Kaiju Slaying Chapter 1!
I've been working on this one on and off for a few months. Hopefully ya'll will like it.

Leave me a comment if you do!

Also, gratitude to Leecifer for allowing me to have him cameo on this story!

=][=

The charge counter on the back of the lasgun ticked down to ‘00.’ With motions that had become rote over the last few days (or had it been weeks?) of bitter fighting, I ducked down beneath the edge of the trench, removed the charge pack, dropped it in my ‘spent’ pack, took another from my combat webbing, slapped it into the battery well and pulled the locking handle.

The indicator light at the side turned blue and the shot counter near the grip once again showed ‘90.’

I immediately sighted down the red-dot sight, there were a multitude of targets on the latest wave trying to take my current trench. I put the red-dot on the center mass of the nearest humanoid shaped shadow through the smoke and dick knows what else. I squeezed the trigger, the weapon in my hands sent out a laser at a brightness that would be blinding if it were in the visible spectrum. Normally it would fire a ‘tracer’ lasbolt at a much lower intensity but at the visible spectrum, so the shooter knew where his shot went.

Unfortunately, tracers worked both ways as most of my trenchmates had found out the hard way.

It was a good thing I’d spent the last fifteen years working on these things and weapons near enough to them, otherwise I would have been much worse off.

I moved the red dot sight to the next more distinct shadow and put three shots on its center mass, vibrations in the air that shook my marrow informing me that the heavy bolter on the trench behind me hadn’t fallen yet. .998 caliber rockets zoomed past my head, scything down the line of shadows in a series of explosions. I felt something ping off my flak helmet, it made me miss one of my next set of three shots, fortunately, two invisible lasbolts were enough to put down whoever had been charging.

A green lasbolt seared into my left pauldron, the flak and plasteel layers ablated away in a spectacular display, chips of superheated ceramic landing on my neck and feeling like cold pinpricks much like frying bacon when it got particularly uppity.

I made a mental note to look through the bodies in the trenches to see if I found an undamaged left pauldron, shifted six feet to the side and continued putting fire downrange.

A larger shape hurdled through the smoke and miasma. I put the red-dot on its center mass and squeezed the trigger, I put eight shots in its center mass, and it came on undaunted. It crashed through the smoke, propelled in great leaps by cloven hooves in bovine legs, an amalgam of man and bull, frothing at the mouth, its lips open in a howl I couldn't hear.

I put another three shots into its unprotected chest, the flesh there cratered and rent by the detonations of flash heated blood and meat. It turned its head, bloodshot eyes meeting mine, glaring at the world but not truly seeing me.

Unfortunately, the beastman saw enough and came charging at me. I'd like to say that blood hammered through my body, that adrenaline sang through my veins. But after so long spent fighting, day in and day out, I simply felt numb. I'd long accepted that my bid for greatness had failed, that I had been tricked and abandoned to die in this shit stain of a reality. The only thing keeping me on my feet being the fight and the instincts and abilities from the Template I’d sacrificed my Work Contract Bonus to purchase.

I was marooned here, and I aimed to make this everyone’s problem. As such, I put the sights on the Beastman’s center mass and kept squeezing the trigger.

The beastman ate up shot after shot, utterly uncaring of the ruin that its chest had become. It presumably bellowed even if I couldn't hear it.

It was ten or so feet away from the trench before one of the mines I’d buried…sometime ago exploded, flinging me off the wall of the trench and onto my back, knocking the air out of my lungs. The Beastman was flung fifteen feet in the air, its lower half becoming a mixture of meat slurry and vapor, bits and pieces of steaming intestines pitter pattered around and onto me.

The upper half of the Beastman splatted several feet to my left, still frothing at the mouth and swinging a jagged piece of metal fashioned into a crude blade.

I put several more lasrounds into its unprotected innards, the stink of burning offal, medium-rare steak and well-cooked pork breaking through the filters of the mask I’d grabbed off a dead guy.

In fact, all of my gear had been taken from one corpse or another. Bar the rations I was eating, my gear was scavenged. My diaphragm stopped spasming and I was able to draw in a deep breath, it tasted of overcooked steak, rank sweat, and my own halitosis.

I forced myself to peek over the edge of the trench, and I judged the trench lost. What with the wave of Chaos Cultists, Traitor Guard, and Chaos Beastmen swarming toward my position and the heavy bolter I’d been relying on no longer firing into the target rich environment.

I primed and tossed three of the grenades I’d found through my battlefield scavenging, then dove into the tunnels that connected the trench network. I was quite glad I took all those Seminars during boot, otherwise I would have wasted precious time figuring out how to set up the booby-traps to cover my retreat.

Hehe, booby.

I shook my head, wondering when the last time I slept was. I passed numerous corpses, swapping out my left pauldron for an intact semi-clean looking one as I went, as well as picking up a few more unused battery packs. I emerged to men and women fighting for their lives as they were overrun by Chaos Traitors. The good news was the bad guys had their backs to me. I suppressed my Template’s instinct to dive into close quarters and put invisible lasbolts into their backs, dropping them one by one until I had to duck back into the tunnels to avoid the fusillade of red lasbolts that came my way.

“Woah! Woah! Cease fire, dipshits!” I shouted, or at least I thought I did, it was difficult to form words when I couldn't hear myself speak. The shooting stopped, and I really wished I could hear. I waved my lasgun so they could see it was the same issue as theirs. When it didn't get shot, I followed that with my arms, and finally I peeked.

There were five terrified men aiming at me and shouting. I pointed to my ears, shook my head, and shrugged. Then, far past giving a fuck, I rushed to the edge of the trench, hopped up and started putting lasbolts down range.

Eventually the five joined me in putting fire down no-man’s-land, doing by weight of fire what couldn’t be done by accuracy or the power of our weapons. I had to retreat two more times, leaving tripwires every time.

I picked up more charge packs, grabbed a second knife, changed my helmet for a new one that fit better, and found me a longlas, which I proceeded to use even though I wouldn't have the time to remove the tracer laser until the current attack wave abated.

The longlas only gave forty shots to the charge pack when compared to the lasgun’s ninety, but its increased stopping power and greater penetration was a trade I was more than willing to make.

At some point some asshole with a whip hit me while I was fixing a jammed heavy bolter. I shot that little fucker in the face and took his laspistol and chainsword before I finished fixing the heavy bolter and used it to put ordinance down no-man’s-land.

I would have taken his boots, but he had tiny girl feetsies so some other scavenger would have to enjoy those. For some reason the other people fighting gave me a wide berth after that, but who cares, I had assholes to kill and meat shields again.

It happened as I wondered whether or not I could take the heavy bolter without being obvious about it. Something exploded. This by itself wasn’t unusual, explosions were a fact of life. I could hardly remember a time when I couldn't feel the ever-present rumble of ceaseless bombardment.

But this explosion turned out to be special. I felt it through the bottom of my feet to the top of my head, an enormous shudder like the tolling of a bell. The ozone tang in the air diminished as the sky changed color in a rolling wave.

No, no it didn't change color, the shield holding up the sky had fallen. Without further thought I threw myself to the floor and curled up into the fetal position. Opening my mouth wide and covering my ears.

Out of everyone in the trench I found myself in, only three followed my example.

They were the only ones who lived.

The rolling wave of explosions pulverized those who were standing, the conflicting energies and flying shrapnel, the smallest fraction of which actually made it into the trench, pummeling and scything all who stood in their way.

One explosion rolled over all of us only for another blast wave to slam into it and override it.

After seconds, hours, or years, it was impossible to tell which, the barrage finally stopped. I waited a few seconds before getting up and looking around, simultaneously wishing my hearing would return and thankful I’d lost it.

As I looked around, I felt a singularly powerful impact shuddering through the ground and turned just in time to see a colossal figure step out of a crater, smoking and on fire. Its skin was red as blood, its armor bronze. On its right hand it held a chainax longer than I was tall, on its left a massive double edged, cruelly hooked sword covered in runes that hurt to look at. Its head was covered in a mane of thick metal dreadlocks that smoked and bled. It reared back, revealing a mouth full of razor-sharp fangs and roared.

Somehow, I heard that roar. It was something beyond physical. It shook the entirety of my body to the marrow yet slid directly into my brain and caused unthinking rage to well up within me. I forced myself to beat it back with cold, controlled fury.

The Daemon Primarch Angron had just joined the field and we were all about to die.

I'd like to say that what I did next, I did out of a sense of defiance, that I took a Hail Mary shot in the hope of achieving an impossible victory.

But no, I aimed the longlas straight down the monster’s throat and put a lasbolt directly down it mostly by rote. It's what I’d been doing for days, and there he stood like a perfect target.

I am quite proud to say, I made Angron literally choke on his rage.

My happiness was short-lived as the monster rushed forward far faster than anything that size had a right to. I tried to hit him with another lasbolt, but he was too quick, every time I got a bead on him, he’d move before I had the time to pull the trigger.

Where he went, a geyser of blood and body parts fountained into the air. I hadn't known there were that many people left in the forward trenches.

Something pulled on my shoulder, ruining my latest attempt to uselessly shoot the daemon Primarch. A scared, filthy man was shouting something and pointing. Looking in the direction of his finger, I saw an enormous man in golden armor with snow white angel wings and an honest to fuck halo around his long, luscious, golden hair. He was surrounded by squat shapes in bulky golden armor with decorative golden wings attached. There was a crowd of men and women running at the titanic gate that stood open behind the angel and its squat bodyguards.

I didn't even bother looking at Angron again. I grabbed a belt of heavy bolter ammo (it made for surprisingly good IEDs) and climbed the trench and ran. The golden figures fired bolters seemingly at the rushing crowd, yet hit nobody, meaning they were shooting at things behind us, I felt the telltale sizzle of my armor ablating away, one solid impact to my upper back throwing me to the floor.

I fell in a roll and jumped back to my feet and kept running. Nothing mattered other than the slight promise of relative safety.

I reached the line of Space Marines and, quite unlike the throng of battered and filthy men and women running past me into the safety of the enormous walls, I stopped.

I looked at the nearest Space Marine, the bastard was upper chest, shoulders and head taller than me. I slung my longlas and started climbing. He twitched violently beneath me, but didn’t buck me off as I climbed higher, reached the top, put the barrel of my longlas past his head, and started taking shots at the figures slaughtering their way through the trenches.

One of them was clad in bloodstained blue armor, a great crest on its helmet and swinging a pair of axes. Shot that fucker in the face. It didn't kill him, but I was proud of that off the cuff shot.

I kept putting fire into that one figure until, at the second to last shot in my battery, he fell over, either to the laser finally managing to put the fucker down or to something else that hit him.

I used the last shot of the battery pack to kill a Chaos Cultist as he was about to stab a fleeing Imperial in the back with a cavalry saber.

Rather than fumble in an attempt to reload, I let the longlas hang from its strap and awkwardly brought my lasgun to bear. I put shots downrange until that too ran out. As I debated the merits of using my laspistol at less than optimal range, the Space Marine under me started to walk backwards, retreating toward the enormous gate in good order.

Hundreds of men and women had run through the gates, dozens more were stuck fighting for their lives, or had been too far out to make it, the meters thick gates would close before they arrived.

The enemy would be out of reach.

In a fit of what I can only call insanity mixed with bleed from the Template, I hopped off the Space Marine. Reloading the lasgun as I stepped around him and continued putting shots downrange at those who I’d kill or die trying to bring to hell with me.

Killing Chaos Cultists was the only measurable control I’d managed to gain over my existence in over fifteen years, I wasn’t about to give that up.

A hand descended on me that covered my entire upper arm. I smacked it with my lasgun but it didn't let go, the power behind the hand dragging me with the same ease I would have dragging an empty paper bag, digging my feet in resulted in me managing to lose a boot in the muck.

I let the lasgun hang, pulled out my laspistol, and put more shots downrange. Pulling at the hand every step of the way like an unruly child, stretching my body toward the closing gate. Putting one last lasbolt into the eye of a charging ramheaded beastman before it could bring its ax down on an Imperial that had been too slow to reach safety. The gate shut in front of me with a thump that vibrated my bones, my last sight the man’s pleading face.

I turned back around, snarling and hitting the hand around my arm with the butt of my laspistol. I’m relatively certain I was screaming invectives; I couldn’t exactly hear myself speak but the vibrations I felt coming from my throat and the pain I felt there indicated as much. I turned back around and uselessly emptied the battery pack at the gate as I started to tremble from head to foot, overworked adrenal glands finally resting as the promise of safety did what a seeming eternity of fear, pain, danger, injuries and Chaos Cultists had not managed to do.

I lost the strength to my legs, the enormous hand the only thing holding me up as the shaking got worse, I turned, saw that the Marine I’d climbed on had been the one to drag my unwilling ass to safety. I pawed at this plastron, trying to pull him down. “You can’t let him fight Horus.” I said, or at least attempted to, it was, once again, difficult to moderate my words without hearing myself speak. “He can’t take Horus on, he’ll lose, and you'll all be damned. Whatever you do, do not let him fight Horus! He's the only hope we have! Do not let him fight Horus!”

The Space Marine peeled me off with surprising gentleness. I continued to babble, yelling at him about how Horus dropping the shield of his flagship was a ruse, that they should ignore it, to continue to weather the bombardment, that the only reason he’d drop the shields was because Guilliman had almost arrived.

I begged him to tell Sanguinius not to fall for the ruse. To weather the storm. To hold fast because reinforcements would be mere hours away when Horus dropped the shields.

He deposited me at the medical tents, gently prying away my clutching fingers. One of the medics injected me with something that spread deadening warmth up and down my arm.

I was still shouting warnings when unconsciousness took me. Having forgotten in the heat of the moment, that none of the people around me spoke English.

=][=

I woke up, an unpleasant surprise that. Someone had taken my gasmask off, a second even more unpleasant surprise. I was fairly certain we'd been gassed and plague bombed at least seven times in the last…long time.

Looking around, I spotted my gear, scarred and filthy. Much like me really.

I tried and failed to stand, looking down I didn't see anything immediately wrong with my limbs beyond the fact that it hurt to move my anything. This all culminated on the fact that it took me three tries to get up, crawl to my kit, and slip my gasmask on.

Once I had that done, I looked around and saw that I was in a field hospital of some kind. I strapped my armor and weapons onto myself and forced myself to leave before somebody decided to tell me what to do.

As I did, I saw a glowing rectangle open directly in front of me.

I froze. Unwilling to believe yet incapable of stopping myself from hoping.

In this place, at this time, it could be a trap. But would I get another chance if I didn’t take this one?

Lasgun in hand, I pulled my lips back into a snarl and rushed through the opening.

I came out the portal to see one other group of people. I could see Lee from B Squad, the only other guy crazy enough to take every goddamn seminar like I had, and one other, the guy he’d dragged to ‘loopholes 101,’ both of them wearing workers coveralls and carrying crude weapons. Of squads A, C, & E I saw no sign. Kenshin Himura, our drill sergeant came around, his lips were moving but I couldn’t hear anything.

I pointed to my ear and shook my head. He scowled and his hands glowed a candy blue for a moment before blessed sound returned. “Can you hear me now?”

I slumped in relief. “Yes, thank fuck.”

“Where's the rest of your squad?”

“Stacy got most of them killed shouting at a draft officer. Alan died in the fighting, don't know when but I ran into his corpse.”

Kenshin nodded and turned to Lee and the other guy. Their report was similar, except his squad died to a daemonic manifestation inside the walls.

Kenshin’s eyes dropped to my gear, my hands tightening on the weapons. His lips became a thin displeased line, but something in my expression must have told him he'd have to pry these guns off my cold, dead fingers, because he let sleeping dogs lie and took us to have dinner in the mess hall.

First time I'd been there since night one, Stacy having gotten us banned consistently for what for everyone else had been three months but for me had been closer to two subjective years.

The steak was perfect. After that I went to the barracks, to the room that was now entirely mine whose beds I also hadn’t seen since night one of boot. And slept for two straight days, not counting waking up intermittently to use the restroom (all hail working plumbing) or slamming awake because it was too goddamn quiet which meant there was about to be a wave of attacks.

After that, I checked my Company Email for my final score, and saw that I had just barely failed to get full Agent status, had one other member of my squad survived, I would have gotten access to full Agent status and the good Catalog.

Fuckin’ Stacy.

Normally I’d be shuffled off to some part or another of the Company, but it seemed that my performance had nonetheless impressed someone, because I was being offered a ‘makeup exam’ as it were. I’d get access to the full Catalog, and I’d get to keep my mods and benefits from my Work Contract and my Doom Slayer Template. However, I’d only get twenty points to start with and would need to complete one mission before attaining full Agent status. Furthermore, I’d be using the secondary Contract I filled out, with the new ‘Intensity’ tiers that the Company had rolled out recently.

There was a barn’s width of wriggle room on this. But it was either this, or most likely got back to one or another of the Factories and go back to having no control of where I’d go, when, and how.

And I’d had enough of the goddamn Factories.

I read through the agreement, it really was surprisingly short and straightforward. One mission, after that it’d be my choice whether to remain in the employ of whoever was sponsoring me.

I clicked the link to see who was sponsoring me and felt a drop of cold sweat go down my neck.

Looks like I’d impressed Death. I hadn’t known He/She/It worked with the Company.

Death had apparently arranged for the local to where I would step into to have an artificial soul, one that had been running with a copied personality matrix of Prime me, which was a 96.2% match with me.

Apparently, this was some time in the making, or Death just foresaw the shit show my final exam wound turn into.

I finally got to the details of what I’d be doing, and I swore.

I was going to Evangelion, I’d have a shot at unfucking things there, but that was not actually required for mission completion. My job was to kill as many Angels as I could and Capture their souls. They'd be copied and printed out to fight in the Blood War fronts.

And I had to do it with twenty fucking points, the rest would be held from me until I made my third Capture. Bright side, so long as I didn't die I should be getting quite a few points, enough even to get my own pocket reality with a way to Portal elsewhere to safety.

Well, fuck it. I made my purchases, what few I could make. My many near death moments during my graduation mission and my vaguely remembered knowledge of where I was going informed my decisions, I'd need to learn to use the local magic quickly, grabbing defenses would have to come later. Hopefully after I got my first Capture.

Still, the first thing I got was Pocket Dimension, otherwise I'd lose my current gear, and I'd have nowhere to stow the Doom Slayer’s extensive arsenal without getting it confiscated. Though I was man enough to admit, if only to myself, that the main reason I took that ability was because it would feel like a betrayal to leave behind my lasgun. That thing had done good work.

I took care of my other purchases and accepted the transfer.

After that, I vaguely wondered what would happen to my current body, before shrugging and letting the process that would put me in the new one happen.

The adventure I’d very rightly earned awaited.

Here’s hoping for at least an okay ending.

Chapter 2, where we see Not! Shinji meet his nemesis.
And kill it with a giant robot.

You know what they say. Be yourself. Unless you can be a giant robot. If that's the case, be a giant robot.

Please leave a comment.

=][=

The personality matrix merged into my conscious and subconscious mind with a feeling that can best be described as ‘fucking finally.’ Which, okay, that’s one way not to have to worry about the implication of absorbing a possibly sapient mind.

I went over the recent memories I’d just absorbed as I looked around. I was sixteen years old and alone in a city, a bit rundown, it was something of a ghost town. Nothing in sight but parked cars.

The note from Gendo Ikari (and boy was that a big surge of anger there, looking over the memories of my personality matrix, it was even entirely justified) had included two things and two things only, a map with precise coordinates, and the words ‘come here.’

Oh hey, the instructions were written in Japanese, I could understand Japanese, score, I was gonna read all the manga and stuff.

There was another thing in the info package, a picture of a sluttily dressed attractive woman in her late twenties or early thirties, giving the camera a wink and leaning forward to show off her cleavage. She would come pick me up.

I scowled as something nagged at my brain. Wasn’t I supposed to be like, twelve? I wish I would have gotten a chance to refresh myself on this universe before being dumped here. There had to be a reason why I was in a ghost town. Not to mention that the papers in my hand and the situation I was in causing me some severe dejavu.

I spotted a pale girl nearby, looking intensely at me, I squinted, trying to make out her features.

The feeling of overpressure on my skin had me on the floor, curled up into the smallest ball I could manage, my hands over my ears, my mouth open and my eyes closed before my brain had registered the boom!

Peeking around, I saw several dozen huge bulky VTOLs shooting at something obscured by a hill, something that looked like a glowing beam shot out and exploded one of the aircraft and out from behind the hill strode one derpy looking Kaiju.

And seeing as to I didn't have a handy Baneblade or an Imperial Knight Suit laying around, I did the smart thing. I shot to my feet and started running perpendicular to the monster. The sound of something huge crashing, more explosions and what sounded like the world’s deepest bass singing behind me made me think I’d done the right thing.

Okay, I have a giant fucking monster behind me, my assets: armor that heals itself and me by being bathed in the blood of my enemies, a significant arsenal of weapons that is conceptually effective against demons, three infantry-scale lasweapons with assorted batteries, a belt of heavy bolter ammo, the BFG 9000, a chainsword and last but not least; Gumption mixed with ‘fuck it, why not?’

Things against me, the BFG may or may not bypass the AT field. I only had two shots, and even cyberdemons required more than two shots to take down. Lasweapons may or may not bypass the AT field, but I needed anti-vehicle or superheavy grade weapons and I was stuck at the PFI level. And the chainsword, horrific as it was, would likely only cause it papercuts.

In short, I was fucked.

Note to self, steal a Warlord Titan.

I heard the whistle of incoming ordinance and threw myself to the floor, the explosions sent me skidding as two levels of hell were dropped on the creature behind me, probably to very little effect.

When the rolling explosions stopped, I was once again up on my feet and running. Until I was flung right back to the ground by an almighty crash, looking up, I witnessed the immense black and white form of the monster, its face was a mask reminiscent of a stylized depiction of a crow’s skull, its skin was leathery and it had bone carapace in the shape of ribs over its torso.

And it was looking right at me.

“You know,” I told it with a grin, “I'd say God shits in my dinner once again. But I know for a fact the fucker doesn’t care enough one way or the other.”

A monster with rigid angular lines where the angel was smooth and organic, came through the building next to the creature, slammed into it, and pushed it away.

I'd be tempted to call out divine intervention, but as I said. Fucker don't care.

A blue car sped past me, skidding to a stop and throwing the door open, the pretty woman from the picture grinned out at me with forced cheer and calm. “Hey! Sorry I-”

I almost punched her as I dove into the car and slammed the passenger door closed. “Drive! Drive! Fucking drive!”

Not needing any further encouragement, the lady from the photo, dressed far more professionally than in said photo, took off. I kept an eye on the Kaiju fight. It was beating the snot out of the robot sent to fight it. It threw the robot through a building where it didn’t get back up from.

In return, the bombardment it was being subjected to intensified. I saw rockets, HE and Anti-Tank rounds, and enormous airburst dropped munitions being tossed at it with the only effect being the occasional stumble as it walked through a destroyed building.

“Hey, so-” the woman began as I looked out the window of the car.

“Something’s happening.” I warned, a cold shiver traveling up my spine. “The aircraft are being pulled back.”

“What!?” The woman shouted, slammed the car to a stop and barreled past me, pressing her firm tits against my cheek as she hung partly out the window, fancy binoculars in hand.

I may prefer softer, squishier boobs, but I was okay with this nonetheless.

“No no no! They can’t be planning to use an N2 mine!” she shouted.

I didn’t know what an N2 mine was, but anything spoken of with that much awe and requiring the redeployment of aircraft was bound to be bad news. I bent down at the waist and cursed my shortsightedness at making myself as tall as in my last life. I was far too large to fit in the car’s footwell.

Her shout of “Get down!” was rather unnecessary, as I was already trying to squeeze into as small a volume as I could manage.

Then there was a light so bright that its reflection hurt my eyes through my closed eyelids and something punched me in my entire left side. A titanic roar assaulted my ears for a few instants before my hearing cut out.

Hopefully I wasn’t deafened again, I didn’t have healing magic handy to fix that.

“FUCK!” I screamed, oh hey, I could hear. My brain became accustomed enough to the overstimulation of all my senses for my sense of balance return, I rather wished it would have taken a little while longer to do that, that way I wouldn’t have to feel the car literally flipping over and over like a toy tossed by a child. The woman had wrapped herself around me, which was a nice gesture. Something of a moot one, as I was significantly larger than her, but it’s the thought that mattered.

The car eventually stopped; the woman had somehow not been thrown clear even though she hadn’t been using the seatbelt. That's a bad idea, one should always wear their seatbelt. I blinked a few times, pain starting to register and informing me that I was, in fact, alive.

“Whooo,” I said weakly, “not dead. Oi, lady, you still breathing?”

Thankfully the car had landed on its side instead of upside-down, I was able to push myself up as the woman groaned and stirred. “Y-Yeah. Ugh.”

We crawled out of the car and looked at the devastation. The explosion had thrown a large amount of the topsoil into the air. I looked at the far-away mushroom cloud and wondered if I could scrounge together enough points to get Body Defense so I could survive the radiation poisoning. “Was that a goddamn nuke?”

“N2 mine.” The woman said rubbing her lower back. “Stands for Non-Nuclear. Strength of a low-yield nuke, none of the long-term fallout.”

I grunted and gave the car a good shove with my shoulder, overbalancing it and dropping it onto its wheels, it was dented, scratched, beaten to all hell and judging by the sound it made as it landed, the transmission was not long for this world. But that was to be expected after that tumble. “Well, until I see some blueprints I’m not gonna trust it. We should go.”

The woman blinked and looked from my biceps to the car. “You’re…uhh…pretty strong, huh?”

“I work out.” I said tonelessly and got into the car. She spent a bit walking around and applying duct tape so the bumpers would stay on the car, however, when she tried to start it, the car would not turn on. She swore and turned the key again.

I sighed, looked through the bag my Personality Matrix had packed, and rummaged around until I found a multitool. “Give me a minute.”

I stepped out and went to the front of the car. She popped the hood after I stared at her long enough. Looking through it, it wasn’t unlike the engines I’d worked on during my years as a Company mechanic and engineer. A lot less rugged certainly, this engine was not made to shrug off gunfire or being punched by a cyberdemon.

It took me a few minutes to decipher its layout, but quickly enough saw that, during the tumble, the timing belt had slipped off. How that was the only thing wrong, I do not know. But I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

It was a good thing I had the strength of the Doom Slayer, as I certainly didn’t have a ratchet or all the tools I’d need to fix that. But I was able to turn all the nuts and bolts manually to push the alternator down, remove the covers, slip the belt back on, put everything back into place and tighten everything back up.

Soon after that we were back on the road and thankfully moving away from the Kaiju.

“Whoo! Thanks for making sure my car still runs,” the woman (I really should ask her name sometime) said with forced cheer, “I still have twelve months on my loan, would have sucked pretty hard if it’d been totaled.”

“Honestly, you’d probably be better off if it had been totaled.” I said glibly, looking out at the deceptively serene hills. “You could have expensed it as lost in the pursuit of duty.”

“Really? I’ll have to see if that works. Maybe they’ll pay for taking this little guy to the mechanic!”

I grunted in response. We drove in silence for several minutes before she spoke again. “You can feel free to ask me questions.”

I grunted dismissively.

“I mean, between being invited here, the giant monster back there, you must have a lot of questions, huh?”

I grunted in affirmation.

“I’m the one doing all the talking here. Come on, ask me any questions you want!”

I took a deep breath. “Are you at liberty to answer any question I put forward honestly without my needing to sign NDAs or other such documents?”

There was a long moment of silence before she asked. “What do you mean?”

“Ma’am, with all respect. I have severe doubt that anything you say to me will be the honest truth. I’ve been able to deduce enough of Ikari Gendo’s work to know that any question I ask will be given the rote surface-level non-answer that government types and corporations are in love with.” I turned a pair of very jaded eyes at her, she controlled her reaction well, but she couldn’t stop her eyes widening and her hands tightening on the steering wheel. “I have no love or trust in you or whatever organization you represent. Frankly, at the moment I wouldn’t trust your answer on what color the sky is. If you told me that things fall to the ground when you let go of them, I’d privately check to see what part of your statement was falsehood. As far as I am concerned. My legal guardian has asked to see me, I will see what it is he wants. End of story.”

The woman made a sound low in her throat and turned back to the road. The silence this time was significantly more awkward.

She drove to a well concealed reinforced tunnel, parked at a lift, and moments later we were descending, moving down and…sideways?

“Did uhh,” I opened an eye and looked at the woman that worked for Gendo, what was her name? “Did your father send you an ID card?”

I rummaged around my bag and pulled it out. “Ikari Gendo summoned me here, I can only assume his assistant remembered to send an ID card.”

“R-Right. Umm…good, well, read this please.” She held out a thin book, it said ‘Top Secret, for your eyes only,’ and a bit below that. ‘Welcome to NERV.’

I grunted, took the booklet, and started reading through it. “Blah blah secret organization, blah blah Angels, that must be that weird Kaiju back there. Blah blah blah for the safety of mankind, blah blah. Can I get the cliff notes on why the hell that man had me brought here?”

“‘That man’ huh?” She said, her brown eyes drinking in my best attempt at keeping my face apathetic. “You have issues with your father?”

There was the reflexive surge of anger, I had a feeling this would become very familiar. “No,” I said in a sickly-sweet tone, “to have issues with a father, would necessitate having a father to have issues with. I don’t get along with my sperm donor who happens to be my legal guardian. Though he admittedly has done no legal guardianing in living memory.”

Perhaps I was coming across as too acerbic, too angry. But while my recollection was muddled, I definitely recalled that being meek and agreeable had not worked out well for Shinji.

A drop of anxious sweat rolled down her cheek as she digested what I’d said, studying my expression. It helped that a lot of the anger, the hurt, the betrayal¸ was genuine. One could not absorb nigh on sixteen years of memory, inhabit a new brain with an existing network of synaptic pathways, without inheriting the learned responses of the body. And anger at Ikari Gendo was a thing long learned and strongly studied in this body, Ikari Gendo got to live rent-free in this brain for going on twelve years, and I saw my chance to collect.

And boy oh boy was I planning to get my pound of flesh.

We exited the tunnel, the rail we traveled along suspended over an enormous underground biome. It looked to be a manmade forest with a large lake at the center, probably where the city got its drinking water. Looking around, I spotted the water treatment plant that kept the lake clean.

Impressive for a Type 0 Civilization. I’d have to see what material the dome was made out of, it was far too large and shallow to be made of regular old steel.

Maybe I could nab a sample.

Our silence held until the ride ended, we exited the car, got on a tram and were off in another direction. The place was built like a maze, the woman getting turned around almost immediately.

“So, wait…at the station take the western exit…turn right at North Gate 3, right…this leads to route eight, take route eight for three exits then take the west exit to…hrm…why is this so complicated?”

I lent half an ear to what she was saying, her words reminding me of one of the classes at Basic…what was it…’Quantum Mazes And You’?

Yes, that was it. How to survive labyrinths that tapped into conceptual crap. She was working through the route most statistically likely to lead one to the center of Daedalus’ labyrinth across the multiverse. Daedalus was a brilliant man, but most of him across the omniverse tended to think along the same lines.

So, there was some magic to this world…made sense, what with the Eldritch Kaiju with a vaguely Christian theme and all.

We entered elevator S36 for the third time. The awkward silence continued. I will admit, I rather enjoyed it, I am indeed that petty.

The elevator droned on, until it stopped, the doors opened and a short (to me) svelte woman with a beauty mark beneath her left eye and dyed blonde hair stepped in, giving the woman the mother of all stink eyes.

“O-Oh, hey Ritsuko,” the woman said with an awkward laugh, “what’s up?”

“You are twelve minutes late. For something this important only promptness suffices, Lieutenant Colonel Katsuragi.”

Oh, so that was her name. Now that I heard it, I vaguely recalled her first name. Motoko? Mikoto? Something along those lines.

The fake blonde, Ritsuko, turned to me. “Is this the young man you went to pick up?” 

“Eh? Ah, y-yeah. Ikari Shinji.”

“Just call me Shinji.” I groused, looking at the elevator wall between them.

Their eyebrows climbed up, perhaps sensing what was coming, Katsuragi winced while Ritsuko gave me an indulgent grin. “Why, that’s rather forward of you, don’t you think?”

I gave her my best gimlet stare, judging by the small instinctive step back she took, it was a good one. “Don’t flatter yourself,” I said tonelessly, returning my eye to the wall, “I merely hold no love for my last name.”

The two women exchanged glances. I had to be careful, I didn't want to come across merely as a moody teenager. I had to come across as angry, hurt, and socially maladjusted. I wanted them to wonder why I wasn’t a meek little lamb, why I responded with such cold and somewhat calculated hostility.

I could only hope I’d planted the necessary seeds.

We moved in blessed silence, or close to it, announcements over the intercom had the two women arguing and the brunette sending me worried glances. Leaving the elevator, we went on a boat ride on a lake of what looked like blood. Which honestly? Metal as fuck, I approve.

We climbed up a set of metal stairs that ran along a metal wall, a section of the wall colored purple and neon green instead of dull gray. That was probably the armor of the Evangelion, the entire wall was there to lock the thing in place.

Going by my experience working on Titans, that probably meant the wall was there to restrain the robot in case it decided it didn't want to let the little creatures crawl all over it today.

Granted, most Titans were drama queens and enjoyed the attention, the feelings of awe they inspired in others. But on the other side of the coin, talk to it in baby tones and give it a pat or three while you fix stuff and work your maintenance and you'll be safe for the most part, barring a little tinnitus whenever they honk their Warhorn at you in greeting.

Still no reason not to use those restraints, but the Titans I’d worked on had at least understood our relationship was symbiotic. I needed them to have a job and earn my bonus for my final, they needed me to get back to fighting shape.

One time I fell off the gantry and would have hung from my safety harness for a few hours, only for the unmanned Titan to activate and very gingerly nudge me back up into the gantry with its Plasma Annihilator. That had been…an experience.

Waifu’s Pride had gotten many pats to her Cogitator Core and organic oil for her sensitive bits. She was a good monster of near indiscriminate annihilation.

I'd have to put in a request to see how the old girl was doing, she was due back to one of the many fronts when I left for Boot.

I shook my head and got back to paying attention as the Evangelion was dramatically revealed in front of me. What had fake-blondie been saying? Something something greatest weapon, something something last hope?

Well, cool as this looked, this thing probably didn't have anything on Waifu’s Pride, she was my humongous adamantine princess and ain’t nothing would change that.

Oh right I should pay attention.

I turned to (shit, what was her name again?) Blondie. “Why are you showing me this? I can't believe a random civilian would have the security clearance for this.”

[Because I had you brought here.] Gendo's voice reverberated through the room over the speakers, the light on his office came on, overlooking the Eva and me like a disappointed demigod. [I brought you here so you may pilot the Evangelion, so you may save the city, and the world. Shinji, get in the Eva, there is no time to waste.]

I looked from him, to the robot, and back to him. Then, in an obnoxiously saccharine tone, I started talking. “Why hello Shinji, I've missed you so much over these last three years, I know I haven’t spoken to you in twelve, my how much you've grown, do you work out?” The two women next to me blinked and began to look more and more awkward by the word. “My I’m so proud of you! A healthy body and a healthy mind go hand in hand!”

[We do not have time f-]

“Fuck you with a rusty rake you son of a bitch!” The thunder of my roar making both of the women next to me jump back. “You literally abandoned me when I was four fucking years old! Nine fucking years later we run into each other and you looked at me as if I was shit stuck to your boot. The first words out of your whore mouth directed to me in years and they are ‘Shinji, jump in the giant robot and go fight a monster to the death because I said so’ what gives you the right!?”

I was breathing too quickly, the world spinning slightly, and my face felt cold. I forcefully lengthened and slowed my breathing.

[Are you done with this childish outburst?]

“Bitch I haven't even started!”

[Well too bad, I need you to get in the Eva, you have to stop the Angel.]

I blinked and turned to Blondie. She grimaced. “Please Shinji, it's the city’s only hope.”

I turned to the other woman, she at least looked a little guilty. Nonetheless she fell in line with the other two. “Get in the Eva Shinji.”

I turned back to the robot and started to laugh. There was a manic edge to it that wasn't entirely manufactured. “Oh, oh this is precious!” I doubled over, laughing harder.

[We do not have time for this!] Gendo said, for the first time sounding strained.

“Oh, oh you can't make shit like this up!” I shouted, the technicians in the area running the gauntlet from fascinated to horrified, this would be the heart of office gossip for months to come. “You want me to cuck you out of your robosexual life partner, then go kill a monster in your name, for your glory! After you, and I fucking quote! ‘Found it best to leave a useless thing like you behind, as I have more pressing matters to attend to.’” I let my lips stretch back into a manic grin. “Well let me tell you something fucko! ‘A child that is shunned by the village will burn it to the ground to feel its warmth!’”

The woman, Katsuragi, gasped, looks like she’s pretty quick on the uptake.

I gave Gendo the finger. “I goddamn refuse!” I spread my arms wide. “You covered everything in gasoline, the spark is coming, and now I'm the one holding the hose, and I refuse to turn it on! Let it come!”

“Shinji!” Katsuragi said through gritted teeth. “If you don’t do this, thousands of people will die!”

I turned my hatred on her, this time she only flinched, but held firm. I shrugged. “Let them. I literally don't have a win condition here. I just want him to lose. And I’m willing to make that happen. Hell, all I have to do is refuse to wreck humanity’s incredibly expensive looking last hope with my untrained bumbling. If it's so goddamn important, do it yourself.”

“I can’t!” she shouted, her composure finally breaking. “Only those born after the Second Impact can pilot the Evas! I would if I could, but you're the only one who can do this!”

I sarcastically raised an eyebrow. “Wow, tough. Too bad that dumbass Ikari was such a shit dad. Otherwise, you might have had a pilot.” I made to walk past her. “Well, the base looks cool I guess, I’mma look around before the monster comes and wrecks everything. Maybe I'll live long enough to watch it squish Gendo like a-”

I cut off as I caught her wrist inches away from making contact with my cheek. I looked at her, wholly unimpressed. “You only get one, on the next one I’m punching you into whatever soup this red shit is.”

We were distracted from our conversation as a medical bed was wheeled by, a blue haired girl with dull, ruby red eyes laying on it. She was, to put it simply, beaten to all hell, the skin of her face not swollen but what skin was visible had the ugly yellow splotches of healing bruises. Three of her limbs were in casts. She was beautiful, but there was an ethereal quality to it. Something not quite right, she did not cause me to feel the Uncanny Valley, but she was on the slopes of it.

The ground shook hard enough to send everyone to the ground, several of the technicians fell to the blood soup, and the medical bed tipped over and spilled the girl onto the floor.

I was up and running for her before my conscious mind caught up to me. “Oi, oi! Why the hell did you bring someone hurt here!?” I demanded and stabilized the girl, holding her still as best I could while she writhed and moaned in pain. “Ah shit, she popped her stitches, fuuuuck!”

I kept pressure on the wound as best I could and shouted in the direction of the drama queen. “Hey! What the fuck do you think you’re doing asshole!?”

[The backup did not work out. She will have to pilot the Eva in your place.] Damn him for being all cool and collected as the building literally shook itself apart around him. That actually was manly as fuck, even if I hated his guts. [It is lamentable, she strained herself to her limit to buy Lieutenant Colonel Katsuragi the time to rescue you, I do not know how long she will last fighting the Angel. But we are left with no other choice.]

And there is the excuse I needed. Still, it would not do to sound too eager. “She can’t even breathe without worsening her condition, dumbass!” I shouted back. “She needs a hospital, not to jump in your idiot fucking robot!”

[It is necessary.] Gendo stated. [Unless you take her place, Rei will go in the Eva, and she will have to fight the Angel.]

I showed my teeth in something that was certainly not a grin. “You dirty whore! Fine, fucking fine! I’ll get in your automaton of fun! Just get this girl to the infirmary! You piece of utter filth!”

[We will have words about your language later.]

Oh, I'm sure we will.

Getting into the Eva was quick, its entire head tilted forward to expose the spine, where the control pod was located. The technician’s technobabble washed over me while I tried to acclimatize myself to the controls.

The controls made no goddamn sense. The arm control assemblies were stiff and had very little rotational movement, my legs went into recesses without pedals or anything to control the speed of the machine’s locomotive systems. And the whole thing was made for someone a whole foot smaller than me and a hell of a lot more svelte.

In short, it was pretty shit.

And then the pod started filling with flat, orange, lukewarm soda.

“What the fuck!?” I had time to say before I took a deep breath and held it as my head was submerged in the warm liquid.

[Take the LCL into your lungs,] Blondie said over the radio. [It'll take care of oxygenating your blood.]

Well, it was a good thing that I’d gone over something like this in the various seminars, because otherwise this would be a whole lot more terrifying.

Granted, that had been about the benefits of Company Granted Defenses and the wonders of being able to breathe any liquid, allowing for insane versatility when planning to infiltrate a location, but still.

I closed my eyes and, firmly reminding myself that the liquid around me was not water and would consequently not kill me, I firmly pushed the air out of my lungs and inhaled deeply and forcefully. The liquid getting in was uncomfortable but I didn't choke and it didn't hurt, so the panic about being submerged didn’t have time to set in.

I did, however, have the right to criticize, half expecting to be unable to talk what with the liquid in my lungs I said. “A little warning about not having to worry about drowning would have been nice before I was submerged.”

I was, of course, ignored. But it's the principle of the thing.

There was more technobabble, nobody thought to include me or ask me my opinion. The ladies on the radio mentioned that the synchronization was starting, and I saw stars.

A swirling vortex of all colors and none, the artificial blood bathing my limbs getting between my skin and the armor plates, irritating my flesh. Trapped as I was in a half-waking dream where people were ants, where I did not have the ability to move my own limbs. A desire to run wild, to strike at all irritants. To find the Children of Adam, to rip and tear and crush and rend and deflagrate.

I felt something, both familiar and not…no, not familiar, something familial. I could feel warmth, safety, contentment and sleepiness. A vague, deeply buried memory of a time before I had ever experienced cold or light.

I blinked awake, my eyes burning in a way that had nothing to do with the liquid I’d been immersed in. I heard someone excitedly talking about a rate of seventy-nine percent.

I moved my hands, and removed by a fraction of a second, I felt the hands of the Eva attempt to move. The dull grey walls of the pod had become as windows. I could see beetle sized technicians scurrying about, the lake of blood having been drained while I'd been out of it.

[Launching!]

“Wait wha-?”

G-forces crushed me into the seat, the Eva was sent rocketing straight up. I felt the wind rushing past my face in the most bizarre reverse skydive.

Then it was over, the sudden halt rattling my brain inside my skull.

[Releasing final restraint!]

Whatsoever in shit the fuck!?

I felt something vibrate up my back and I felt myself both remain seated and stand and lean forward.

[Okay Shinji, I need you to concentrate on walking.]

How the hell am I gonna walk!? This thing doesn't even have pedals!

However, the moment I thought about walking forward, the Eva took a single shuddering step that cracked the pavement and caused a shockwave of displaced air.

I blinked. But. How had that happened? The center of gravity was all off, while the Eva was humanoid its proportions were all wrong, it was too lanky, its arms too long for its torso, its legs too skinny, and the armor plates chafed an-

I stumbled on the second step, my conscious mind unable to replicate the dozens of automatic adjustments done by my subconscious mind. I threw my arm to the side, letting go of the arm control, and a fraction of a second later, the arm of the Eva shot out and tore through the office building next to me as if it were made of paper mache. As it crumpled like cardboard it provided just enough support to allow me to fall to a knee instead of pratfall on my face.

Okay, less thinky more feely, the controls were a placebo. What mattered was feeling.

I could see the Angel walking toward me, seemingly reduced from its massive scale. As bad of an idea as it seemed, I closed my eyes and felt.

[Shinji? Shinji you need to get the Eva to stand up!]

Recalling my many, many maintenance sessions on Waifu’s Pride, I looked for the MIU, grasped for it. The Titans piggybacked a lot of their balance subroutines on their pilots, it was how the ungainly machines achieved such organic-seeming movement.

I felt for the machine’s psychic imprint, for the place in my mind where I and it became ‘us.’

[Synchronization rate rising! Eighty-six percent!]

It wasn't in the usual spot. But I found it easily enough. I reached through it, felt the familiar rage, the desire to rip and tear. I then metaphorically swatted it in the nose and told it to follow my lead.

Its rage surged, unfamiliar with chastisement. I gave it another good swat and let its wild rage break against the walls of my cold, controlled anger.

[Blow the bolts! Retrieve the pilot!]

We felt something trying to break our contest, we slapped it down.

[The system is unresponsive! Contamination rising!]

That action, along with the similarity in our emotion. These formed the Bridge.

It knew anger but had never been shown how to properly harness it. How to focus it. It knew only how to bash and flail; it had no concept of how to properly direct its rage for maximum effect.

‘Come, let me show you.’

It made a last halfhearted attempt to wrest control, but it was intrigued by the prospect of what I promised.

We opened our eyes to see that the Angel had picked us up. Holding our body up with one hand on our face, our left arm held in its other hand, a proboscis-like appendage on its palm starting to glow malevolently as it increased the pressure of its grip on our arm.

We slammed our right fist into its left elbow with such savagery that we nearly tore through the limb entire. With our head no longer constrained, we were free to turn and sink our teeth into its wrist, the salt of its blood was the sweetest nectar on our tongue, the shiver of its carpals crackling like twigs was as enchanting music. Its hand fell unconnected to the ground.

We lunged back, taking up the preferred fighting stance of half of our gestalt. Left foot forward, body angled away from the enemy, our chin tucked into our left shoulder, right hand up to cover our chin on the opposite side, most of our weight on our back foot.

The enemy righted itself, its screech of pain ending. Its eyes flashed but we were already moving, a terrible heat flashing past us, boiling our armor. Our larger self followed the memories of our inner self. In a fluid movement starting at our feet, we twisted our hips, turning our body into a straight punch with all of our mass behind it.

Our first slammed into a luminous hexagonal barrier, gossamer thin but inviolate as meters thick adamantium, the sound of the strike shattering windows for a hundred meters and more.

The small things prattled on. We felt our inner self absorbing information at an astounding pace. But it was unnecessary, the way past this was well known by our greater self. The inner self followed the instinct of the greater and made suggestions. Our own barrier covered our fingers and sunk into the barrier before us. With a flare of our Soul and a heave of our Body and Will, we tore the Enemy’s barrier asunder.

The fear sweat of the enemy was divinity itself on our tongue.

We roared, flinging ourselves forward and crashing into Adam’s get. The greater self wanted to push it away, the inner wanted to bring it closer and break it.

We compromised.

We lifted the enemy into the air and spiked it headfirst into the ground, it bounced twice before settling. We pressed our foot into its head, pushing it down, preventing it from rising.

We brought up our right hand, held straight and rigid like a dagger, and molded our Soul into a knife. Sensing that the inner self was coming too deeply into the greater, we separated some, causing the knife to flicker for an instant before it solidified. Now more of the Greater than of the inner.

Then, with another liquid twist that started at our feet, we slammed our stiffened hand down. Driving the point deeply into the red core that held the essence of Adam’s son.

It died with a whimper. Clawing at us with shattered limbs. Despondent that it was unable to free its mother from the clutches of the small ones, the children of Lilith.

We bared our teeth and twisted. It convulsed and fell still.

Our inner self did something our greater did not comprehend. The greater nonetheless basked in the sense of accomplishment from the inner. The Enemy’s body fell limp, a great cross rising into the air and marking its passing.

We threw our head back and roared. We screamed our victory to the heavens, daring the rest of Adam’s misbegotten spawn to test themselves against us. We would enjoy their blood too.

As our promise died down, we separated, the inner self releasing his grip on the greater with the gentleness of long practice and the echo of fondness for another.

This made the greater jealous. It would be the Adamantine Princess, in time.

I slammed back, my head pounding like a drum. I could feel that the only reason my entire front wasn’t covered in blood, was that it was being absorbed into the weird liquid.

“Well,” I said, trying to blink away the pain in our…my head. “That happened.”

Ch 3 is Ch 2, but from the perspective of someone who was not temporarily turned into a cybernetic demigod.
In these types of stories, I do think that there can be something that is lost by not having a 'street level view' included. The key is, of course, in moderation.

Do please drop me a comment telling me what you like and don't like!

=][=

Ibuki Maya worked diligently. She’d nearly fainted when the prospective pilot stated he was willing to die, to let the entirety of Tokyo-3 fall, purely to spite the Director.

She could not help but wonder if he’d said the truth, that this was the first time in years that Director Ikari had spoken to him. Yes, he was a great man, instrumental for the future, but to think that he would...

Maya shook her head, she needed to keep her eye on the prize! The Pilot would need her support, she couldn’t afford to get distracted!

[A little warning about not having to worry about drowning would have been nice before I was submerged.]

Shinji was remarkably calm with that rebuke, and he had a bit of a point. But there’d just not been time to explain so many things!

Still, the Director had said that he was the best candidate. Maya would place her trust in the Director!

‘You literally abandoned me when I was four fucking years old!’ Shinji’s voice thundered unbidden in her head. The anger and hurt on the boy…no, on the young man's face, not even the best actors could fake that. It was too visceral, too deep.

Too personal.

Makoto and Shigeru had been angry at him, at Shinji’s refusal to pilot the Eva into danger. Seemingly willing to let the whole city burn purely to spite Director Ikari.

Maya could not help but wonder though, what could drive someone to that extent of anger? To be so willing to self-destruct purely so someone else wouldn’t ‘win?’

“Launching!” Lieutenant Colonel Katsuragi shouted, and Maya mentally chastised herself for letting her thoughts wander.

The Pilot’s vitals spiked as the Eva was launched up. Maya watched with baited breath as the Eva rose up through the many levels before stopping at street level, facing off against the Angel. The final restraints were cut off and it leaned forward in a lazy, yet predatory way.

“Okay Shinji, I need you to concentrate on walking.” Lieutenant Colonel Katsuragi said into the radio.

On the screen, the enormous machine took a single, menacing step.

On its second step it tripped and fell to a knee.

Maya bit her lip in apprehension. It had taken Rei seven months to manage to synchronize with an Eva. It was incredible that the son of Direction Ikari had managed a synchronization rate of over sixty percent without even a plug suit. Yet the point remained he was still untrained, it really was too much to ask.

The Angel approached and the Pilot’s vitals went…calm?

“Shinji? Shinji you need to get the Eva to stand up!” Katsuragi said into the radio, her voice tense.

Maya’s screen began to show something impossible. She tried to say something, to warn Miss Ritsuko, but the words stuck in her throat.

“Synchronization rate rising! Eighty-six percent! Ninety-two! A hundred and five!” Miss Ritsuko said from her station.

“What does that mean!?” Katsuragi asked, her voice higher, the strain more evident.

“The last time we had numbers rising this fast, the pilot dissolved!” Miss Ritsuko said, typing away at her console.

“Stop it! Pull the plug!”

“We can’t! We're locked out!”

Katsuragi bit her bottom lip, closed her eyes and made the terrible call. “Blow the bolts! Retrieve the pilot!”

Maya followed the order, then fought off her surprise, dismay, and fear. “The safeties are not working! The system is unresponsive! Contamination rising!”

No no no, at this rate the Pilot would…

On the screen, the Angel effortlessly picked up the unresponsive Eva.

Maya saw humanity’s final and best hope placidly wait to die as the Angel began to toy with it.

Then the Angel’s left arm was broken and hanging at an unnatural angle. The movement having been so preternaturally fast that the cameras had not managed to catch a frame of transition.

“W-What?” Maya whispered.

With another quicksilver motion, the Eva had opened its welded together mouth and sunk its teeth into the other wrist of the Angel, biting cleanly through and causing that hand to fall to the ground.

“What’s happening!? Is the Pilot controlling it!?” Katsuragi demanded.

Maya turned back to her screen and felt her face blanche. “T-The Pilot’s vitals are…homeostatic? There must be a glitch in the system, we don’t, I don’t.”

“My God,” Miss Ritsuko’s terrified whisper sounded loud in the silent control room. “It must have gone berserk.” The Eva sprung back, and almost as if to spite Miss Ritsuko, it took up a defensive fighting stance. “What!? That’s impossible!”

“Could this be the Pilot!?” Lieutenant Katsuragi demanded again.

Maya looked at her monitors, the Pilot’s vitals showing…slight exertion? “I…maybe?”

“We need better than maybe!” Katsuragi growled.

The Angel fired point blank, an attack the Eva dodged by a hair’s breadth. Then shifted its stance and drove forward into the quintessential Karate straight punch. The shockwave of the strike causing all of the cameras and drones in the air to shake.

“That has to be the Pilot’s doing.” Shigeru whispered. “The Evas have never shown the knowledge of how to throw a proper punch. Ever.”

“The Angel has deployed its AT field!” Makoto shouted the moment the cameras stopped shaking enough to show a clear picture.

“So long as that field is active…” Katsuragi whispered, only to cut herself off as Unit 01 drove its fingers into the field and tore it open as if it were paper, not even giving the sensor suite time to spit out the results of their scans, showing that it had deployed its own AT field to corrode the Angel’s.

The entire command room watched in horrified fascination as Unit 01 charged into the Angel, lifted it over its head, and spiked it head first into the ground at its feet, the localized earthquake that followed as the Angel literally bounced off the ground demolishing several buildings.

The Eva contemptuously stepped on the Angel, before stiffening its hand into the shape for a knife-hand strike. It formed another AT field around its hand and plunged it down into the Angel’s core.

The Angel made a noise. Half whimper, half animal yowl. It batted weakly at Unit 01, Maya wondered if it begged for the mercy it had not shown others.

The Eva’s teeth parted in a way that made Maya quake in her seat. Unit 01 did not have lips, nonetheless, Maya would swear to her dying day that the biological robot smiled with glee and malevolence before twisting its hand inside the Angel’s core.

The Angel’s entire body shuddered, reducing what little remained of the building it had been laying on to rubble.

The Angel fell still, a great cross shooting high into the air to mark its passing. Unit 01 threw its head back and screamed its triumph. Something about the roar that shook the command center made Maya’s stomach roil with revulsion.

As monstrous, as alien, as unnatural as the scream was, so deep and powerful that it shook the buildings around the Eva where it stood. There was something quintessentially human about the sound. A declaration of victory and a challenge all in one. Maya felt her skin break out into gooseflesh as the sound shook her to the marrow.

As the Eva’s scream of victory died away, a notice on her screen demanded her attention. It took her three tries before she managed to speak. “S-Synchronization rate f-falling. Corruption index stabilizing. T-The P-P-Pilot appears…” she forced herself to take a deep breath, not daring to look at her colleagues yet feeling the intensity of their stares all the same. “The Pilot appears battered but ultimately unharmed.”

There was silence in the Command Center, nobody daring to break it, to be the one to shatter the illusion and awaken everyone from this wonderful, hopeful stupor.

A slow, moderate, quiet clap reverberated through the room like thunder. They all turned to see Director Ikari, clapping at the image of the Eva on the screen, his face as granite.

That one action threw open the floodgates.

There was cheering, screaming, whooping. Some people danced, Shigeru shredded on an air guitar. Maya felt wetness run down her cheeks and she could see that she wasn't the only one weeping.

The price had been high, too high.

But this was also the first time they'd ever had such an overwhelming victory over an Angel. Every other time the sacrifices had been much greater, the damage so monumental that the locations of the disaster had still not recovered, even fifteen years later.

For the first time, Maya truly allowed herself to have hope.

A resounding ‘thunk’ played over the Command Center speaker’s. Everyone turned to the screen to see Unit 01 knocking on the trap door from which it had been deployed, it gave it a few more raps with its armored knuckles before the Pilot’s voice came over the speakers. [Oi, open up. I wanna get out of this thing.]

That seemed to snap Lieutenant Colonel Katsuragi out of whatever trance she was in. “Send the retrieval teams! Bring the Eva and Pilot home!”

In less than an hour, the Eva was once again locked in its harness, the armor plates on its left forearm and hands was battered and cracked. That was the extent of the damage it had taken against the Angel while Shinji had been at the helm. It had suffered far greater damage in testing.

The area was crowded, unprofessional as it was, everyone at NERV wished to lay eyes on the miracle pilot. The one who had arrived without training, killed the Angel that had decimated the UN forces three times over, and made it look easy. Even Director Ikari was there, standing straight and inscrutable as always.

The technicians and mechanics all held their breath as the pod was extracted from Unit 01. There was a collective gasp as the hatch depressurized and the Pilot stepped out, his clothes soaked in LCL and his expression blank.

He ignored the hands seeking to aid him as he cast his eyes around, until they found his father.

He walked wordlessly toward Director Ikari.

“Shinji.” the Director said with an acknowledging nod, the highest of praise coming from him. “Your performance was admira-”

The blindingly fast right hook cut him off and sent him to the floor. Maya heard something click on the metal floor at her feet and, looking down, beheld a tooth.

The Pilot’s face was no longer an impassive mask. It had shifted into thunderous, murderous anger. When he spoke, it was with a quiet intensity that brought shivers up Maya’s spine.

“I deny you.”

It was very glad for the fact that my implants could interface seamlessly with my  Company phone. This allowed me to keep track of time and gave me an avenue for entertainment. Denying the idiots at NERV the opportunity to make me stew in my own adrenaline. Mainly by keeping an eye on the clock, playing games, and catching up on my reading via my HUD.

As it turns out, if you punch a guy in charge of a secret government organization with infinity funding, you're not given the time to make a dramatic speech about his moral failings.

Whoda thought.

I had been tackled, and while I could have fought back and broken every man and woman that stood between an exit and I, I didn't want to deal with that. I'd still need to kill and bag at least six more Angels, with everything beyond that being pure gravy. And the easiest way to do that would be to have an organization to maintain the giant abominable cyborgs that would facilitate the whole endeavor.

I just wanted to be done. I had to do this job to prove myself. Then likely another one or two so my Patron recouped their investment, and then I could start my multiversal adventure.

I’d probably have to spawn a kid or two along the way. I’d worked hard for my assets, and I couldn’t set one of my future waifus as the recipients, they’d count as my property and would be repossessed on the event of my death unless they went to an heir.

Just because I planned to live forever didn’t mean I wouldn’t plan for the possibility of my death.

Thinking of Waifus, I brought up my Retinue and saw the monster. Sachiel. My first waifu was a genderless inhuman city destroying biped, because fuck my life. Eh, I'd eventually be able to toss it and its brothers and sisters out like Pokémon. So, it all evened out in the end.

I just needed to figure out a way to resurrect it first.

I looked at the clock, going on four hours since I was put in this very comfortable looking room and was asked politely to wait, the door had then been locked.

I wondered if they were going to go for the hard or the soft sell?

Either way it didn't really matter. I’d give my demands, most of them would be met. I’d seen the awe in the faces of all those people. I had just done something that in their eyes was impossible.

Granted, that was thanks to years of experience with maintenance on warmachines that required a melding of minds to work, coupled with a seminar on piloting the various Mechs we might run across in the multiverse.

Still, they didn't know I wasn't some prophesied Chosen One. And I would use that to my advantage to get concessions.

I looked at the clock in my HUD, and with a sigh, pulled up a different book.

Really wished the Company released stuff other than Harem stuff. Yes, there was a surprising diversity in the type of Harem stories told in Company books, but dammit there was such a thing as oversaturation.

I was in the middle of reading about Joseph swearing his love to his third wife in the middle of a climactic fight (seriously I may not be much of a romantic, but even I understand that there is a better time and place) when the door to my waiting room/holding cell finally opened. The brunette and fake blonde from earlier walked in and sat on the couch opposite me.

I kept my mouth resolutely closed, I wasn’t here for games or power plays, but if I had to play them, I was going to play to win.

The silence grew longer, until the brunette sighed. “Shinji, you did very well piloting the Eva. We want you to become one of the Pilots for the Evangelion program.”

I shrugged. “I have conditions.”

Their eyes flashed with surprise and hope before they controlled themselves again. The fake blonde asked. “What would those be?”

I raised my right hand, index finger extended. “I will legally be recognized as emancipated. No longer will I be Ikari Gendo’s son.” I raised a second finger. “I will be allowed to change my name to whatever the hell I like.” I raised a third finger. “I will not be forced to attend school, that’d be a colossal waste of my time.” I raised a fourth. “I will be provided a living space on NERV’s dime for the duration of my employment. And when I specify NERV's dime, this includes living expenses.” I raised my thumb. “My salary will be, in a word, ‘exorbitant.’ Meet these five conditions and I’ll get in your giant deathtrap disguised as a robot and kill your monsters.”

“Shinji, the fate of the world-”

“I don't care,” I cut her off with a slash of my hand. “The world and everyone in it has given me no reason to care, starting with your boss. I was not joking when I said I only hoped to live long enough to see the monster squish Gendo like a grape. Don’t appeal to my nationalistic pride, it’s nonexistent. My love of humanity? It's been quite thoroughly snuffed. My decency? I don't give a shit. I fought that monster yesterday to pay back a debt, the wounded pilot saved my life, I returned the favor. I consider the matter squared. You want me to fight your battles and spout your bullshit? Put me on the fucking payroll.” I opened and closed my raised fist. “And you know my conditions for enlistment.”

The brunette looked pissed, but before she could say anything, the fake blonde said. “Very well, we’ll take your conditions to our superiors.”

“Ritsuko!” oh, so that was her name. “You can't just-!”

“Let's go, Misato.”

Now back to waiting.

I picked back up at Joseph swearing his love to his third wife.

=][=

Ultimately, it took three days. Three days waiting, of reading contracts backwards and forwards.

The first contract they gave me had been the standard one, which held none of the clauses I’d mentioned. They had the NERVe (hehe, geddit?) to tell me that those would be taken care of after I signed.

I informed them that my salary just went up. And would continue going up by the day so long as they wasted my time.

They had ultimately caved. The only things they had remained adamant on were that I keep my current name and attend school. Because that’s apparently important when the world is ending.

They were probably hoping that I’d make emotional connections with people ‘my age,’ giving them some more leverage to use so they could point me at Angels while paying me less.

Joke’s on them, business comes before pleasure.

Still, I was officially emancipated, even if normally that wouldn’t be allowed. But Ikari Gendo had no legal hold on me.

This all played through my head as I headed for school. I had ended up in the same apartment building as Misato, purely a coincidence, I was sure. It was easy enough to spot the agents they had tailing me. They did a fairly good job, the fact being I would not have managed to see them were it not for the grueling training I’d put myself through in Basic.

As I waited for my stop on the metro, I set my HUD to inform me when a group of girls wearing the school uniform of my new school got up to leave, then pulled up the Catalog on my HUD.

Capturing Sachiel had given me sixty Credits to work with thanks to my negotiations with the Company.

After all, I'm a clone with nothing really to live for. Might as well take a risk.

I looked through the options available to me and thought through what I wanted. I did not have enough for the Defenses that would make a difference, not yet, and the fact was that there were plenty of dangers I faced well beyond the Angels.

This world had a lot going against it. The Angels trying to wipe out the current form of humanity. Two opposing incredibly heavily armed forces working together until they succeed in suppressing the apocalypse they didn’t want and not a second more. The world leaders trying for the ultimate ‘fuck you, I've got mine.’ Eager to destroy civilization and salt the Earth so long as they got their own flawed immortality.

Another asshole seeking to sabotage their plan and include all of humanity in the plan to render everyone into soup, in the vague hope that it will reunite him with his functionally dead wife.

And I was stuck at the front lines and watched so thoroughly, that I would not be able to fart without it being in the report of at least twelve agents.

My mission was to capture or kill the Kaiju/Angels. Maybe I'd get to keep an Eva if I finagled things correctly. Though I’m honestly not entirely sure I want one. Way too much goddamn maintenance.

Yes, just about any big robot required a lot of goddamn maintenance. But on most others, if I kept everything on tip top shape, I didn't run the danger of dissolving into the damn mech.

I shook my head. I had a windfall of Credits since I’d captured Sachiel’s Template right as he…she…It died. This was good, Credits were the Company’s currency. With enough of them I could literally gain the powers of a God.

But that was the problem. I was a fuckup who was saved from having a shitty Agent-adjacent job at the Company, purely because I (or, more likely, one of the mes across the Company) had done something that impressed someone wealthy enough to buy out my Contract. And nice enough to give me a shot at the full Agent experience.

Or…well…considering I only got twenty Credits at the start, nice might be the wrong word. But at least I had a shot. The very shot that stupid bitch Stacy took from me.

I shook my head again. Okay, what was the best use for these sixty points? I needed Defenses to be able to pilot the Evangelion without fear. I had a Talent that had made it so I learned a lot about the Eva’s instinctive use of the AT Field in the short time we fought Sachiel. A Talent to better learn to fight would be welcome, or the two Talents that would make me very good at non-esoteric science and technology, as well as Magitech once combined with Soul Talent. Which would combine very well with my Archeotech Mechanicus-Pattern implants and general Imperium and general Mech Tech knowledge (and all the blueprints I’d been able to copy and squirrel away over the one and a half decades working for the Company’s engineering division).

But no. All of those were relatively expensive, and while they would make for incredible investments, that investment would be worth very little to me if I fucking died before I had a chance to collect.

No. I needed to use these Credits to secure my exit strategy. Both out of this gods-forsaken universe and of any FUBAR situation in particular. The value of being able to say ‘yeah no’ to any situation had been drilled into everyone in Basic. I was Out of Context Bullshit, I should take advantage of that.

First things first, secure the exit strategy.

I bought an extra dimensional apartment. There was a sale on at the moment which bundled that with what was essentially a muggle repelling charm, so only those who I brought with me could see and consciously interact with the portal to enter the apartment. I bought Stress Defense to protect my mind from the degenerative effects of piloting the Eva, as well as Information Defense to help obfuscate my true abilities from the numerous agencies keeping tabs on me.

And last but not least, I bought a way to leave this universe, only downside being it would be a blind jump to the next.

It would take time to charge up the power necessary to create that portal, so best get that started now.

This left me with a whole fifteen Credits. Enough to buy a lot of regular people, several people who are professionally knowledgeable in their field, three people who were the equivalent of an Olympic champion in what they did, be that fighting, engineering, or yes, athleticism. Or one Olympic champion and one barely superhuman person.

And thanks to the apartment, I would even have a place to put them!

I could also get some of those Defenses that didn’t apply too well to my current circumstances, I could try that Body Defense power. But chances were, the only ones interested in poisoning me would be an end of the world cult, and the best funded of those needed me alive, so that wasn't something I needed to worry overmuch about.

I ultimately decided to save those Credits, it was always best to keep an ace up my sleeve. And once I got more Credits, I could get another Template. One that would let me act covertly to try and make a start at unfucking the thoroughly fucked situation this world had landed itself in.

Which I could have done now, but at the danger of my new ability being noticed and causing all the vermin to scatter.

My HUD pinged me, informing me that the students I’d tagged were on the move. With a sigh, I stood up and continued my trek to school.

I should have taken a pay cut to not have to attend school. It's not like the money will be any good once I leave for the next universe anyway.

=][=

School was boring.

The teachers droned on, and they at least seemed to have been told about me, because none of them had called me out on my very obvious zoning out, the only one zoning out harder than me was Rei, and she wasn't even pretending to pay attention. All the teenagers in the class kept throwing glances at me, their gossip senses tingling and licking their figurative chops like a pack of starving wolves.

I'd been introduced simply, and last I checked, the Angels were the worst kept secret on the planet, but they remained a supposed secret nonetheless. So, while everyone likely knew that Kaiju were attacking, that a giant robot had fought it off, and that the tall muscular youth who was transferred out of nowhere was likely the Pilot. I was not at liberty to discuss specifics.

Sacred hell, the history teacher somehow managed to make ‘aliens invaded fifteen years ago and started the End Of The World As We Know It’ sound droll and uninteresting. Come on, this is history! We evolved to find this fascinating!

Where’s the danger? The politicking and infighting? The old hatreds set begrudgingly aside?

Where's the drama?

The answer to my unasked question was a monotonous. “In a mere six months, half the human population was lost forever.”

See? That should be a statement of utmost awe-inspiring horror. It should be the visceral capstone to a long, riveting tale of fear, betrayal, bravery and heroic last stands!

Ugh. And I couldn’t fully zone out, because I might get called on to give an answer.

The day sucked until lunchtime. Upon which it sucked even harder, as I was forced to withstand the most stringent of tortures.

Social Activity.

“Hey, Ikari, got a minute?” Asked one of the braver female students in class the moment the bell rang. Rei was putting her things away, slowly, because she only had one mostly uninjured arm.

I blinked and looked at the girl who had spoken to me, my sitting height was almost equal to her standing height. “Yes?”

She was a pretty girl, with dyed blonde hair and pouty lips. I had no idea who she was. She gave me her best attempt at a disarming smile. “So, how come you transferred here when everyone who can is trying to evacuate?”

I shrugged. “Didn't have much of a choice honestly.”

She and her friend, a girl with a button nose and bright brown eyes, with hair as black as a crow’s feathers leaned in. The blonde whispered conspiratorially. “So, the rumor’s true, isn't it?”

I furrowed my brow. “Depends on the rumor.”

The black-haired girl leaned in and whispered so loudly that everyone in the room would have heard it. “Don’t play dumb. The rumor that you're the pilot of the big robot!”

Blonde leaned in. “It’s true, isn't it!?”

The two stared into my eyes like they held the secret to immortality and eternal youth. And considering I had a HUD and Catalog access; they weren’t entirely incorrect.

“I am afraid I can neither confirm nor deny that rumor.” I said in a deadpan.

This, of course, with everyone having been listening-in being teenagers, they cut to the heart of the matter and read between the lines to reach the conclusion they wanted.

It just so happens that this conclusion was coincidentally the truth.

“Ohmigosh you guys I told you he was it!”

“Hey! How’d you get chosen to pilot that thing?”

“Weren’t you scared!?”

“Does it have an ultimate move!?”

I should think up an ultimate move for when I’m fighting the next Kaiju.

I did my best to remain calm, to keep in mind that this was not the trenches outside the Palace. They were crowding me because they’d lived their whole lives in relative peace. They'd never had a Beastman or a Traitor bear down on them with a chainsword. Never felt the men and women next to them die while they fought for their lives.

To them, bloodshed was a fascinating story. They’d never seen the light leave a man’s eyes before he charged them, bayonet leading. Never crushed a woman’s throat until her larynx gave out with a crunching crackle.

I forced the memories and emotions down, fed them into the furnace of my anger, used it to fortify the cold rage that forever lurked beneath the surface.

“Sorry but, I really am not at liberty to confirm or deny anything.” I repeated over and over with an apologetic smile.

“W-Wait! Please, at least tell us this.” Said a girl with light brown hair, her face twisted into a fearful grimace. “What was that monster? Is it some country’s secret weapon?”

She reminded me of Annabelle, the one squaddie I’d gotten along with. She’d died on day one thanks to standing too close to Stacy.

Annabelle had been the one to laugh at my nihilistic jokes. The only one to appreciate my brand of humor.

Maybe that's why I answered honestly.

I sighed, a lot of my strength seeming to leave me with the exhalation. My shoulders drooping as my hands tightened into fists.

“I don't know what they are.” I lied. “They haven't told me much of anything. All I know is that this was the third one, and that more will come.” I gave her a grim smile. “Don't worry too much about it. I may not be good for much, but I’m at least good at fighting. Whenever the alarms happen, just go to a shelter, it might be scary, but at the end of the day, you'll get to go back home. I’ll make sure of it.”

There was a moment of awed silence. The girl who looked like Annabelle stared, her eyes wide and her face flushed.

I winked. “Don't tell anyone I said that, I’m not at liberty to confirm or deny anything.”

This, of course, caused everything to devolve into more questions. For some reason, being jostled left and right didn’t irritate me so much anymore.

A skinny kid slapped a hand on my desk and glared at me, he was just tall enough to be able to look down his nose at me while I sat. “Hey, new kid. Follow me outside.”

“Toji!” Said the bossy girl that had not been trying too hard to get people back to their desk. “You missed a whole week of school without permission!”

“Shaddap!” He spat, then turned his glare back on me. “You, step outside, now!”

I looked at him and tried to remember who he was. He clearly had an issue with me specifically. Still, my answer was obvious. “Nah, I’m good.”

His eye twitched. “What!?”

“Look, Shoji.”

“The name’s Suzuhara Toji!”

“I don't care. Point is, I have no obligation to you, or your wounded pride. I can see by your demeanor that you are angry. You are welcome to seek me out at some point when you won't be a bother on my exceedingly busy schedule. For now, if you'll excuse me, I’m going to go get lunch.” I stood up and headed for the door.

Toji tried to step in front of me, but I outmassed him considerably before one took into account my Company Bought enhancements. Still, points to the guy for being ballsy. Rare is the boy who will antagonize someone a head taller than him and built like a strongman.

My walking into him was enough to nearly send him sprawling.

I looked around, ignoring Toji and his demands that I follow him, and looked for Rei. That girl needed some thanks, hot chocolate, and a hug. And would you look at that, I had all three available in spades.

=][=

Seeing as to I hadn't received my first paycheck yet, I used my Contract Granted food summoning power. Rather than a whole pail of dehydrated tasty food that needed only to be boiled in water for twenty to thirty minutes, I used the second option for generic though still tasty to go food.

I didn’t particularly like this one. The fare was guaranteed to be edible and nutritious. But they were random.

I do not know what apocalyptic hellhole the cricket and cheese sandwich came from, and I don't want to find out.

A few tries netted me a cold cuts sandwich, and a meatball sub.

Tossing the artichoke and imitation anchovies pizza, I looked for the half angel half clone.

I found her on the roof, staring out across the city.

I walked up next to her. “Yo, Ayanami Rei, correct?”

She turned placid ruby eyes on me. “You are Ikari Shinji.”

“Yup. Wanted to thank you.”

She blinked and tilted her head slightly; I took that as an invitation to continue.

“The one that drove off the Angel and allowed me to escape getting nuked. That was you, right? Piloting while wounded?”

“Yes.” She said without inflection.

“Well, you saved my life, thank you.”

She shook her head. “I was following orders.”

“Well, your following orders resulted in you saving my life. So, you have the thanks anyways.” I looked around. “Say, you eat lunch yet?”

She shook her head and pulled out a few pills. “Not yet.”

I looked at the pills in mounting horror. “The hell are those?”

“Vitamins and other supplements.”

“And you don’t eat anything else?”

“No, why would I?”

My horror was matched only by my disgust.

“Yeah no, put those away.” I demanded. “Come on over.”

She must have been inherently used to following orders, as she followed me without complaint. I took a seat in the shade and patted the ground next to me.

“Sit next to me.” I said when she didn't understand the cue.

She did, still looking at me like I was some weird specimen.

“Alright, I've got a cold cuts sandwich and a meatball sub. Which one do you want?” I asked.

Rei blinked and said. “I have never had either.”

Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter.

I tore a chunk of the cold cuts sandwich and held it towards her. “Say ah.”

“Ah?” She asked, and I used the opportunity presented to put the bit of sandwich in her mouth.

It is a rare treat to watch someone else discover something for the first time. Her expression did not change much, but it truly didn't need to. She closed her mouth and reflexively chewed into the somewhat bland fair. Her eyebrows rose slightly, she sat straighter, her eyes sparkled as she continued chewing slowly. By the motion of her jaw and cheeks, I could only assume she was rolling the morsel across her tongue. This continued for a while before she finally swallowed.

I tore another chunk and held it out, this time she opened her mouth without prompting.

I fed her the entire sandwich. Then opened my own and took a bite. Her silent, soulful, curious stare was too much, and I fed her a bite of my food for every bite I took.

I could only wonder where she packed it all.

My feeding her lunch would become a habit over the next couple of weeks.

=][=

It worried me that I had gotten used to the smell and taste of ‘L.C.L.’ or as I liked to call it, ‘Angel Juice.’

It was salty and coppery, and warm.

It was blood. It smelled and tasted like blood. Perhaps blood diluted in water.

But as the human brain is wont to, I got used to it very quickly and stopped noticing it because it was a constant.

The plug suit felt like jeans and a tee that were a few sizes too small to be comfortable. It actually was rather ingenious in that it was baggy and several sizes too big, then vacuumed and resized. It left very little to the imagination. The mini-me I’d had before body tune-up had nothing to be ashamed of, but I’d added a couple inches anyway because eight inches was impressive yet not so large as to cause too many issues with the vast majority of women.

Combine that with the fact that I was built like a linebacker, and both Ritsuko and Misato had stared a little longer than was strictly appropriate.

I felt my link to Unit 01 in the back of my mind. She was eager to experience the same closeness. But I decided to keep that for dangerous situations. Doing that had taken a toll, one I wasn’t eager to keep paying.

I kept our bond surface level, pressing a need for patience toward the nascent consciousness of the Eva. And worked at mastering maneuvering while doing my best to keep the bond shallow. I’d have to see if I could make the Imperium Standard safeties work with the Evangelion’s systems, as the creature-mech was…not unresponsive, but delayed oh so slowly. A fraction of a second that, in a fight to the death, could be the difference between life and death.

But by the same token, when I had sunk into the bond, I had run the very real danger of dissolving into the Angel Juice around me. And I did not want that at all.

I sighed and got ready to play this world’s most expensive video game.

“So, Shinji.” Misato said into the mic, being careful not to use the boy’s last name. That always seemed to get his hackles up. “How goes it?”

[I’ve gotten used to basic maneuvering, though I'm still having issues with fine digital manipulation.] Shinji said as, on the screen in front of her, a Simulated Third Angel was shot by seven consecutive bursts from the Evangelion scale assault rifle.

“No no, I mean, how are you settling in? Is everything going well in school?” By all reports he was settling in well enough, he'd been sighted spending time with the First Pilot. Most of his peers held him in something approaching awe as, even though he stuck to the letter of the directive not to speak about his involvement with NERV. ‘I am not allowed to comment’ only served to increase the curiosity of most, making them wonder what exactly he was unable to speak about.

[School is going well enough. I still don't see a reason to attend, by the time I muster out of NERV I’ll be independently wealthy enough to not have to bother with a job.] Shinji said in a bored tone as another virtual Angel fell under a barrage of gunfire.

Misato hummed noncommittally and shut down the microphone.

The truth was that Shinji was something of an enigma. A natural Eva Pilot who in hours had achieved more than the other trainees had in years. Upon his arrival he’d been openly antagonistic, but the moment his contract had been signed he’d been, for the most part, an ideal recruit. Following every order given to the letter without complaint.

The closest thing to insubordination he'd done since the day that he struck his father, was that every time he was on base and they happened to meet, he’d glare at the man with open resentment, perhaps even hatred. But beyond the glare he was unfailingly polite, nearly but not quite to the point of mockery.

The time the elevator doors had opened and Shinji saw Director Ikari on the elevator, Misato had worried, then her heart had climbed into her throat as Shinji had resolutely stepped into the elevator, nearly chest to chest with his father, and glared down his nose at the man.

That staring contest had not ended until Shinji stepped out of the elevator, not a word exchanged between the two.

It had happened three more times to Misato’s knowledge.

Any other recruit would have been knocked down several pegs. But Shinji had shown that he understood exactly how valuable he was. He was already considered a flight risk, and while they could detain him easily enough, the idea that he might well go through with his threat, to stand by while an Angel tore the city apart purely to laugh as his father was killed. It was deemed unwise to call his bluff, according to their analysts, it may well not be a bluff.

Just what had Gendo done to the boy?

“Have you memorized the locations of the redeployment gates, charging stations, and weapon caches?” Ritsuko asked as Shinji brought down another virtual Angel. This time in five bursts of fire.

[Not yet.] He answered, pausing to duck behind a building and shimmied along Several buildings to exchange his empty gargantuan assault rifle for a fresh one. [There's a lot of them. Isn't there a Heads-Up Display system that could be used to overlay them onto the pod’s vision?]

“That is a work in progress.” Ritsuko said, glancing at Misato as Shinji grunted noncommittally. She cut off communication before speaking again. “I am worried. With how he acted when he first came…do you think he's being genuine as far as his willingness to fight?”

She thought back to the day he had arrived, when she had tried to slap him. He’d caught her wrist with no effort and looked at her with eyes that may as well have been chips of ice.

She had seen her death in those eyes.

“I don't know.” She finally answered.

On the screen, the simulated Angel died in two bursts.

=][=

The new guy thought he was hot shit, but Suzuhara Toji knew better. The fucker had gotten his little sister hurt! His fight with the monster had caused structural damage in the building she was in and gotten her trapped in rubble when it partially collapsed.

Toji had promised himself that he'd give the asshole a piece of his mind, by punching him in the face. But he kept hiding behind the teachers and the class rep, looking at Toji like he was trash on the floor.

It really pissed him off.

He also spent all his time with Ayanami, the mysterious girl that used to spend her time all alone. There were rumors that the two were an item. Or that, since he was the pilot of that giant robot, Ayanami was as well, and had gotten hurt fighting another monster.

The bastard had gone to the roof again, and this time Toji would not be denied. He owed that wannabe pilot a punch in the jaw for hurting his little sister! If he’d been careful, he wouldn't have dropped half a building on her!

He was on his way to the roof, with Aida still trying to stop him, when the evacuation alarm rang out. Toji cursed and turned around, the new guy got a stay of punch-acution, today only.

He’d been saying that for three weeks.

Moving to the shelter was boring. One would think that having to evacuate to a big shelter that could laugh at a nuke would be exciting. But it wasn’t, it was just walking orderly and responding when your name was called. Just like all the drills.

Hell, it was probably another drill.

“Hey, Toji!” Aida said with a glint in his eye. “We should go out there!”

Toji blinked. “You crazy? It's just a dumb drill and we’ll get in trouble.”

“No, this one's legit!” Aida whispered so loud that a few people turned to look at them. “We should go out there and record it, for posterity!”

“You’re an idiot.” Toji crossed his arms. “Either way, get in trouble on your own, I’m not going.”

“It’s okay.” Aida said and patted Toji’s shoulder. “I understand if you're too scared.”

“You what!?”

After a bewildering series of events later that led to the two of them being outside, they witnessed the impossible. A giant floating half fish half centipede half majestic sea flapflap (so Toji had forgotten the name, anyone had a problem with him was welcome to the knuckle sandwich). 

Aida loved every second, cooing as it crawled over a building and reduced it to rubble. Seemingly by accident.

A gigantic purple robot shot at it from behind a different building, using a fuck-off huge rifle. The monster didn't care and broke every building between it and the robot into rubble.

The robot retreated a few times, then switched tactics and slammed shoulder first into the monster and made it stumble. It broke off a few of the monster’s legs which Toji belatedly realized were ribs, then it retreated and continued shooting the monster, it continued that tactic whenever the monster got close, forcing the fight to happen over already destroyed or damaged buildings.

Until in one of those tackles it got sent flying. Literally flying, that thing was going on six seconds of airtime and— wait, was it getting bigger?

The giant robot landed with an explosion of dirt and rock, tumbling head over heels and tearing through buildings and the ground. It rolled right over the two of them, and the only reason they didn't get squished was that the robot was in the part of the roll where its body was off the ground when it reached them.

It ended the roll on its feet, glaring at the monster, a huge cable running from its back.

Then it looked at them and froze. It felt like forever, but after two seconds it had run past the two of them, the wind of its passing knocking the two of them over.

There was a huge crash like two buildings ramming into each other, Toji pushed himself up and saw that the robot had slammed into the monster mid-run. The two struggled with each other as the monster’s tentacles began to glow bright white, Toji could feel the heat of its tentacles from where he stood, the metal of the robot’s hands running molten as it grappled with the monster. A weird rainbow effect happening between them, the robots gun crushed into scrap in the middle of that rainbow.

The two grappled for several long moments, the robot screaming a surprisingly human scream of pain when the monster brought up two new tentacles and stabbed them into its gut.

The stalemate remained for what felt like forever. The robot would push the monster away, it would throw it, trip it, punch it, rip its legs off and stab it with them. But always the monster would come back, pushing the robot back and taking back whatever ground it lost.

Toji was at a loss, the place was a pretty big disadvantage for the both of them, the robot could try luring the monster elsewhere, or the monster could try tossing the robot like a frisbee again. But the both of them kept fighting bitterly for the unimportant stretch of buildings they were steadily demolishing.

And then it hit him.

The monster had realized that the robot had not gone for a straight up fight until it had to protect Toji and Kensuke. If the robot tried to do its thing and fight at range, the monster would kill them.

So long as it tried to kill them, the monster would have an advantage.

They were going to make the robot fail.

The monster would destroy Tokyo-3.

The monster would kill Sakura, and it would be Toji’s fault.

Just as he started to realize exactly how badly he’d messed up, the robot did a goddamn judo-flip on the monster, slamming it to the ground so hard it made a crater and sending Toji and Kensuke to the ground as the earth heaved.

There was a high-pitched sound that hurt his ears, followed by the sound of a huge window shattering, and an inhuman screech full of pain and anger.

Then heavy, earth-shaking thumps. A huge metal hand scooped them up along with a slab of the pavement they'd been lying on. Then the world went crazy.

Up became left and right was up and down was taking a vacation. Toji and Kensuke rolled around, got banged up, and in one particularly bad bounce where Kensuke slammed into him, Toji felt something give in his shoulder.

He wondered if it made a sound, but between Kensuke’s terrified screaming, the roar of an explosion, the smashing of metal against concrete, and his own terrified defiant yells. Whatever sound his arm made was lost.

He wasn't sure for how long they got tossed about, but it felt like forever. When it all stopped, Toji lied still fearing that if he moved, everything would go crazy again.

“Woah! Toji, look at this!” Kensuke said excitedly.

Toji waited for the world to go crazy again. When it didn’t, he chanced opening one eye. There was a huge cross made of light in the sky. He sat up and took his surroundings in, they were in the robot’s hands, he could see where some of the plates had run like wax.

They were surrounded by a wasteland, it looked like the movies when a big bomb fell. Toji put his working hand over his mouth to help keep his breakfast in his stomach, where it belonged.

Kensuke kept talking a mile a minute, but Toji ignored him, looking instead to the huge, unmoving robot.

He was wondering how they were going to get home when a bunch of helicopters arrived. People in hazmat suits rappelled off and holy shit a rifle barrel looked huge when you were staring down it!

He and Kensuke were taken forcefully to the ground, all the hazmat guys screaming nonsensical shit. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of the new guy, being lowered on a weird contraption keeping his back and neck rigid, he looked like he was covered in blood.

And then someone put a bag over his head. And Toji wondered if he was going to make it home on time for dinner.

Oh hey, it’s the hospital’s ceiling. Who’da thunk. 

I brought my currently all technically deceased retinue up on my HUD. Two Angels stared back at me.

I also had seventy-five Credits burning a hole in my proverbial pocket, so it was time to do some purchases and with my exit strategy secured and charging, take the first steps in hopefully unfucking things here.

My main issue was that I didn't have anyone I could trust and work with. To get all the Angels would be relatively easy, all I’d need to do to complete my mission was to fight and kill the Angels. When the world ends, bring along anyone I happened to like enough to bring along. Boom, mission accomplished.

But a small, shriveled up part of me wanted to be the Hero. I wanted to stop the conspiracy put in motion by sociopathic rich assholes to doom the entirety of their species to get flawed pseudo-immortality as unsapient goo.

But I couldn't do that, not alone. I'd never be allowed in a room with the ones in charge. I'd never be able to sneak away to try and find them. I was watched too closely. Monitored far too harshly. And if I used the Stamp overtly the perception filters might very well fail, NERV was already looking for mystical bullshit, a bit of slaving mind control might not get past them.

I needed a team, a group I could trust, enough to sneak into NERV and get names and locations. To build equipment for my eventual battle against two or three separate factions trying to end the world.

I didn’t have a team. And I didn’t have enough Credits to purchase one either. But there was one advantage to being from a Recruitment world. Our one claim to fame being that our minutely powerful psychics received visions of parallel worlds and used them as inspiration for their works. And I knew just who would be able to wade through the numerous issues and secure me the heads of the fuckers I needed dead.

I went into the Companions tab on my phone and looked for the agents of the Callidus Temple. Any of them could be trusted with the persecution of my war against the idiots in charge.

I made my purchase, forty-eight credits disappearing in an instant. I had her. Delivered to my Interdimensional apartment.

I was fairly certain that my actual apartment was heavily bugged, as was the school, and any place I’d frequented. I’d have to be careful about meeting up with my new assassin. It was paramount that she remained an unknown until I was ready to go loud.

I heard footsteps approaching long before the door opened. Rei walked in, her face betraying no emotion, but I could see a smidge of relief in her eyes.

My plan to crawl into her heart via her stomach was working well.

“Shinji, there’s a vehicle waiting for you.” She said, turned around and left.

I stared at the door for a few seconds and coughed a laugh.

“Glad to see you too.”

=][=

As it turns out, not being able to disappear into my extra-universal apartment made it difficult to meet my new, extremely dangerous waifu.

Thankfully, due to my having a HUD, my head had a literal ring tone.

I called the PC in my apartment and schooled my features, wouldn’t want the assholes watching me in the car to think something was up.

That I couldn’t find anyone watching didn’t mean they weren’t there. They merely were better at hiding than I was at spotting them.

The call was picked up in the third ring. The glowering black mask that showed up in my HUD sent shivers down my spine.

M'shen, legendary Assassin of the Callidus Temple, Heretic’s Bane, Fleetfoot.

Godslayer.

Her Tier was equal to the monstrous Kaiju that were destroying Tokyo-3 and the world. And while they commanded far greater power, there was no doubt in my mind that where they had so far failed, she would succeed.

[What is thy bidding, my Lord?] The woman in my HUD asked with a shallow nod. Her voice was deep for a woman’s and dripped down my auditory nerves like liquid sex.

The mere sound of her voice went past my thinking mind and straight to my crotch as I felt the overwhelming urge to breed with the owner of that wonderful voice.

I fought back that idiotic urge.

The good thing about having a HUD, was that I could broadcast my thoughts into the call. Cheapo telepathy for the win. +I’ll set the portal down so you may leave, though I cannot promise it shall remain in that location. Your mission will be to find and infiltrate the secret organization named SEELE, and kill their top executives. I’ll still need the organization to run relatively smoothly, but if you think you’ll need aid in making that happen. Now is the time to bring it up.+

She suppressed a scoff. [It should not be a problem.]

+Good. Try to keep casualties to a minimum, but you have the freedom to do what you must.+ I instructed, then set down a portal on the street. +Keep me informed of your progress as you best can.+

M'shen nodded and cut off communication.

When we finally stopped the car, I didn't thank the driver, he worked for NERV which automatically made him an asshole, a cultist, a patsy, or all three at once.

When I got out, I saw we weren't at my apartment, I had been brought to NERV HQ.

“Ffaaaaaan-fucking-tastic we’re back here again.” I said, scratching my head as I stepped inside and followed the secretary that asked me politely to walk after her, she took me all the way to Misato’s office. The woman of the hour and supposed person in charge of field operations.

“You disobeyed my orders.” She said without preamble.

Wow, don’t treat me so softly Misato, I’ll be spoiled.

I sighed. “Your orders would have led to a longer drawn-out fight with more collateral damage and two dead civilians.”

Her eyes narrowed to slits. “We had retrieval teams ready to extract them. You should have done as you were told. Shinji you got hurt because you didn't follow orders!”

I sighed again. “The big rifle is useless, the Angel’s AT Field laughs at it with the same contempt it would laugh at paper balls. The Angel began targeting them specifically. Had I retreated when you told me to, to continue with the same inefficient tactics, all we'd have to show for it would be more destroyed buildings and two dead civilians. I said as much during the fight, I didn't get anywhere until I engaged it in melee and cancelled its AT Field.” I glared right back at her. “You’re at the command center, yes, you have access to data analysis and other ways of support. But I was the boots on the ground and I perceived information that would have taken too long to relay back to you during combat. And I fully believe that, if I had followed orders, we'd be in a worse position than we ended up in, with greater collateral damage and a couple dead idiot civilians to boot.”

Misato glared at me for almost a whole minute before she clicked her tongue. “Go write up your report for the mission, get out of my sight.”

Well screw you too.

I stood up and left, reaching into my jacket pocket and summoning a sandwich. This one was salami, pepperoni, cheese and guacamole.

Actually, pretty alright, eight out of ten.

I went to my ‘office’ at NERV and typed up my report on the Kaiju fight as I best recalled it. As I did that, I thought about my situation.

I had twenty-seven Credits I could spend, and a further one-hundred and seventy-three I couldn’t until I got my third Capture.

The Contract didn’t specify that the third Capture had to be an Angel. But by the same token, I didn’t want to just Stamp any random person in particular. The moment I did, that person would be my responsibility. And frankly, so far the only person I’d run into that I liked enough for that was a half-alien clone that was the key to the apocalypse.

…

Now that I thought of it that way, Stamping Rei was probably a moral imperative.

Thinking of that, didn’t NERV have an aquarium full of Rei clones? Did that mean that they could start the end of the world even if I Stamped Rei?

I didn’t want to explode the aquarium, that would likely kill all of those clones. Those clones of Rei were probably the only members of this horrid organization that were entirely without sin.

But they didn’t exactly have anywhere to go. I could try adopting them, but I’d need to upgrade my apartment to at the very least a Mansion to fit them all. And that was a not insignificant expense.

I pulled up the Catalog on my HUD and looked for any missions that people from the wider Company had that I could accomplish for some quick Credits.

There weren’t many. The Company preferred to harvest Evangelion worlds. After the cyclical apocalypse, there was simply a lot of materiel and product that was free to simply grab and resell at almost pure profit.

Everything from perishables in super markets, to abandoned chickens in chicken coops, to skyscrapers. The Company harvested the world down to the bedrock. It was then reset and the tragedy played out again.

Missions like mine were a bit of an exception to that, but then again, if I fucked it up, my boss would still get their Angel Templates for the Blood War and the world would still be harvested.

Which was why the mission I found, dealing specifically with the Rei clones came as a surprise.

An eccentric client with very specific tastes wanted maids. He wanted them identical, and able to do all the things maids should. Cooking, cleaning, sucking a cock or licking a slit unobtrusively.

I had to stop and shake my head at that. Fucking Company, ‘Slutlife’ indeed.

I’d get to keep the end product, the Company just wanted a set of Templates they could clone cheaply from to sell at exorbitant prices.

Point being, the Credits for accomplishing the task would be just enough to reimburse me for buying the Home, buying the Mansion would make it a net loss. Though to make sure things worked out smoothly, I’d need to get the Teaching and Inculcation Talents.

The bonus objective of Capturing Rei and putting her through the same training would cover most of the cost of those two Talents.

So while taking the Mission would definitely result in a net loss for me, it was a sacrifice I was willing to make to both save the innocent clones’ lives, get a personal maid staff, and ruin Gendo’s day.

Being honest, if only with myself, the third point played a larger than thirty-three percent role on my accepting the mission.

I finished my report and started to head out of NERV. I was going to Stamp Rei at first opportunity. I needed access to the rest of my budget if I was going to have the space to put all the clones in.

I had to find the time to get away and work on some Meltabombs. It wouldn’t do to leave NERV with the ability to make more Rei clones after I rescued the current batch.

Except, to rescue the current batch, I’d first need to know where they were.

Goddammit.

I changed directions and headed towards a particular office. If I was going to pull off the rescue, I’d need someone on the inside. And this was someone I didn’t much care for.

But she was a bitch who may well doom the world in the name of a man who didn’t love her back, so fuck her with a rusty rake. I’d just sell her to the Company when all was said and done. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

I barged into Bottle Blonde’s office, making her jump in fright. With all the fucks I didn’t give, I loomed over her and glared down my nose at the bitch. “So, whose cock I gotta suck in order to change how this idiot private military is spending its money?”

Her eyebrow twitched as she stood up and began to walk around me. “Mister Ikari—”

I slammed my right hand on the wall next to her face and walked into her personal space, trapping her against the wall. She looked up at me defiantly, but I could see the pulse point in her neck speeding up.

“I believe I told you not to call me by that name.” I growled, summoning my Stamp to my left hand.

She stood her ground. “Very well Shinji. I do not enjoy being condescended to.”

“Then stop being a goddamn idiot.” I cut her off, looking for the best opportunity to deploy the Stamp.

She eyed the open space to her left, but deduced I wouldn’t let her leave in that direction. “What is it you want?”

I leaned down and got right on her face, close enough that anyone walking in would definitely mistake what was happening. “I told you already. I have a disagreement in how this idiot organization is spending its money. And while I operate under the assumption that the government is thoroughly misusing my hard-earned cash they steal. Normally that’s just the cost of doing business, but I’m forced to care when their fuckups are likely to get me killed.”

“That was not very helpful Mister Ik—” She cut off as my glare intensified. “Shinji.”

I curled my lip into a sneer. “Then I’ll make it crystal fucking clear in the hopes that you get a thought worth having in that smooth brain of yours. I just turned in my report of my last Angel fight. I wrote in excruciating detail the many flaws of the idiot rifle. But I know how that song and dance goes.” I stepped closer to her, stopping as I pressed my front gently against hers. “The hell does that kid know? He’s just a kid, we’re the men with decades of experience killing other people. He needs to sit down, shut up, and do what we tell him. Then the next monster will come along, I’ll go out with useless weapons again, and maybe this time get killed. Well, not this time. I’m fucking nipping this in the bud.

“I’ve now killed two of those things which I’m guessing is more than anyone else has ever managed. That makes me the expert.” I pressed closer, Ritsuko pressed her hand to my chest in an attempt to push me back. I took her hand and pressed the Stamp to its back. “I’m informing you of that report. You will shove it up the ass of whoever the fuck you need to and stop wasting money on worthless shit. I refuse to die to salve the pride of stubborn idiots. You have the report, do something about the flaws I pointed out.”

Her jaw worked, chewing on her words carefully before she spoke. “And you come to me, why?”

“Katsuragi is an idiot. She won’t see past my questioning her authority. You at least have enough brain cells to rub together to look past your pride and see that, as the one killing the damn monsters, I just might have a fucking point.”

Her glare intensified at my insult. But still she showed no fear.

Too bad she was rotten to the core, I might have enjoyed her chutzpah otherwise.

“If that’s all this was.” Ritsuko said through grit teeth. “Then why are you cornering me like this?”

I let my smirk widen, leaned forward and whispered into her ear. “That bit I just threw in for fun.” I saw goosebumps form on the back of her neck as my breath tickled her ear. I leaned back and figuratively released her from captivity. “Well, I look forward to more sensibly designed weapons. I’ll be happy to sit on the meeting and exposit why the current designs are stupid.”

As I left Ritsuko’s office, I brought her up on my HUD and changed the location of the Stamp to the top of her head.

In three days I’ll get back to bottle blonde and see about getting all the information I need to get to the Clone Storage.

Or whatever weird pretentious bullshit they call it.

I needed to find someplace to spend my paycheck, the idiots trying to doom the world were paying me quite well, but I’d gotten to spend next to none of my money.

It's not like it’d be of any use once I moved on. 

Perhaps I could use Ritsuko for that? It had been most of a couple weeks since I’d Stamped her, but I hadn’t been called to enter NERV lately, giving me no chance to see my thrall or Rei.

As it turned out, my third Capture had to be an Angel before I got access to the rest of my Credits. That’s always a plus.

As I walked into the classroom, whispering sprang up.

I had also been kept away from school due to ‘unexplained medical issues’ so just about everyone and their mother must have figured out that I got hurt dealing with the last Angel.

I got left mostly alone as I took my seat. None of the teachers called me out for not paying attention.

Then again, when you have the Kaiju killing messiah in class, you’d probably cut him some goddamn slack if you knew what’s good for you.

Lunch came around and I followed Rei to the roof. There was a definite pep to her step as she reached the roof and turned to eagerly wait for me.

I chuckled as I handed her the generic Philly cheesesteak sandwich I got out of storage, but held onto her hand as she went to retrieve the sandwich. Incidentally pressing the Stamp to the back of her hand.

She turned inquisitive red eyes at me. And I realized I hadn’t thought to say anything, and three seconds was a surprisingly long time.

Fuck.

I tossed out the first thing I thought of. “You nervous about the test of your Eva later today?”

She tilted her head slightly. “No, I need only believe in Director Ikari’s work.”

I grunted and released her hand, vanishing the Stamp and watching as she appeared in my AR display, I wouldn’t get the Credits for her Capture until later.

Hopefully she’d count as my third Capture and give me access to the rest of my budget. I wanted to get another Waifu I could put to work making weapons and armor for me, I had plenty of blueprints, but no chance to get out of sight and do things myself.

“Wish I had your confidence.” I said as I sat down, Rei sitting next to me a few moments later.

“Can you not have faith your father’s work?” She asked dully before taking a bite of the sandwich. She had a little more meat to her, her arms no longer stick thin, nary a scar on her from her time spent as a partial mummy.

I snorted. “I refuse to honor that man with the title of ‘father,’ he’s the sperm donor that spawned me, nothing more.” I leaned back, keeping her in the corner of my vision in case she tried to slap me. “As to having faith in the man…No, no I cannot, I refuse to. After all he’s done, what he’s said to me…the fact that I’m willing to work with his organization is a privilege he does not deserve and is therefore purchasing at a premium.”

Rei’s eyes bored into the side of my head for long seconds before she turned away and stared at her sandwich like it held the secret to immortality and eternal youth. “The only thing in life I trust, is the Director.”

“You shouldn’t.” I said bitterly, bunching up the covering for my food and stuffing it angrily into my pocket. I all but threw myself angrily to my feet. “I bet that the moment he has no more use for you, he’ll toss you aside like so much trash, just like he did me.”

“You’re wrong.” She whispered, glaring angrily at the floor.

I sighed. “For your sake, I sincerely hope I am.” I said and walked away.

I used my HUD to move the Stamp to Rei’s lower back. Now if only nothing could happen for three days, that’d be great.

=][=

[Launching!]

I really should learn not to taunt Murphy.

A giant, floating, blue octahedron had decided to park its ass above NERV headquarters and began drilling down, punching past meters thick steel-reinforced concrete and tons of soil in a few minutes.

And as was becoming depressingly usual, it was apparently my problem.

I’m being paid a lot for this unenviable job, and I’m still not being paid enough for this shit.

About the only good thing that was brought about by the Angel arriving was that the test for Eva Unit 00 was cancelled, the cyclopean cyborg machine gave me the hibbie jibbies. Wasn’t it possessed by the spirit of the first Rei? Or was I remembering some other fucked up show?

Blegh, I blame Slutlife Entertainment, that shit rotted your brain.

I rode out the ascension. The spirit of Unit 01 eager to earn the spot of Adamantine Princess. The instant before the hatch at the top opened, I remembered that the floating cube’s main way of dealing with irritants was a very long ranged and powerful Particle Projection Cannon, or a Laser.

As such, the moment the ramp stopped, I did not wait to be given the all-clear to move, I had the Eva tear through the safeties and restraining bolts, utterly wrecking the very expensive piece of equipment and getting Misato to yell at me.

She shut up about my ‘recklessness’ when every building in a straight line between where I had been standing and the Angel got a thirty-meter diameter hole vaporized through them, the platform used to deploy the Eva reduced to so much slag. By some miracle, my rough handling had moved the umbilical cable keeping the Eva powered out of the literal line of fire.

I fell into the Eva, the cyborg roaring in pleasure as it and I became Us. We ran forward in a zig-zag pattern, moving in sudden, arrhythmic start-and-stop surges that had saved the inner in the trenches outside The Palace. Our chaotic movement served us well, Adam’s get overcorrecting and firing at where we would have been. Its song of annoyance making us smile in glee.

Unfortunately, the closer we got, the more accurate its shots became. Until we had to abandon evasion altogether, the greater forming a shield much stronger than Adamantine, the inner modulating it, forming the barrier into a wedge, providing an angled path of least resistance for the energy to wash past, the residual heat of the diverted attacks melting our outer shell and making it run like wax.

The sheer brightness of the attacks of Adam’s spawn blinded us, forcing us to move forward by memory, withstanding ever greater heat with every two steps forward we took. Ignoring the call from the rabble to retreat, our inner self’s automatic processes spoke with them until their voices became suddenly silenced.

Many steps later we gained a slight reprieve. Taking four unobstructed steps while the Other attacked lesser gnats that irritated it.

We roared in triumph as our barrier clashed against its own. We sunk our fingers into it, using our own to tear the barrier open.

This was a mistake.

With our barrier used to tear through its shield, it could not be used to defend us. The beam crashed into us, light so strong it nearly pushed us back vaporized the outer layers of our shell. We screamed as the liquid the inner was immersed in began to boil. With the conscious mind of the inner turning faint, we began to flag.

Incandescent fury made the inner’s weight in the bond become stronger by two orders of magnitude. Its rage growing until it surpassed the greater self’s. The barrier became as much of the inner as of the greater. With a roar, we pushed forward, ignoring the way our flesh ran like wax. We ranted, screaming invectives at that which angered us as the fingers of our left hand sunk into the hard outer flesh of the Other.

We barely twitched our head out of the way as its latest blast burnt away our arm at the shoulder.

The cable that granted us energy, which we had protected up until now, was severed.

But that was fine, it was not needed.

Before Adam’s spawn could recharge its main mode of attack, we formed our main hand into a spear, and drove it with our full weight behind it into the enemy’s body. We felt the tips of our fingers bend and break against its core. With a vicious smile, we wrapped our hand around it, then tore it out its body, it sang of fear and pain before its song petered out and fell silent, making us smile wider.

With the enemy vanquished, our rage soon fled, without our rage to sustain us, the bond weakened as our vision swam.

We separated, once again becoming it and I. And not a moment too soon as the timer ran to zero, the batteries ran out, and I was now stuck in a boiling metal coffin.

I laughed, choking on the overheated angel juice as ice seemed to crawl down my spine, and began the manual override for the emergency escape.

The fifth time I tried, I was forced to accept that the mechanical systems that would allow the exit had melted.

I brought up my HUD. I needed to buy a power to fix this. I’d Captured the Angel’s Soul when I killed it. That meant I had the rest of my Budget. I could get out of here.

And subsequently get quite fucked.

The hesitation cost me; my anger unable to sustain me without an enemy to kill, and succumbed to heat exhaustion.

=][=

“Launching!” Ibuki Maya stated as EVA Unit 01 ascended with a roar.

To think an Angel would come on the very day that the Miracle Child, as Shinji was called by the support staff at NERV, was supposed to finally get some backup.

The calibration of EVA Unit 00 was aborted. It was expected to take the better part of two days to get it fully combat ready, at the moment it wouldn’t be able to do much more than stand in place.

“Unit 01 arriving in five!” Makoto called out.

“I’m getting a high energy reading within the target!” Shigeru shouted.

“How high!?” Lieutenant Katsuragi asked tensely.

An alarm sounded as the sound of steel shearing like paper reverberated through their speakers.

“The Pilot has destroyed deployment cradle!” Maya called out.

“Shinji what are you doing!? Such reckless disreg—!” Lieutenant Katsuragi cut off as the video screen showed Unit 01 diving to the side an instant before a glowing molten trail was all that remained of the deployment cradle and every building between it and the Angel.

Maya watched in amazement as the Eva dodged every shot that sought to destroy it. Every attack by the Angel leaving a line of utter devastation that the Eva danced through perfectly.

Until it couldn’t.

“AT field holding!” Maya called out as the outer layers of the Eva’s armor was outright vaporized even through the AT Field. “Pilot’s synchronization holding at ninety-eight percent!” 

“Shinji! Shinji, fall back!” Lieutenant Katsuragi ordered.

Unit 01 resolutely took another few steps forward, before being hit again by the Angel’s weapon.

[I refuse!] Shinji panted. [Unless I take it down now, you’ll have to deploy Rei, and her Eva isn’t calibrated yet!]

“Unit 01’s armor integrity down to forty-five percent!” Shigeru called out.

“Shinji!” Lieutenant Katsuragi screamed into the mic. “That is not your decision to make! You turn the Eva around right now and get to safety!”

On the screen, Shinji’s face twisted into a feral snarl. [And risk you monsters sending Rei out in a barely working robot!?]

“That is her duty!” Lieutenant Katsuragi ground out. “Just like it’s yours to get back here!”

Unit 01 withstood yet another incandescent blast, and there was a screech of static on the radio.

“Unit 01’s receiving antenna has been destroyed!” Makoto called out. “He can broadcast but can no longer hear us!”

Lieutenant Katsuragi did not answer, but she did grind her teeth in frustration as the Eva withstood yet another impossible shot. “Call in artillery support! Get that thing’s attention!”

Tanks and missiles shot out at the Angel, not a one of them got more than one salvo off before being obliterated. But their sacrifice allowed the Eva to cover the remaining distance without trouble before it sank its claws into the Angel’s AT Field and tore it like tissue paper.

And then the Angel blasted the Eva point blank.

“Plug temperature exceeding safe parameters!” Maya said, her voice tense. “He’ll be boiling soon!”

The pilot’s vitals fluctuated before his brainwave pattern indicated unconsciousness. Maya felt ice crawl down her spine.

An instant later, a roar of pure animalistic rage rang out of the speakers, the pilo—Shinji’s vitals spiking as adrenaline flooded his system.

[You think I’ll let you win!?] Shinji shouted. [You think you’ll take my vengeance from me!?]

Maya gulped. Wondering if she should cut off the radio, but Shinji continued before she could make up her mind.

[I’ll get my vengeance on that bastard Gendo! I won’t let anyone get in the way!]

The Eva took another point blank blast but was barely phased.

[I’m going to get a girlfriend, with big titties!] Shinji shouted, bringing Maya up short. [Imma put that bitch through college! We’re going to be happy! Imma give her love and emotional support!]

As he raved about the happy life he would have with his future girlfriend, Shinji modulated the Eva’s AT Field to corrode the Angel’s. [And we’ll have a daughter!] Shinji screamed with the fevered air of a man speaking prophecy as the Angel removed one of the Eva’s arms. [She’s going to look just like Mom! And I’ll send the bastard pictures! One for every birthday he’ll be kept away from! Every holiday he won’t be allowed to be part of my children’s lives! Gendo will beg on his knees to be a grandfather, and when he does, I’ll look down and he’ll finally reap the summation of all his sins when I tell him; No!]

Shinji shouted the last as he tore the core out of the Angel. Holding the red gem aloft as the Angel fell silent and the Eva ran out of battery and deactivated.

There was an exceedingly awkward silence in the control room.

“Send out the retrieval team.” Lieutenant Katsuragi said quietly, her voice adding to the awkwardness of the moment rather than taking away from it.

Maya couldn’t help but sneak a glance at the Director, and was surprised to see his face twisted in pain and anger.

She turned back to her station, feeling like she had intruded into something personal.

She was starting to suspect that she should rethink her bet that the Director and Shinji would reconcile.

After all, everyone at NERV just got to hear Shinji’s very long and detailed plan on how he would simultaneously cut his father out of his life, and torment him with the knowledge that he would make the Director the boogeyman for the man’s own grandchildren.

My plan was to post this tomorrow, give myself a bit of time to give it one final read through. But circumstance has conspired against me. I won't be home all weekend, which means no access to my PC and spotty access to the internet.

Still, I hope you find it enjoyable, and if you notice and grammar issues...uhh...it was the grammar goblins, clearly not my fault.

Drop me a comment and lemme know what you thought! Pic of Waifu Catalog build at the bottom.

=][=

Well hello hospital ceiling, it is so very nice to see you again. Seriously, we need to stop seeing each other like this, what will your husband say?

I shook off the idiotic thought, pulled up the Catalog in my HUD, and purchased Body, Polymorph, Wyldscape, Paradox, Corruption, and Possession Defenses.

And, for the first time since this entire debacle started, I was able to relax.

Sure, I was down to a measly Eighty-Nine Credits, which for a non-Contractor it would be a lot, unfortunately, I was still missing a whole lot of Defenses and I needed to budget to get my pocket dimension up to a goddamn mansion.

But now, at least, I had most of the protections to defend against what was most likely to kill me in this shit show of a reality.

I heard the door open. “You are awake.”

“Good morning, afternoon, or evening to you too, Rei. It’s nice to see you hearty, healthy and most of all not a mummy again. How long was I out?”

So I sass when I’m tired, sue me.

“Why?” Rei demanded, moving until she stood next to me. She was dressed in her school uniform; I was willing to bet she didn’t have any other clothes.

“I’m going to need you to be a little more specific.” I shot back.

To my surprise, she crawled onto the bed until she was all but straddling me, her hands to either side of my head, staring down at me with those big, ruby red eyes of hers. “Why did you risk yourself like that? You were ordered to retreat.”

“Not gonna lie, the entire encounter is kind of hazy for me.” I said, taking a firm if gentle hold of her wrist. “But if I recall my logic correctly, I was afraid that if I retreated, they’d send you out on an Eva that could almost walk and fuck all else.”

Her hands bunched up, her face fighting to make a displeased expression. “Piloting the Eva is all I have. You are better at it, you’ve killed more Angels than anyone else, your continued existence is of paramount importance. You should have retreated and let them deploy me. I am meant to be expendable.”

I reached up and cradled her cheek. “Not to me.” I took hold of the back of her head and pulled down. She did not resist, I quickly navigated to lures and purchased Sticky Fingers, and pressed our lips together, kissing her gently. I kept the setting of Sticky Fingers to be a very good kiss, I didn’t want her orgasming just from making out.

Yet.

Rei went stiff as a board, then relaxed, pressing her body against mine. She was also a quick study, kissing me back and imitating what I did. She obediently parted her teeth when I licked at them and let me caress her tongue with mine.

Her mouth tasted faintly of citrus. With the hand not holding the back of her head, I caressed her spine until I reached her bottom and squeezed the firm, toned flesh of her ass. She wiggled her hips, grinding against me as she eagerly licked my tongue.

Reluctantly, I pulled back on her hair, breaking the kiss. She looked disheveled and drowsy, her face flushed and starting to sweat, her heart beating so hard I could feel it against my chest.

“I don’t care what anyone else tells you. You are not expendable, not to me.” I repeated. “And if you want more of this, you’ll never call yourself expendable again.”

She swallowed thickly and muttered. “Yes.” Then mashed her lips against mine.

I enjoyed myself a while, then had to push her away so I could go face the music.

=][=

“You disobeyed orders, again.” Misato said, glaring fiercely at me.

“I killed the Angel.” I shot back.

“With literally half a second to spare! Your disobedience could have cost us Unit 01!”

“Doing as you said might have cost us the city.” I replied calmly.

“Shinji, I am your field commander, you are supposed to follow my orders! Having you undermine me at every turn is not helpful!”

I mean, she has a point, but the fight against the Angels was only the top of my priority list for exactly three more of them. I could then stage a bloody coup to capture the Reiquarium, and politely fuck off to the multiverse and adventure.

Sure, I’d miss out on a pretty sweet bonus, and this iteration of the world would end, but my exit strategy was ready.

Though that bonus for saving the world would be pretty neat.

It might not hurt to try and be a little bit more…compliant. Now that following her orders probably won’t compromise my chances of getting out of this hellhole.

I sighed. “Okay, I admit, I may have been a little…overzealous. But what was the alternative? During the fight, you threw seven levels of hell at it and only tickled its funny bone. The deployment cradle was so much slag, and I wouldn’t exactly have the time to get in another one under constant barrage of its Particle Projection Cannon. And who knows how long it would have taken for it to get down here and destroy the base. Killing it was my only viable option.”

She raised an eyebrow. “We have twenty-two layers of meter-thick titanium shield plating between us and the surface.”

I blinked, surprised. I could have sworn there were supposed to be thirty. “We do?”

Misato blinked. “Wait, you didn’t know?”

I held up the very thin propaganda booklet she gave me day one. “This contains the totality of what I’ve been told about this facility beyond the way to your office, the infirmary, the embarkation room, and the simulation room. I know Jack and Shit and Jack left town. The only things I’ve been told are that I need to pilot the Eva, and about the weapons made for the Eva that I can use to fight the Angels. Most of which I end up having to throw away and finish it by casting fist. I went into that fight with the for certain sure knowledge that the Angel was above humanity’s last hope and drilling down, and we had one chance and one chance only to stop it and save the world. It honestly felt like if I didn’t kill it then, I’d never get another chance to get close enough to do it.” I looked her in the eye. “Was there any plan whatsoever to deal with the Angel if I retreated? Do we even have a weapon capable of punching through their AT Field? If there’s actually a super secret weapon system that NERV has been hiding, I feel I should have been informed. I was operating under the impression that my only recourse would have been the Eva-scale Assault Rifle, which has so far proven entirely useless beyond using it as a cudgel.”

Misato glared and ground her teeth, then closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “From now on, at least three days a week you will spend time at NERV HQ, I will personally ensure you become acquainted with our available facilities, defenses, and capabilities.” She opened her eyes and glared at me. “Go write your after-action report.”

“Aye aye.” I said lazily.

I had the feeling that my employment would last until the final Angel was dead, and not a second longer.

Joke’s on them. I don’t give a shit.

As I walked through NERV HQ, I noticed several techs, orderlies, and analysts giving me the side-eye. Always keeping me at the very least in their peripheral vision.

I spared a few moments to wonder if any of them held a grudge from when I knocked one of Gendo’s teeth out. That memory would bring me joy and warmth until the day I died.

I ignored all those watching me like I was some leper, I was the Kaiju Killing Kid, King of Kings to be Kowtowed and Knelt before…damn!

I brought up my notes on my HUD and updated my alliteration record for the week from five to seven. Much too far from my personal best of thirteen.

One day I would get to twenty.

A man can dream.

…

I felt so lonely all of a sudden.

Turning a corner, I ran into one of the analysts that nattered on any time I was in an Eva. I vaguely recognized her as Bottle Blonde’s assistant.

Literally, she smacked face first into my pectoral. She flinched and squealed cutely, backing up a few steps and rubbing her nose, her eyes tearing up. She blinked and realized the wall she’d run into was wearing a shirt, her head tilting up, and up.

And up.

Until she could look me in the eye. Her eyes going wide and her face turning red.

She opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. Closed it. Opened it a third time and said. “Meep!” She then turned tomato red and stared at me teary eyed, looking terrified.

Lady. I barely have any idea who you are, what kind of monster do you take me for?

I walked around her, shoving my hands in my pockets. Meh, it’s not like I’m killing Angels for her benefit. I was killing the Angels for my own enlightened self-interest.

And I was planning to kill the shadowy cabal of assholes behind everything, because fuck those guys in particular.

“E-Excuse me!”

I stopped and turned to look at her over my shoulder. She looked about ready to start bawling her eyes out.

She swallowed thickly and had to start twice before bowing at the waist. “Thank you so much for your hard work!”

“Uhh.” I said intelligently, she remained bowed, which was just…

What did one do in this situation? It had been way too long since I hadn’t had to solve a problem by shouting, being shouted at, punching, shooting, stabbing, or exploding it. And she was still bent at the waist! I don’t even. “Y-Yeah. Thank you too. Erm…miss. I’m…I’m gonna go and uhh, work on my after-action report.”

I turned around and woodenly continued the walk to my ‘office.’ That had been such an unpleasant encounter, I could only hope it never ever happened again.

Still, for some reason, I found myself smiling.

=][=

“I’m sorry. You want to what?” I asked, sure I must have heard wrong.

Bottle Blonde crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. “As I said. We would like to take this opportunity to run a Pilot Interoperability test, we need to gather data on how well the Evas will sync with other pilots.”

I narrowed my eyes at her, saved my progress on my after-action report, and flipped the laptop closed. “That seems like a very dangerous idea that could very easily backfire.”

“Oh? What makes you say that?” Fake Blonde asked, her assistant looking back and forth between us.

I stood up slowly, towering over the two women. “The hell you think? I’ve been in an Evangelion. They’re ornery things at the best of times. They might not take to having a different pilot all that well.”

She wrote something down on her clipboard. “Noted. However, this is not negotiable. Get yourself ready for the test.”

I scowled as I followed her and her assistant out. Her loyalty was, ultimately, to me. Which meant that she believed that whatever this test led to, was for my benefit. Which meant this was the precursor to finishing some other project.

Considering it was a test to see how the Evas reacted to a pilot they’re not used to; chances were that this was about the…what did they call it? Doll plug?

If my vague recollections didn’t lie to me, that should not be ready for several months.

But, thinking about it, the original Shinji did not have a head for conflict. He didn’t so much succeed in his earlier fights as survived them. Ultimately the same thing, but the devil, as always, is in the details.

In my three fights against an Angel, only my fight against Ramiel had resulted in significant damage to the Eva. And I’d minimized damage to the city as best I could, once again, Ramiel being the exception. It severely damaged vast swathes of the city.

But Tokyo-3 was a fortress city. Its most important buildings could be lowered underground. The old-style buildings that Ramiel destroyed, while ruinously expensive for an individual, were peanuts in comparison to the repair bill for even one of the titanium reinforcement plates layered between the geofront and the surface.

And Ramiel was supposed to drill through all twenty-two.

Compared to the NERV of the average circumstance of this neck of the multiverse, mine was flush with cash due to me doing too good a job. A multitude of side projects that would have had to be defunded to pay for repairs simply got to proceed unimpeded. The damage 01 suffered at Ramiel’s hand extensive, but well within the budget set aside for repairs and operational costs.

In theory, this was unequivocally a good thing. The agency tasked with the survival of mankind doing a stellar job. Exceeding all expectations.

In reality, I had no way of knowing which of those projects was tied to Instrumentality.

I was, ironically enough, a victim of my own possibly catastrophic success.

I was going to have to accelerate my schedule for stealing the Reiquarium. I couldn’t be certain that was the end goal of this test, but that wasn’t a risk I was willing to take.

=][=

Sitting through Rei’s synchronization test of Eva 01 was nerve wracking. My Eva was a needy, angry monster and I had the feeling it was developing an ego because of its so far flawless record at Angel Slaying. If it went on a rampage, I would have to try and calm it…from outside the plug. Which while I understood that to be a terrible idea, it was also the best idea I had.

Fortunately for my blood pressure, Rei just sat there, her eyes closed and her breathing even. The Eva had, so far, seemingly accepted her willingly enough. Just like when she piloted 01 to rescue me from the angel that almost did me in. Her vitals had fluctuated a couple of times, but she seemed fine. The nattering of the eggheads in the observation room fairly relaxed as the test went on.

Her brainwave pattern spiked, and she opened her eyes with a minor, but noticeable gasp. But other than that, gave no indication of distress.

Bottle Blonde clicked the comms unit. “What are your impressions of Unit 01, Rei? Any difference from when you last piloted it?”

Rei thought about it for a good while, her cheeks suddenly turned rosy on the screen, but when she spoke, it was with her usual deadpan. [It smells like Shinji.]

I grit my teeth and did my level best to control my expression. Reminding myself that she had no idea how that sounded because she did not yet have a dirty mind.

“Well done, Rei.” Said The Major Pain In My Ass, adjusting his glasses in a way he probably thought looked cool. “We are bringing the Eva to Cognition Level Three.”

And that was more words than he’d directed to me since I knocked out one of his teeth.

I should have hit him harder.

Bottle Blonde’s assistant piped up. “Threshold for Cognition Level Three will be crossed in 1.9, 1.5, 1.2, 0.6, 0.2, Cognition Level Three threshold crossed!”

The Evangelion changed. Whereas a moment ago it had been one of the world’s most expensive statues. Now it was aware.

The eye-slits of its helmet glowed not with the reflected light of a Heads Up Display, but with aware, knowing malevolence.

It shifted its weight, trying to stand more comfortably, causing the restraints to groan as metal was pushed beyond the point of plastic deformation. Its head moved minutely, and I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that it was looking at me.

I could not tell if it was looking at me in reproach or in search of reassurance. But it ignored the whole of the control room to focus on my face.

I looked at its lanky, but nonetheless powerful frame. Even missing its left arm at the shoulder, Evangelion Unit 01 was a fearsome thing.

The guys at the Slutlife Engineering Mechanics Electricians and Nano-machinist division would already have it at full battle readiness, but that was an unfair comparison as we’d had literal wizards and white mages to help with repairs.

“Harmonics holding, Synchronization Rate at Sixty-Eight percent.” Bottle Blonde called out, then proceeded in a quieter voice. “Her synchronization rates are essentially the same as in Unit 00.”

Her assistant (what did these people have against nametags?) continued, frowning in concentration at the readouts on the screen. “Well, Unit 00 and Unit 01’s personality patterns are very similar.”

I scowled at that. “Is that what makes it possible for her to synchronize with the two of them?” I asked without breaking eye contact with Unit 01, making most of the control room remember I was present. You’d think they’d keep tabs on the six foot and change slab of beef with violent tendencies, but you’d be wrong. “Does that mean that all Evas have similar personalities, or are 00 and 01 an anomaly, with other Evas developing differently and would reject us as pilots?”

Bottle Blonde recovered first. “The latter, I’m afraid. According to the data we have of the testing of Unit 02 in Germany, it is highly likely that Unit 02 will reject any pilot other than the Second Children without completely rewriting its Central Code.”

I grunted, and continued my staring contest with the giant, alien-but-not robot. “That may actually mitigate issues after the Angels are all dealt with.”

“How so?” Miss Polite Assistant asked.

“Well, you only need to look at a history book to see what happens once humanity deals with a common enemy.” I said, grinning. “Nihil novi sub sole, si vis pacem para bellum. I give it five years tops before we see the Cold War 2.0, only the WMDs are going to be the Evas. Pilots will be the new hot commodities, veteran pilots will likely be targets of assassination, granting too strong an advantage to any one side. Whosoever can field more and better Evas will have a strategic advantage until a new status-quo forms.

“With an Eva being made to lie useless if the one or two pilots it accepts die…then development will move toward making the Evas accept anyone who climbs into the entry plug.” I brought my hand up and stroked my chin, because my beard wasn’t there. “But the gap in development may prove enough of a setback to keep a cold war from going hot. Grant just enough time so cooler, wiser heads prevail. So that a politician with dreams of grandeur doesn’t get to cry havoc, let slip the dogs of war and count the dead after.”

I broke my staring contest with Unit 01 to look at Miss Assistant in her wide, surprised eyes and shrugged. “Which is why the moment the last Angel dies I’m probably disappearing into the mountains. Screw dealing with all that noise. Frankly, I don’t care what flag waves on the nearest pole. I wanna sit on my money and be left the hell alone.”

“That won’t happen, it can’t!” Miss Assistant recovered enough to state with conviction.

I snorted and turned back to the Eva.

Its stare remained unbroken.

=][=

[What’s the status of Unit 00’s Personal Data?] Bottle Blonde’s voice muttered in my ear.

[Rewriting already complete.] Answered Miss Assistant whose name I didn’t know and at this point I was too afraid to ask. [Reverifying in progress.]

[Calm, nerve signal patterns matching previous data.] Answered four-eyes-who-threw-fuck-me-eyes-at-Misato-when-he-thought-no-one-was-looking.

I really need to come up with a better name for him. Or NERV could start using nametags like civilized people!

[Shinji,] Bottle Blonde said, her voice teasing, [you’re not nervous at all about your first time in Unit 00?]

I grunted noncommittally.

Miss Assistant cut in, her tone broking no nonsense. [Entry sequence initiated. Ionizing LCL…Commencing primary contact.]

I felt a crawling sensation start at the base of my spine and climb all the way to the top of my head.

[Well Shinji?] Bottle Blonde said, doing a fairly good job of imitating being calm. [What do you think of unit 00’s entry plug?]

It smelled like Rei.

“A bit weird, but nothing I can’t handle.” I said instead.

[Strange as in…uncomfortable?] Miss Assistant asked, worried.

I grunted, trying to put the feeling into words. “A bit. Like wearing the wrong jacket for hiking or putting on a boot on one foot and a tennis shoe on the other. Not bad, just, weird.”

[I see…] Miss Assistant said, the sounds of typing coming over the comms unit. [Data stream established. Reverifying…Pattern green.]

[Main power connection complete.] Said the voice of another of the eggheads whose name I didn’t know.

[All restraining gear, green.] Said an egghead with a voice that was perfect for a Noir audiobook. I made a note on my HUD to find out who Smooth-Voice was and see if I could hire him to read an audiobook whenever his stint for NERV ended.

Oh right, test, imminent danger, possible death or maiming. The floor is made of floor and today is…shit what day even was it? How much school had I missed?

Could I pay someone to take care of my homework?

Rei stood by the glass, looking at 00 with a minute, worried frown.

Dear old sperm donor was nowhere to be seen. God forbid he show any concern for his only flesh and blood relation’s highly likely demise at the hands of a notably temperamental weapon’s system.

The Eva’s slumbering mind was a growing weight on the back of my head.

But even if it slumbered…it wasn’t quiescent. It roiled and spun, an uneasy, restless sleep.

More was said, but I didn’t hear it, memories flooded from the back of my head to stab me behind the eyes.

I walked alone into an empty, featureless apartment.

I was hurt, breathing was agony. But I had been ordered to fight again, so I would.

I sat alone by the pool, the other girls having fun splashing around in transparent liquid that stank of chemicals.

I was at the school roof. The Third Children ordered me to eat his food. It was my first time tasting something. It was good.

I looked at the huge form of the Third Children in the hospital bed. I informed him of the vehicle waiting for him.

I hurt. I was on the floor. Something large and strong, but gentle, held me. It was warm.

I put on my uniform, getting ready to set out to class.

I stood in the operation room, the people around me tense. The Third Children ignored his orders to retreat, because if he retreated, I would be placed in danger. Why? Why would he risk himself for someone disposable?

I woke up, felt a mind not my own connected to me. Where was I? This was wrong. I couldn’t breathe. It hurt. I was being crushed. My skin itched.

I have to leave. I have to go. I can’t stay.

I can’t stay.

I slammed shut the door to my mind, for the first time hearing the alarms and the tense voices of everyone in the control room.

At some point, the Eva had broken out of its restraints. It was stumbling about, slamming into the walls of the testing chamber. Until it spotted something through the control room glass and froze. Fear, hatred, and rage surging up from its guts.

I searched for the spot where I was connected to it. And dove through, battling its rage with my own, sending my own conflicting signals to its body to keep it from moving, from attacking the source of its fear.

Its panic grew, fighting to throw my control off, to stop what choked it, to kill that awful hag!

I flexed my will and crushed the Eva’s mind beneath the weight of my cold rage, paralyzing it.

I screwed my eyes tightly shut, but nonetheless I could see Ritsuko/the hag’s face as she talked/choked me.

“Ritsuko!” I barked through grit teeth. “Get out!”

She paused for a moment. Not fucking leaving! [Shinji!? Have you retaken control?]

The sheer need to kill her made my marrow tremble. “I said get the fuck out! Leave the goddamn room!”

She finally did what she was fucking told and ran out of the operation’s room.

With her gone, the spiral of panic from the Eva lost one of the sources of its feedback loop.

I set about calming it. Easing off my crushing control a little at a time. Its own will was…weak was the wrong word. It was scattered, unfocused, pliant.

Slowly, the Eva got used to the chafing of its skin due to its own armor. It began to marvel at the strength of its limbs, at its sheer size.

I released more of my control. No longer crushing the Eva’s mind but holding it in a firm embrace. Keeping our union shallow, not truly forming a gestalt.

[C-Corruption Index stabilizing…nerve impulses calming. Synchronization rate holding steady at Eighty-Seven percent.] Said Bottle Blonde’s assistant.

The Eva’s mind…it was Rei, but it wasn’t Rei. It was a remnant of Rei, but also the original that the Rei I was familiar with had been copied from. She was more than my Rei, but at the same time, much reduced.

It was scared of the body it had become but reveled in its newfound power. It was scared of the union of our mind, but craved a deeper connection, instinctively yearning for the Oneness of the Gestalt. It missed its old, small body, but was happy to be so much bigger and stronger.

I sighed and, after a long while, relaxed, trusting the Eva not to rampage anymore.

I held its metaphorical hand through the discoveries of its ‘new’ form. The mind inside it calm enough to realize it was different for the first time, its previous activations having been done in a stupor with one instance of panicked wakefulness.

I was going to have to confront Bottle Blonde and get the story of why Unit 00 had a panic attack when it saw her. I had the feeling that it would make for a fascinating tale.

=][=

And pic of build.

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.”

Early for once! 8D

This week was rough. I'll tell ya hwat.

Trip went well. I'll probably write up a writing update tomorrow. Go into detail on how stuff is going. And ask for some of ya'll's opinions.

But for now! Chapter 10. Hope ya'll like it, lemme know your thoughts on the comments.

=][=

“Where does that oaf get off telling me to leave him alone!? Every other boy in this building bends over backward for even a little bit of my attention. And yet the Third runs away every time I try to talk to him!” Asuka Langley Soryu groused, then took another bite of her sandwich and spoke with her mouth full. “I can’t believe my commanding officer asked me to try and become his friend! Can you believe it!?”

Horaki Hikari sighed, fanning herself with her booklet, maybe she could convince Soryu to eat inside for once? Yeah, all the boys paying attention to Soryu made that pretty awkward, but still… “Maybe if you changed your approach a little?”

Hikari would never forget the two pilots’ first meeting. Soryu had walked up to the huge, muscular boy and said, “You’ve been lucky, Third. But beginners’ luck can only take you so far. I’ll magnanimously allow you to learn from me!”

Ikari had looked at Soryu with a long stare, half absent, half focused, and just a little hostile. It was a stare that Hikari had only ever seen on those born before the Second Impact, whenever they spoke about horrific things.

He'd then stood up, said. “I’m not dealing with this.” And skipped the rest of the day!

Hikari had tried to tell him that skipping class was bad…but Ikari was a literal hero, he’d been the one to kill all three of the big monsters that took work crews months to clear out. When even the teachers let him get away with whatever, it made Hikari feel a little underqualified!

Also, even if he’d so far been perfectly polite with everyone who was polite with him, Ikari was pretty scary!

Ever since Soryu had arrived, there was an odd tension in the classroom. One that they only got a break from on days like today, when either Soryu or Ikari was absent due to their duties as Pilots.

“Meh.” Soryu scoffed and tossed her head, her hair flowing in an admittedly beautiful wave. “It’s not my fault he’s too chicken-shit to talk to me.”

Hikari laughed nervously.

Soryu jumped to her feet, startling Hikari. “But you’ve brought up a good point! I’ve been going about this all wrong! Quick, Hikari, where’s the First!?”

“The first?” She asked.

“The First Children! You know, the other Pilot!”

“Ah, you mean Miss Ayanami. Umm…” How to tell her…

“Nevermind, I see her!” Soryu said and ran off.

“Wait! Soryu, wait!” Hikari called out and ran after her.

But, too late.

Ayanami had been sitting on a bench, reading. She was a solitary girl, before Ikari arrived, everyone had given up trying to include her.

Her unnaturally pale skin, blue hair, red eyes and seemingly emotionless tone certainly didn’t help.

Soryu stood on the back of the bench next to Ayanami’s, casting a shadow on the quiet girl, a feat that Hikari found, frankly, very impressive. It showed she had supreme balance if nothing else.

Truly, Big Robot Pilots were something else.

Ayanami merely scooted to the side and continued reading.

“Hallo!” Soryu said, stepping forward again to block the other girl’s light. “So, you’re Ayanami Rei. The Pilot of the prototype.”

Hikari caught up, and found herself included in the quiet girl’s cold, silent stare.

Utterly undaunted, Soryu pushed on. “Nice to finally meetcha. My name’s Asuka, Asuka Langley Soryu. I’m the Pilot of Eva Unit 02. We should be friends!”

Miss Ayanami returned her eyes to her book. “Why is that?”

“Because things will be smoother if we’re friends! For us, for our commanding officers, and for humanity as a whole!” Asuka stated, crossing her arms and tilting her head back.

How she could change her posture so much and not lose her balance on such a precarious perch, Hikari frankly did not know.

Ayanami closed her book and, for the first time, paid close attention to Soryu, when she spoke, there was an intensity to her voice that Hikari had not heard before. “Are you also going to be friends with Shinji?”

Soryu scoffed. “That big oaf? If he begged on his hands and knees, maybe I’d consider it.”

Ayanami opened her book again. “Then no, please go away.”

“Wait, what!?” Soryu demanded.

“No. Please go away.” Ayanami repeated.

“Didn’t you hear me? It would be best for everyone if we’re friends!”

“No. Please leave.”

Soryu stared for several seconds as Ayanami ignored her, then jumped to the ground and stormed off, muttering all the while in what Hikari could only assume was German.

Hikari followed, and almost jumped when Soryu whirled around. “What the hell is wrong with her!? I made a perfectly friendly and logical offer and she spat on my face!”

Hikari sighed and chose not to bring up her thoughts on Soryu’s chosen approach. “You didn’t give me a chance to tell you, Soryu. But Ikari and Ayanami? They’re an item.”

Soryu blinked. “An item?”

Hikari nodded. “You know, together together. Boyfriend and girlfriend. Lovers.”

“What? Really? How do you know?” Her eyes sparkled as she leaned forward, grinning like a shark that smelled blood in the water. “How long have they been going out? Have they held hands!?”

Hikari tilted her head back and thought. “Well, I personally haven’t seen them…you know, h-holding hands, and stuff. But they always eat lunch together. They usually spend breaks with each other. He’s the only one Ayanami talks to. They’re always walking around school together. And they usually leave the school together. A few of the girls in I-C, II-B, and some of the boys in II-A say they leave the train together, so they’re likely walking home together as well.”

Soryu narrowed her eyes, and bit her thumbnail. “And I just waltzed up and badmouthed her boyfriend to her face…no wonder she got angry.”

Hikari nodded. “Also, Ikari is pretty popular. Everyone knows he’s gotten hurt fighting off the monsters. And the idiot duo snuck off one time and watched one of his fights. He risked his life to save theirs, even when they’d been pretty mean to him. So…honestly, if Ikari weren’t with Ayanami, he’d probably be dealing with more confessions than you.”

Soryu ran her hands through her hair and heaved a frustrated sigh. “Yeah, yeah. I messed up big. It’s fine though, I’ll turn this around.”

A loud beeping sounded from Soryu’s pocket. She took out her phone, flipped it open, and held it to her ear. “This is Pilot 02, go ahead.”

Hikari had to stop herself chastising the girl. Pilots needed their phones in case a monster showed up.

Soryu’s face broke out into a bloodthirsty grin. “Well, looks like it’s time for me to show those two who wears the pants in this relationship!”

=][=

“Tokyo-3’s Intercept System is still under repair from the last alert. While the system itself suffered relatively little damage, the Angel damaged enough infrastructure that it is currently at 52% effectiveness.” Misato said grimly, her voice reverberating through the command vehicle. “Magi estimates that the difference the city's defenses can make in the coming battle will be marginal at best. This is a rare opportunity to intercept an Angel before it can cause devastation across the countryside.”

Misato watched the three pilots on the screens. Rei was stoic as always, though her heart rate was elevated. Asuka was all smiles. And Shinji...

Shinji was pretending to sleep. His brainwave pattern showed he was aware. She took a deep breath and continued the briefing. “Units 01 and 02 will take turns engaging the Angel in close quarters combat. Unit 00 will provide support.”

[Roger!] Asuka said.

[Yes, Ma’am.] Rei answered in her usual monotone.

Shinji finally opened his eyes and said, [Wilco.] In English.

Asuka leaned back and sighed. [How lame. This is my debut battle in Japan. Why won’t Misato let me handle this angel on my own?]

Rei did not answer, and Shinji grunted.

Asuka opened a ‘private’ commline to Shinji. [Third! Let’s get one thing straight! The moment we’re out there, you better not get in my way, got it!?]

Shinji smacked his lips and, once again, answered in English. [Nuts.]

Misato sighed and let Asuka get the one-sided bickering out of her system. It appeared that Ritsuko had been correct, her hopes that Asuka might befriend Shinji had been overly optimistic.

The high-speed freight train exited the tunnel, delivering the Evas to the shoreline.

“Get ready, bringing Evas online…now!”

All three of the pilots tried to hide their reactions. Rei’s throat worked and she drew a quick gasp. Asuka ground her teeth and tried to pass it off as a grin. Shinji grimaced and shook his head slightly. Their synchronization rates jumped to fifty-two, seventy-five, and eighty-three, respectively.

Three separate five minute timers activated as the Evas stood slowly from the train cars that had been used to transport them.

Shigeru began to speak, coughed, and started over. “Unit 00, 01 and 02 successfully lifted from Linear Line Route 26. Umbilical cables ready…connection successful in Units 01 and 02. Pilot 00, disconnect and reconnect…Unit 00 connection successful.”

“Beginning power transfer.” Makoto said. “Unit 01, transferring power now.”

Unit 01’s timer jumped back up to five minutes and did not decrease.

“Unit 02, transferring power, now.” Makoto took a deep breath, and when he spoke, there was a slight tremble in his voice. “Unit 00, transferring power…now.”

Everyone in the command truck held their breath as Unit 00’s battery was recharged. Misato kept a close eye on Unit 00’s readings over Maya’s shoulder.

The prototype Evangelion had not gone berserk since Shinji piloted it. But everyone still remembered both times it went out of control.

Worse still, none of the scientists could explain why the biological machine was, seemingly, so placid now.

Rei picked up the Evangelion grade assault rifle, Asuka picked up the glaive, and Shinji picked up the recently completed Bearded Warax, giving it a few slow, controlled practice swings.

[Three on one doesn’t sound very fair.] Asuka grumbled. [Totally not my style.]

Before Misato had a chance to speak, Shinji said. [Any fight worth winning is worth fighting dirty to win. It’d be foolish not to use our numerical advantage.]

Asuka scowled. [Aren’t you supposed to be a Samurai? Where is your honor!?]

[Stand in the ashes of a billion dead.] Shinji said gravely. [Ask their ghosts if honor matters. Your only answer will be the wails of those they leave behind. We aren’t here to fight, we are here to murder the Angel. Our defeat means the extinction of all life as we know it. There is no room for good and evil, for justice or injustice. No sacrifice is too great, no price is too steep.]

Unit 01 turned to face Unit 02. [The cost of our failure is the complete eradication of the human species. So be ready to throw away your honor, your pride, your happiness, and your life. And hope that, when the dust settles, whatever remains was worth the sacrifice.]

As Unit 01 turned back to the ocean, Misato stood in the stunned silence in the command truck.

“That…that is so sad.” Maya whispered, her eyes misty.

Shigeru shook his head. “He’s not wrong though.”

“Cut the chatter.” Misato snapped, bringing the attention of her subordinates back on track. Internally, she sighed, they were going to have to redo Shinji’s psych profile again. It was clear that his motivations were not purely mercenary.

One of the readouts sounded a shrill alarm. Makoto called out. “The Angel is surfacing!”

On the monitor streaming Unit 00’s visual feed, Misato saw the back of Unit 01 as it took two steps and partially obscured the Angel. Misato was about to tell Shinji to disperse, when Unit 01 crouched, giving Unit 00 a nearly unobstructed view.

Misato felt her eyes widen. ‘He’s setting himself to block a charge against Unit 00.’

The Angel was a large figure, stocky and grey, bipedal but not quite humanoid, its head jutting seemingly out of the upper center of its torso, with seemingly metallic carapace over pitch black skin. Almost twice as tall as an Eva.

“Commence attack!” Misato called out an instant before Asuka screamed a warcry and jumped forward, Unit 02 sailing through forty meters and more on a standing leap, and landing on the roof of a half-submerged building.

[Asuka, be careful!] Shinji called out, rushing forward as Rei let out a long stream of shells with the assault rifle.

[He who strikes first, strikes hardest!] Asuka said as the assault rifle’s shells detonated against the Angel’s AT field. Unit 02 hopped forward two more times, forcing Rei to stop firing, and brought the glaive down with a warcry, splitting the angel vertically in two.

“She did it!” Makoto said with a whoop.

[You see that Third Children? You have to be graceful and efficient in battle.] Asuka said smugly.

Shinji had not stopped wading through the water. [It’s not dead! Angels create a huge cross when they die!] His words proved prophetic as the Angel’s two pieces began to twitch. [It has two cores! Asuka fall back!]

[Like hell! Die!] Asuka said and speared one of the double Angel through the core.

She was blasted point blank by the Angel’s energy attack for her trouble, sending 02 tumbling back, weapon thankfully still in hand. The other Angel shot its laser at Shinji, who deflected it with his AT field.

“Angel is now two entities!” Shigeru called out. “Designating them targets Alpha and Bravo!”

Shinji pushed forward and rammed the butt of his ax into Bravo’s core, cracking it. He then dodged a retaliatory swipe that parted a building in four vertical lines. [They regenerate! We probably have to destroy both cores at the same time!]

[Don’t tell me what to do!] Asuka shouted and rammed into Alpha again.

“Asuka, coordinate with Shinji!” Misato snapped.

[Argh! Fine! W-Wait, what’s going o—?] Asuka cut off with a scream as Alpha bodily lifted Unit 02 and threw it so hard it cleared the nearest mountain. The umbilical cable snapping, the automatic safeties kicking in and cutting off power to it.

[Shit.] Shinji said.

“Prog knife deployed!” Shigeru called out.

On the screens, they saw Shinji throw the prog knife at Unit 00, who, likely more by luck than skill, caught it.

[Rei, when the time comes, stab both the cores!] Shinji said, kicking the Angel he was grappling with back.

[How will I know when?] Rei demanded, her usual montone strained.

[Oh, trust me, you’ll know.] Shinji snarled.

The camera in Unit 01’s plug cut out. Then the alarms started.

“Synchronization rate rising!” Maya said, her voice trembling. “Eighty-nine, ninety-five, a hundred and ten, a hundred and thirty!”

Evangelion Unit 01 changed.

Where before it had moved with jerky motions, it now moved with predatory fluidity, shifting its weight from one foot to the other, loosening its shoulders as it brandished the ax. The umbilical shifting with the Eva’s movements, almost like a tail.

“Synchronization rate…One hundred and fifty percent.” Maya whispered, horrified.

“How is this possible?” Misato asked.

“He can consciously control his synchronization rate,” Makoto whispered, “It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

Unit 01 roared and charged forward. Where before its steps had been halting and unsure, now they were purposeful and precise. It compensated for slips with minute and exact twists of its hips and torso.

It waded into the fight, dodging a swipe from Bravo and opening Alpha from groin to shoulder. Before Alpha had even finished flinching, Unit 01 twisted with the liquid speed of a striking serpent and took Bravo’s arm off at the shoulder.

Twisting around again, it kicked the rising Alpha, sending it back under the water. Only to twirl around and bury the weapon’s head in Bravo, a shot of the Angel’s laser forcing Unit 01 to leave it behind.

For almost a whole minute, Misato could do naught but stare as Unit 01 singlehandedly kept both Angels at bay, the two targets moving with uncanny synchronicity. Attacking and maneuvering as one.

And yet Shinji and the Eva made it look clumsy.

The battle continued in a stalemate until Shinji’s wild flailing was not enough, and the umbilical cable was severed.

“Unit 01 has lost power!” Makoto called out. “Ejecting connector, at current activity Unit 01 is expected to shut down in fifty-two seconds!”

Misato bit her lip, Shinji was NERV’s miracle worker, and it wouldn’t be the first time he killed an Angel with less than a second to spare.

But the risk was too great. Their options for retreat were suboptimal, but it could be done.

As Misato was about to call for a retreat, she was stunned into silence, as Evangelion Unit 01 began to roar.

An unending snarl of animalistic fury that reverberated through the air, shaking the command truck and rattling the inside of Misato’s skull even through the sound proofing.

Unit 01 became even more animated, unencumbered by the umbilical cable it was free to lay into the Angel with utter abandon.

“Shinji!” Misato tried to shout over the noise Unit 01 was making, “Shiji fall back! Shinji!”

Her only answer was the Eva’s unending roar getting louder, its attacks getting more savage, where before a punch would stagger the Angels, now each blow tore a chunk off them. Each kick shattered their carapace. Each body slam sent them tumbling into the water.

When the timer fell to twenty seconds, Misato feared it would not be enough.

Unit 01 shoulder checked Alpha, and threw it over its shoulder into the ground, causing a huge splash as well as a seismic event that toppled buildings all the way to the shoreline. It then twirled around, grabbed the haft of the ax still buried in Bravo, and used it as a lever to slam the Angel straight onto the rising Alpha.

The Angels seemingly turned partially liquid as they recombined back into a singular being, staggering back from the forced fusion. Unit 01 was upon it in an instant, taking its right arm and twisting it brutally, digging its other hand into the steel carapace of its back and forcefully arching it, exposing its chest.

And the cores.

Rei, the First Children, was largely looked at with pity by NERV staff. The little pilot that couldn’t, the one whose greatest achievements to date were getting hurt in a test and delaying an Angel for almost thirteen seconds.

An Angel that Shinji beat and made it look easy.

Misato would be ashamed to admit that she’d all but forgotten Rei was even involved in the current battle.

Rei fearlessly charged her rinky dink prototype into the Angel that beat the greatest state of the art machine like it owed it money, and with a low growl, stabbed both her prog knife and Eva Unit 01’s forward.

Their tips halting three meters short.

“The Angel has deployed its AT field!” Maya said, her voice strained.

“Unit 01’s power will cut out in ten! Nine!” Makoto said, his voice choked with tension.

“Rei use your AT field to corrode the Angel’s!” Misato demanded.

“Eight! Seven!”

Unit 00 dug its feet and pushed forward. The Angel’s AT field burned brighter, the knives were pushed a further meter back.

“Six! Five!”

“Unit 00’s AT field is corroding the Angel’s!” Maya shouted, her hands holding a white-knuckle grip on her console.

“Four! Three!”

The Angel twisted, pushing itself halfway to its feet, Unit 01 snarled and pulled it back down, its readout warning that the muscle groups of its back, from Splenius Capitis to its Obliques were all suffering structural damage. The deltoid of the arm digging into the Angel’s back tore, the entire arm falling limp.

Unit 01 made up for this by throwing its head forward and sinking its teeth into the Angel’s back. More muscles tore as the contest continued.

[Do it Rei!] Shinji shouted into the comms.

Rei screamed, her AT field collapsed from a large sheet that was pushing against the Angel’s like locked shields, into two pinpricks that surrounded the points of the prog knives. Making an incision just big enough for the blades to slip through and slam into the Angel’s cores with the full weight of Evangelion Unit 00 behind them.

The cores shattered as Evangelion Unit 00’s arms sank into its body up to the elbow, a cascade of blood geysering out of the wounds.

“Zero!” Makoto shouted. Unit 01 ran out of power and shut down as a large green cross shot into the air and split the sky.

Shinji’s agonized scream cut through any feeling of victory before it could properly form.

“What’s happening to Shinji!?” Misato demanded.

“Heartbeat elevated! His neurological activity is…I don’t know what this is!” Maya shouted.

“Rei! Rei eject Unit 01’s plug! Get him out of there!” Misato shouted into the comms unit, only to see that Rei was already cutting the plug out of Eva Unit 01, the plates that would normally have moved so the plug could be extruded having bent out of shape during the battle.

[Shinji!] Rei called out, sounding more distressed than when she’d broken 30% of the bones in her body. [Shinji can you hear me!? Shinji!]

Her only answer was a gulped breath, followed by more screaming.

“Prepare the paramedics and emergency technicians!” Misato ordered. “Tell them to prep everything! Our highest priority is the stabilization of Pilot 01!”

As the support staff followed her orders and made the necessary calls, Misato’s station informed her she was being connected to someone that wanted to speak with her.

Director Ikari’s face appeared on the screen in front of Misato. Muscle memory alone made her stand at attention and begin her report, shouting to be heard over Shinji’s agony. “Sir! The Angel is defeated! Moderate damage to Unit 01, Unit 02 is indisposed but we’ll not know the damage it suffered. Unit 00 suffered light damage!”

[Good.] Director Ikari said, not once mentioning Shinji’s obvious and very vocal distress. [All involved agencies are singing the praises of NERV. You have done well, Major Katsuragi. More will be expected of you in the future.]

With that, the Director cut off the call.

Misato stood there in stunned silence, a small part of her noting that she was a Captain, and the Director had called her Major.

The rest of her was incensed that Ikari Gendo had not deigned to inquire as to his son’s wellbeing.