Trouble with a capital B, maybe...

Fred Takahashi

“Excuse me but who in the bloody Hellexactly are you people?” a now rather vexed Watcher asks from the side, interrupting things.

“Giles, they already told their names . . .,” Buffy started, only to be interrupted by the rather put upon English gentleman.

“Names won’t cut it this time, Buffy!” Giles butts in, over a now rather annoyed Californian teen. “I need to know who . . .? How do they know so much about us? You the Slayer? Where are they really from? Everything?”

I and the rest had been hoping that this conversation could be had at some more opportune time. Apparently not, though.

Then again, at a guess it might have something to do with the tangent we apparently went off with questions about what other kinds of costumes (like say from the Warhammer 40K franchise) got sold by Ethan’s here. But then again, hey!

We just ran into at least one of the major (most likely) bad guys outside from that franchise outside. We have Willow here inside (albeit unconscious) still stuck in the body of a Dark Elf, the costume she’d worn and all that...

What if something else decided to lingered after the Halloween madness was done? Why, we might be in a REAL mess here, or so we’d thought. These “Gensesteeler” monsters Reika had mentioned in just passing scared the living Hell out of me, for one. And anyway, Ethan had to be coy with us, playing on our worries and all that.

And then more insulting to Lilith here near the end when we caught him in the lie.

That and couple it with Rei’s being rather . . .protective of her siblings and we’ve gotten to where we are right now with the Englander here. In the wrong light (IF one didn’t know that Rei’s spell wasn’t supposed to be as effective as it had been there) we might appear to be going overboard with our questioning. Abusive even?

All together, we got annoyed with Ethan with precipitated an overly loud . . . Hey, you get the idea.

“G-man,“ I say, smiling slightly at the rather annoyed look that little nickname of his draws from the Watcher of Buffy Summers. “The short answer to your question is not only are we all from out of town, but from various Alter-Earths. “

“And before you ask . . .they have shrimp there,” Rei calls in from the side, looking at Xander as he has his mouth halfway open to ask something.

Never was much of a fan of the “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” series, I can only guess that has something to do with what Xander was going to quip because man does it stop the snark dead before it even began. By the way Xander’s mouth actually snaps shut, anyway that is what it looks like.

“But we do have extra and things in each of our respective timelines/worlds,” Setsuna puts in from her side. “In Rei and her sister’s case basically in addition during their WWII a third atomic bomb dropped on their country...”

“Heh, that wasn’t our country . . .we were made and owned by the absolute dictator Gendo Akari of the Republic of NERV,” Rei muttered. “Just like almost everything else in our old lives, our Japanese citizenship was merely a sham!”

Hey, nice to hear that she’s not as angry about that business as she used to be there. Really. You should hear how she talks about the satisfaction of turning the tables on her Gendo Akari in the end and living up to her stated purpose as being a “protector of humanity” rather than a tool for it’s destruction in the end...

“....there was a horrific battle for the survival of the species called the Angels War that started with an event called Second Impact which culminated in the death of over half of the human race on their worlds.”

“Are you kidding me?” Xander blinks, seeing the rather dour looks on several of my travel companions’ faces. “And why does this sound familiar?”

“It’s because that business just happened to be chronicled in that Neon Genesis Evangelion show we watched that one time Xander,” Buffy says. “And they had this TV show called Buffy the Vampire Slayer which showed everything.”

“It is so weird having a bunch of fans after working so long in secret,” Buffy adds, glancing our way for a second before turning back to Giles. “Almost surprised that they haven’t asked for autographs.”

. . .

Somewhere I will bet that the answer to just how she knows of that little factiod about us has to do with some reason why she seems to be able (of all here besides Ethan) to remember things before the reset. I am going to love, learning just why she knows so much about us. Somehow, I rather doubt that there is some kind of TV show out there on her world that shows us watching her show (and being fans of said show).

Hm, maybe on this world I’ll finally get to see a full accounting of the tales of me and my analog brothers? Maybe there will be somewhere online the whole of Neverending Quest instead of the bits and pieces that keep turning up from time to time?

I’d like that, really. Maybe.

“And before you panic . . .they’ve all been de-angelfied so don’t worry about them turning us all into a pool of orange Tang,” Buffy ends, trying hard to not roll her eyes at the suddenly panicked look in the young man’s eyes as he remembers just HOW the series ended in Evangelion. “Not that they really want to have everyone Tangafied anyway, now that they’ve gotten out of Gendo’s influence and all that.”

Amen to that.

Rei Quatermain

“Anyway here is a quick bios on me and my sisters,” I say while giving Buffy an odd look. Ever since she had her memories return to her there had been something decidedly off about the whole thing. Something that makes the hair on the back of one’s neck stand up on end. Somewhat hypocritical of me to say it, but the fact of the matter is that Buffy Summers had been dead and burried and now through magic is back amongst the living.

And unlike me, where as when I died and got resurrected into a new clone body, it appears that her soul had wandered further afield. In the show she had gone to Heaven before getting dragged back (unwillingly) to life as a human being.

This Buffy had said (when we’d had time to quietly take her aside and ask) she’d done the same thing, visited Heaven and all that before coming back, but she’d come back willingly.

And something tells me that what came back was . . .more than human, only that she doesn’t KNOW it yet. Or has forgotten and only time will allow memory to return.

I hope that when it does return (IF it returns) fully, her memories won’t tell her that she really is an Angel in disguise . . .who might be on a Mission from God (or whatever or Whoever the Higher Ups actually are).

Hope that won’t mean more trouble than we can handle. I mean if the Office of Good suddenly gets into the act and try to help me and the gang with our Quest. If they do then the Agents of Chaos will be obligated in making the Quest we are on all the more difficult, even though WE work for them (along with working for the Rules of Order).

. . .

It’s the way things work. Have to work in order to keep the peace between the various Offices. Buffy’s been acting . . .odder than usual and a gut feeling (something that I have learned NOT to ignore) tells me that her helpfulness could come back to HINDER.

Or maybe I’m just being paranoid. But not enough to give a basic synopsis of myself ( http://www. geocitie s.com/ rule179/ Character Bios/ Rei.htm). Telepathically, of course.

. . .

Though I absolutely loath doing that, however. See, back before the end where I almost . . .bought the farm during the last battle with the sixteenth Angel, it had tried to violate my mind. Force me to see things to break me. I survived it but it did leave me with a bit of . . .hesitation on just sharing my mind (mindspeak) with just any old person.

I make it a habit of only sharing my mind (and soul) with those I love and trust, but time’s awasting and besides . . .it just wouldn’t DO to just tell personal information in front of a villian like Evan Rayne.

Come back and bite one in the rear and all that.

Of course, this doesn’t go too smoothly since as it turns out besides giving something of a headache to the recipients (a bit of a data dump), it stirs up a few questions for one (somewhat) fan of Evangelion.

Xander was always something of an American comic book consumer, but it appears that he dabbled in Japanese anime (and manga) as well!

Reika Ayanami Quatermain

“But I thought that the First Child was supposed to be the bearer of Lilith’s soul!” Xander protested, rubbing his head all the while. “That or the salvaged soul of Yui Akari! Not some kind of . . .of AI program that got downloaded into a human/Angel hybrid body!

Sigh, that business again?

1. “Well, sister Lilith and cousin Amanada areis the embodiments of that little theory of NGE fandom,” I explain. “But not me and sister Rei. Has to do with how the story is so subject to interrpretation and out the level of mind frells in it.”

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