Kaiju Slaying For Death and Profit Ch 9

Sorry for the late post. The week was long and the weekend hectic. Frankly it's almost like the weekends just no longer belong to me.

Excuses aside. Here is chapter 9.

I was tempted to push forward to another action bit. But I'm doing my best to pace this in a way that somebody binging it can enjoy it. And for that there needs to be somewhat slower paced chapters and whatnot. And I don't want this story to devolve into 'monster of the week'.

Anyways! Please gimme a comment letting me know what your thoughts are. And I hope you enjoy the chapter!

=][=

“The Eva had a literal panic attack, Ritsuko.” I said, glaring at the scientist who refused to meet my stare. “That doesn’t just ‘happen.’ What the hell is your history with unit 00?”

Ritsuko raised her coffee mug to her lips and took a sip. “I helped create it. That’s it. I do not know why it would react so strongly to me.”

I leaned over her desk until I was almost nose to nose with her. “Don’t lie to me. You know something, and I’m not leaving until you fess up.”

She worked her jaw as if she were biting something foul. “You are not clear to access that level of information.”

I felt my lip curl. “Are you seriously going to try to hide behind procedure?”

“I’m not hiding anything!” She snapped.

“Pull the other one,” I snarled, “it has bells!”

“The only thing it could be is impossible!” She shouted.

“Oh yeah? Try me!”

She opened her mouth to retort.

“Professor Akagi, is something the matter?” Asked a gravely voice that made the hairs on my neck stand on end.

“Director Ikari.” Was as far as Ritsuko got before I was on Gendo’s face.

“Look,” I snarled, barely restraining the urge to knock another of his teeth out, “I get it, end of the world shit. You’ve got stuff what needs to happen. Hard choices, the whole shebang. I get it. But what in the name of all that is holy are you doing that could possibly traumatize eighty-meter-tall war machines!?”

“It would seem that the pilot of Unit 01 is still feeling somewhat out of sorts from the test.” Gendo said, severely testing my self-control.

“Don’t you fucking speak of me like I’m not present you bastard!”

“Pilot, perhaps it would be best for you to retire, it is clear that the testing was quite tiring.” His eyes glinted, his lip curled slightly. “A bonus will be given to you for exemplary service.”

I inhaled, counted to four, exhaled, counted to four, inhaled, counted to four, and repeated the process again.

It helped me not shatter his jaw. Which I suspected is what he wanted. I could feel a tension in the air. Stale adrenaline and fear-sweat coming from the hallway.

He’d set up a trap.

He thought he had reduced need of me, otherwise he would not be this brazen. Either that doll-plug thing was ready, or he’d finally gotten around to getting another pilot.

I didn’t know which it was, and it didn’t matter. He was back to holding the upper hand.

For now.

“You will reap the summation of all your sins, Director Ikari.” I hissed into his face. “I will make personally sure of it.”

I walked out of the office before I did something I would enjoy, but ultimately regret. Giving Gendo the lesser of the two victories he’d set me up for.

Damn Xanatos Gambit obsessed bastard.

“Pilot.”

As much as I hated myself for it. I stopped just outside the door.

“Be here tomorrow at seven-thirty hours.” Gendo said. “Rei will be busy, you will be required to be on standby in case of an Angel attack.”

His piece said, the door closed.

I clicked my tongue in annoyance and walked away.

“Asshole.”

=][=

I could only watch the projected screen in veiled dismay as the red-armored Evangelion wearing its transportation tarp like a tattered cloak, split a big fish-like Angel open from stem to stern, before a whole-ass fleet with two aircraft carriers, six battleships, one heavy missile cruiser, one aircraft cruiser, a battleship/aircraft carrier hybrid, eight frigates, fifteen destroyers and a parrot in a pear tree unleashed nineteen and a half levels of hell on the wounded Angel, damaging its core enough to kill it after seven minutes of continuous bombardment, able to hit it thanks to the severe damage the Evangelion had dealt it slowing it down enough for the ships to keep up with it as it attempted to escape.

The video restarted, showing the Eva’s gymnast-like athleticism as it jumped from ship to ship, luring the Angel in to deal its decisive blow. Forcing me to once again watch the utter waste of Credits as the Capture that was mine by rights, sank to the bottom of the sea.

“True, the UN Pacific Fleet were the ones to finish it off.” Ritsuko said as I ran through the logistics of stealing a boat and getting to the site of the battle. “But she was able to cripple the Angel in thirty-six seconds, well before the battery ran out of power.

“Evasive maneuvers, decision making, piloting skill…no matter how you look at it, she is quite outstanding. Hard to believe the abilities of the Second Children surpass the rumors.”

It's fairly far out, I’d need at the very least one week’s rations, two to be safe. Wait I can summon food and potable water, I can ignore that issue. This simplifies logistics a lot.

Misato grunted. “The real question is; why was the Angel there? There is nothing but water for kilometers, the site of the battle didn’t even occur over one of the flooded cities.”

I would have to get someone to purchase scuba diving equipment. Due to my Defenses I was now quite pressure resistant, but I’d still need to breathe, it wouldn’t be until Immunity that I could get away with breathing water. And I was a long time from being able to upgrade my Defenses to an immunity.

Ritsuko shrugged and took a sip of her coffee. “It could have been after Unit 02. Evas are most vulnerable when they are being transported.”

I should be able to summon its soul from any piece of it. But to be safe I’d need to find a piece of its core. Now, how far would it have tumbled due to the tides?

“Where’s 02 now?” Misato asked.

“Cage No. 5, cold storage. Asuka is checked into a hotel.” Ritsuko said.

The Core wasn’t heavy. No wait, the Core wasn’t heavy to an Evangelion. I’d probably need a crane to move it. Which meant that in all likelihood it had sunk in a mostly straight line down to the bottom.

“Shinji, any thoughts?” Misato asked.

Okay, how do I steal me a boat? I could purchase one easily enough, but I was certain that NERV tracked my every purchase. In order to be certain I’d remain covert, I’d need to steal one.

“Shinji?” Ritsuko asked as the video played again, infuriatingly, it had neither its global coordinates nor any worthwhile landmarks. Not even ‘some city what used to be above water.’ So apart from all that, I’d have to get my hands on the coordinates for where the battle took place.

Maybe I could give whoever I stole a boat from an I.O.U.? That and bribe the archivist for the coordinates.

Wait, the archivist was a degenerate who stashed her porn doujins on the air vents. I could probably seduce the coordinates out of her. That would be far more secure.

“Shinji.” A soft feminine voice whispered, bringing me out of my train of thought.

“What’s up, Rei?” I asked, turning away from the screen to give her my full attention.

“Miss Akagi and Miss Katsuragi want to ask you something.” Rei said simply.

I turned to look at the Christmas Cakes. “‘Sup?”

They exchanged glances before Misato spoke. “We wanted to ask you what your thoughts were on the Pilot of Eva 02.”

I shrugged and turned back to the screen. “She’ll probably be useful enough in a fight. Not sure how far all that hopping about will get her, and she definitely bent the keels on a few of those ships, which is a damn shame cause warships are cool. Other than that, dunno, I’ll withhold judgement till I meet her.”

“She’s quite bright.” Ritsuko said. “Graduated University at fourteen.”

“Neat.” I said. “Is her degree a Master’s on Kaiju Slaying?”

Ritsuko snorted some coffee up her nose, then coughed until she cleared the vile brew out of her lungs. “Erm, n-no.”

“Then her level of education doesn’t matter.” I stated matter-of-factly. “Hell, I’d drop out of school right now if you lot hadn’t put it into my contract that I had to attend for some reason.”

“A proper education is very important.” Ritsuko snapped.

“Tell that to my ever-growing bank account.” I said with a shrug. “I could spend quite lavishly and not have to worry about income until I was an old man. Anyways, we done here? I have homework I haven’t finished.”

Misato sighed. “Yeah, just come to HQ tomorrow as soon as school lets out, okay? We’ll introduce you to the pilot as soon as we finish going over protocols and paperwork.”

“Cool.” I said and made my way to the elevator. Rei bowed at them, then hurried to catch up with me.

The elevator ride was long and endured in comfortable silence. We were, however, stopped at the door, and informed that a driver would take us to our places of residence.

“And why can’t we just take public transport like usual?” I asked.

The lady at the desk gave me a rock-solid customer service smile. “The dismantling of the body of the Fifth Angel has caused severe slow-downs on several public transport routes over the last several days. Today’s work will impact the route you take to get home, so it will be safer and more expedient to drive you there directly.”

I narrowed my eyes in suspicion at her passable, though admittedly likely, story. As I recalled, they were still scraping bits of Shamshel off the mountain nearby to where it self-destructed.

Fuck it, I wasn’t paying for gas, so might as well.

No wait, I was gainfully employed and paying taxes.

Damn government, taking my money!

Our driver was the same asshole, cultist, or patsy that brought me to NERV base whenever they called me in from the hospital to yell at me. He gave Rei and I a less solid Customer Service smile and motioned us to the car.

As I walked past him, I noticed short orange hairs on his suit. Guess his cat was shedding.

Cat Man’s driving was downright safe and boring. Driving around the potholes caused by Angel shrapnel. Smooth enough to fall asleep due to lack of excitement or entertainment.

I appreciate it Cat Man, 8 out of 10. You do your job well despite being a patsy.

As we arrived at my place, I looked at the time and saw it was nearly time for lunch.

I turned to the half-angel hybrid. “Hey, Rei, wanna come to my place for lunch?”

“Yes.” She answered immediately.

“Erm, my orders are to drive her home.” Said Cat Man awkwardly.

“It’s fine,” I said, waving him off. “I’ll walk her home.”

“But…”

“Brother, take a good hard look at me.” I said, meeting his eyes through the rear-view mirror. “Do you seriously think anyone would wanna go through me, to bother her?”

To his credit, he thought about it, then sighed. “No.”

“Yup. Not to mention, anything I can’t handle will likely be taken care of by the NERV protection detail that’s been shadowing us since we left the base.”

Cat Man twitched. “NERV protection detail?” he asked, sounding amazingly guileless.

I raised the most sarcastic eyebrow I could. “I’m a supremely important UN asset. Do you seriously expect me to buy the polite fiction that I have any privacy whatsoever?”

Cat Man sighed. “I’m not at liberty to say.”

For his peace of mind, I didn’t tell him I knew of the blue car, the gray van, the green car, the two sniper teams on the buildings overlooking the apartment building, the squad of heavily armed men that’s permanently stationed on the apartment building, and the…three drones that had been shadowing us the entire time.

Rei and I got off and went to the top floor of the apartment building, giving me a ‘penthouse’ to live in, all on NERV’s dime.

The penthouse was as large as the suburban home that Prime Me had grown up in. It was currently largely Spartan, bare walls lacking decoration, basic furniture that was comfortable and unadorned, one tv, one radio, one set of plates and cutlery, and assorted pots and pans. None of which I’d bought with my own money.

The only thing missing was a gaming PC, but the technology of this world had not developed in that direction. Not that I could blame them, it was less than twenty years since an apocalyptic event with another one currently ongoing.

I went to my fridge and got a 1° Celsius glass bottle Coca Cola, popped the tab open, and handed it to Rei. Said Coca Cola was an import, very expensive. And so far, filing it under living expenses had yet to fail.

Rei took a swig of it, then stared down at it, eventually swallowing the sugary acid.

“Don’t go to bed without brushing your teeth.” I said, as I opened one for myself. “This shit will rot your teeth if you drink too much of it, or don’t brush your teeth after drinking one.”

Rei blinked. “Then why do you drink it?”

“Cause it’s deeee-elicious.” I shot back.

Her face pursed into a half-hearted frown. That was the most emotion she had shown in weeks, so hey, progress!

“I don’t like it.” She said eventually.

I plopped a glass bottle Manzanita Sol and set it in front of her, took her coke, and drank it myself.

She took the offering wordlessly and drank a bit. This time her eyes lit up slightly, and she began taking adorable little sips, one after the other.

After that, I went to the fridge and brought out rice, assorted vegetables, and a good ol’ slab of beef. After setting the rice to cook in the rice maker, I chopped the vegetables into bits and the meat into rough approximation of cubes, cooked the vegetables on the left side of my wok, the meat on the right, and seasoned with pepper and soy sauce.

In a little over thirty minutes, I had two plates of perfectly adequate stir fry. With leftovers for lunch at school.

At least, that was the plan.

Rei deadass polished off three plates.

And had room for dessert.

And while she had a little bit more meat to her than when I first met her, she was still svelte.

Where the hell did it all go!?

We hung out for a while, Rei, having a whole couch to pick from, sat right next to me, her hip touching mine. I minded only so far as the fact that I could not act on the impulse to sit her on my lap and make out. I wasn’t about to put on a show for the assholes watching the hidden cameras.

Once I had enough footage to splice at will, then I’d have my fun with Rei. Until then, I buried my libido and watched K-dramas.

A surprisingly strong industry, I wondered as to the extract circumstances that led to it gaining a worldwide following in this reality.

Still, after a while, it was getting late enough that I decided to walk Rei home. Call me old fashioned, but I would not allow a young lady out at night unescorted unless circumstances demanded it.

Yes, she was a Tier 5. But that was due to her frankly bullshit ability to learn. She’d memorized the literally labyrinthine layout of NERV HQ, the place that lightly tapped into Daedalus’ Labyrinth, the conceptual multiversal maze.

She may have the potential to become a world ending Superbeing for whom human souls were as cells were to me. But physically she was only a sixteen-year-old girl, so it was my duty to escort her home.

Not to mention, she was my, as much as I hated the term, Waifu. Her safety and happiness were both my responsibility. She walked close enough to me that her shoulder occasionally brushed my arm, but I didn’t hold her hand.

Like hell I was going to put on a show for our security detail. Who knows what wretched voyeuristic thoughts lurked beneath their thin masks of civility.

In the distance, I could see the corpse of Ramiel, the formerly floating blue cube immobile and much reduced, its core supposedly destroyed.

But knowing Gendo, NERV, and SEELE, they were using it to fuck around, and when it came time to find out it was going to be my problem.

We did eventually get to a spot where public transit was not terribly affected, and that made me pause and smile.

I didn’t have much hope in the vast majority of the branches of humanity across the Multiverse. But there was something to admire about the human spirit.

What’s that? The apocalypse is happening and the corpse of a city destroying, species annihilating monster is blocking the road?

Okay great, I hear you but I gotta get to work or I won’t be able to leave on time to catch my after-work soap operas!

Peak humanity.

The apartment building Rei lived at was dilapidated, I’d even call it abandoned. But my anger did not spike until I saw her apartment.

Whereas mine was Spartan, hers was neglected. She had no furniture bar an uncomfortable-looking bed, a stool, a chest drawer on wheels, and a mini fridge. She had two cardboard boxes, one of which held used bandages.

The floor was stained, mostly with mud, but at least a few of the stains were dried blood.

It looked as neglected and abandoned as the building.

I’d seen more homey jail cells.

“This is where you live?” I asked, my voice the kind of calm that can only come about from the threadbare control of murderous rage.

“Yes.” Rei answered simply.

It was a good thing that Prime Me had always had anger issues, thanks to that, I had inherited a truly outstanding amount of experience at anger management. A boon to dealing with the Template of the Doom Slayer.

“Not anymore.” I said. “We’re packing up your things, you’re moving in with me.”

“I don’t think the Director will like that.” Rei stated, but tellingly, she walked to the restroom to get her toothbrush.

“Yeah, well I don’t care.” I shot back.

She had a heartbreakingly small number of things; we didn’t even fill up her box.

The very last thing she picked up was a pair of cracked, square-rimmed glasses.

I pushed down the reflexive surge of rage those glasses brought forth in me. I refused to influence her decision, those glasses were her memento, they held meaning to her, and no matter how much hatred I had inherited for the man, if he meant something to Rei, so be it.

She stared at the glasses for a long time, seemingly drinking in their every bend and crack. She then set them softly but firmly down on their cloth on top of the chest drawer and turned resolutely away from them.

I tried not to show the vindictive glee I felt at her decision.

I carried the box on one of my shoulders the entire way to my apartment. And I may be wrong, but I thought I detected a bit of prep in her step.

Which was good, she was my adorable semi-eldritch engine of nigh-unimaginable destruction. And she deserved to be happy.

Mainly because I said so.

I wasn’t quite looking forward to dealing with Asuka tomorrow, but at least it wouldn’t happen until after school. I was going to need the school day to fortify myself to deal with that girl.

People with her personality type and I just did not get along.

=][=

The sporty girl with long, burnt orange hair held in twin tails with a red interface headset gave the whole class a positively cherubic smile. Her dark blue eyes were seemingly open, but I could easily detect a dark cunning in them as they lingered on Rei and me.

“Hello, I’m Asuka Langley Soryu. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” She said in flawless Japanese. Her tone saying milk and honey routinely flowed out of her every pore.

As the sudden and powerful adoration of every other male in the room flowed over me, I only really had one thing to say about the comely young woman who so benevolently graced us with her presence.

“Well…shit.”