Using Language Barriers as a shield

Rei Ayanami Quatermain

While dressed somewhat less . . . provocatively than the counterparts I’m familiar with, the driving style she displays with her blue Alpine sports car is most . . . hair raising! Obviously she's late for some sort of business by the way she's drove her car, but that does not tell me just exactly WHAT the nature of her business she has that makes her drive her car like that.

Even IF I hadn't taken the extra time to cast the more complex disguise spell. Even IF I had only opted on a simple illusion which would have been cartoonish in it's simplicitiy, I KNOW I would have seen the aghast looks the others have at witnessing the torture Misato puts on her car as her brakes scream as her car slid to a halt.

Well, I had noticed that the actual emotions of both Lilith and Tabris had shown through the disguise even before now bu

Nor does it explain what demon's of ill luck we'd ticked off for this purple haired woman to have chosen this particular route today and now of all times. Oh, in some ways it's good: the help we'd call for playing the innocent "Good Samaritan" (people who had nothing to do with the sprawled out condition of these young ones) on one of the nearby payphones we instead get it through Misato Katsuragi herself.

Or, as we find out we get aid for the Children from Katsuragi Misato. It appears that amongst other things, THIS version of the country I haled from (Japan) had kept the old naming convention (family name before personal name) instead of scraping it. Oh, there is much to be said for tradition and all that, but frankly I never saw the point in that particular one. A rose by any other name and all that...

Well, whatever the case we DO manage to avoid many awkward possible questions from her and the awakening Children because of two things I had planned on here. Two things that go hand and hand, if you must know. I made us all to look like Westerners (American tourists of the Caucasian persuasion to be exact) and I did a little trick with our group's universal translator to tweak our disguise. First, as tourists we can get away with being ignorant of certain customs and facts that the locals take for granted. That and we can more easily feign ignorance about things that we otherwise could if the need arises. Second, with the tinkering I did through my PDA? Well, we can speak to each other easily enough, but to others it sounds like we're speaking in English (and American English at that). When we speak directly to those NOT wearing universal translators? Well, they shall hear rather broken Japanese. So broken in fact that it's a massive headache to just listen to, much less try to carry on an intelligent and involved conversation!

Being that I had basically set myself up for this next part--having chosen on a whim to make myself look the part of the middle aged "wife" while making Akagi appear as the elder daughter of this "family" of tourists--I have to do the explaining. The G-Man had differed to me in this matter (because I believe, though he will deny it, having not a clue on how to get our selves out of this mess gracefully) so it is on me.

Comes with having been pressganged into being the party leader of this group, I suppose. Some of the group (i.e. the G-Man) had bristled at the idea of me being in charge over him, but now I believe that he's standing back and at least hoping I am up to this. That and it'll be a good way to get a better measure of me, I am sure. Dr. Akagi had been doubtful about me--a young woman of only eighteen years--could lead this pack. However, she'd been more willing to give me the benefit of the doubt. She'd seen the group who'd taken me in as their own and guessed (correctly) that I must have gotten a few good skills and abilities from such an . . . exotic and elicit collection of individuals I called my family. As for my sisters, they're deferring to me being that I . . . have more experience with insane situations like this.

So, through MY broken Japanese I explain that we'd witnessed these three running full tilt into each other and knocking themselves silly. Being that it sounds more reasonable than the sputtered protests to the contrary by the Children here. Much easier to write off exclamations of winged angels who look disturbingly like this world's Rei Ayanami (or Ayanami Rei as she calls herself) as nothing more than being knocked silly by the collision.

"No signs of concussion," Misato mutters, looking into each of the Children's eyes and seeing nothing amiss (like unevenly dilated irises). "But come with me anyway in my car! The school nurse is going to check you over and only then will you three get to come back into my classroom, you hear?"

Asuka and Shinji shoot the native Rei an odd look, as if surprised to learn that she was in their class. What? Is my counterpart here a new transfer student? Maybe I'll ask Tabris after this is over because he seems to recognize what is going on here!

I swear he's a bigger Neon Genesis Evangelion guru than Uncle Elrondir is by half!

"Yes ma'am," all three students say finally, piling into Misato's car.

As Katsuragi Misato thanks us for our aid, she gets into her car and screams off into the distance, I hear muttering behind me.

"She's a teacher in this world?!" Reika blinks, trying to get her mind around that idea.

"I'm a school nurse in this world?" Dr. Akagi blinks, sounding almost . . . insulted.

"That was supposed to be me . . .uh. . . me during my time as 'Rei' in this world?" Lilith blinks. That young girl we'd run into back their had been my (and my sister's) polar opposite before we'd come into our own, you see.

She'd been alive. Vibrant. Nothing of the doll like personality we'd all had up until getting swept up into a new (better!) life.

"More like. . .a cover for perhapsss more nefariousss operations?" the G- Man muses. "Yes to all that in some way or another," Tabris says, looking back the way Misato had hauled off in and shaking his head. "See . . .there is this one manga series in the Neon Genesis Evangelion quiet different from those sad worlds we haled from. The series is was called Angelic Days. Quiet amusing in a lot of places that series I must admit.

1. "In fact, the back cover of the first book pretty much summed it up when it challenged the reader to 'imagine a Neon Genesis Evangelion in which dating the right girl is more important than saving the world....'"

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