Answers and Adversity Requirements (Part 2)

Honestly Rei and the others of her gang wished to waste no more time now in needless distractions for people who REAALLY wanted some answers, anyway.

That and a creeping suspicion that something has gotten seriously out of whack with this Quest, mainly due to being short three Champions . . .but something else in addition to this as well?

Maybe?

What exactly, Rei and her sisters (not even Lilith) had an actual clear cut clue what the missing factor was. Maybe something due to the rather odd off version of the Neon Genesis world (somewhat different in important details brought about deviations the insertion of a certain knight/dragon slayer Rei eventually married into the time stream), whatever sabot that eventually through into the works eventually broke the curse that was the SEELE Dead Sea Scroll Prophecy and all that, freeing Rei of her and her world’s fated death (and rebirth/endless cycles). That seemed to have some kind of residual of sorts whenever she got the chance to free an analog from their fates as well; residuals meaning a VERY difficult time of it!

Seems to be something of the case here, maybe?

But somehow Rei had a sinking feeling that some kind of karmic . . .debt was owed for somehow having not only survived that misadventure but pulled off a win?

Whatever! Worry about things like that later and start explaining NOW!! Rei chided herself mentally.

Rei gave a brief overview of the prior Quest: save the small town of Sunnyvale from an imminent explosion that would rival a nuclear bomb going off from the Hellmouth (an inter-dimensional gateway to other realms that mostly were like the tales of old of Hades and such), using “Whovian” terms and explanations to explain the oddities that were vampires and such (and make it more palpable to those from UNIT if nothing else).

The fact that Rei mentioned the name of the work of fiction that world reflected was bad enough…

”You’re telling me that that idiotic movie Buffy the Vampire Slayer has a reality out there in the multiverse?” the Brigadier snorts.

He then pauses when he sees just how many around him from his world are staring at him oddly, as if not believing that he would ever have even bothered to go see that kind of movie in the first place. Frankly, the Brigadier just didn’t seem to be the “Fantasy/Horror” type in the first place…

”I was stuck on one of those rather LONG airline trips across the pond and it was either that inflight movie or rereading the inflight magazine for the dozenth time,” the Brigadier huffed crossly. “Just how many universes ARE there in the multi-verse/reality . . .whatever . . .based upon works of Earth fiction? Good, bad or otherwise?”

“Honestly, I cannot answer that for I don’t know,” Rei replied, shaking her head. “Nobody short of . . .who I and the other work for knows the answer to that question for sure. But . . .I would have to say that there is at least one universe out there for anything ever imagined. In my case, with Neon Genesis Evangelion?”

A small gesture with her hand towards her sisters, coupled with a slight tilt of the head and a slightly raised eyebrow to convey the point: more than just a few at least for herself and that franchise of fiction from Japan. A gesture that conveyed the point by a slight “hrmph” from the Brig and a nod, who got the point just fine, thank you.

. . .

Usually the man wouldn’t be so prone to taking such a fantastic statement at face value. NONE of those from UNIT here (the officers) would have done that. Why, claims of a person coming from an “anime” universe would have been scoffed at to say the least, what with much less (though still pretty exotic) means of explanation could be used to explain away the odd hair coloration and eyes (and even wings): aliens.

However, such things as “parallel worlds/realities” would not have ruled it totally out of favor: that “Inferno” incident had happened (if the Brig’s Doctor was to be believed any longer about ANYTHING after the Time Lord’s revealed treachery).

The somewhat halfway embarrassed confession for working for working for a group of “Higher Powers” by Rei was left . . .well enough alone, for a slight fear that trying to delve into “that” would be to invite some rather unwelcome answers (and maybe a bit of existential anxiety for some). See, there happened to be in that very ROOM a possible “Higher Power” within that very room by the name of Aslan and Aslan happened to be that a quasi-divine entity/ruler from the Chronicles of Narnia who could be said to be an allegory of Jesus Christ (of the Christian religious belief).

But with the Talking Lion here in the flesh--and there was an aura about him that defied having those of UNIT from simply dismissing him as at least something to deride and ignore—one does NOT ignore something like that. Maybe Aslan might NOT be Christ (and the more securlar one of UNIT were HOPING that was the case), but there was just something VERY unnerving about having a LION (which gave off all kinds of apex predator vibes to some) there in the same room without a set of STRONG metal iron bars between HIM and them!!

Frankly, they didn’t want to open up that can of worms for fear of what might crawl out (and bite them in the arse) and thus . . .fail to probe on just who exactly Rei and her friends work for here, beyond that they are powerful and . . .from time to time use “mortal” Champions in their stead to fix various problems and such when Their presence and efforts would be . . .inconvenient and perhaps counterproductive to Others of similar stature (i.e. who’d object to trespassing).

That and maybe . . .just maybe asking too deeply about such things might come under the heading of “things that man was never meant to know” and it might eventually . . .cost them their sanity.

Oh, and then there is the roller coaster ride (emotional stress of highs and lows) about them having been running all over, trying to save the world from the Master’s plot with the VLA. All awhile unaware that the Time Lord got mislaid and such and the wrong Earth getting endangered. And the Brigadier almost messing things up by attacking Rei (would have ruined totally her efforts to save UNIT’s Earth and Betty Ragan’s Earth) . . .

Been a long and stressful day, and again a big lion in the room (talking or not)….

Groundless fears but then again it all went back to Aslan being in the room (and being a Lion and such) so a bought of uncharacteristic fear on their part was . . .understandable and forgivable, okay?

And whatever the case, Rei was just as well glad enough not having to explain the Rules, Agents and such(especially the Dark Tower and it being the lynchpin to all of the multi-verse) to UNIT.

She just left off at High Powers (which at least the Brigadier is familiar was such a title to entities that even the Doctor’s race said was more powerful than them) had tasked them to save a town named Sunnyvale in the state of California (USA) which happened to be positioned over a rift in space and time (a Hellmouth). If the rift was allowed to destabilize (and it was going to destabilize), then the resulting explosion would be akin to an atomic bomb on THAT plane of reality.

No mention of what effect such an explosion would have to any other realities that rift was connecting with was mentioned but it was . . .implied that it wouldn’t be pleasant.

Moving on…

The rift was to be closed permanently and safely by a magical ceremony (some of UNIT squirmed and looked ready to argue over there being such a thing as magic when Rei used that term but settled down after glancing nervously at Aslan and several other fantastic folks in the room and then at Rei’s functioning wings) on both sides of the rift. That was how it played out in the end, but it was hardly a smooth operation!

Basically, what had originally been planned on a quiet insertion mission to close the Hellmouth spiraled out of control into an overly loud debacle which would have been MUCH worse if not for the fact that the corrupt authorities (including the Mayor of Sunnyvale who had planned on Ascending to a higher form through the manipulation of the Hellmouth). However, due to certain events where a well meaning but dangerously naïve witch (who’s name Rei withholds due to privacy constraints) wanted to revive a dead fried, the fallout from that effort (indirectly) caused what should have been a relatively easy Quest into something much worse. There seemed to be a time crisis of sorts where the longer the Quest was unfulfilled the more difficulty would head down the pike toward the Champions, piling up and eventually making Quest completion impossible.

Subtlety eventually had to be cast aside in the end and drastic measures taken speed up the process. Instead of travelling to dozens of “low risk/low potential/mundane” planes of reality on the other side of the Hellmouth to set up “anchor points” needed to help safely close the rift on the Sunnyvale side of things, several rather rattling events rather put the “slow but steady method” to win the race put to paid. Instead, a plan was hatched to visit “HIGH Risk/High POTENTIAL/Exotic” planes of reality—places which would and could serve as a “super anchor” worthy of dozens of regular anchors in a lot less time but rather dangerous to visitors shall we say—to head off that before it COULD happen.

”Oh, and what were those events and realities?” one of the as of yet unnamed UNIT male officers said from the side, sipping at his coffee (and hiding his distaste for the brew for politeness sake). “I’m almost afraid to ask but . . .since we’re discussing events up until now I thought it might be pertinent, don’t you agree?”

A quick glance at the Brigadier (his commanding officer by default after his regular Commanding officer had been put into the hospital with a concussion after their altercation earlier with Rei’s group), show’s that he had been good to ask such things.

”Well, besides the Master showing up in the library and tying up things with us having to keep a VERY close on on him,” Rei smiled a less than amused smile at some the memories of recent events. “That and besides a non-evil analog of the Doctor showing up that . . .turned out to be having only been temporarily matter stated flipped from his universe’s charge to out version of matter after a brief run and escape from Omega . . .”

”Matter wha? “ John Conner blinked, not exactly sure what that business entailed though he DID notice that the Brigadier had blanched at the mention of Omega. Man had less than fond memories of that trial and tribulation with the mad Time Lord from the era of Rassilon, thank you!

”The Time Lord with the designation of Omega had reversed the Doctor’s matter state and his TARDIS from anti-matter to matter,” Yuki volunteered, explaining.

”Anti-matter as in what makes the Enterprise go warp and loosing containment and mixing with regular matter blow up the Earth antimatter?!” John blinked, looking rather goggled eyed at THAT casually slipped in fact.

Few to none of the adults look to keen about anti-matter walking around casually shall we say. Even those from the Chronicle’s of Narnia Earth (i.e. a 1940’s world who’s yet to see the power of the splitting of an atom, much less the full power of unleashed energy from the total annillation of an atom) look a bit put off by the idea. While not as aware as how powerful such an event could be, certain articles of speculative fiction kind of gives them the idea: bad juju. “Let’s not talk about certain waylaid Warhammer 40K Primarchs named . . .Horus showing up unexpectedly in Sunnyvale made it ‘interesting’ in the Chinese sense of the word,” Rei said casually, just wanting to at least get a reaction of shock to convey the stress of (by her clock) yesterday.

1. Say the least, she’s not disappointed….

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