_*_ Once they reached the surface, Asuka blew the whistle. It resounded, and there was a flash in the sky. A figure riding in a sleigh shaped from a giant shell and pulled by eight winged unicorns rode down from the heavens cutting a wide berth around the Bloody Tongue, which was beginning to stalk towards the army of humans and Cherubim. He landed on the surface of the waters near them, then looked over at the Bloody Tongue and frowned. "Normally, he leaves if you manage to slay one of his forms, rather than sticking around. I did not anticipate this." "Oh c'mon, you're a god. Kick his ass. If I had my EVA, I'd stomp him myself. How the hell does he see without any eyes, anyway?" Touji asked. "His servitors I can banish. I can outrun him. If I take you, he will not catch you. But if I could slay him in battle, I would have done so long ago. He is the Herald of the Outer Gods, and their power runs through him. He can be thwarted, but not by direct confrontation." Nodens frowned. "And yet..." He looked about him. "He has lost. The battle is over. The wheel has turned, and he is the Turner of the Wheel, not its stopper." "In other words, he's being a bad loser," Asuka said. "Or perhaps he is playing some other game entirely, but I do not understand him," Nodens said. "I can see only one way to stop him. Only the Outer Gods can force him to leave, but to call upon them is dangerous, for they might choose to destroy both of you, or destroy you and spare him for some ineffable reason of their own. They have no concept of justice. Yet, I see no other way. Perhaps if I went and got help, we could probably defeat him, but it would be too late for the Kingdom of Joy." "Huh," Touji said. "But being destroyed here would just...right. I'm sicka this damn place anyway, so..." "Touji, wait, I don't think..." "YO, BUTT UGLY!" Touji shouted at the Bloody Tongue, who paused, and turned in his direction. "You ain't nothing but a bad loser who doesn't know when to take his toys and go home crying to Momma. Get your fat ass out of here or I'm gonna call your daddy to come spank your butt!" It began to rush towards him, every step sending waves of water that knocked them all off their feet. Touji fell down, and went under, but he quickly bobbed back. "Hey, Outer Gods, your shiteating herald is being a poor loser! If you don't come stomp on his miserable ass, I'm gonna tell everyone how much you all suck!" "..." Nodens stared at Touji in shock. Asuka bobbed up. "Touji...bad idea! That's..." Touji had finally lost it. "Show yourselves instead of sending your pansy-ass herald who even a loser like Asuka can pimpslap off a balcony! We won! Now, be men and admit it!" He continued to rant. The Bloody Tongue ceased its advance. "Fool. The Outer Gods cannot be forced to obey one. They care nothing for your prattlings. You cannot..." Its voice was like the crack of thunder, though it had no mouth with which to speak. The lake began to boil and bubble around the Bloody Tongue, who was in it up to his knees. Nodens swore. "Your eyes! Shut your eyes!" His voice echoed across the field as well, and hundreds, maybe thousands of eyes snapped shut. But Touji's did not. He sent them marching orders, but they remained wide open as iridescent bubbles erupted from the lake, engulfing the Bloody Tongue. And in every bubble floated a black void full of stars. They drew him in, and galaxies floated past him as he dived through the inky darkness of the nothing between everything. Pulsars throbbed and quasars sang songs to each other that no human could comprehend. Stars were born, and lived, and died, and round them worlds spun, slowly spiraling inward or outwards. A great spiral galaxy rose, filling his sight, aging as it spun fast enough to be seen, and he knew it was because eons were passing in a second. He dove towards one of the spiral arms, and near the fringes where mostly nothing edged into almost completely nothing, he fell into the orbit of a blue-white star ringed by many worlds. The fourth world was green and blue with white clouds and white ice caps, and upon it was a great continent shaped like a crescent moon with a great blue lake just south of its mountainous spine. He plunged through the clouds, and found himself plunging towards a giant congerie of bubbles which had engulfed a now howling giant being that could not be seen. It was thrashing, and the bubbles moved, and caught his eye, and drew him in. And within the bubble floated a black void full of stars. Galaxies floated past him as he dived through the inky darkness of the nothing between everything. And he made the trip again, and again, and again, and every time, he felt like he had lost something, and his eyes would not close, and every time, it was harder and harder to see anything but the bubbles, for the being they engulfed was fading, and finally, he plunged toward the bubble and it popped, leaving him with only a name, Yog-Sothoth, and the knowledge that in Yog-Sothoth, all things and places and times were one. Yog-Sothoth had never left, he had simply ceased to be seen. He could not leave, he would never leave, much as Touji wished he would. Scraps of memories danced in his head, of entire races crumbling to dust, of worlds cooling from lava and being devoured by the stars that gave them birth. And behind every rock, he could feel the presence of the Key to the Gate, the Lurker at the Threshold, the One Who Is All and Everywhere. In his mind, he heard the Bloody Tongue's voice, for it spoke to him at the moment at which it vanished. "You have not won, for this is what I sought all along. Cherish your illusion of freedom and victory while you can." Touji wanted to vomit. The waters receded to lie calm within their proper bounds in the lake, and the sounds of animals washed across them. A dozen yards away, a fish broke the surface of the lake, and a bird began to sing. The stars flickered in the sky, and the full moon cast a pleasant silvery glow over everything. Touji and Asuka and Cassilda and Nodens stood in the shallows now, and near them, Kensuke floated just above the surface. "It's over," Kensuke said. "This battle is over," Nodens said. "But the war will continue for you in the waking world. And here as well; even if they destroyed him, they would simply make him again, for they need a herald. Still, the blood sings within you. I can feel you have both grown in power. Perhaps he shall learn the truth of an old adage." "What old adage?" Asuka asked. "Do not call up what you cannot put down." _*_ Tairo Yuka was half-asleep at her post. She was supposed to be monitoring the King in Yellow, but given that the King was asleep, this was fairly high on the 'bore- o-meter'. Thus it was that she fell asleep. She only woke when her head finally banged down into the table, and she snapped awake, just in time to see the King in Yellow's cell fill with iridescent bubbles. An instant later, the spy microphones broadcast hideous screaming in what sounded like a foreign language from the cell. The bubbles vanished an instant later, and there was nothing left of him but the cyrogenic unit, and five circles etched into the floor, forming a pentagon as they touched each other. Please don't let them blame this on me, was her first thought, and then she hit the panic button. _*_ They got out of the water, and the army rushed over to them. Alars and Uoht rushed forward, and they grabbed Cassilda in a tight embrace, then turned to Asuka and Touji. "Whatever aid we can ever give you, you shall have it," Alars said. "Our kingdom is reborn, our world renewed. We pledge ourselves to you, our saviors." Asuka blushed, and Touji sighed. "Got any Pepto?" he asked. Cassilda placed a hand upon his brow, and spoke three quick words. His stomach calmed. "Hey, how'd you know what I meant?" "I could hear it churning," she said. "We must go," Nodens said. "We have far to travel while the winds of space are favorable." "Take me home," Touji said. "And..." Then it struck him. "Hey, so does this mean Kensuke gets his body back now?" Kensuke shook his head. "My story is over," he said. "I go now to meet my fate. Thank you, my friends." "What, I went through all this shit for nothing?" Touji felt his stomach start to churn again. "You freed me from a living hell," Kensuke said. "I would have stayed there for eternity until nothing was left of me but a shell without you. But my body is gone, and I am ready to rest. Look, they come for me." He pointed off across the lake, and everyone looked, but there was nothing there. "I ain't seeing nothing," Touji said. They turned back, and Kensuke was gone. "Is he in Heaven now?" Asuka asked Nodens. "Not even we, the gods, know what lies beyond death. Not even the Outer Gods and Nylarathotep know, whatever they may say. But I believe there is something beyond death, but I have heard too many conflicting tales to be willing to guess what. But he looked happy to go there, it seemed to me." He put a hand on Touji's shoulder. "Everyone dies, but death provides the seed of new life. It too has a place." A place somewhere far away from me, Touji thought. "Let's go." He turned to Alars, Cassilda, and Uoht and bowed. "Nice meeting you." He scrambled up into the shell-sleigh. Asuka bowed to the Army of Joy. "I hope I see you again one day." She got up into the sleigh. "We will meet again," Cassilda said as Nodens stepped into the sleigh and cracked the reins. The unicorns began to sprint across the water, their wings flapping, and slowly the sleigh began to rise. A thought struck Touji. "You don't dress up in a red suit at Christmas, do you?" "..." _*_ The trip was long, but it all blurred together in Touji's mind. He spent most of it wondering why Nodens took so long to get back to Earth if he had been able to get there in seconds when the whistle was blown. Finally, they returned to Kadath, and there they feasted with the gods, dining upon finest ambrosia and soma and other delicacies. As he was busy shoving honey-butter covered rolls into his mouth and washing them down with mead, a thought suddenly struck Touji. "Oh man, I think we lost all your stuff! And that undead king is still down in the basement with the spear in him, and...aaargh." "We can reclaim our weapons or forge new ones," Ariel said. "We expected this would happen. It was a price we willingly paid to defeat Nylarathotep. Too long has he chivvied and humiliated us and laid his plans to destroy all hope. I can make another lantern, but he is not so easily thwarted." "I know," Touji said, feeling another twinge of strangeness, half expecting the Lurker at the Threshold to erupt from his flagon of mead. "You will face him again," Nodens said. As he spoke, the room began to fade into darkness, and the longer he spoke, the fainter his voice became. "For like you, he exists in both dreams and the waking world. You will face him there, for he brings doom to gods and men and sows chaos, preparing the way for the wheel to turn. You will face him again, without magic items to save you. He will seek to winnow you, and the only weapons that can defeat him and those who serve the Outer Gods may twist and turn in your hands against you, for it is dangerous to fight fire with fire. Still, remember that there is one thing he and his masters can never understand, for it is the one thing they can never have themselves." The light had almost entirely guttered out, and Nodens final words had seemed as if they were whispered from across a chasm, just barely perceptible. Asuka and Touji couldn't see each other, though they could feel each other's presence, and all they could see of Nodens was a fading glint off his silver arm. "What? What?" Asuka asked desperately. "Hope," he said, and darkness claimed them. _*_ Asuka snapped awake, back in her bed at home. She sat up, and turned on the lights. Did we win? she asked herself. We did free Kensuke, but...he's in heaven, she told herself. He has to be. If I get there one day and don't find him, I'm gonna be pissed. For a moment, she half expected the Crawling Chaos to erupt out from under her bed and eat her, but nothing happened. There were only the sounds of the city at night, and light dimly filtering in through the blinds from the nearby streetlamp, and Pen-Pen sqwauking. She got out of bed, put on her slippers, and shuffled out to the living room, where Misato, wearing only a tank top and boxer shorts, was hard at work playing chess with Pen-Pen. Or to be more precise, she was dancing around gloating because she'd just taken Pen-Pen's queen. "Hah! I'm not tactical commander of NERV for nothing." Noticing Asuka, she said, "I didn't wake you up, did I?" "Ever gone through hell for something, then not been sure if it...I mean, it was worth it, but it just...we thought...we hoped..." She came over and slumped down in a chair. "He's free, but he's gone. He was supposed to get his body back." "Tell me about it," Misato said. Asuka launched into the tale. _*_ Touji woke up, his stomach churning. "I feel like I could eat a horse, then throw it back up," he muttered, staggering out of bed. "Stupid gods probably forgot to cook the pork and gave me amoebas again or whatever the hell that was when we went to Peru." He fumbled his way through his dark house towards the kitchen, where he was pretty sure his dad kept the Pepto-Bismol. And the food; he could use both. "I bet you ain't got to wander around in the dark to get Pepto where you are, Kensuke," he muttered, then decided he didn't want to think about Kensuke. "I'm gonna dream about basketball for the next three nights, no matter WHAT Asuka wants. I'll turn her into a cheerleader if she tries anything, and make her cheer for Germany to lose." After a few minutes of pleasant fantasies, he reached the kitchen, where the dog was pacing about. You better not have taken a dump in the wrong place again, he told himself, then went over to pet Raiden, who was a big, not too bright mutt with short tan fur and a pug nose. Raiden stared at him, then snarled, backing up as he advanced. Touji scratched his head. "You been eating something funny? Don't you know how I smell? Or do I stink that bad?" Raiden backed up to the living room door and barked sharply. His tail was down, not up and wagging like it should have been, normally would have been. Oh man, what if he's gone rabid or something? Shit, I'd better wake up Dad, Touji thought. This sucks. Dad's gonna kick my ass for waking him up, and then... He sighed and turned to go. This just ain't my night, he thought. _*_ "So, do you think we won?" Asuka asked Misato, finishing her tale. Pen-pen sqwauked affirmatively. Misato said, "That explains that weird phone-call I got. That's why I was up." "What?" "A congerie of bubbles ate the King in Yellow. I was going to go down, but then I decided to wait for the morning when they'd finish analyzing the site. Site security isn't my duty anyway; I'm the tactical chief. But I couldn't get back to sleep, so I ended up playing with Pen- Pen." Pen-Pen nodded. "I'd say you won. You freed Kensuke. I guess we may need to have Ritsuko run a few tests on Touji, assuming...Hmm, makes me wonder if there's 'Inner Gods'." Asuka laughed. "Maybe. Maybe that's our job." She frowned slightly. "I need to talk with Rei." "Talk at Rei, maybe. She's not likely to talk back much." Asuka laughed. _*_ Clouds threatened rain, but it wasn't coming down yet as Asuka and Shinji walked to school. "Don't mope," Shinji said. "I'm not moping. I'm thinking," Asuka said. Rei came around a corner and rapidly joined them, moving over to Shinji's other side. "Hi," Shinji said. "Hi," Asuka said. "Hello," Rei replied. They walked in silence for a few minutes, until, a little ways from the gate, they caught up with Touji. "Hi, Touji," Shinji said. "Hi, Shinji," he replied. "Hello, Asuka and Rei." He sounded far more subdued than usual. "Guten Morgen, Touji," Asuka said quietly. Rei paused and stared at Touji, then walked around him, and began to walk backwards in front of him, looking him up and down. He didn't comment, and neither did Asuka, who was staring at the ground. Shinji said, "Rei, what are you doing?" "Checking." "He's just feeling a little gloomy; it happens to everyone," Shinji said. "Really?" Sometimes I wonder if Rei grew up in a box, Shinji thought. And sometimes I know. _*_ "Dream quests suck," Touji concluded, "But I have to say... the Elder Gods know how to cook a good meal." He and Shinji were eating lunch together at school under a tree. Rei sat quietly nearby, also eating lunch, while two trees down, Asuka and Hikari could be heard talking softly to each other. "I'll, uh, keep that in mind," Shinji said. "I wish I'd been with you, though. I would have helped, if you'd asked." "I didn't know you knew anything about this junk, although I guess I shoulda. So how many times did Asuka throw you off that cliff." "Cliff? She never threw me off a cliff." Touji grimaced for a second, then looks suspiciously at Shinji. "Not even once?" "Nope." "She does have the hots for you, then." "No way." Rei glanced over at Asuka, who was listening to some story Hikari was telling, then turned back to Shinji and Touji. "She went easy on ya. She ain't the kind who goes easy on nobody. 'Course, I showed her I knew what I was doing." He rubbed his arm. "Crazy dog tried to bite me." "Asuka tried to BITE you?" Shinji stared in shock. Asuka turned. "What about me, Shinji?" "My dog tried to bite me," Touji said. "Sure, Asuka's a dog, but she ain't my dog, thank the heavens." "Oh, I'm a DOG, am I? I seem to remember someone not showing up for a one on one game because they were too scared to face me!" Asuka pointed at him and bellowed. Touji got to his feet. "You and me, on the court, RIGHT NOW! I'll kick your ass back to Kadath, Langely!" "You've got it!" They ran off towards the basketball court, abandoning their lunches. "So much for comrades in arms," Shinji said. Hikari watched them go, then turned to Shinji. "This Dreamlands...this is really real?" "Yes," Shinji and Rei said in unison. "Misato's been there too," Shinji continued. "It's part of our pilot training. Asuka trained me too. Who trained you, Rei?" "Dr. Akagi's mother," Rei said. "Wow, that must have been a long time ago," Shinji said. "What was she like?" "A good teacher." "Was she much like her daughter?" "Very much." She paused, apparently consulting the memory banks. "She liked your father." Hikari frowned. "You're not insinuating that..." Rei turned and stared blankly at her. "Insinuating what?" Shinji scratched his head, then realized what Hikari meant. "He'd never do something like that!" "I'm sorry, it just sounded like she was hinting that...never mind," Hikari sighed, got her lunch, and came over and sat down by Shinji. "Touji is brooding." "He'll get over it," Shinji said. "It's a different brooding, though, can't you tell?" "Not really." "He wouldn't be playing basketball with Asuka if he was really unhappy." She stared at him for a moment, then nodded. "You're right." A shout of triumph echoed from the court, and lunch continued on its merry way. _*_ "This bodes ill," Fuyutsuki said to Gendo across his desk. They were in Gendo's office, which had been carefully searched for bugs and other spies a few minutes earlier. A great leather- bound tome sat open on the desk; a blue sheet of paper wrapped round the back cover announced that it was on loan from San Marcos of Lima University. Greek letters marched neatly across the page, periodically interrupted by diagrams or crude drawings. Most of the two pages that could be seen were occupied by a thirteen stanza poem that had annotations scribbled in Italian in the margins and between the lines in faded green ink. "Better that they take him than that he escape," Gendo replied. "And it's not as if we could have prevented it. If he had ill intent against us, we'd be inside out or inside the sun by now." "Perhaps his cult made a bargain," Fuyutsuki replied. He ran a finger across one of the stanzas. "And lo, the Key and the Gate comes. None may master him, yet he hesitates not to stoop to conquer. He is the Opener of the Way, and with its opening, his fellows shall look forth and gaze upon this world. Woe to those who gaze back." "Ahh, but look at the previous one. 'Hail, Hail, the city of Sorrows is fallen, the Pallid Mask is shattered, the Regent driven forth! Cast off your grey and dismal shells and walk once more in the light. Let us build the city of Joy and rejoice in the dawning of new hope. After winter summer, and after summer winter, and after winter summer comes once more. The King in Yellow is dead.' It's all part of the prophecy." "The prophecy has some rather dismal pieces too, you know." "I know," Gendo said frowning. His finger moved down the page, and he read, "Let all sorrow for the City of the Bean, for the Second Sun has come, and his glory shines over them. His children will devour all for his glory, until the Lords of the Elements come and bring night to the shattered land." He sighed. "The Great Day draws closer when all our plans will come to fruition, but there are still too many mysteries, and too many will die whatever we do. Still, we have agents watching the major potential sites." "Of course, it could be that it's just some small town with a green bean festival," Fuyutsuki replied. "And the Second Sun could just be a powerful lamp. But I doubt it." "The VR scenarios should be ready to run the Children through within a day or two. I've designed ones for the four most likely strike sites. It should help." "Good," Gendo said. "Snuffing the Second Sun will likely push them to the limit; best we have the chance to move those limits in advance." Fuyutsuki nodded. "I'll get to it."