When angels speak, you'd better listen...

Warmaster Horus

"Buff, now wait just a bloody minute here," Rei interrupts, stepping into this fray before I and the Emperor find ourselves even MORE out to sea here. "Not to get even more sidetracked here, but I JUST have to ask, with permission of course?"

The last is directed towards the Emperor more than anyone else at the last moment. Frankly, the blue haired woman I feel was (rightly) unsettled at the latest twist in our series of misadventures here and wanted to get it ironed out before it became too distracting.

Damnit, if another thing comes up and delays me from getting BACK to the Imperium . . .MY Imperium to stop whatever evil plot those damn Chaos demons plan I fear I will have to maim someone here for it! I mean I understand and do not begrudge Rei and her companions their Quest. I do NOT begrudge this reality's Emperor the return of his wayward Primarchs (IF this Buffy the angel is on the up and up). Hells, I find the idea that I have Brothers . . .Sister Primarchs alive and whole who'd had been thought lost and gone, names stricken from the Archives of the Imperium more than heartening, even IF it is en pasante.

BUT I NEED TO GET BACK to my REALITY before those Chaos worshiping idiots screw up everything I and the Emperor have accomplished!!

. . .

Pardon, but I just had to get that out of my system here. "Care to explain a few things here? Leaving aside a million questions like just how exactly this little Primarch here got somehow adopted by the Soryus after being dropped into sister Yukiko's reality . . ."

"It was the Shikinamis," Yukiko corrects Rei pedantically, not looking up from her place where right now she's attending to my . . .sister. "I know of no Asuka Langley Soryu, but I do know of an Asuka Langley Shikinami, Pilot of EVA Mark 3. She is something of the topic of conversation around NERV, of what I happened to overhear between my Synch Tests and other examinations from Dr. Akagi."

"Oh," Yukiko then pauses and blinks, looking up at Rei as if she'd been told something surprising.

Later I find out that Rei and the younger clone had spoken to each other via their version of telepathy (something that is totally new and alien to my breadth of experience until recently) that NO things (like names and certain EVA/Titans/whatever) being different between realities and all that.

Asuka was an Soryu in Rei's reality and this other name in the younger clone's world and all that rot. Go figure.

Hells, my headache from trying to think about this business too much could use a pull of wine to settle it right now!

Rei and explained all that, mind to mind, in the matter of seconds, anyway. That and saying something along the lines about how the Evangelion movie series called "Rebuild" got scuttled in favor for a travesty of a retelling of the Evangelion series: a live action movie which had little in common with either anime and manga, in the end.

Hells! It even had most of the main characters recast as "Americans" (as they called that early Earthern empire).

The people hadn't been too terrible of actors but it had "deep sixed" any efforts to expand the franchise afterwards.

Besides, Rei and her sister made it a habit of avoiding reading and seeing anything too closely related to their old lives. Something about psionic feedback from whatever metaphysics that had allowed their tales to be retold in print and movies in the first place.

. . .

Odd that. I've read more than a little bit about my analog's treason (that damnable Horus Heresy business) in the books we . . .procured in the process of things while en route to the entrance to the Hellmouth and all that. I never felt a twinge of pain beyond a deep sense of anger and disgust towards my literary counterpart at his treasons and betrayels. Nothing psionic or mystical in nature but then again perhaps it has to do with the differences between a magic user (and other kinds of the ilk from Rei's homeland) and those who have a touch of the Psyker gene: totally different banes and boons.

I might be totally off, but still . . .I'm getting sidetracked here. We'll come back to that at a later date and time.

"Why and how is she an infant?" Rei asks in exasperation. "Some kind of 'accident' that happened with Unit Mark 3 or something, perhaps?"

Buffy looks blankly at Buffy for approximately five seconds and then sighs, shaking her head slightly.

"She and her sister Primarch got regressed in age by their EVAs in a freak accident," Buffy said with an odd look. "Kinda a side effect from having such foreign influences like true magic ala Sailor Pluto temporal magic being thrown about, you see, when she did some of her more . . .creative punishments in the name of the Moon."

"You kinda went overboard in the end with Gendo and SEELE and the juggling the Rules and Agents had to do to avoid some major paradoxs. . . .well, you shall see soon enough," the angel sighs, looking at the flustered Sailor Scout in the twin pony tails.

Eyes turn towards Setsuna, who looks down in frustration.

"It wasn't like I meant to go amok and screw everything up like I did," she said in a small voice.

"Why are you holding her accountable for actions taken while she'd been insane?" I find myself asking aloud, somewhat affronted at the injustice I see here. "Shouldn't that be taken into account before 'divine' punishement is met out?"

The last is said with more of a sneer in my voice than I meant to give, but this grates on my nerves. So after all this time hiding in the shadows the supernatural has the oddacity to judge US? After leaving us to fend for ourselves against the cruel world, really?

Who does she think she is, her and her Angels?!

"Yes that is why you got your chance to fix things and make amends," Buffy adds, seeing the hurt she'd caused. "Like what you wanted instead of just blasted into dust like a lot of those drone Rules and Agents tried to do."

A meaningful glance my way is given me and then: "Hey, you got issues with my kind and organized religion, fine. We'll discuss this at a later date and time about all the stuff we'd been doing in the background. Things to keep the Enslaver . . .that monster which had caused all the junk that accounted for the weaponization of the Warp and all that stuff. Things that we'd been doing to keep things even WORSE than the bad guys you've faced in the 30th Milenium or the Emperor's faced off with in the 40th! Believe me, there are even WORSE things out their. Sh*t you don't even wanna know about and leave at that! Don't EVEN get me started on it right now, bud!"

She then sniffs, in something of a snit still with me but calms visibly before turning back to Rei.

"I take it that what I and my fellow celestial types had feared came true and that song and dance you and your sisters did to get by my security protocols and gain access happened without any true input from the prophecies and such?" Buffy asks quietly, looking again at Rei (and pretty much ignoring everyone else. "That and pretty much every other question you have there was answered in a kinda cryptic form, kinda. Enough to you didn't have to really ask that kind of question if you really thought about it enough?"

"All destroyed," Rei said in a level tone. "Nothing at all survived to be seen by me and the gang, Buff."

"One of many things I shall take them to task for once business here is taken care of," the Emperor said from the side, in a tone promising the process was to be most . . .painful for certain people here soon, if he had anything to say in the matter. "In fact it was highly suggested by that Walker woman earlier that I should just let things run to GET the results we did get which I believe . . . .was for the best for the Imperium, else I would regret the results."

"Well . . .she was right," Buffy stated back in a neutral voice. "For one I would have left BOTH of the female Primarchs in the hands of someone I'd trust in this hellhole of a reality: Rei's uncle! And forget about the emergency Standard Template Construct archival data backup in that computer over yonder from that you'd pretty much ignored since we'd practically DROPPED it into your lap, jerks!"

"THAT is archival backup unit?!" I blink, point at the laptop that just sits on the table, active and whirrint along like nothing was special about it. "According to Imperium records they are MUCH . . ."

"Imperium records are wrong and not EVERYTHING from that time period was built up so big and gigantorish," Buffy sniffed. "What is WITH you guys about big and bulky anyway?! Kinda thought you'd learn a lesson after figuring out Rei's hand weapons weren't toys but something rather more dangerous than you'd thought? Sheesh!"

But-but-…

. . .

She . . .might have a point . . .

"It was only a rumor," the Emperor said, looking at the laptop oddly. "Only a rumor that quantum computing in the outer rim had gotten that advanced, bucking the system at more robust designs."

I then look at the Emperor and he at me and . . .Terra! As it turns out it WAS true, what Buffy had said about the laptop. Out of all the more supposedly rugged and secure computer facilities, this . . .THING survived!

Had something to do with Inquirer--one of Rei and her sisters Aunts-- having actually cybernetically visited and such inside the guts of the machine. Something to do with a Matrix similation (a movie I fear who's prescence was lost in the passing of time in my world) and something called Torg (re: 27897). Rei's says she'd explain later...

Keeps muttering about at least now she'd know what reality that computer system had belong in...

Terra! I need a drink!!

As for Rei's uncle? Who is he? Well, he's special for he is the one who . . .

Who happened to have come here by accident due to a "misjump" by his ship's skipdrive. Had been en route to his next duty station for the Military Intelligence folk who are in charge of keeping the more dark and destructive secrets of that Rosewell incident (who's technology made all the Military technology during and after that Enemy/Alliance war possible) secure.

He happened to be the Commanding Officer for that facility, really…

Who happened to be an analog of my father, the Emperor! Who was NOT a fan of the Imperium and it's policies even before the Horus Heresy….

Who was a devout follower (!) of the Church of Silicon Valley, a cultish following of hackers and AIs, as it turned out which had a weird blend of Christianity, Bushido and a few other odds and ends…

. . .

He'd gotten religion around the time of that supposed alien visitation/crash landing in Rosewell, New Mexico in the second millennium current era.

The day that UFOs warp drive had malfunctioned and "jumped" into the Military universe and who's wake in the realms of the Warp . . .had completely and utterly disrupted the nascent Warp Gods! That wake which is repeated again and again every time a Military Skip drive is utilized. How is that possible and where can we get a sample of that FTL tech?! I have more than a few "Warp Gods" I'd like to disrupt good and proper for what harm they'd done MY reality, thanks!!

"And here I'd wanted to just go the old route of referring to some of that Princess Maker type Evangelion game that only Rei would've know but NO! " Buffy groused. "WE had to go and be all cryptic like and sh*t and the Imperium drones go and nearly ruin it all."

. . .

Somehow I never thought I'd ever hear an angel (or whatever Really Buffy is here) swear. It just . . .didn't fit my image of them, really.

The Champions later tell me . . .actually Rei tells me that the game in question was a game based off of HER life: the Rei Ayanami Raising Project. The part in the end was what Buffy was talking about. The part which would have gotten a GOOD ending.

If the wrong answers were given it would have meant that either Rei had been under duress or indisposed of by Imperial guards. Meant that I probably would have been dead or some other thing for I rather doubt the Emperor would have been willing to let Rei and friends into here if things had gone badly like . . .it almost had there.

. . .

I think that . . .Buffy would have found us wanting and left us to our own device, I wager.

. . .

Oh? What was involved in that? The good ending? Why the interest in such trivial . . .okay. Why not?!

And about the "good ending requirements", you have to make Rei remember:

What lunch you packed for her on her school trip

What you did at the New Years Festival

Who she played in Snow White(1st Choice was snow white, 2nd witch, 3rd tree)

And what you did on Christmas

Happy? Talk about simple thrills for simple . . .

Mmmm, a thought…

Just how would Rei have known about that when she said she avoided NGE themed games and such like a plague?

Uh, never mind. Let us get back to the more IMPORTANT business? Like things that could save the Imperium and such a LOT of bloodshed in the upcoming conflicts we'd face and all that?!

"Now here's your other wayward Primarch and have a great day!" Buffy ends, handing the babe known as Mari into the flummoxed Emperor's hands. "Now bye!"

And with that she vanishes like she'd never been here.

Minutes Later....

1. "They're. . .adorable."

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