on it may well have its own malign future goals and desires.

Arms wrap blindly around someone. Shine starts crying, head curling around to bury into what she hopes will be familiar lavender hair.

Staren feels himself slipping away. He was only human, in the end. Technology is a wonderful thing, but he could never have imagined, could never have defended against Instrumentality... Willpower means nothing in the face of God if you don't have psychic powers or a woman on the inside...

Staren wakes up. he blinks, and looks around. He's naked, in the cockpit of the Star Hawk... Badly damaged. In a crater. There's a lake here. Is this the geofront...?

He gets on the radio: <> Wait, something feels wrong. Very, very wrong. He checks the radio... His HUD isn't working. There is no response from the cybernetics at all. Have they broken?? Panic growing, he looks around. There's his piloting suit, empty, on the floor of the cockpit. ...he should probably put that back on. As he disconnects the helmet, something falls out.

He recognizes the shape. He's seen diagrams, but never _actually_ seen it... The central chip, the web of electrodes, the wire and plug extending down... It can't be... But it must be.

For a brief moment, he was finally connected with humanity. Now he's even _less_ connected than before. Screw you, God.

Gone... He can't imagine living without it... It would change his whole life...

No, no, calm down. He can find a doctor. Get it reinstalled. This is only temporary. Yes. ...Unless there are no others out there. He hurriedly puts on his piloting suit, placing his cybernetic implants in a sample container for safekeeping, and gets on the radio. "Hello? Is anyone out there?"

It is a brief pose.

Vindel watches as the world simple ceases to exist, Akira's power unleashing a pure wave of destruction that washes out across the city like a white wall of absolute annihilation. Zweizergain gathers itself, watching the terrible white light up above, and looking from higher above thanks to the orbital image that Echidna had projected to him. He prepares quietly, ready to jump out of that sphere of destruction surges down here to destroy the machines, the LCL, and one Vindel Mauser.

But the destruction washes outwards, not inwards - and the Geofront seems to be spared it's fury. "...everything is washing away..." he mutters. The city is gone. Humanity is gone. And part of him is tempted to leave himself, teleport away and gather his troops, be ready for what is next.

But what comes next isn't the end of humanity. It isn't the end of hope. Instead, it is a new beginning.

In the wake of that wave of white destruction, people are beginning to reform all around him. There is nothing left to do but look in disbelief... and then he smiles. "It seems humanity has some fight left in it after all. A willingness to reject this abomination." Proof - as long as humans struggle, they will grow stronger.

Zweizergain turns, it's cape swirling about the super robot's shoulders. "Congratulations. But this is not over." And then Vindel is gone - the interference preventing a long range teleportation from System XN cleared, allowing him to jump away from the ruins of the city.

"It will never be over."

"BIG O! SHOWTIME!"

Roger Smith awakens from his test, or his dream, or his Instrumentality-induced lunacy. Though he never disappeared - not as all the others did - and he may never understand why, he is certain of two things. He is certain that he is Roger Smith, Negotiator, Dominus of Megadeus, and he is certain that he is in control. And Roger Smith rises, as Big O's cockpit comes back to life, the words reappear - not the barcodes but the *words*, the glorious, beautiful words.

CAST IN THE NAME OF GOD, YE NOT GUILTY

...and as the lights return, and Big O reappears, Roger Smith realizes that he is deep beneath an orange ocean.

And with a sigh, he shrugs his shoulder. Big O puts both hands to the ground, like a great beast of burden.

And then it explodes, quite violently, from the LCL, flying with more grace than a robot of its size and weight has *any* right to do, as it lands amongst the ruins of Japan, dripping wet with people.

Norman was going to *murder* him.

From all appearances - at least when those appearances are compiled and collated - there's exactly one cyborg in Japan who's STILL a cyborg after all of that.

Granted, being a cyborg - and part of GaoGaiGar, in a very real sense - is part of Guy's identity, ever since he regained consciousness in the wake of EI-01's fateful impact with his shuttle. So regaining his individuality kind of means regaining THAT too ... but he needs it. GaoGaiGar can't function without a G-Stone Cyborg executing Fusion with Galeon to make GaiGar the core unit.

(That, and there probably wasn't enough actual LCL to make a *baby* Guy Shishioh when he de-tanged.)

As soon as Guy's consciousness and individuality reassert themselves, his next priority is to re-integrate with GaoGaiGar; after that, check in and find out as much as he can about what happened. And then he gets back on the local radio. "Is everyone all right ... ?"

Michael Trinity wakes up with the others as the humanity of Japan reconstitutes. His eyes snap open, his hand slaps down on the rock of the Geofront, and he pushes himself onto his back, staring up at the sky. It looks emptier than it did a while ago... cleaner. For once, he doesn't think of the Zwei.

It's still in his mind. Himself. Nena. Johann. Nobody needed to speak, nobody even needed to do anything. There was nothing but them, being there, being one. One returned to three, and became one. Trinity was infinity.

Michael reaches up to the sky, and realizes then that he's naked, his arm bare. He doesn't care. He can hear others shifting around him, coming back. He doesn't care. Their faces swim in front of his eyes, already slowly fading away.

Michael has always only had a few emotions - sadness is not one of them. Never in his life has Michael been sad. Tears of rage, tears of amusement, but never tears of sorrow. It was replaced by anger. Always anger.

Michael Trinity, alone despite being surrounded by many, rolls onto his side, curling up. Tears bloom in his eyes, and he quietly sobs, in absolute desolation.

Latooni does not remember what she was doing moments ago or who she was talking to. She does not need to. She was With. With is enough, even if she is vague on who she was With. The rest of the Latunes. Everyone. It was peaceful. Her mind isn't organized, this once, to remember anything in detail. There were people there, of course, but...

But now she is With Herself. She is a herself; she is once again Latooni Subota, not a nameless Latune drone or something even more connected with humanity - though she usually feels apart from it, today she connected with them as she never could before.

Inside the Evangelion, someone grabs her and it is not Leo. Latooni starts, then wraps her own arms around Shine. She does not cry. She has to be the strong one, to support the Princess at all times and in all things, and so all she does is hold her. Her other arm reaches out, blindly flailing, to try to find Leo or Rei behind her.

Shinji feels himself wake up in Unit 01. He was alone but that was comforting somehow. He smiles to himself, thinking about kaworu and Rei one last time. Shinji somehow feels that his sister would be proud of him. He already knows his mom and father are. Shinji looks over the cockpit, wondering what happens now. Would this be the last time he saw Unit 01? No. He would run away with it if he had to.

Likewise, he still felt the Getter Rays in his body. It was much weaker than before but somehow he felt closer to his friends in Getter Robo now. He looks up when Toji says something to him. He wasn't alone.

"Thanks, Toji." Shinji radios back, leaning back in his chair. "Lets find a place to set down and figure out what we're going to next." Shinji looks around for Unit 02, not sure if that was Asuka or not.

At the edge of the radius of destruction, the wall of white light ceases its expansion, no longer unmaking the countryside. And then the R-GUN Powered crashes to the ground, rolling over once as it falls onto it's back. The machine had no way of escaping the blast wave - it was already damaged, and Ingram was hardly in a position to be able to dodge it regardless. The backlash from the event, something going off inside of his head like a bomb, depriving him of his senses. Making it so he could barely even think, let alone evade certain death.

That evasion had been provided none the less.

Ingram looks up, his screen scrambled from the feedback of Akira's grasp. He can't see the machine that had rescued him very clearly - it hovers in the sky for only a moment, before vanishing in a burst of motion so fast that it might have appeared to have teleported away if Ingram had dared blink in the meantime.

Alive. His hand reaches for the radio, trying to find out what has happened.

Everyone is laughing and happy. The world is perfect. The universe is in harmony. Humanity has reached its true potential and war will never again trouble the ascended species.

Amuro lounges on a beach with Lalah Sune, Char Aznable, Sayla Mass, Beltorchika Irma, Kai Shiden, everyone. All his friends. Everyone important to him is there, enjoying the sun of the rejuvenated Earth. He lies on his back, closing his eyes to let himself be bathed by the welcoming light of   the sun

in the                 sky above.

Some   thing isn't ri          ght here, something is out of pla

ce.

He can f e e l         Amuro

Ray waking to his se   lf.

Eyes open, brown, inquisitive. Breathe draws in to his body, naked, new, warm, lying on the ground. Uncomfortable. But alive. So alive. More alive than ever before. His soul reaches out, and is met by the souls of the dead. "Lalah..." he whispers, seeing her smile in that space, protectively wrapping her arms around "Rei..." the Rei he knew, the Rei who is part of whom, the Rei he is a part of.

Amuro Ray smiles, heedless of his nudity, and stands. His clothing is ruined. He doesn't care. The Newtype looks around him, seeing new life growing from the pool that was All. He smiles. He feels happiness in a new way. He feels life in a new way. He feels Amuro Ray in a new way.

Amuro holds his hands up to the sky, breathing in, then turns and walks away.

"Shinji Ikari..." he says, mostly to himself. "Good work, kid."

Some people see things. Maybe they're dreams. Maybe they're fantasies. Maybe they're glimpses into other universes, other selves.

Leo Stenbuck sees nothing.

One moment, Leo is clutching Rei and Latooni to his chest inside Unit-00's plug. The next, he's... he doesn't know where he is. His eyes hurt, like he's had them closed forever, and is only now seeing light for the first time. Someone's crying. Who's crying? That's not Rei or Latooni. Where is he? What happened?

Someone grabs his forearm, and he almost jumps out of his skin... but he recognizes the hand. It's a strange thing to recognize, perhaps, but he does; Latooni's. He wiggles his arm clumsily to maneuver his hand into Latooni's, fingers intertwining with the girl's, while his other gropes out in the other direction.

It's easy to find Rei, at least - and it's definitely Rei, he can tell by how bony the limb is - and pull her close to his chest again. Latooni's harder to pull. Why? And who's /crying?/

His eyes don't hurt as much now; he can make out where they are, at least. Unit-00, still. The plug. Leo's head twists back and forth, to look at Rei and then at Latoo-

Oh, /that's/ who's crying.

Latooni's hand still clutched in his, Leo reaches up to awkawrdly press a finger into his neck, just below the ear. If the Ruler of All Known Space is with them, he needs to check in.

Nothing happens; there's no resistance, not like there should be. Leo blinks once, dumbly, his mind still in something like a post-sleep haze.

It strikes him, gradually, that that's not the only thing that's missing. Something else is gone; less a presence and more a simply sense, a tickling in the back of his mind. Something that he shouldn't have had.

Something that didn't belong.

Leo slowly exhales a cloud of bubbles into the LCL filling the plug as he leans back in his seat, wrapping his arms fully around Rei and Latooni, pulling them - and, by extension, Shine - closer to him. He even reaches out to awkwardly pat Shine on the shoulder; they may not exactly be close, but it's hard to see her crying and not do anything.

Speaking of doing anything...

"So," Leo says hoarsely, closing his eyes again. "I guess this is Heaven...?"

Akira Tadokoro floats in the sea of LCL, only regaining consciousness when he feels his head bump against the rocky, blackened shore. His eyes open, and the illumination of the stuff startles him for a moment. Akira reaches out and grasps the shore, pulling. He feels weak. Drained. He tries to summon up the power to restore himself--

It's like taking a breath in a smoke-filled room. He can't do it. He needs rest, not a substitute. Akira drags himself forward, out of the LCL. He dimly notes he's still clothed. That's good. He figured he'd burn it all up. Maybe it was...

Akira sprawls on the ground, soaked. He just wants to go home. He can deal with this... later.

"Nnn..." Slowly, Aoba opens her eyes. She was having the most wonderful dream. All her friends were there... and her grandparents were alive! And even though her mother was there, she could still think of it as a good dream. There's still a faint smile on her face as she remembers feeling her grandmother's warm arms around her.

Of course, the warmth soon fades as she lifts her head from the ground. The girl stretches her arms up, yawning... then blinks several times and looks down. Slowly, she looks back up... and lets out a -shriek-, curling up slightly. This is not the first time she has been in this sort of position, but she had hoped to never experience it again. The girl squeezes her eyes shut and PULLS with her mind. With a creak of damaged joints, the nearby Nana-Two Way drops into a crouch and leans over. Aoba lifts an arm and concentrates, and a small plate of metal flies from the cockpit to her hand. She grips the Alpha Plate, and her R-Suit soon follows. When it falls on her, the girl clutches it to her body and just holds it there. It's the best she can do for now.

"What... are we... are we saved?" Blue eyes wide, she peers around the chamber. It was a wonderful dream, but now she's awake... she's disoriented, she's confused... and she's crying. Rui was right about her.

SOMEWHERE IN THE CRATER THAT USED TO BE TOKYO-3

Light. There's light, peeking in through the corner of his eyes. Blearily, Kyosuke Nanbu attempts to roll over with little success. Why...? Where is he?

A few moments pass as he attempts to gain his bearings, figure out what's going on. He can recognize the cockpit of the Alteisen, once he lifts himself up off its forward screen. There are the controls, digging into his thigh. Pulling himself up to his feet, he looks up at the source of the light. It's...the sky?

Reaching up past the rough, burnt edges of the jagged hole that marks the spot where the back of the cockpit used to be, using his chair as a booster, Kyosuke hauls himself outside with remarkable calm. Surveying the area around him, he's not sure where he is; the last thing he remembers was being in Tokyo-3. More important than that, however, is the state of his machine; in these circumstances, there's not much he can do without it.

Upon further reflection, judging by the way the entire back half of the Gespenst Mk. III has been more or less blown away, leaving little more than a pile of broken scraps surrounding the central block, there's not much he can do /with it/ either. And although Kyosuke knows he should be thinking of getting in contact with A-LAWS, with his squad, thinking of ways to get out of here safely, for a moment he can only summon up a single thought.

Somehow, he seems to have survived another.

Rei Ayanami wakes up. Like dying -- or 'dying' -- coming back is not quite as traumatic the second time around. But where some people move toward a kind of separation anxiety as the curse of individuality returns to their blood -- Rei Ayanami welcomes it. She's not just separate from a crowd now -- she's not just a piece split off from a whole -- she's alone. She's completely and truly alone.

No more 'Rei-2.' Just 'Rei.'

It's the best thing anyone could have ever done for her and she wouldn't have even known it had it never happened.

And that's why, again, Rei kisses Leo. It's not just in front of Leo's girlfriend and Leo's girlfriend's BFF -- it's while they're all packed into a naked huddle. On the one hand, it's awkward as hell, and more than a little inappropriate, and even more inconsiderate.

On the other, it's also the only genuine answer to Leo's question that Rei has to offer.

The Princess of Orb felt everything. Her father's heart touched hers, in an existence that was outside time, outside space, outside everything -- an existence that just /knew/. And there was nothing but love.

And then she comes out of that everything-feeling, that with-and-without... and finds herself cold, groggy, and naked, inside the cockpit of the Akatsuki. She'll make sense of it later, she hopes; right now, she needs to make sense of more important things, like 'where she is, for certain' and 'what words are again.'

Somewhat awkwardly, Shine has some kind of - glop stuck to her forehead, which is bare now. She reaches up after some sobbing for a few moments, sniffling still and wiping it off, looking at it with some surprise and then cautiously placing it downwards. She doesn't let go of Latooni, but she does relax. Maybe she got it out of her system, at least for the moment.

She sniffles. She then looks at Leo Stenbuck, opening her mouth to say something - and then Rei lunges in for an open-mouthed, passionate kiss.

Shine's head swivels slightly, to look at Latooni.

Several silent seconds pass.

Rather quietly, she says, "We should try to find our way back. Do you understand what has happened here...?"

Staren fumbles with the keyboard as he tries to trace Akira's signal. This is so clumsy! Thinking commands is so much faster! He curses as he makes a typo and has to type a long command over again. Eventually though he does, he locates his friend, who appears to already have his clothes on. ...Good, Staren likes Akira, but as a friend, so... yeahhhhhh. The Star Hawk gets up and walks over to him at the edge of the lake of LCL, and kneels down. The Chest armor part opens up, and then the cockpit extends a bit and the canopy opens.

Oh right he can't move the hand by thinking. Staren slides his hand into the backup waldo and carefully moves the machine's hand down, palm up next to Akira. "Climb on, I'll life you up!" Once Akira's on, he lifts his friend up to the cockpit. There is, conveniently, a second seat.

Over there, Leo is making out with one naked girl while two other naked girls are pressed up against him.

Over here, Michael Trinity is lying naked on some rocks, sobbing.

Life is beautiful.

Akira manages to get himself up off the ground. He's having a bad day. Staren showing up is a highlight; it means he's not dead somewhere in the blast crater. He climbs up and drops himself in the secondary seat, catching his breath. He looks beat. Now that he's not in the place full of ash and LCL, he's feeling a little bit... better.

"Today sucked," he states.

Somehow the Phoebe has surived the blast, it's burried under rubble, Macua is spit back out and not feeling very good, but she's back she can sorta remeber what happned and she feels a lot smaller a whole lot smaller. Zako latches on to her leg and doesn't let go as it chirps. "Exploded! Macua exploded!"

She's not sure what to think there right now she just know she's still hurting a bit.

Latooni Subota releases Shine - a little bit, anyway - when she relaxes. She's fine, Latooni tells herself. Don't worry about her. She shouldn't have been here but she's all right.

"I think I saw you," Latooni says, without bothering to specify who in the cockpit she actually saw. She turns her head to look toward Leo, abruptly, who is kissing Rei. She doesn't know what to feel about that. Especially given neither one of them have clothes on.

Neither does she, now that she realizes it, and that makes a slow flush start to creep across her cheeks and down her neck. "No," she says, in lieu of trying to figure out how she is going to leave the unit without flashing the entire loading bay. Or, worse, getting /Shine/ out... paparazzi and that.

Staren smiles a bit as Akira climbs down into the cockpit. At least he's with a friend, after all this craziness. The canopy closes, the cockpit retracts, and the armor parts close again. Staren grabs one of the sticks, switching its movement control mode.... then sighs, pulls his hand out of the waldo, and types keyboard commands again to set the computer to tracking Macua. *then* He takes the controls and drives the Star Hawk over there. _So_ cumbersome.

Eventually the Star Hawk makes it over to the Phoebe. Staren slips his hands into the waldoes again and sets to work, his war machine playing rescue as it grabs rubble and pulls it away from the Phoebe.

"Yeah. Today has really sucked. ...At least we're alive, though."

Fortunately, there are probably few people interested in photography in the depths of the Geofront right now.

Shine seems to realize she's butt-naked. She curls up slightly, one arm shifting to cover her chest as she clears her throat. "If you can signal the Fairlion," she suggests, "It could come and - collect us, I know that it was not badly damaged!"

She assumes Latooni knows how to do this. It has worked thus far.

Heaven? Hell No idea Russel's then spit out and reforms in his Gespenst which has tanked the explosion of tokyo somehow unharmed. The machine comes to life again and and stars to loolk around. "Bagman to all units...sound off, and those who are not injured start search and rescue.... operations as per Ingrams orders"

Whatever Leo might have been going to say gets cut off when Rei kisses him. He looks a little shocked... but, probably to Latooni's chagrin, doesn't exactly shy away from the kiss, and indeed even returns it with just as much passion.

At least, after a few seconds, he manages to get Rei's tongue out of his lungs, preses his forehead against hers, and then turns to face Latooni again. By this point, of course, she's blushing, and well that's just adorable, and Leo has never been much for self-control...

So he kisses her, too.

After that's handled - whether by Latooni accepting the kiss and it eventually ending, or by her turning away - Leo carefully unwraps his arms from around Rei and Latooni, looks at Shine, and reaches over her to grab around for the emergency radio. As he does, he comments, "'scuse me, Your Highness."

After a beat, he adds, "You might not want to look down right now."

Michael Trinity finally stopped crying.

Shine looks.

The president of space, chosen through duly appointed sports entertainment, giggles.

Then she looks away, towards the other side of the plug. "Ahem! Rei - I was quite concerned when I saw the... the big, soft you, I am glad to see that you seem to be well."

While everyone else is busy waking up and looking at each other, Aoba takes a quick look around. Still clutching her R-Suit to her chest, she quickly pushes to her feet and dashes toward the Jinki, climbing up into the cockpit. The cockpit canopy is still glass... but at least now she can relax slightly. Standing up to fully dress in her R-suit again can wait until she's over the ocean. For now, though... she's mostly covered, and she's alone, so she can take a few moments to catch her breath and calm down from her near panic attack.

Latooni Subota already looked down. That is part of why she is red.

Latooni accepts the kiss and responds about as well as Rei did, though she cuts it off a little earlier - if only because she actually has to be responsible and find him the radio.

"It isn't polite to laugh, Princess," Latooni says, quietly, after Leo is safely occupied.

Rei doesn't blush. Nor does she show any outward embarrassment at the situation. Nor does she giggle at Leo's situation, although one of her legs is kind of touching it just from the necessity of proximity. She stares at Shine with all of the emotion and joie de vivre of a wooden plank.

"Thank you, Your Highness," Rei intones, flatly and boredly, with no hint of any kind of deeper investment or response.

Which is to say, Leo's Rei has well and truly returned.

As Latooni hands him the radio handset, and he lifts it to his ears, Leo asks Shine - in another incident of his mouth acting without his brain's consent - "I get to see yours, now, right?"

He immediately braces to be struck.

Leo is not struck by /Rei/, but suddenly red eyes are boring into the side of his skull.

It's good to be back!

Latooni Subota says, with extremely forced politeness, "She doesn't have one; that is the entire point. Please keep your eyes off the Princess."

She got redder, too.

Everything ends. Everyone seems to be fine. Noriko Takaya was together with them for just...a few moments.

Whatever she thought, whatever she feels now, Noriko Takaya comes sloshing out of the LCL lake with her soaking wet Top Squadron leotard in her hands, coughing the stuff out of her lungs, slumping over her body and just trying not to think too hard about...

...about anything.

Michael Trinity started crying again, although this time he's at least crawling in the direction of Unit-00.

With his luck, he's going to stumble on the naked body of Noriko Takaya or something, which would be even more unfair than this situation already is.

Shine answers Latooni in the Italian dialect she is, as part of the princessing gig, responsible for paying for the maintanence of. ""

She visibly bites her tongue to avoid some reaction at Leo's crack.

"If I can do anything for you, Rei, please do let me know," she says, addressing Ms. Albinism first. Then she answers Leo, tone rather sweet but firm, "This is an unusual circumstance, Leo. I hope you will not act in a manner unbefitting an officer with regards to my personal private body parts."

MEANWHILE

Out on the shore of the puddle, someone comes up behind Noriko -- and shakes her vigorously on the shoulder. The hand is hard to recognize, as there is no nail polish on the fingernails.

Jung Freud, her face flushed, her hair a mess and hanging ni her face, and with some blood dripping from her now-empty eye socket, "Takaya /every time I come to this city I lose a body part/, do you have /any idea/ how much this shit /hurts/! Come on, are you OK, we are finding Athrun," oops, but who cares "and then we are /leaving/."

Michael Trinity is crying too hard, or he would blow Jung's case /wide open/

Leo is not struck. He'll count it as a win.

"I'm joking, I'm /joking/," he insists to the trio of tiny naked women surrounding him. "Honestly, the Apocalypse happens and suddenly nobody can take a joke..."

"I mean I'm just saying that if you're going to show me off to your friends, it's only fair that-" Leo continues, still holding the handset up near his ear. He doesn't even wait for the reactions to repeat, insistently, "Joking!!"

Then, thankfully, he actually busies himself with the radio.

Macua Huitl is fairly easy to find, with Staren scanners.

AND SUDDENLY.

The sun get blocked out by Giganscudo's mighty ass.

At last, relief has come. Or something worse, who knows.

Big O knows its ancestor. Roger pauses for a moment as Giganscudo arrives, Big O's eyes lighting up as if to tell Giganscudo - HERE I AM.

Ms. Albinism can take a joke, at least. Rei doesn't react to any of Leo's wisecracks but to stare at him, which is how Rei always responds to Leo's jokes, whether favorably or unfavorably. If she even /understands/ them remains some minor mystery.

Rei's crimson gaze drifts over to Shine, and offers a similar unblinking stare. "Acknowledged," she says, sounding as enthused as someone who was just offered a free face painting on their first day of prison.

The logistics of this situation -- not this situation, but /this situation/ -- do not seem to weigh on Rei's mind at all, and so she leans back, into the seat of Unit-00's cockpit, and stares off at nothing.

Until, moments later: "There is no fourth me."

"I have to say that I am looking forward to both of your reports on this," Shine tells the two non-Rei persons near her.

She looks then at Rei as she makes that comment, and then to Latooni.

Latooni Subota is not tiny, she's five foot /one/ thank you very much, although that is with her usual heels (which are currently missing).

Latooni says, in the same Italian dialect, "I wouldn't actually know. I haven't exactly seen very many." The only sign that she is talking about something embarassing is that she is /still/ getting redder. She's going to run out of red pretty soon.

This time Latooni does elbow Leo. It is not very hard. She turns to Rei afterwards, unsure of what to say - for all her easy comfort with the girl in her mind, the reality is harder. So she says nothing, specifically, to her.

"I don't know that I could write a very useful one."

Noriko looks up, surprised, as a hand wraps 'round her shoulder and shakes her. The fuzz over her brain lifts enough for her to snap her eyes up - and she smiles, laughing a little despite it all, to see Jung being...Jung. She emits a sigh, doesn't even bother to cover up very much as she hooks an arm around Jung's shoulder, and says, "Yeah. I brought BM-1, let's just...get...out of here."

Without ceasing his ongoing radio conversation, apparently with Michael Trinity, Leo's main response to Rei's comment is to give her another weird look, put his arm around her, and lean over to - in between sentences - kiss her hair.

He's back to speaking momentarily... at least until he interrupts himself to chastise Latooni and Shine for speaking Spanish.

Italian. Whatever!

Michael Trinity reaches Unit-00 as soon at Leo says to stay where he is, and starts banging on whatever's near to hand before falling over again, flopped on his back, the tears finally stopping. He stares up at Giganscudo's ass?

Michael Trinity closes his eyes. What the hell, the world.

"Could you please let Latooni use that to call the Fairlion?" Shine says sweetly to Leo.

Then she says to Latooni, in Friuli, ""

MEANWHILE

Jung looks over towards the guy sobbing. She doesn't quite recognize him - but staggers slightly when Noriko hugs her with one arm. She reciprocates, pecking Noriko's cheek briefly, but then saying "Can it cruise around? We should take a couple people with us -" Oh hey, she thinks, the Giganscudo.

She continues bitching. "That thing belongs in a museum. I bet it was the first thing to launch on this god damn op."

Cagalli, once she collects enough wherewithal to actually move, starts to pull the Akatsuki out. Amuro said that they probably didn't want to be there when the cops showed up, and Giganscudo is a lot like a the cops.

Tasuku wishes he could yell on the loud speakers, "HEY, I HEARD THAT -- BY THE WAY, NICE RACK."

But Gigan's sensors are nowhere that good, and there /is a ton of people/ to evacuate.

Russel Bagman machine has shown up with a GM and two other Geepsnts as he radios Tasuku. "Hey Tasuku! Good to see you man."

Leo kisses Rei's head. Characteristically, her eyes dart over toward him as he moves away and the rest of her does not move. Uncharacteristically, her lips turn upward very slightly, into a small smile. And most uncharacteristically of all, she stays that way for the rest of the trek to wherever there is to go now that she doesn't have a home. She doesn't say another word.

STAREN WIREMU keeps digging the Gundam Phoebe out of the rubble. "...You probably don't feel like talking, huh?" He comments to his passenger.

Latooni Subota says, to Shine - in English! - "I don't know if my Fairlion is in range, and I can't control yours very well without it. But I should be able to bring it close enough to land."

She looks left. Then she looks right. Then she says, to Shine, very quietly and in Italian, "" She does not seem particularly proud of this fact.

Akira has, by this point, passed the hell out.

Nnnnope.

"Akira?" Staren pauses a moment to look back.

Well, so much for conversation. This is gonna be a boring ride. He won't even be able to play videogames in his head! Man, today sucks.

Macua Huitl is dug out of the rubble and her machine comes to life the suriving funnels heed their mistress' call and retun the machine loiks to Staren. "Akira blew this place up with his mind, lets go before we wear out the Good graces...."

Noriko grins a bit, tipping her head against Jung's shoulder from sheer weight of exhaustion. Jung is just as tired, she thinks - maybe more so, but...

But it's OK to lean on someone once in a while, and Jung seems like she's up to being strong right now, when Noriko just wants to crawl into bed and sleep forever.

"Yeah, it's pretty much a battleship. Got a little hangar and everything. I mean, we can't carry..."

>A WILD GIGANSCUDO APPEARS

"...that," Noriko mutters. "But a couple units should be fine."

She grins, a little. "Yeah, I know, right? You'd think they'd rig photon boosters to its ass, or something, at least..."

Ah good, Macua's free. Staren nods -- For once, the machine doesn't echo his movements. "Wait... Akira...? Eh, we can talk about it later. I'm taking Akira home -- I'm going to need a pickup for this machine or for some parts later. See you around." The Star Hawk fires its thrusters and jumps out of the crater, then starts plodding along as it heads to wherever the heck Akira lives.

Leo shoots Latooni, Shine, and their Italian conversation that he doesn't realize is about his penis a glower, and presses the handset against his neck briefly to respond, "I'm figuring out what's going on, Your Highness. For your safety. Apparently Tokyo-03 was destroyed. Go figure."

Despite his claim, he says only a few more sentences into the handset - apparently brushing off Ingram Prisken - before passing it off to Latooni and putting his free arm around the girl again.

"They're bringing clothes," he says, simply.

>WILD GIGANSCUDO USES BUTT STOMP, IT'S SUPER EFFECTIVE!!

AS a matter of FACT, there IS a whole array of various boosters that seems to have been quickly rigged on the entire surface of Giganscudo's back. That includes the rear.

Now, the problem it seems to have, is finding a place to land.

"If it comes close enough, we should be able to transfer," Shine observes. "I do not know if we could accomodate the both of you as well, at least not for terribly long..." She may be thinking more of Leo Stenbuck's stiffy.

MEANWHILE

Jung grunts. "I don't care about the machines right now," she says --

Outside, her mech lays, headplanted and half-wrecked, in the melon patch.

"I just... I don't want to stay here."

Some distance away Staren ditches the armor parts which fall to the ground because he is _crazy impatient_ without being able to easily kill time in his head and it's driving him nuts he just wants to go home! The Star Hawk takes to the sky and transforms -- Some time later, it lands right in front of the orphanage, Staren drops Akira off, which is clunky and time-consuming as he has to drag Akira into the Star Hawk's hand, manually set him down, etc... and then Staren heads into space.

When the Star Hawk leaves the airlock and enters the hanger of the WIREMU SPACE LAB IN SPACE, Staren's parents are waiting for him, and hug him as soon as he's off the zipline. It's good to be home... it feels like he has been away on a mission for like two days. He heads up to the 'house' part of the complex, goes to his room, strips off his pilot suit, pulls on underwear, slips into bed, and blessedly falls asleep quickly, Rabi curled up on the bed beside him. Blessedly because man sitting in bed waiting to fall asleep without his computer in his head to entertain him would really suck. Probably _will_ really suck, tomorrow. But right now, sleep, blessed blessed sleep.

Noriko laughs, maybe bitterly.

"Yeah," she says, distantly. "I can't argue that. C'mon, let's...go. I don't..."

Sigh. "I want to shower and then sleep forever."

Oh, thank God, Latooni thinks. They have supplies.

The Evangelion certainly isn't going anywhere. "I'll call mine from there," Latooni says, accepting the radio. "We will need to. There's no power left in this machine. We can split into pairs to go home."

She pauses, then adds, "Though I'm not sure how we're going to divide it."

After a few failed landing attempts, Giganscudo seems to finnaly give up and just starts spraying down blankets.

Tons of blankets, all floating down.

The number of blankets shall /block out the sun/.

"The cockpit isn't /that/ small," Leo protests, frowning. "But... I guess it might be a little crowded..." After a pause, he looks down at his lap, and then back up again.

"Maybe we should get some blankets or something first," he suggests. Unsurprisingly, he doesn't sound terribly enthused about the idea.

"I knew the blanket funding would be good for something!"

Jung tells Noriko, a little warily, "I don't know if I want to sleep. Come on."

Leo Stenbuck's uncertain expression betrays his sudden concern about the fate of his tax dollars.

Michael Trinity cries.

Amuro Ray left a while ago and found the remains of a bar. Sucks to be Michael Trinity.

We established that.

Not hard enough.

Aaand... scene.