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Displaying posts with tag FuckGendoInParticular.Reset Filter
Santo's Workshop

Patreon/Subscribestar exclusive Epilogue.

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Kaiju Slaying For Death And Profit Epilogue

Apologies for the late post again. Didn't get a chance to really edit the thing until I got home, and even then until night.
Blegh.
So! The final bit of Kaiju Slaying. It...It has been a hell of a ride. Hope y'all enjoyed this ride with me.
Look forward to the new stories which will be dropping over the next few weeks! ^_^
Also, yeah, I went there. And I ain't sorry. Lol. I chose the tags very deliberately.
Now have yourselves a chonky boi of an Epilogue.
=][=
Gendo sat in his acrylic prison. He had everything he technically needed to exist. Food and water were provided at regular intervals. He was given some amount of entertainment. His wardens didn’t even torment him using the lights or sound system.
In all honesty, a far better treatment than he had expected.
He tightened the gauze and bandages on his right palm. The wound there still refused to scab, months after his failed bid at godhood.
At reuniting with his wife.
He scowled as he stared at his palm where the Adam Embryo had been torn out. The wound ached constantly, but it served as naught more than a reminder of his colossal failure.
Having had months to ruminate on it, he had been able to parse the slight tells that Rei had shown which would have indicated he’d need to discard her and go with one of his backup plans. Something the girl herself had clearly suspected, thus working to obfuscate her change in allegiance.
Not, not working. Succeeding.
And yet, they didn’t kill him. Not only that, but they were very careful with the accoutrements he was allowed. If he were inclined to take his own life, he would certainly have a hard time of it.
The metal door beyond the acrylic wall of his prison opened, and he held in a sigh, wondering who it would be this time. Perhaps Shinji would deign to visit him a second time, go on another rant about his many sins? One of his former staff perhaps, there to scream at him for his supposed betrayal?
A woman stepped through the door, and when he recognized her, his brain stopped working. Even so, his body moved without his mind’s instruction, his palms striking the blasted acrylic wall separating him from his wife.
“Yui!” His voice hoarse with the desperation of a man in a desert staring at a glass of water. “Yui!”
She smiled, it was the smile he remembered, that had haunted his every waking moment for over a decade. But even so, seeing it in person was so much better, so much more than merely remembering it. He drank in her features, her skin, the way her eyes crinkled. She was just as gorgeous as the day he’d lost her.
“Hello, Gendo.” She said fondly. “I finally got permission to come see you.”
“Yui!” Gendo gasped, pushing his face against the acrylic, uncaring of the tears that fell down his cheeks. “Oh Yui!”
She stepped forward and pressed her hands against the centimeters thick acrylic, on the other side of where he pressed his hands. He liked to imagine that he could feel the warmth of her palms on his own. There was a long silence as the two luxuriated in the other’s presence, a silence she broke. “Gendo. I don’t have much time.”
“Yui, Yui my love!” He said, his voice breaking, shoulders shaking as he breathed in deep, heaving sobs.
“You made a lot of people very angry, Gendo.” She said, smiling sadly, her hand going up and caressing a choker around her neck, something she’d never worn before. “Like I said, it took a lot of persuasion for me to be allowed to see you.”
Gendo gasped, trying to find words.
Yui shook her head with a rueful chuckle. “I had so many things to say, Gendo, and now I can’t remember any of them. I’m so angry at you, but I don’t know the next time I’ll be allowed to see you, so I don’t want this moment to be an angry one.”
Gendo’s heart sank. “Yui?”
She stared into his eyes, her compassion, one of the things he loved most about her, evident in her gaze. She opened her mouth.
“Madam.” Said a woman wearing power armor styled to look like some French maid of all things.
Yui closed her eyes. “So soon? Could I not get a bit more time?”
“You are already over the allotted time, madam.” The maid said with a slight bow.
Yui sighed. “Gendo, I don’t know when I’ll be allowed back. But we might get more chances to meet if you…maintain good behavior. I’ll…”
The maid took Yui by the upper arm and began pulling her away.
“Yui!” Gendo screamed, pounding against the acrylic wall as his wife was taken away. “Yui! Yui! YUI DON’T LEAVE ME AGAIN!”
But heedless of his screams, his wife was marched out, and the door to his prison closed with an impersonal hiss.
It was a long time before he stopped screaming.
=][=
Ikari Yui followed Shinji’s head maid without protest. She was somewhat irritated at having been interrupted, but in the time she had known her Virgo had been nothing if not dutiful. That she’d neglected her duties enough to give Yui more than the time Shinji had allotted for her reunion with her former husband was already an immense favor.
She stopped and looked back to the door to the hermetically sealed room. She thought that she’d understood Gendo, and that Gendo had understood her. But what he’d turned Gehirn’s mission into, and his neglect of their son while he pursued the antithesis of Yui’s dream…That was more than evidence enough that they had not understood each other nearly as well as she’d thought.
“It would probably have been kinder to kill him.” Yui murmured.
“Perhaps so.” Virgo said, waiting patiently behind Yui. “But that was not the Young Master’s decree.”
“‘He will reap the summation of all his sins.’ Was it?” Yui recited, remembering Shinji’s tone when he’d made that declaration causing her skin to break out into goose flesh.
“Just so. Now, Madam, we have tarried long enough.” Virgo said and took Yui’s upper arm in her hand, signaling that her time with her former husband was well and truly over. The grip of Shinji’s head maid was gentle but strong as iron, and she was led to the completely nondescript car that had brought her to the equally nondescript building where her former husband was kept, alongside a few other individuals and relics that were deemed too dangerous or immoral to be allowed to remain among the populace.
Yui’s father had attempted to be locked in there, searching for asylum. But he’d been turned away at gunpoint and forced back onto the streets so people could continue to pelt him with stones or rotten food. By her understanding he was one of the lucky ones. The Americans had dropped the SEELE member they apprehended into a vat of acid. He was only allowed out of it while they decided what else to dunk him into that would be uncomfortable to breathe while they found a way to make a stronger acid.
Thanks to Revelation and the brand that Rei had given them all, it was decided that no member of SEELE counted as under the protection of the United States Constitution, nor its amendments.
More who would find death a kindness. Yui was forced to take solace on the fact that, unlike the members of SEELE, Gendo’s torment would eventually, thankfully, be allowed to end.
With a sigh, Yui picked up the datapad she’d left in the car and began thumbing through the reports she’d been tasked with for the day.
Much to her chagrin, Shinji was disinclined from allowing her to get back to her old research. Citing that he did not trust her not to turn herself into a giant cyborg monster again. Which…well…could anyone truly blame her? Being a giant cyborg was awesome!
Still…she read through the reports and distilled a summary for Shinji to read through quickly; he had been very busy in the months after Revelation.
Her chest swelled with pride when she thought back to Shinji’s achievements. Not the least of which was preventing a global nuclear war the moment the threat of the Angels and SEELE’s control were both gone. Then again, when one person could turn the entire world’s nuclear and N2 stockpile into confetti, yet retained the ability to turn an entire enemy military into statues of salt…
Shame about all the suicides though. Nothing they could have done to prevent those either. A great many people had not taken to the Revelation all too well.
The passage through the rebuilt Tokyo-3 was swift. A great many people had chosen not to stay in the city after Revelation. Then again, Yui could say from experience that being reconstructed into a coherent whole after having spent some time as individual molecules was somewhat traumatic, so she understood. But still, the city was rather lonely with less than a third of the population it used to have.
How traffic still managed to be abysmal at times, Yui did not know. Maybe it was just one of the rules of reality.
The car was driven into the parking garage that sat below the privately owned and gated building Shinji had had constructed for himself, his women, and his staff. A necessity, as it was fair to say they’d not get any privacy otherwise.
It came with the territory of having become the de facto king of the world.
Sure, other world leaders still existed. Shinji had not gone out of his way to fully conquer every city-state on the planet yet. But again, when your entire arsenal stockpile could turn into confetti overnight and if you were too disagreeable during negotiations you may well end up turning into salt, and the only thing stopping the one making reasonable demands was how annoyed you’d made him…
The car was parked, and Virgo opened the door for Yui and helped her out of the vehicle, escorting her to the heavily reinforced gate that led into Shinji’s living space.
Yui was very proud of Shinji, for he had the wisdom to delegate a lot of what he was doing, while still insisting that ultimate responsibility lay with him. A lesser man, and yes, he was definitely a man despite his age, would have overused the power at his fingertips without care, would have let loose the dogs of war, whipping those with lesser wills into a crusade for conquest and maybe bother counting the dead after. But Shinji was doing things the hard way, navigating diplomacy and politics while making certain that people who were starving got fed.
All while still greasing the gears of bureaucracy with blood whenever it proved necessary. But, so far, only when it proved necessary.
She huffed in amusement. NERV, the world’s most highly educated political superpower.
The door was opened before Yui arrived, a younger, paler version of her own face greeting her with a bow and an adorable maid outfit. “Madam.”
“Rei.” Yui said with a smile, stepping through with a nod of thanks.
Another maid stepped forward and took her bag and coat.
“Thank you, Rei.” Yui said.
“Madam.” The clone maid said.
Because of course they had all chosen the name Rei.
It didn’t help that Rei also liked to dress up as a maid and play at being part of the help. So they never could tell when they were dealing with a clone who had managed to spark their own personality, or with a literal God who liked to cosplay.
Well, Yui was fairly certain that Shinji could tell somehow, but he hadn’t shared the secret yet.
Yui’s life had become truly bizarre, but at least she wasn’t unhappy.
She nodded to the first Rei as the maid led Yui deeper into the complex, the building at once defensible and ‘homey’, brightly lit and painted in various pastel shades, with furniture that was very comfy and would stop rifle rounds. She greeted other Reis as they went about their duties quietly and with nearly supernatural synchronicity.
Yui held in a sigh. Seriously, Gendo, she could understand his desire to remake her, but over twenty clones? Show some restraint!
At least Shinji had found a way to help the girls become more than empty meat puppets.
On her way to the office, she ran into little Asuka, she was wearing a T-shirt and red bloomers, showing that the girl had great taste if nothing else. The redhead had nothing to be ashamed of, her body tight and sporty and her skin glistening with a sheen of sweat was quite enticing. The obvious baby bump she was sporting only made the girl more attractive in Yui’s eyes, not less.
She was attended by a Rei, who both oversaw the girl’s workout as well as handing her water or a towel as needed.
Yui would usually be more than happy to stop and chat, but Asuka looked to be trying to concentrate on her workout, so Yui made a note to find the girl later for some proper girl-talk and didn’t stop to say hi.
They arrived at Shinji’s office, the room large and with three sit-stand desks, a type of desk that Shinji had designed because he ‘got tired of spending so damn long sitting.’ He was currently sitting, his eyes closed, head leaning back while listening to someone whine over the phone. A Rei’s head bobbing between his legs.
Yui smiled and nodded at Maya, who had a Rei clumsily feeding her grapes and small cubes of cheese. Maya smiled and nodded back her own greeting while Yui made her way to her own desk opposite Maya’s, the Rei that had followed her settling into place behind her, ready to offer help in whichever way Yui required.
Shinji opened his eyes and turned to look at Maya. “Maya, please take over talking to this idiot before I have a stroke.”
“Of course, Mister Shinji.” Maya said with a chuckle, standing up but not making it more than two steps before her Rei stepped around her, took the cellphone from Shinji, and brought it to her. Maya smiled to her Rei in thanks, her own baby bump becoming obvious as she walked to an adjoining room to finish the conversation.
“Yui, what do you have for me?” Shinji asked, one hand dropping to the head of the Rei servicing him, he shuddered as he came, the girl kneeling at his feet swallowing eagerly.
“The reports we received mostly match the timetable we’d drawn up.” Yui said, before going down her bullet points while his Rei eagerly licked his member clean, before carefully tucking him away, the visual making Yui’s body react, she couldn’t stop herself from rubbing her thighs together, becoming painfully aware of the state of her underwear.
The months she had spent with her Shinji had certainly been…educational.
Yui mourned the time lost, frankly she was thankful that she could have anything resembling a relationship with him at all. Plenty of others would not be so lucky after a twelve-year separation and the abuse and abandonment heaped upon him by his own father. It certainly helped that Yui had not aged a day after she’d become Unit 01’s core, making Yui, physically at least, barely older than Maya.
Shinji grunted after she finished her report. “Good, about what we expected.”
“Certainly not what we hoped for.” Yui said, causing him to snort derisively.
“To get what we hoped for we’d have needed divine intervention.” Shinji said, absently accepting a glass of water from the Rei that was attending to him. “And I won’t have it; we have the time to do it right.”
Yui accepted the freshly brewed cup of tea that her own Rei handed her.
“So, how much extra time did Virgo gave you?” Shinji asked suddenly, making Yui’s hand twitch and almost spill some of the perfectly brewed tea.
She sighed but didn’t bother lying. Shinji didn’t like it when she lied to him. And unlike Virgo, Yui wasn’t a glutton for punishment. “Only a couple of minutes.”
“Then she’s probably in the mood for the horse whip.” Shinji grunted as he stood up and made his way over to Yui, she rubbed her thighs together in anticipation despite herself. “Now get up, you stink of that man and I will rectify that immediately.”
“We didn’t even get to breathe the same air.” Yui protested as she got up, laying her palms against the surface of the desk and leaning forward into it. It was a good thing they were bolted to the floor.
“Doesn’t matter, his stink still clings to you.” Shinji said as he stepped behind her and roughly lifted her skirt and shoved aside her lingerie. His finger finding her snatch wet, pliant, and eager. He all but growled into her ear as he pushed her down onto her desk. “Someone was looking forward to this.”
Yui didn’t answer, then gasped as Shinji sheathed his cock inside her in one firm thrust, leaving her uncomfortably full in the best way possible. His body leaned over hers, his arm closing around her neck and applying just enough pressure to impress upon her who was in charge as he ground against her deepest point, making her squirm.
“You are such a slut.” Shinji growled happily as he began to fuck her with short, shallow thrusts that rubbed the head of his dick against her deepest weak spot, making her protest turn into an incoherent moan as her legs turned to jelly. “But that doesn’t matter, so long as you remember you are my slut.”
“I-I’m n-not a sluuuuuuut!” Yui’s protest died again as Rei, whichever of the maids that had been with them, had crawled under the desk and began licking Yui’s clit. The little horny traitor working in tandem with Shinji to bring Yui to a quick orgasm. Resulting in Shinji pushing her head to her desk and switching to long, fast strokes that slapped wetly against her while she was coming, turning her moans into screams.
She absently noted that Maya was still on the other room, enjoying the show while tenderly hugging her own Rei from behind, resting her chin on top of the girl’s head.
As she was brought to a second orgasm, then a third, Yui figured that her relationship with her Shinji was certainly unorthodox, but as he groaned and speared her deepest point before spilling his seed into her. Yui decided she didn’t much mind. Between him and his father, Shinji was by far the better man.
She couldn’t wait until she had her own baby bump.
As one of the maids swiftly and happily brought Shinji back to full mast so he could take Yui for a second round, she doubted it would take all that long.
=][=
I hummed as M’Shen’s liquid sex voice finished her report over the phone.
“Very well. You’ve convinced me.” I said to the assassin. “Feel free to replace him, once you have a list of the people who are deserving of it, I’ll ensure they are dealt with. We’ll see about installing a leader we can trust and you can fake death by natural causes.”
[Isn’t that what we’ve been doing my Lord?] She asked.
I grunted. “It keeps working.”
[Indeed.] She said. [But there are bound to be those who have recognized the pattern.]
“Maybe so, but we’ll deal with that when it stops working.” I said, swirling my glass of scotch and taking a deep sip, enjoying the burn before I continued. “Either way, the right policies will be implemented, and if people are afraid enough that by displeasing me they’ll be replaced with someone who will seamlessly step into their lives, all the better. In two or three generations we should have the population indoctrinated enough that it won’t be a problem.”
[As you say, my Lord.] M’Shen said and cut communications.
I sighed, quaffed the rest of the twelve-hundred-yen scotch, and stared out the window. It wasn’t a real window, the walls of my compound were adamantium reinforced steelcrete, the ‘windows’ were screens tied to surreptitious cameras outside, giving me the benefit of windows without the security risk or the hit to my privacy that giant windows provided.
That I was uncomfortable with being the object of worship by a significant chunk of the population did not mean I wasn’t going to make full use of it. And I wasn’t certain how well said worship would hold up if the general public got to see me regularly bang the help and my girls on my office desk while reading reports and signing forms.
Though knowing my luck, that might actually make some of these idiots worship me even harder, because fuck me, I guess.
The glass in my hand was refilled by the Rei next to me. Rei the Goddess had gotten significantly better at hiding Her tells, so I could only tell some of the time when She was the one who serviced me.
“Thank you, Rei.” I said, leaning down and giving the maid a kiss on the forehead, making her face turn a fetching pink.
Things were proceeding at pace, sure, I was brute forcing some changes. I could go even faster if I were willing to be more overtly violent and bring the whole planet into compliance in months instead of years as the current timeline indicated. But so long as my Company Patron didn’t make an issue of it, I had time. As Rei had ensured that Asuka, Maya, Yui and I stopped aging.
Something which had distressed Asuka as she wanted to ‘reach her full bombshell potential’, Whereas Rei liked her just the way she was. I was letting that play out how it will, though I’d step in if I felt it necessary.
My HUD dinged, I opened the email Yui sent me and scowled at the contents.
Not only was she asking to see Gendo again, she wondered if she could make it a conjugal visit. Seriously, the woman may be objectively brilliant, but she was more than a few fries short of a happy meal. Ain’t no one but me and my girls gonna get to fuck any version of Rei from this reality.
That was the main reason I’d moved Fuyutsuki to the American branch of NERV, that man was simping hard for Yui, and the woman was just fucked in the head enough that I worried that the moment she realized this she might grant him a pity fuck.
I’d also set up an AI to monitor Gendo and inform me when there was a high likelihood he would commit suicide, thus granting leave for Yui to see him again for a short period.
Petty and cruel? Absolutely, but fuck that guy in particular.
Answering Yui’s email in the negative and making a note to give the woman some ‘correction’ I raised the glass with the intent to take a long sip, following a bird as it flew toward a nest it was building on my roof. Where it froze.
I blinked. I let go of the glass, it remained frozen in the air as I whirled around, my shotgun settling into my grip and pointing at the figure that hadn’t been there before. It was tall and thin, two meters at least, dressed in a black robe that cast its face in shadow but for the slightest hint of a jawbone in the depths of its hood. On its skeletal hand it held a small one-handed sickle that glinted dangerously.
ALEXANDER. IT HAS BEEN TOO LONG.
I blinked. “That’s not my name.”
AH YES, THIS YOU GOES BY…‘SHINJI’ WAS IT? MY APOLOGIES.
The Rei next to me stepped resolutely between myself and the hooded figure, Her hands balling into fists. Oh Her, that was my first Rei. Dammit, She really was getting too good at hiding that.
FRET NOT, LITTLE GODLING. I WOULD NEVER ATTEMPT TO TAKE YOUR MAN FROM YOU.
Rei stood still for a long time, before nodding and stepping out of the way. The figure strode forward and joined me by the ‘window’ and pointed at the scotch glass.
DO YOU MIND?
“Uhh…help yourself.” I said awkwardly, absently sending my shotgun back to its inventory.
Death took the glass and brought it up to its hood, tilted it back for a small sip, then exhaled with immense satisfaction.
THANK YOU, IT HAS BEEN TOO LONG SINCE I WAS ABLE TO INDULGE.
“So…I take it you’re my…boss? Handler?” I asked awkwardly.
INDEED. YOU MAY CALL ME DEATHALIO. BIG DADDY D. DEE DEE. THE GREAT GENERALISIMO DEATHIO. OR JUST DEATH.
It leaned toward me, almost conspiratorially.
BETWEEN YOU AND ME, I HAVE A CERTAIN FONDNESS FOR DEE DEE.
As one iteration of fuckmothering Death straightened and sipped my cheap scotch, I mentally recalibrated. “So uhh…here to tell me what a poor job I did?”
WHATEVER GAVE YOU THAT IDEA?
I grunted. “The mass suicides? The millions that died to instability? The dozens I’ve had killed as I begin the process of taking over the world? The damned religion that’s springing up worshipping me for some godforsaken reason? Feel free to stop me at any time.”
OH, DO GO ON.
I grit my teeth and failed to choke back my anger. “How about the fact that I’m a selfish slaving asshole? A vindictive bastard? A petty fucking tyrant!?”
AH YES. THIS IS WHY YOU GAVE YOURSELF MULTIPLE STROKES AS YOU FOUGHT FOR THE SURVIVAL OF THIS MANKIND. THIS IS WHY, WHEN A MORTAL ENEMY ASKED YOU NOT TO ENSLAVE HIS SOUL, YOU FOREWENT AN OPPORTUNITY AT SIGNIFICANT PROFIT AND AQUIESCED TO HIS REQUEST.
YOU ARE SO SELFISH THAT YOU TOOK IN A TORTURED CHILD, AND NURTURED HER TO THE POINT THAT SHE DISOBEYED YOUR DIRECT ORDERS BECAUSE SHE FIRMLY BELIEVED THAT SHE WAS IN THE RIGHT, AND YOU WERE IN THE WRONG. AND EVEN NOW, WHEN YOU HAVE SUPREME POWER OVER HER, YOU REFUSE TO PUNISH HER FOR HER ACTIONS AND CHOICES, BECAUSE TO DO SO WITHOUT PROPER CAUSE WOULD BE NEEDLESSLY CRUEL, EVEN IF YOU ARE UNHAPPY WITH HER CHOSEN COURSE OF ACTION.
It took another sip from the glass.
TRULY, THE ABSOLUTE HEIGHT OF TYRANNY.
I took a deep breath, counted to four, and let it out slowly. “Okay, if not that, then why are you here?”
TO CONGRATULATE YOU ON THE COMPLETION OF YOUR MISSION, OF COURSE. BOTH THE ONE STATED BY THE COMPANY, AND THE ACTUAL REASON I SENT YOU HERE.
I scoffed. “Really? After the fucking mess I made of it?”
DO YOU KNOW HOW RARE IMAGINATION IS, IN THE COSMOS?
I blinked at the non sequitur. “What?”
THERE ARE MANY WONDERS AND HORRORS OUT THERE, IN THE GREAT NOTHING BETWEEN STARS.
It took another sip.
THANKS TO THE TORMENT YOU PUT YOURSELF THROUGH IN YOUR TIME WITH THE COMPANY, YOU BORE WITNESS TO THE SMALLEST FRACTION OF THEM. YET THE TWO I PERSONALLY FIND THE MOST INTRIGUING, BOTH WERE CREATED HERE, IN THIS LITTLE BLUE MUDBALL.
It turned to regard me, and I caught the fleetest glimpse of a twinkle where the eyes would be, deep within that hood.
THOSE ARE BOREDOM, AND IMAGINATION.
I opened my mouth.
Closed it.
Opened it again.
Closed it again.
Opened it a third time.
“Uhhh.” I said intelligently. Then closed my mouth with a ‘click.’
DO YOU THINK A STAR THAT HAS BEGUN FUSING IRON HAS THE TIME TO BE BORED? DO YOU BELIEVE A PULSAR HAS THE LEFTOVER ENERGY FOR IMAGINATION?
“I uhh…Nnnnnooooo?” I asked.
INDEED. YET BOTH THESE THINGS ARE FOUND IN ABUNDANCE, HERE, ON A MOTE OF DUST, SUSPENDED ON A SUNBEAM, ORBITING A COMPLETELY MUDANE G-TYPE MAIN SEQUENCE YELLOW DWARF. TO THE POINT THAT, WHEN ASKED ABOUT IT, THE LOCALS FAIL TO GRASP THE SHEER IMMENSITY OF THESE TWO CONCEPTS.
It leaned toward me again.
NOW, UTILIZE THIS IMAGINATION TO WORK THROUGH THE FOLLOWING SCENARIO. YOU ARE A BEING WITH A PURPOSE, YOUR PURPOSE MAKES YOU MIGHTY INDEED.
IMAGINE A WORLD, A WORLD YOU HAVE WATCHED OVER FOR NIGH UNCOUNTABLE MILLENIA. YOU WERE THERE TO REAP THE SOUL OF THE FIRST MICROBE. YOU WATCHED AS THE FIRST AMOEBA WAS CONSUMED IN THE FIRST EVER ACT OF PREDATION.
YOU WITNESSED THE FIRST SAPIENT MURDER.
YOU WATCHED AS THIS PLUCKY, PARADOXICAL, NEARLY BIPOLAR CREATURE CLAWED ITS WAY OUT OF BARBARISM. AND YOU WATCHED AS HALF OF THEM DIED, AND THE HALF THAT REMAINED BUTCHERED EACH OTHER FOR WHAT SCRAPS REMAINED.
YOU OBSERVED AS THEY BEGAN THE ARDUOUS PROCESS OF CLAWING THEMSELVES BACK FROM BARBARISM IN RECORD TIME, TAKING BUT A FEW YEARS INSTEAD OF THE MILLIONS IT TOOK THEM THE FIRST TIME.
NOW IMAGINE THAT YOU KNEW, THE ENTIRE TIME, THAT THESE PLUCKY IRRATIONAL CREATURES WERE DOOMED. DOOMED TO AN UNENDING CYCLE OF DESTRUCTION AND CREATION. DOOMED TO PERPETUAL STAGNATION. CURSED TO BE FOREVER SEPARATED FROM THE CLEANSING AND REVITALIZING CYCLE OF BIRTH, LIFE, DEATH, AND REBIRTH.
LASTLY, IMAGINE THAT YOU CANNOT ACT DIRECTLY TO AID THEM, TO STOP THEM BEING LOCKED IN THIS TERRIBLE CYCLE. YET, YOU HEAR FROM A DISTANT FRIEND WHO IS BOTH YOURSELF AND A COWORKER, ABOUT THIS WONDERFUL CONCEPT THAT THEY WERE ABLE TO TRY OUT. THAT OF THE ‘HIRED HELP.’
I blinked at Death.
Twice.
“Was that all to tell me that you hired me specifically because you knew how I would fuck this up but succeed on your desired parameters?” I asked.
Death scoffed.
IF YOU MUST BE SO REDUCTIVE. YES.
“Then why didn’t you just say that!?” I asked, rubbing my temples.
HAVE YOU ANY IDEA WHEN THE LAST TIME I GOT TO HAVE AN ACTUAL CONVERSATION WAS? THE LEAST YOU COULD DO IS ALLOW ME TO INDULGE IN A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF THEATRICALITY.
“Okay but.” I waved at the lack of motion outside. “This can’t be easy or, cheap, aren’t you like, super busy?”
WHY YES I AM, BUT THIS? THIS IS BUT AN INSTANT. AND ONCE YOU KNOW HOW TO PLAY AROUND WITH TIME, INSTANTS CAN STRETCH FOR A VERY LONG TIME INDEED.
It took another sip of the scotch and groaned in delight.
MY, THIS IS TRULY HORRIFIC. DON’T YOU HAVE MORE MONEY THAN GOD? ONE WOULD THINK THE LEAST YOU CAN DO IS AFFORD GOOD SWILL.
“So I have cheap tastes! Bite me!” I snarled.
I WOULD RATHER NOT, YOU DO NOT LOOK VERY TENDER. I SUSPECT YOU’D HAVE A TERRIBLE MOUTH FEEL.
“Texture!” I snarled. “It’s texture you Florida-level weaboo dipshit!”
THE TENDERNESS OF YOUR MEAT ASIDE. I CAME TO CONGRATULATE YOU ON A JOB WELL DONE. WORRY NOT ABOUT THE COMPANY DEMANDING YOU MOVE ELSEWHERE AND GIVE THEM MORE CHATTEL FOR THEIR PITS. YOU ARE NOT UNDER THEIR JURISDICTION.
I sucked in a breath. “But…But you would have had to give up a lot to get me away from the Company. Why…why aren’t you in a hurry for me to get on with it? I’ll be delayed for years at least while I set this world in order.”
DEATH IS PATIENT, MY FRIEND. THE FIRST ARCOLOGIES WON’T GO UP FOR A FEW CENTURIES YET, BUT THEY WILL GO UP. PERSONALLY, I MOST LOOK FORWARD TO THE SPACE ELEVATOR, IT’LL MAKE FOR QUITE THE SIGHT. EVENTUALLY, THESE HUMANS WILL EXPAND INTO THE VOID AND INFECT THE COSMOS WITH THEIR HUMANITY, MAKING IT A VERY INTERESTING PLACE INDEED. AND YOU?
It quaffed the rest of the drink in one gulp and held the glass out to me. I absently reached out and took it.
YOU HAVE ALREADY GONE OUT INTO THE MULTIVERSE, YOU HAVE SAVED OTHER UNIVERSES FROM DESTRUCTION, UPLIFTED THEIR POPULATIONS, AND JUSTIFIED MY INVESTMENT TENFOLD. YOU JUST HAVEN’T GOTTEN TO THAT POINT IN YOUR TIMELINE YET. NOW, IF YOU’LL EXCUSE ME, I THINK I HAVE TARRIED IN THIS INSTANT LONG ENOUGH.
It turned around and began walking to the corner where It had first appeared.
“Why do you care so much about humans here getting to live a life? To the point of working with the Company of all things?” I asked to Its back. “You are…well, you are Death.”
It turned to regard me, the closest thing to features I could make out within its hood being a small twinkle where eyes would be.
WHAT CAN THE HARVEST HOPE FOR MY FRIEND. IF NOT FOR THE CARE OF THE REAPER MAN?
And It was gone.
Looking over my shoulder, I didn’t see the bird frozen in the air anymore. Looking down, I could see traffic moving, slowly as ever.
I looked down at the empty glass in my hand, and set it down on my desk.
I took a deep, lung stretching breath.
“I am not getting any more work done today.” I said, and swept Rei into a princess carry on the way to my room.
Continuing to unite the world could wait until tomorrow. Today?
Today I would allow myself to fully relax for fucking once. Because maybe, just maybe, Death may have had a point.
Maybe I didn’t do too bad a job of it.
Wait, what had It said about a space elevator?
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Santo's Workshop
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Kaiju Slaying For Death And Profit Ch 48

Good evening, sorry for the late post.
I was trying super hard to finish both this chapter and the epilogue. And while the epilogue is like, 90% done, my brain is fried. I won't be able to do an editing pass and I absolutely positively don't wanna mess that up.
So please, have this chapter. I'll finish up and post the epilogue hopefully tomorrow, certainly before the next weekend.
Here is chapter, hope you enjoy.
=][=
For a God to learn to interact with mortal, a being so much lesser than itself, was a painful process.
On the count of the mortal, because a God’s mere attention was enough to burn their soul like kindling. Many is the God that passively plays its part in the great Cycles of Reincarnation, scouring souls clean with their gaze alone so they may begin their next journey as a blank slate.
On the count of the God, because unless a mortal had achieved a feat as unwise as it was monumental and managed to earn a God’s ire, then the reason It wished to bestow upon a mortal Its attention was benign. And thus solely by trying to interact with a lesser being, It brought to it harm.
But it is easier to list the things a God cannot do. And the God that had once been Ayamami Rei still retained many of the trappings of mortality.
Most important among them for this particular endeavor, was that she had always been a fast learner.
Even what few mistakes She had committed as She acclimatized would have irretrievably damaged the mind and soul of most mortals.
It was a good thing then, that Her beloved was not most mortals. And while Her study had not been kind to him, he was already recovering from an ordeal most others would not have survived.
Now that She knew She would not bring harm upon Her other beloved She could go to them and stop that which brought them distress, She cradled both the bodies of Her Shinji, for it was now Her turn to protect him the way he had protected that which She used to be, never again would She allow her Shinji to know hardship or harm.
With Her Shinji safely in Her embrace, She turned Her gaze up; the dirt and stone and concrete and metal all being no impediment to Her gaze, and She rose, the ground above Her parting for Her and joining behind Her just as air would. After all, they were the same, and while such seemed so incredibly obvious now, She had simply been too small to see it before.
She partitioned a small part of Her mind purely to indulge in the whimsy of these revelations, the majority of Herself far too preoccupied with reaching the rest of Her beloved, to give them that which they had provided to she whom She used to be.
=][=
“Unknown high energy object is ascending from the Terminal Dogma!” Shigeru said with tightly restrained worry in his voice.
“It’s the same AT field we measured before!” Kaede called out from Makoto’s station. “Pattern Red! But it’s magnitudes more powerful!”
“Looks like I get to say I told you so.” Katsuragi laughed, then coughed wetly. “Yay me.”
Maya looked up from her console as people in the Control Room screamed and scrambled out of the center. She watched as a painfully familiar stark white head of hair, larger than the MAGI casings phased through the floor with a ragged inhale as the Control Room’s smell changed to a painfully familiar scent. The huge creature continued ascending, revealing Rei’s beautiful features, her elegant neck, her pert breasts and flat belly. All the same stark white color as the girl’s hair.
She was clutching Unit 01 to her chest as if it were a child, the limp Evangelion moving through the reinforced concrete as if it were water.
Her bright ruby red eyes settled on Maya, her face breaking out into that small, reserved smile that Maya so loved, the one the taciturn girl saved just for Mister Shinji, and her, and sometimes Asuka. She felt an irrational bout of jealousy as everyone in the Control Room got to witness what should by rights belong only to Mister Shinji and his women.
“R-Rei?” Maya asked, taking in her full form. “Rei what are you doing!? Put some clothes on!”
The giant Rei blinked as everyone in the Control Room looked at Maya like she’d lost her mind. Maya herself couldn’t be certain she hadn’t. But that everyone had seen Rei’s smile was bad enough!
“You aren’t meant to show your bare body except to those you are in a relationship with!” Maya exclaimed shrilly. “So put some clothes on!”
Where they would find clothes for a girl that was at least twice the size of an Evangelion Maya did not know, but at the moment it was the only part of the situation that her mind could actually parse. Whatever had caused this…transformation would have to be dealt with later.
After Maya had some time to go to another room, cry her eyes out, and hyperventilate in peace. But at the moment, she felt like Rei needed her, so she would be strong for the girl.
Creature.
Being.
Rei blinked and looked down at herself, seemingly for the first time realizing she was naked. Maya swallowed the hysteric laugh that wanted to tear out of her throat, because that would not help anything right now.
Rei looked up from the sundress she’d been wearing when she emerged, tilting her head at Maya as if seeking approval, but for the life of her Maya could not understand why. It’s not like Rei had a lot of options for clothing what with now being a giant.
“Okay, okay Rei?” Maya said, stepping forward and holding her arms out, her colleagues all backing away from her. “I…”
What could she possibly say? What could she possibly ask? Was there even an explanation for how a human girl was reading as having the strongest AT field ever measured? Or was now a giant for that matter?
Rei smiled and reached out with the hand not holding Unit 01 to her chest.
“Maya! Be careful!” Aoba said, reaching his hand out to her, but his hand splayed against a red AT field that sprang up and separated him from her.
Maya wasn’t worried, Rei would never hurt her. She turned back to reassure her colleague. “It’s allrig—”
Rei’s white hand passed through Maya, making her feel as if her whole body had been caressed all at once. From the soles of her feet to the top of her head, a feeling that wasn’t entirely alien, she had caressed and been caressed by Rei before. They’d gone much farther with each other in fact. The list of things that Maya and Rei had done to each other and Mister Shinji included but was far from limited to licks, bites, pinches, and Mister Shinji particularly enjoyed spanking them.
No, that part was honestly rather lovely.
The fact that it felt like a full body caress was the issue. Maya had never felt the inside of her skin touched before, for that matter neither had anyone stroked her internal organs, her heart and lungs, muscle fibers and bones, or her bone marrow. The brain had no nerve connections, so it was impossible to feel it when it was touched, yet she certainly felt Rei gently touch every cubic millimeter of her brain as her hand passed through Maya.
As intimate as she was with the girl, this was not a sensory experience she’d want a repetition of.
The caress brought with it something else. An understanding of Rei’s emotions. Her Surety, Her Purity of Purpose, Her Elevated Existence. Rei was More now, a Being as far above Maya as Maya was from a microbe. Maya knew this instinctively, just like she instinctively knew that God was indeed real, and She loved Maya specifically.
Through Her touch, Rei who was God also learned everything that had been happening in Her absence, and Maya could feel…annoyance and sadness enter her emotions. Not at the dozens of people who had lost their lives in the Control Room or during the defense of NERV, but sadness at Maya’s sadness.
So She rectified it. It took no effort. She didn’t even wave her hand.
One moment dozens of Maya’s colleagues were dead, hundreds of them were wounded. The next Major Katsuragi gasped and breathed easy for the first time since she was shot. Kodama, Pilot 04’s older sister, groggily sat up and asked what time it was. Everyone who was wounded clutched at unmarred skin, those that had been dead blinked awake, their grievous injuries vanished as if they’d never been.
No, not everyone, a quarter of those who had died remained dead, among them the janitor that Maya had seen begin the firefight.
Rei scowled, and a quarter of Maya’s colleagues who had simply hid during the fighting turned into statues of salt.
Rei’s scowl found Ritsuko, the one person in the whole Command Room who had not been healed. The woman trembled, her mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water as her wide, terrified eyes filled with tears.
Maya took a deep breath, and stepped between Ritsuko and Rei, the girl/God’s face twitching in that muted way that only happened when She was greatly annoyed at something.
“Rei, no.” Maya said, extending her arms at the girl. “I don’t understand. I cannot, and if you really want to…to take revenge, I will not deny you. But you have to be better than her, Rei. You are better than her. Please, Rei.”
Rei’s features softened, Her huge hand reaching out to Maya, She extended a finger and gently placed it against Maya’s palm. Her frustration, and pain, and annoyance and anger boiling over from Her into Maya. But so did Her love, and Her childlike eagerness to please Maya and be praised by her.
Maya took a deep breath and released it with a shudder.  “Rei...Asuka needs you, Rei. She’s fighting, she and Hikari have been fighting, and they can’t win. Please Rei, go help them.”
The God that was Rei nodded and began to ascend, still clutching Unit 01 to Herself. As She rose, Maya saw that in a very Rei moment, the God had forgotten to put on her underwear again.
This girl would be the death of her.
As the white tips of her toes vanished into the ceiling, Maya brought her gaze down to the people around her. To Virgo who bowed more deeply to Maya than before. To Katsuragi who looked like she’d seen a ghost. To her colleagues, some of whom like Kaede, looked at her with an intensity that made her very uncomfortable.
She stood there, knowing that everyone there expected something from her, and followed the only logical course left to her.
She took a deep breath and promptly passed out.
=][=
“Und diesmal bleib tot, du wertloser Sack Scheiße!” Asuka screamed, crushing the enemy Evangelion’s head until its cranium gave way with a crunch, a cascade of blood and brain matter spilling around her Eva’s fingers.
She rolled, the blade of one of those weird swords crashing down onto the Eva she’d just finished killing for the…she had no idea. She stopped counting after twelve.
Without pausing to think, she pushed Unit 02 into a forward tackle, sweeping the enemy Eva off its feet, climbing to her feet on top of it, and stomping down on the head, crumpling the Eva’s mask and crushing the damn thing.
She saw Unit 04 struggling to stay upright as three Evas dogpiled it, she made to rush to her aid, but Unit 02 stumbled and fell. She looked back, seeing that she hadn’t actually killed the last Eva, merely blinded it, and it had taken hold of Unit 02’s ankle.
“Arschloch!” She screamed, kicking at it with her Eva’s other foot, trying to make it let go as the enemy Evas all rushed at her, prone and immobile for the first time since the battle started. She eventually succeeded, and jumped to her Evangelion’s feet, but was tackled before she could take more than a single step, she twirled aside, flipping the white machine over Unit 02’s shoulder and slamming it headfirst against the ground, the Eva’s neck snapping under the strain of its own immense weight.
She was tackled again, only this time her machine was borne to the ground, where a second and a third quickly piled on top of it.
She fought to breathe against the phantom sensation of weight on her chest, trying to wriggle Unit 02 free as a fourth machine approached, raising one of those blades high.
“Wertlosser Quacksalber!” She screamed, pulling at the controls in hopes of eking out a sliver more functionality form her machine.
The white Eva took a step forward even as it bent so far back it looked to be in danger of falling backward, anything to get just a little more power behind the inevitable swing.
Something white, no, a giant hand came out of the ground without disturbing it, going through the white Evangelion as if its body were ephemeral, when the hand went away, pinched between its index and thumb was a struggling form in a white plug suit between two fingers. Tubes that Asuka didn’t recognize hanging from its plug suit and leaking LCL.
The two fingers turned that struggling form into a red stain an instant before Rei’s head phased out of the ground, Her face set in a displeased scowl.
Asuka gaped at the sight of one of her girlfriends somehow made into a giant, her fight with three Evas forgotten as they all stared at the giant girl (wearing quite the fetching sundress if Asuka said so herself) as She came out of the ground, kneeling so that She only towered head and shoulders over a standing Evangelion, the limp form of Unit 01 clutched to Her chest.
Her eyes swept over the Evas that had given Hikari and her such a hard time, the ten still remaining enemy Evangelions all convulsed before falling limp, their struggling pilots levitating into the air, their screams sounding so…puny. She brought up a screen and zoomed in on one of the enemy Pilots, making sure that she was indeed struggling as she levitated higher and higher off the ground.
As she watched, the enemy Pilot was compressed into a ball that her Unit 02’s sensors informed her was two centimeters in diameter.
That was a lot more blood than Asuka would have expected.
[Asuka.] Hikari asked, her voice in a complete deadpan.
“Yes, Hikari?” Asuka asked, her eyes riveted to the face of her giant girlfriend, Asuka would swear that Rei’s eyes were staring straight into her own.
[I might be hallucinating, but I could swear that Rei just came out of the ground and killed all the enemy Pilots with her brain.] Hikari said, her tone lacking in any inflection. [Also She’s very unhealthily pale.]
“I don’t think that’s a hallucination, Hikari.” Asuka said as Rei tilted her head, still staring straight into Asuka’s eyes.
[Ah, okay. Just wanted to make sure.] Hikari said. [Also, she’s huge now.]
“That’s an impolite thing to say.” Asuka’s mouth said while her brain continued to try to reboot. “You know that you shouldn’t comment about a girl’s weight.”
[I dunno, I’m still jealous of Her figure.] Hikari said.
The two fell silent as they stared at Rei and Rei stared back. Unit 01 occasionally twitching in Her arms.
An AT field sprang up, larger than any Asuka had ever seen before, it looked like a layer of blood on the surface of water. A horribly bright light appeared behind it, a light that went on and on, not a flash, a constant light of immense power. When the silent light dimmed down, Asuka could see a great cloud rising into the sky, the hole that had been blasted into the geodome larger.
“An N2 missile?” Asuka whispered as two blurs moved into the geodome on the other side of the AT field and likewise became two bright stars on the other side of the sanguine barrier.
But…but why was it so quiet.
Asuka had seen what N2 mines could do. It was more than just lights and an explosion. Where was the roar? Why was the ground not shaking? Why was the geodome untouched? An airborne detonation was more devastating than a ground detonation, the shockwave should bounce off the ground and back into its own pressure wave, creating a layer of superheated and pressurized air pushed into an area of less pressure, acting as a huge razor that would scythe through steel reinforced concrete with just as much ease as it would cut through paper.
After the fourth detonation Rei finally deigned to look over Her shoulder. As a fifth blur came down, Rei reached through the AT field and when she retracted her hand, she was holding an N2 ballistic missile, holding it close to her face as she studied it.
“Scheiße.” Asuka muttered.
Rei went from holding a missile to having a small star resting on the palm of her huge hand, her eyes staring intently into the blinding sphere. Once again, no sound, none of the apocalyptic destruction that was expected from N2 technology.
The star in Rei’s hand snuffed out, She blinked then tilted her hand so ash and some scarp fell to the floor.
“Mein Gott.” Asuka said, staring at what remained of an N2 missile.
Rei looked at Asuka and smiled before looking up and slowly rising into the air, as soon as she cleared the geofront she was attacked by wave upon wave of missiles and tank shells. Her Eva’s sensors registered explosions, and Asuka was able to see what looked like a pillar of flame rising into the air, and Rei was from then on unmolested as she rose higher and higher before stopping.
Asuka stared up at where one of her girlfriends was levitating in the air over the giant hole leading to the geodome.
“I…am not dealing with that right now.” She said and turned to Unit 04. “Hikari? Are you okay?”
There was a long silence before Hikari said. [I fell and I can’t get up.]
Asuka took that in, thought about it, and decided Hikari had the right idea. She lay Unit 02 on its side and said, “Me too.”
She then turned off her radio so she could hyperventilate in peace.
=][=
“Form a fist.” I growled while staring at my unmoving right hand, trying to get my body to do what I damn well told it to. Doing my best to ignore the frenzied headache pounding against the inside of my skull. I very much was not a fan of the hangover without the drink. But thanks to that, Rei had been able to interact with Maya without hurting her, which made the drain bamage worth it for that alone.
Drain bamage.
Drain bamage.
Brain. Damage.
Bright side, so long as I distracted myself, I didn’t have to think about the statues of salt that Rei had turned all the UN forces that had shot at her into. Nor would I have to think about the ruins of Tokyo-3. It didn’t really matter how tough you built your fortress city, there were not many things that faired at all well when on the receiving end of four low-yield nuke equivalent blasts.
“Form. A fist.” I said and managed to get my right hand to twitch. Which, yay, progress.
There was another flash, another muted boom, another puff of smoke as someone else was unwise enough to try their luck with a HEIAP shell that detonated just as uselessly against Rei’s AT field as the first fifty. I didn’t have to turn my head to know what would happen, but I felt it as Rei continued to escalate her reprisal, the resulting explosion causing one of the more delicate ruins to fully collapse down beneath us.
I sighed and turned to look at Rei. At least she was being…mostly proportional in her use of force.
Mostly.
For the most part.
Okay, okay. It’s fine. I can still salvage this. We just need to stay calm and not do anything rash.
Rei looked away from the tank that had distracted her, and her eyes speared into mine.
“What do you want?” Rei asked. The power of her voice still enough to vibrate my marrow but now no longer causing reality itself to go into conniptions.
The question almost made me laugh hysterically.
What did I want?
I wanted to be the Big Damn Hero and save the day.
I wanted the chunk of my soul trapped in the Eva back.
I wanted everyone responsible for this cluster fuck to get their just desserts.
But instead of asking for any of that, I said. “Rei, Rei please let’s just calm down, go back to NERV. Let’s figure out how to get you normal sized again. We can pick up Asuka and Maya, Hikari too, if you want. Let’s go back to my apartment, I’ll cook dinner, and we can spend the night watching movies, what do you think, sound like a plan?”
Rei gave me a beatific smile, and for the fleetest instant I thought that would work. But Rei had not asked me what to do. She’d asked me what I wanted.
I felt her stretch her consciousness out, encompassing the whole world, touching the minds of every man, woman, and child in the planet. Her touch gentle but insistent as everyone still alive all at once Knew several things with the same certainty that they knew how to breathe.
Information that was forevermore encoded into their very being. Information that would never be forgotten, that would never degrade.
Everyone in the planet learned at the same time that God was very real, She loved three people specifically, She was fond of five more and was approving of a few dozen. Everyone knew that there were two people She hated, several more that She disapproved of. And of every other one of the three and change billion humans in the world, She was wholly apathetic of.
Everyone Knew of SEELE’s machinations, of Gendo’s betrayals, of the sacrifices made by NERV personnel as they did their best to save humanity from their possible cousins and from themselves. Of my own trials, attempts, successes and failures to do the same.
The Twelve men, so terrified of death they’d prepared to sacrifice over a third of all humans in the world to fuel their immortality all cowered as they felt God’s attention turn to them specifically.
She Marked them each, a brand searing into their flesh that had only ever seen use once before. This Mark ensuring that no matter where they went, so long as there were humans present, they’d never be able to escape the consequences of their choices, and no matter how much they desired it, death would provide no succor to them.
One Ikari Gendo she left to his fate as he was apprehended by a united front of NERV mercenaries and apoplectic UN soldiers.
Lastly, She reached into the Eva’s core and from it drew out the souls within it. I screamed as she shoved the vast majority of my original soul into my body and welded them into a scarred whole, my body and mind feeling…overstuffed.
Color was suddenly more vibrant, my emotions harder to parse and control. A surprisingly large part of myself mourned no longer being a humongous cyborg creature of rage and destruction, because while it had certainly been incredibly inconvenient it had also been metal as fuck.
I blinked as I found myself agreeing with myself and realized that acclimatizing to my soul being whole again was…going to take some getting used to.
It was only then that I realized I was not alone in the plug, a woman wearing a white plug suit pressed into my side, her features both familiar and not. A face that looked like Rei’s, but with a few more years to mature, her hair a familiar messy bob cut, brown instead of blue, her eyes dark brown instead of red.
We blinked in confusion at each other. She was the first to recover. Her voice, too, was familiar yet alien. Rei’s voice if given a few more years to mature.
“Well.” Said Ikari Yui with a confused smile. “This is awkward.”
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Santo's Workshop
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Kaiju Slaying For Death And Profit Ch 47

Good morning! As promised yesterday! Chapter!
Forgive the cliffhanger at the end, it's just a good stopping point. XD
I tried pushing forward a bit more but it really would need to get exceedingly long so it's best to put a stop to it here.
I shall attempt to push forward and finish up ch 48! But for now, have chapter, hope you enjoy, lemme know your thoughts.
=][=
“Ma’am, sector thirty-two has been successfully evacuated!” Kaede called out.
“Lock it down!” Major Katsuragi called out. “Consolidate our forces and tighten our defensive perimeter!”
“Ma’am!” Kaede acknowledged before turning to relay her orders.
“Any word on beating them back from the infirmary?” Major Katsuragi demanded.
“The firefight is ongoing.” Hana answered. “Though three powered armored individuals are making their way there, presumably to offer support.”
“Gee, if only we had someone who could act as a liaison to communicate with these allies.” Major Katsuragi said acidly.
“Such would—”
“Beyond the remit of your station I know.” Major Katsuragi growled. “Just what can you do to help, dammit!?”
“I have provided refreshments.” Virgo said, not turning to look at Major Katsuragi as she answered.
“Who is in command of your forces?” Vice-director Fuyutsuki asked. “Who is coordinating this effort?”
“Those girls are now adequate maids.” Virgo answered. “I trust them to take care of their duties without micromanagement.”
Major Katsuragi looked like she was about to say something very impolite but was preempted by Hana. “Enemy forces have been pushed back from the infirmary! Two squads of Judas mercenaries are harvesting it for medical supplies.”
“Good, keep an eye out on enemy movements and recall them when you think pertinent, we need those supplies too much to let them get bogged down in a firefight.”
“Ma’am.”
Maya continued monitoring Units 02 and 04, using the Plugs’ life support functions to stave off Pilot fatigue as best she could. Nonetheless, both Units were slowly and steadily racking up damage, no matter how many times they rendered the enemy Evangelion combat ineffective. Even worse, the enemy pilots were improving the longer the fight went on, by the stiffness of their movements, Maya would guess that, on average, their synchronization when the battle began had been around eight or nine percent, whereas currently she would put it around twelve or thirteen.
“No, they’re hardened against intrusion by the Magi.” Ritsuko explained to Major Kasuragi, Maya chastised herself as she’d missed the start of their discussion. “I suspect that, when they couldn’t use the other Magi to hack ours, they’re now being used exclusively to guard the enemy Eva’s systems. We could crack through it, but I’ll have to add a port through our firewall to do it, and I’ll remind you we have five Magi systems ready to pounce at the slightest chink in our armor.”
“Dammit all.” Major Katsuragi muttered. “Any idea where their second core might be?”
Ritsuko sighed, took off her glasses, and rubbed her eyes. “The Dual Core Evangelion program was still in its prototype state. There must have been parallel developmental research being done to miniaturize the S2 drive. Depending on how small it is? It could be anywhere.”
“We need to do something to even the field!” Major Katsuragi growled. “We can’t just continue to defend!”
Maya’s console beeped and her heart soared. “Ma’am! Unit 01 has activated!”
As the mood in the Control Room lifted, Makoto called out. “We’re reading a massive AT field, we haven’t had readings like this since the Fifteenth!”
Maya’s heart dropped. “Is it an Angel?”
Makoto shook his head. “Pattern Red! It’s human!”
A human AT field? One powerful enough to be measured by their instruments?
“Rei?” She murmured. Not knowing how she knew that it was her quiet lover, but she knew it to be true.
“Someone get me a link with Unit 01!” Major Katsuragi demanded.
“We’re being jammed!” Hana called out. “We cannot raise anyone without a direct landline connection!”
“Unit 01 has entered the maglev and is descending toward Central Dogma!” Kaede called out.
“What!?” Major Katsuragi snapped. “What about the source of the AT field!?”
“It’s descending with it!”
Maya furrowed her brows. Why would Mister Shinji head down to Central Dogma, rather than join the fight against the invading Eva?
“Close every gate on the maglev, we can’t let him reach Terminal Dogma!” Major Katsuragi called out. “Hyuga! Arm every N2 cluster charge along the maglev and Terminal Dogma!”
“But ma’am, that will—” Aoba began.
“Just do it!” Major Katsuragi snapped.
Maya stood up. “Ma’am, I believe that is a rash decision.”
“Rash or not, it’s what we’re doing.” Major Katsuragi said.
“Makoto, I’m going to need you to stop.” Kaede said, stepping out of the lift bringing her to the Central Command tower.
Major Katsuragi glared. “Return to your station.”
“Unit 01 has passed level four!” Hana called out.
“Ma’am, Shinji has never let us down.” Kaede said, stepping out of the lift. “He has more than earned our trust.”
“I can think of a few times that he gave me reasons to doubt his judgement.” Major Katsuragi ground out. “Now, I will not say this again. Return. To. Your. Post. Hyuga, arm those N2 mines.”
Kaede drew her service weapon and aimed it at Makoto. “Makoto, I need you to stop.”
Major Katsuragi’s pistol was out and aimed at Maya’s friend in an instant. “Stand. Down.”
One of the nearby guards aimed his rifle at Major Katsuragi, prompting his partner to aim his rifle at his erstwhile companion. What followed was a long series of sounds; chairs scraping, clothing rustling, and many loud clicks as weapons were readied and safeties removed. Before Maya’s disbelieving eyes, just about everyone in the Control Room had drawn a weapon and was aiming it at people they’d worked beside for years.
“What are you all doing!?” Vide-director Fuyutsuki screamed. “Stop this instant!”
“I don’t know what lunacy prompted this.” Major Katsuragi ground out. “But I will not allow the big 3.0 to hit. I don’t care what I need to do or who stands in my way.”
“Shinji will not allow the Third Impact to happen.” Kaede said, her aim not wavering from Makoto’s head.
“Shinji was quite willing to let us all die rather than fight, purely to spite his father.” Katsuragi said. “Forgive me if I refuse to put my trust on so fickle and petty a savior.”
Moving slowly, Maya tried to insert herself between them but was unable to due to Virgo stopping her. “Hey, maybe let’s all calm down? There’s definitely a logical explanation for this.”
Katsuragi scoffed. “You seriously expect me to believe your judgement is somehow uncompromised, Ibuki?”
Maya felt her face color and swallowed her first few responses to that. “Be that as it may. This is not the time for us to kill each other. There are enough forces arrayed against us as it is.”
Katsuragi hesitated.
“Unit 01 has reached the final gate!” Hana called out, tension in the control room ratcheting up. “The gate ignored all commands and has opened!”
A wounded janitor drew a pistol and shot a guard.
The following events happened so quickly that Maya had trouble parsing them out as individual actions.
The guards up at the Central Command tower both fired. Makoto turned for his station, working frantically at the keyboard and was subsequently shot in the back of the head by Kaede. Aoba dove under his desk as Katsuragi staggered back, Ritsuko fell in a spray of blood. Katsuragi opened fire, and Virgo was suddenly there, her head moving slightly as the bullet pinged off her helmet.
The guard that was still standing turned toward her, only to be shot in the neck by Kaede, he gagged and staggered back and fell over the short wall.
All through that, there was a thunderous rattle of gunfire as contagious fire caused a number of isolated firefights, blood and grey matter spraying through the Command Center.
Virgo walked toward Katsuragi, stepping into her line of fire at every pull of the woman’s trigger, her armor taking every shot without so much as a scratch, until she gently took the weapon away from the bleeding woman.
It seemed to last an eternity, but in truth it was only a few seconds. In those few seconds, several dozen of the world’s most educated people had lost their lives, more were writhing and clutching at horrible wounds. Industry leading experts leaking their blood onto the floor.
Kaede rushed to Hyuga’s station, dragged his body aside and very carefully undid the frightening progress the man had done toward arming enough N2 mines to turn all of NERV and most of Tokyo-3 to vapor and glass.
Mechanically, Maya walked to Ritsuko, checked that the woman was still alive if unconscious, grabbed the blood-spattered first aid kit beneath Hyuga’s station, and pressed gauze into Ritsuko’s wounds.
“The hell are you doing?” Katsuragi asked, her voice pained as Virgo saw to her wounds with quick, efficient movements.
“Merely my duty as the Young Master’s head maid.” Virgo said.
“Goddammit all.” Katsuragi growled but allowed herself to be treated. Once her wounds were expertly seen to, Virgo stepped over and took over treating Ritsuko, who started to come to.
“You are both lucky.” Virgo said. “The shots went straight through, though you’ll require surgery to replace a couple meters of your intestines, you should be fine.”
“The Final Safety has been disengaged!” Hana called out, looking over, Maya saw that her friend was working her station while a medic saw to a huge bloodstain in her thigh. “Heaven’s doors have opened! Unit 01 has entered Terminal Dogma!”
Katsuragi laughed, the mocking sound made Maya’s hackles rise.
“I sincerely hope we are still alive tomorrow for you to tell me ‘I told you so.’” Katsuragi said, baring her teeth in something that was certainly not a smile.
“We will.” Kaede said with complete conviction. “Shinji would never do this if he did not have a plan.”
=][=
“Hey! Hey this is not the plan! This is not the plan!” I screamed into the radio, slamming my fist against the side of the plug in the direction of the Control Room, all in a futile attempt to be heard. “Close the gates! Blow the whole thing sky fucking high!”
As Rei levitated us down the same shaft where I’d fought Kaworu’s puppeted Evas, there went that hope of someone being able to do something to stop this insanity.
I closed my eyes, sighed, and resolved myself not to get that huge chunk of my soul trapped in the Eva back. I buckled my fuckle and brought up the Catalog. I had to either purchase a power that would let me halt this level of crazy, or purchase someone that could do the same.
The Plug suddenly smelled very strongly of Rei, I could all but feel her warmth and the satin softness of her skin pressed against my back as the Catalog flickered and I lost live access. The error message said something about localized interference and advised me to leave the effective area of the local reality anchor for the Catalog to resume service.
“FUCK!” I screamed. “Rei! Rei I am telling you! Stop! REI!”
As we floated over the great field of salt and neared the final gates, I grit my teeth and synchronized with the me inside the Eva. Strength surged in our limbs and with a desperate heave we flared out AT field, pouring everything we could in an attempt to shatter the shackles placed on us.
Rei smiled and patted our hand consolingly as a Will that had shattered through the barriers of every Son of Adam that had ever stood against us, failed to make Rei’s Will budge.
The final doors opened, bringing us into a large black chamber, gigantic for a normal human, but cramped for an Evangelion. Nailed to a cross directly opposite us was a stark white body, its proportions wrong, its arms were too long, its legs too short and lumpy, its belly was swollen, were it a normal woman it would be obvious that she was at most days away from giving birth. It hung suspended above a lake of LCL, the orange liquid streaming from her body where it had been impaled by spikes.
Rei set us down before the still-living grotesque corpse of Lilith then turned back to look into our eyes. “I know you’re angry, Shinji. It hurts me to disobey you like this but it’s for the best. I know you’ll understand the necessity of this. Eventually.”
With that, she floated forward, our bodies trembled with wrath, panic, and exertion as we did everything we could to rage against the shackles keeping us quiescent. The stark white living corpse of the enslaved god in NERV’s deepest pit absorbed her body instantly, its pillowy flesh immediately starting to bubble, its too-small head began to run like wax, the carved stone mask with seven eyes slid off with the skin as its arms flexed and tore themselves from the nails keeping it suspended. It fell to its knees causing a cascade of its orange blood that washed over our legs.
The ridges of its vertebrae were visible on its skin as if it were emaciated, but those too bubbled and shrank into it, its body morphing into a far more familiar and comely shape. Within seconds its marshmallow arms shrank and gained definition, its swollen belly melted away and firmed, its hips shrinking until they matched her thin waist, its legs gaining tone until they were the familiar muscle with the exact right amount of squish that I’d run my hands over so many times.
The featureless too-small head grew until it matched the narrowing shoulders, strands of stark white hair growing from out of the white bubbling mass as Rei’s face pressed out of the featureless white ‘wax.’
All through this she kept growing. At first the enslaved god had been of a size with us, when its body gained Rei’s proportions it had been head and shoulders above us even as it knelt, now, if it were to stand, Unit 01 might barely reach its knee. Its mind overfilling and spilling out to those around it.
The creature before me was Lilith.
She was Rei.
She was neither.
And both.
She was the true Mother of every species on this world, she had been the one to seed the Earth with the microbes that would eventually claw their way to sentience, then sapience. Overseen by her ruthless eye as she favored not the beautiful, not the strongest, not the fastest or the smartest, and certainly not the kindest. The only ones to gain her ruthless favor were the best and most resilient survivors. Jealously guarding the benefits of the Fruit of Knowledge until this bubbling cauldron of excruciation, ruthlessness, and terror created a paradoxical being that she deemed worthy of its bounty.
And she was a lonely girl, raised in squalor, treated like a disposable tool, kept quiescent through chemicals, mistreated by the jealous urges of one who was supposed to be her caretaker. Content to exist as a tool for another until an angry boy stepped into her life, who introduced her to the wonders of tasty food, who gave her warmth, and care, and love. One who made her feel unique and needed, irreplaceable, one who put his unique life in peril for her safety and comfort. He did all of these things and more to show his love and care for her, and thus for the first time in her existence, made her happy.
Then, with a lurch, She finished assimilating the soulless body of Adam, the embryo She’d torn out of the hand of he who had nearly succeeded in making Her into his quiescent doll. And She was no longer Lillith, or Rei.
Her whole body shuddered, Her soul burning like a star as She assimilated the Fruit of Life, and for the first time in countless millennia, ever since They’d made a Sacrifice and split the Fruits so as to seed the cosmos with Life. A God opened Her eyes.
Their sclera were black, they held dozens of irises, each one a different color, each pupil shrinking and growing as they swarmed within that black void.
Every iris within those impossible eyes shuddered, then as one they all clustered, fighting for a place of prominence as they all sought to focus on us.
On me. I thought, as my link with Unit 01 was forcefully lowered by a Will that wasn’t ours. My head felt overfull, stuffed as if by cotton. An overpressure that pushed my brain against the confines of my skull.
The impossible eyes closed, and when they opened they were the same red orbs I’d lost myself staring into many a night, only writ large. Love, fascination, lust, jealousy, contentment, I was assaulted by Her emotions, my HUD beeped a shrill warning as I felt Mind Defense bend under the strain of this assault.
But it wasn’t an assault, it wasn’t an attack. This was merely the result of Her existence, this was the meekest share of Her thoughts and emotions as they spilled out of Her. The strength of Her soul was such that it abraded my own mind and soul merely by my proximity to Her.
Her lips curved into the same small, genuine smile I had come to love, Her mere attention enough to nearly buckle my mind under the pressure of Her gaze. I could barely force myself to breathe, if I weren’t sitting I’d have fallen over, pressed into the ground by the mere force of Her presence.
Her hands reached out, and carefully cradled Unit 01 in her palms.
She Spoke. It was meant as a reassurance. Her merest utterance carrying such power that time and space buckled around Her as reality attempted to forcefully rewrite itself and me so that Her utterance had always been true, my defenses flaring and nearly failing as my marrow burned. Through Her eyes I saw Her see the first time I had truly arrived in this world, standing in front of a public phone, our eyes meeting for the fleetest moment before the Third, Sachiel, unknowingly nearly succeeded in dooming this Humanity. Crashing nearby to me and severing the tenuous connection with the past that She had managed to secure.
“My Shinji.” She spoke again, Her utterance far more careful this time, merely vibrating the bones and marrow within me with its power. “Mine.”
My body attempted to pass out to spare my mind the agony, but it wasn’t allowed, She didn’t want it to, She wanted me to witness Her and so I would.
She Spoke a third time, Her control slipping in Her excitement. And as jagged knives of reality attempted to coerce me into retroactively making Her words be the Truth. I did the only thing I could and screamed.
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Santo's Workshop
Public post

Kaiju Slaying For Death And Profit Ch 46

Good morning!
I wrote not a single word during the whole week! I got a whole extra day worth of work time. Yaay overtime! 
Save me. ;_;
This chapter...this chapter was clawing at my brain meats to get out. I wrote over five thousand words in a single day yesterday. XD
This morning was for editing. And now here we are.
I hope y'all enjoy this chapter, it has a few of the scenes of the whole story that I looked forward to writing the most.
Lemme know if you enjoyed it in a comment!
...Oh shit I forgot to put a poll for the side story.
=][=
Major General Timothy Anderson resisted the urge to swear as he finally got what remained of the artillery to stop shelling the roads leading into the city, the ones that incidentally were full of the second and third waves of infantry that were supposed to have already stormed the various entrances into NERV.
The Lieutenant Colonel in charge of the tank battalions had had to be shot by the First Lieutenant to stop the tanks from finishing off the artillery and get them attacking Tokyo-3’s static defenses. And the entire air wing had to be landed, reorganized, and relaunched. But his division was, finally, under his control again.
Lastly, everyone in his division had to change the encryption of their communications.
High Command had been compromised. No aid would come, he couldn’t be certain his reinforcements would be under way, and if they were, he had no way to be sure that they wouldn’t shoot his men in the back.
NERV must have been readying this ambush for months, maybe years. The ones seeking to end the world as Timothy knew it had prepared supremely well to backstab the UN when the time was right. The last shred of doubt Timothy held had vanished when he saw his division decimate itself before the operation to stop the end of the world had even properly begun.
“Sir! The last of their static defenses is destroyed!” Called out Annabeth, one of his best analysts and the only woman in his staff.
Timothy held in a sigh. “Very good, all units forward, they should try to avoid civilian casualties but the moment they encounter any resistance, it’s weapons free. We cannot allow NERV to do what they seek to do. What are our casualties?”
“Uncertain.” She said, her eyes having a glassy, faraway look as she listened to reports on the radio. “My best estimate is that we are down at least three thousand men.”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.” Timothy swore. Decimation had been too optimistic an outlook. Nearly one quarter of his force was rendered combat ineffective and they’d yet to properly get to grips with the enemy. “Keep me appraised Anna.”
“Sir!”
“Arthur! Any word from Command!?” Timothy demanded.
Arthur shook his head. “It’s still a mess, sir. Nothing but contradictory orders. They seem to be catching on to the fact that we’re no longer following orders.”
Timothy grunted. “How are our boys in the enemy Head Quarters?”
“Doing poorly.” Arthur said gravely. “They are encountering unexpected resistance and resilience. And we have reports of several individuals wearing what appears to be power armor and utilizing heavy machine guns as infantry weapons. Our own weapons are ineffective against them.”
Timothy closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Of course NERV would embezzle funds to secretly advance weapons and armor programs not related to defeating the monsters. They truly must have been planning to betray humanity from the start.
He held in a laugh. Now let his peers tell him that he was paranoid for having a plan to sever ties and operate independently of any oversight.
“Get more MPATS in the second wave.” Timothy said. “Nothing is impervious.”
“Uhh, sir?” Arthur said. “I have some helmet cam footage that may be pertinent.”
Timothy raised an eyebrow but walked over to see the video Arthur mentioned. Then, clear as day, he saw a power armored individual, its armor needlessly gilded and decorated with frills of all things. Two portable rockets struck the individual, flinging her into a wall.
Where she proceeded to stand up and keep firing, her armor scarred but the operator alive and well.
“Well…” Timothy said, chewing over his words, he quickly went over his various plans, making a mental note of which ones remained viable after receiving this new information before sighing. “Fuck.”
=][=
[Launching!]
Hikari was crushed into the seat of Unit 04. She curled up into the fetal position, her whole body rocked as the Eva came to a stop, she felt the machine around her shudder as the restraining bolts released explosively.
The screen in front of her was dark blue, showing she was underwater, its surface rippling just above her Eva’s head. The lake in the Geodome, she was inside the lake, why would NERV have a way to deploy there? She did her best to hold on as the screen in front of her tilted, the floor of the lake coming up swiftly to meet her as Unit 04 fell forward and faceplanted.
Asuka’s face appeared on a screen to her lower left. [Still having trouble, Hikari?]
Hikari sighed and admitted. “I can barely feel the Eva.”
[Well buckle up.] Asuka snapped. [It’s do or die time.]
Easy for Asuka to say. Other than being honest with the boy she’d liked there was nothing she’d ever feared.
Hikari hugged her legs to her chest and listened to the reports coming from her radio. Wondering why she even needed to be launched in the Eva. The mercenaries were holding everything back fine, according to some of the stuff she’d heard, NERV even had people in power armor. Which was news to her but she guessed it made some sense.
She wondered where Shinji was, or if Rei was okay.
Maya’s face appeared on her lower right. [Miss Horaki? How are you doing?]
“Feeling utterly useless.” She mumbled. “I’m…I’m scared. I can’t do anything. I’m just useless, a dead weight.”
[Miss…No, Hikari. Please. I know it’s not fair, but we need you to get your synchronization with the Eva to be higher.] Maya pressed.
Hikari hid her face behind her legs. “Why? The Angels are supposed to all be dead, why is this happening?”
[Hikari, I’m so sorry. I really am. But we need y—]
The world lurched. There was a titanic impact that beat back the water long enough for Unit 04 to be uncovered. Hikari blinked the spots out of her vision and saw a huge hole in the sky.
No, not the sky, the Geodome. Something had blown an enormous hole in the Geodome. She didn’t have the time to see anything else as the water rushed back and covered the Evangelion.
[Scheiße!] Asuka said a bad word in German as her Evangelion stood back up, then snarled. [Hikari, move!]
“I can’t!” She screamed as something impacted the water so hard that it sent her Eva tumbling.
[Hikari! They detonated an N2 mine over the Geodome!] Asuka said, her voice tight as more and more impacts struck the lake. [Tokyo-3 is above the Geodome!]
Hikari’s heart turned to ice as something crashed into the water above her, on the screen she saw a huge slab of concrete as it careened down onto her.
She barely had the time to register that it was a building before the screen turned black, the sound of grinding impacts letting her know she had been buried.
[Hikari! Hikari are you alright!?] Asuka called out.
“Y-Yeah.” Hikari said, trying to control her breathing. “I…I’m fine.”
[Hikari, you have to dig yourself out!] Asuka said before snarling. [Arschloch!]
“Asuka?” Hikari whimpered.
[I’m under attack. They’re swarming down with VTOLs.] Asuka said, her voice tightly controlled, [Hikari! Get up here and help me!]
“I can’t!” Hikari gasped, breathing in short, panted breaths. “I can’t! I can’t! I can’t!”
[Schwein!] Asuka screamed.
Belatedly, Hikari remembered that the Evas could share telemetry, and she set up a screen to see what Unit 02 saw just in time to see Unit 02’s red hand grab one of those fancy aircraft with the wings that tilted. It used its new handhold to throw it at another aircraft, sending the two to the lake in pieces.
Something impacted Unit 02, making the view shake. A shimmering field sprang up and blocked a follow up barrage that obscured her vision with smoke. Only for another impact to send the Eva careening to the side.
[Hurensohn!] Asuka snarled, blocking the next one with an AT field, only for the screen to whirl around, Hikari saw an instant of a ship connected to the side of Unit 02’s foot before Asuka finished the spin and brought up an AT field to once again block a barrage.
They were going for her umbilical. Asuka’s Eva wasn’t like Hikari’s, if the umbilical broke…
Hikari couldn’t catch her breath no matter how quickly she breathed, her head spun. She felt like she was going to throw up.
“I don’t wanna die.” She murmured. “I don’t wanna die…Kodama, help me.”
On the radio, she heard Asuka grunt in pain again before she went into what sounded like a very long and angry tirade in a language Hikari didn’t understand, presumably German.
“I don’t wanna die. I don’t wanna die.” Hikari murmured.
[Hikari.] Her radio crackled.
Hikari blinked, her breath stilling. “Kodama?”
There was a sharp intake of breath, almost a hiss. When next her sister spoke, her voice was tight. [Yes, baby sis, I’m here. I…I burrowed someone’s radio, and Maya was kind enough to patch me through.]
“Kodama. I’m sorry.” Hikari wept.
[It’s okay, Hikari.] Kodama said. [It’s okay. You’ll be safe.]
Hikari continued apologizing as the girl that had quickly become her best friend continued to fight alone. She cut off when Kodama hissed in pain.
“Kodama?” Hikari asked.
[N-No it’s nothing.] Kodama said, her voice coming in quick, short pants.
“Kodama, what happened?” Hikari demanded.
[Hikari. I need you to listen to me.] Kodama coughed. [While I can still talk.]
Hikari’s breath caught, she barely managed to whisper. “Kodama?”
[Everyone here…Everyone here is fighting. Hikari.] Kodama said. [We’re fighting, because if we don’t, everyone is going to die. That…that club I’m in. We weren’t a club, Hikari.]
Hikari blinked, was her sister seriously going to admit to having been part of a cult?
[We found.] Kodama paused as she groaned. [We found bits and pieces, no solid evidence. But…no, we don’t have the time for the full story. I’m sorry Hikari. We did what we could to stop it. We tried, I swear we tried, but it wasn’t enough.]
“K-Kodama? Kodama what’s wrong?” Hikari asked.
[It’s strange, you know? It’s such a tiny hole. But it sure is leaking.]
Hikari’s heart stopped.
[Do you remember, when you were little.] Kodama coughed, it sounded wet. [And you were afraid to get on the swing…but you eventually did, and you had fun?]
“Kodama! Don’t talk!” Hikari begged.
[I love you, baby sis. I’m so proud of you. You’ll do big things…all…all big like.] Kodama coughed again. [Why is it so cold?]
After the radio was silent but for Asuka’s screams, Hikari begged into the radio. “Kodama! Kodama talk to me! Kodama!”
But no matter how much she called, her sister didn’t answer. She tried to raise Maya, to ask what was wrong, but she couldn’t get through.
She screamed, thrashed, and pulled at the controls. But no matter what she did the Eva refused to move. So she did the only thing she could do, she curled up, cried, and was a useless weight.
No.
No she would not. Hikari would not let her family suffer for her weakness. Her sisters needed her, her friends needed her. And Kaworu had even told her what she needed to do in order to successfully pilot her Eva. Her only problem was that she was far too much of a coward to do what needed to be done.
And now, Kodama was paying the price for that.
Hikari took a deep breath and bit down on her lower lip so hard that she tasted blood. The pain helped center her.
She knew what she needed to do.
Slowly, she began to feel concrete and rebar poking against her plug suit.
She would do what she’d been taught to do.
The plug was filled with the sound of breaking concrete as she felt Unit 04 begin to stir.
She pressed her feet against the plug’s chair, she grit her teeth so hard that they hurt, she clenched her butt-cheeks as tightly as she could. She took a deep breath and with a roar of pure rage, Unit 04 tore through the building that had fallen on top of it.
The world around her was a sickening mélange of color and light. She could feel that awful light and its reaching grasp trying to dig into her brain so she took a piece of the building that had buried her and threw it as hard as she could. Shattering the light to pieces. She threw herself forward, crashing against and through a hovering thing with wings, it screamed as it burst into flames.
She took pieces of it and used them as weapons. She reached Unit 02 and extended her barrier just in time to block a stream of bullets that would have severed its umbilical cable.
In her mind’s eye, the great winged light thing tried to drown her, it tried to make her feel small, and vulnerable, and she raged at it, she grabbed more aircraft and threw them at it until it shut the hell up.
Until suddenly, she stood alongside Unit 02, taking great heaving gulps of…well…not air, but…yeah.
[I knew you had it in you, Hikari!] Asuka gloated. [I knew it!]
“Horse.” Hikari gasped. “Eaten.”
Asuka groaned, sounding significantly less happy. [Of course.]
Hikari mentally stabbed at her Eva’s radio until Maya answered. “Maya! How is Kodama!”
[Sh-She’s unconscious.] Maya said. [We have a lot of wounded. She’s been seen to by a medic.]
Hikari sighed in relief. “Thank God.”
One after another, eleven impacts shook the earth around them in great plumes of dirt and mud.
As the dirt settled, she saw that they were surrounded by eleven stark white Evangelions, carbon copies of Unit 04, each holding a weird, blunt, double-bladed staff, each as tall as the Evas themselves.
“They have Evangelions.” Hikari said as her stomach dropped out from under her.
Asuka didn’t wait or hesitate, she charged. Another stream of German invectives flying as she drop kicked the first Evangelion she came within reach of, sending it tumbling.
Hikari charged another, its movements slow, languid…no, delayed. She easily ducked past the huge telegraphed swing and shoved her Eva’s fists forward like battering rams, the impact cracking the chest plate of the enemy Eva, as it fell, clutching its stomach, Hikari stretched Unit 04 up to the tips of its toes, and brought both its elbows down on the enemy Eva’s back, the impact causing a shockwave and visibly denting its spine.
She left the fitfully twitching Eva behind, rushing a second that was making its slow, lumbering way toward her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that Asuka was rushing as well, leaving four variously dismembered white Evangelions in her wake.
Hikari jumped over the slow horizontal swing and crashed Unit 04’s arms into the Eva’s neck, she felt its vertebrae give out under her machine’s forearms. The strength of her uncontrolled charge sent her into a tumble, Unit 04 and the now quadriplegic Eva tearing the ground and sending tress flying through the Geodome.
She blinked at the sky, then threw herself into a roll, avoiding the edge of one of those weird double blades as it sank into the ground, the white Eva nearly faceplanting as it sought to keep hold of the weapon.
Hikari made Unit 04 climb to its feet, grabbed the enemy Eva by the back of the head, then drove Unit 04’s knee into its face, she felt the armor of her knee and the face of the Eva both give way. The white Eva faceplanted, leaving it face down and ass up in a pose that, in a different situation, would have been comical.
She stomped on its head until she felt it crack and give away.
She turned, seeking another target, and was just in time to see Unit 02 launch into a quintessentially Karate flying sidekick into the core of the last standing white Evangelion, cracking it and sending the huge machine tumbling.
Unit 02 jumped back to its feet, threw back its head, and roared.
[What’s with these guys!?] Asuka said, laughing. [They were so weak!]
Hikari saw movement out of the corner of her eye, and threw Unit 04 forward, tackling Unit 02 to the ground. She felt the ghost of a cold touch on the back of her neck as one of those double blades flew through the air where her Eva’s head had just been.
[The hell!?] Asuka demanded as both made their Evas climb to their feet.
There was a twelfth…and a thirteenth, and a fourteenth.
No…
“They’re regenerating.” Hikari whispered.
[Scheiße!] Asuka swore, then threw her Evangelion into a sprint at the nearest white Eva as it pushed itself ponderously to its feet, she jumped and landed on the back of its head, driving it into the ground and popping it like an overripe melon. [Have the decency to stay dead after I killed you!]
Hikari remembered her Evangelion had a high frequency blade, drew it, and used it to slash at the nearest Eva, cutting its neck wide open and causing a torrent of blood to pour out onto the ground.
The second time they ‘killed’ all the Evas went just as quickly as the first. By the end of it, Hikari was panting, her heart thundering what felt like a thousand beats a minute as she tried to catch her breath.
But the white Evangelion got up again.
So with a twin scream, Asuka and Hikari rushed them, intent on killing them as many times as it took.
=][=
“They must have two cores.” Maya said as she watched the enemy Evangelion they’d tagged as ‘7’ stand up after the fifth time Unit 02 had dealt lethal damage to it. “One of them hidden somewhere in their bodies.”
“And with eleven of them to only two of ours, they aren’t getting the time to do a proper vivisection in search of them.” Major Katsuragi said, then turned to the power armored maid who had brought tea for Maya and her coworkers. “Anything to add miss ‘Young Master’s Head Maid’?”
“Such an analysis would beyond the remit of my duties.” She said, her voice somehow managing to be both subservient and brooking no argument.
The Major just could not relax around the woman. This was understandable, but the others like her were fighting hard to keep the staff of NERV safe.
Still, other than ‘Virgo’, there were only twenty-one of them.
Well, twenty-one of them and one who could only be Mister Shinji, who was reaping a hefty toll on the soldiers invading NERV.
But they could not be everywhere.
Maya’s eyes were drawn to the blanket covered form of Horaki Kodama. She felt wretched for lying to Hikari, but her synchronization was above forty percent for the first time since her last deployment. They could not afford the hit to her synchronization that learning of her older sister’s passing would likely cause.
Maya could only hope the girl would eventually forgive her.
“Is Rei still missing?” Major Katsuragi asked.
“Yes ma’am.” Maya answered. “The teams we sent to find her have all become embroiled in the fighting.”
“And Shinji is busy slaughtering a whole company on his own. If we call him in to deploy his Eva, those reinforcements of theirs may well break through.” Major Katsuragi snorted. “That’s if we could contact him without using the intercom.”
“R-Right.” Maya said. Pointedly hoping that Virgo would not volunteer whether or not she could contact Mister Shinji or not. It was obvious to Maya that Mister Shinji didn’t want to deploy in his Eva. He could have made his way to the launch cradles at any time, from what she’d seen, the UN forces didn’t have anything short of a tank with which they could actually threated Mister Shinji.
There must be some reason why he wasn’t making his way to the Eva to deploy.
Her screen flashed red as an alarm sounded. “Unit 04 has lost its left hand!”
“Dammit all! Can it be reattached!?” Major Katsuragi demanded.
“Not during combat operations!” Aoba answered.
On the screen, Unit 04 used the jagged stump to beat one of the enemy Evas to death before moving on, the tears streaming from Hikari’s face and being absorbed into the LCL.
Maya gnawed on her thumb. This situation could not last. Hikari and Asuka were clearly the better Pilots. But Asuka had to guard the umbilical cable or she’d have at maximum one minute of fight in her before her Eva shut down. And the damage to Unit 04 would mount until it shut down or died.
Likewise, wherever the twenty-one girls in power armor and Mister Shinji tread, UN soldiers died. But even if they were largely impervious to small arms fire, their armor was not indestructible, eventually they would fall. There were simply too many troops arrayed against them.
Not to mention, one of the last things that they saw on radar before losing the last station was a large wave of incoming reinforcements.
Something had to change.
But what?
=][=
After getting my fill of using a motherfucker to beat other motherfuckers, I tossed the broken body of the latest UN soldier I’d been using as a club, splattering two others.
Without pausing my movements, I picked up two rifles, pointed them in the general direction of the target rich environment and squeezed the triggers. The huge blocky housing around the barrel slammed back immediately after each rifle flashed three times in quick succession. The recoil enough to actually make me flex my wrists in order to absorb it.
Seriously. Who the hell arms an entire regiment with G11s? The over engineered Swiss watch of caseless German Black Magic fuckery was not what anyone with a brain would call cost effective!
After the G11s clicked empty, I tossed them into my pocket space and pulled out my heavy assault rifle, unloading on the enemy soldiers and tearing them apart as their bullets flattened against or ricocheted off my armor.
I had to admire their grit if nothing else, I had turned the hallway where I’d run into them into a gorefest, my arms were coated nearly up to my shoulders in the blood and innards of their compatriots.
Their weapons were ineffective, melee was not a good option, and I moved too quickly for any of them with a heavy weapon to draw a bead.
One to three of them died every second, yet they did not flee. They fought on with grim determination and the occasional grenade.
I honored that in the only way available to me and killed them quickly and as painlessly as I could manage. Switching out to the shotgun, its gatling triple-barrel configuration revving up and making short work of an entire squad in two and a half seconds.
A triple impact to my visor slammed my head back, making me take my first step back since the fighting began. Their fire paused as the moment stretched, I heard at least one of them praying that I fell.
I straightened and the three bullets that had flattened against my helmet’s visor tinkled down to the floor, the sound deafening in the sudden silence.
I pumped the shotgun’s forestock.
That’s when they broke.
Unfortunately for them, I couldn’t exactly allow them to simply leave.
After doing what was needful, covered in blood and gore, I opened the door that I’d beaten the UN forces away from.
The group of terrified NERV personnel stared back at me. One of the women wet herself.
“Go deeper into NERV.” I said. “Find security personnel, if you find anyone in power armor, they’ll protect you. Either way, you are not safe here.”
With that said, I closed the door and left. Suiting my own words and heading deeper into NERV.
I had to find Rei. Whatever fuckery Gendo was up to, it would revolve around Rei. Damn my entirely too funny prank on the Judas boys. The merry chase I’d led them on had dumped me on nearly the opposite side of NERV headquarters from where I needed to be when the attack began.
It would be smarter for me to make a beeline for the deeper levels and ignore all fighting on the way, but I couldn’t just leave the NERV nerds to die.
So I killed UN soldiers on my way to my objective. I wasn’t in too much of a hurry. Rei was mine, Gendo’s plan was stillborn, he simply didn’t know it. Everything would be okay, I just needed to secure Rei, then grind my way through however many soldiers SEELE threw at NERV.
They’d run out eventually.
I could only wonder who they’d put in charge of the attack, whoever he was had made order out of complete chaos remarkably quickly.
I reached the hidden elevator that would allow me to access the lower areas, muscled the door open, and jumped straight down the shaft. Once I saw the ground, I stabbed my arms into the concrete wall of the shaft and used it to slow my momentum enough not to splatter against the floor. Muscling that door open, I pushed on and into the room that led to the shaft that would lead down into the elevator that itself led to the pit where they held Lilith’s body.
I slid to a stop at the sight ahead.
Gendo on the ground cradling his right hand, its palm a bleeding ruin of torn muscle and ligament. Rei stood naked over him, a look of absolute revulsion on her face.
“You don’t get to touch me anymore.” She said to him. “You don’t have that privilege.”
“Rei…why?” He gasped.
“I am not your doll.” Rei said and turned her back on him, her face breaking into a small, reserved smile when she saw me. As she walked toward me, she put that extra sway to her hips that on any other situation would do things, but right now was not the time.
“Rei? I’m uhhh…I’m here to rescue you?” I asked, the scenario not playing out the way I had thought it would.
Rei’s smile grew. “I know, Shinji.”
“You.” Gendo said with surprising venom. “How…How did you do this?”
My lip curled in hatred and disgust, and I couldn’t help myself. “I gave her a sandwich.”
Gendo growled.
I really wanted to enjoy the satisfaction of that, but there was literally no time. I took Rei’s hand and began pulling her behind me. “Okay Rei, we need to get you somewhere safe. I actually have a safe place to stash you. Don’t worry, I’ll deal with the situation here.”
“Shinji.” Rei said.
“I need to stay away from Unit 01, it’s what they want, and I cannot afford to play into their hand.”
“Shinji.”
“Hikari and Asuka have been fighting for a while, so I’ll do something about that. The question is how, I’m not at the point where I can join Evangelion scale combat outside an Evangelion.”
“Shinji.”
“But still, don’t worry about that, you leave it to me an—”
I lurched to a stop as Rei suddenly became immovable.
“Shinji.” She said quietly. “I’m going to deal with everything.”
I turned back to Rei. “No, Rei, I’ve got it, really.”
She shook her head, her free hand coming up to rest against my helmet, somehow I felt the warmth of her hand touching my cheek. “I do love that about you. Your drive to take responsibility. But that won’t be enough. There’s too many of them, Shinji. You cannot do it alone, not without using the Eva, and that will just give them exactly what they want.”
I saw movement behind her and immediately interposed myself. Gendo’s face was set into a snarl as he squeezed the trigger of his pistol. The bullet pinged off a gossamer thin sheet of energy that appeared before me.
“Shinji.” Rei said, and with her small, warm, soft hand, turned me around with a strength I could not contest. And I felt my stomach drop out from under me. “While I love that you are trying to take responsibility, this time, I will have to be the one to take care of things.”
I shook my head. “No, Rei, I won’t allow it. I will not allow you to sacrifice yourself to…to become something you shouldn’t. You are mine Rei, mine, and Maya’s and Asuka’s, and you will remain mine. And I will not let you become something you’re not.”
Rei gave me a beatific smile. “But my Shinji…I will still be yours. I’ll just be something more.”
“No.” I growled. “And that’s final. Now drop this nonsense, I need to get you to that safe spot.”
“I’m sorry, Shinji.” Rei said, placing her hand on my plastron. “I’m sorry. But I will be a naughty girl, and I will be taking care of this.”
“Rei.” I growled, a clear warning in my tone.
“But I need you to do me a favor, so I can take care of things, Shinji.” Rei said.
“Rei I’m warning you.”
She looked up, her scarlet eyes meeting mine through my visor. “I need you to get in the fucking robot.”
She pushed me lightly, and my back slammed into the seat of Unit 01’s plug.
I blinked, looking around, and immediately tried to go for the emergency exit hatch.
Something forced the Eva to activate, the me within the Eva awoke, forcefully synchronizing with me just enough to get through the activation sequence so he wouldn’t shut down after a few seconds of operation.
“FUCK!” I screamed, pulling at the bloody useless emergency exit hatch. “Could you fucking work for goddamn once!?”
I felt dread bubble up from the me inside the Eva.
I paused and searched for the bond with that me and saw that he couldn’t move. Some great force kept Unit 01 locked down tight.
Through the screen, I could see Rei’s naked form, cradled carefully in Unit 01’s palms.
She gave me that same soft smile. “Let’s go. My Shinji.”
Unit 01 began levitating and heading toward the shaft that I’d last jumped down to kill Kaworu.
The one that led to the body of the god that NERV had enslaved and butchered.
“Rei! Rei don’t you dare! Goddamit, Rei! Rei you stop this nonsense this instant!” I shouted, pushing forward into the screen and slamming my fist against it, cracking it. “Rei! I know you can hear me! You stop this right now! You hear me!? REI!”
I ranted, threatened, cajoled.
Begged.
But when locked inside an Evangelion, nobody outside can hear you scream.
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Santo's Workshop
Public post

Kaiju Slaying For Death And Profit Ch 45

Good afternoon/evening. 
Boy, this last week was rough. Didn't get much of a chance to write, but I was able to lock the hell in and got the thing done!
Whooo!
I am very tired.
Not gonna lie, I was very nervous about this chapter, how to write it, so on and so forth. But once I got to the part that made me nervous, the whole thing just flowed well, you know?
Anyways enough rambling, here is chapter, hope y'all enjoy.
=][=
Asuka watched enraptured as Shinji folded Maya up in his arms, joined his hands on the back of her head, then, keeping her suspended above the floor, rapidly and forcefully fucked the older woman with such wild abandon that she could only whimper as her cunt gushed, Asuka and Rei catching the occasional droplet from their place on the bed. It should have been comical, but with the ease with which he handled Maya’s body, coupled with the lack of strain he showed at holding her off the ground while he ravished her, Asuka found it impressive almost against her will.
Asuka herself felt Shinji’s come leaking out of her while she tried to catch her breath. Rei lying in a twitching puddle next to her on the bed.
Over the last couple of weeks, she’d begun spending her afternoon and early evening in Shinji’s apartment, using Misato’s apartment mostly to sleep as the older woman spent more and more time at NERV. The days were downright blissful. With a routine that largely consisted of taking care of any homework with Shinji and Rei when they arrived from school. Chatting, watching movies or playing video games to relax. Then Shinji would bend either Rei or Asuka over a surface of his apartment and have his way with them, much to their delight.
The big oaf was also careful not to push Asuka to the point that she wouldn’t be able to walk straight…or at all. Whereas he pushed Rei much farther. Or at present as he was doing with Maya.
As Asuka watched the older woman shudder through another orgasm only to whimper as Shinji took that as an invitation to speed up, she doubted Maya would be able to walk for a good while.
It made Asuka feel left out, but such would remain necessary so long as she didn’t permanently move to stay with her boyfriend and…and girlfriends. And as much as Misato got on her nerves, Asuka was fairly certain she was one of the few things keeping the woman from committing suicide via alcohol poisoning.
Maya gasped and groaned as Shinji growled and pushed her down, impaling her on his member as he came deep inside her, her arms and legs twitching uselessly as Shinji’s hold on her body kept her almost immobile. Once again, Asuka was struck by a strange feeling, as just a few weeks before, she would have screamed from the top of her lungs that such a position was demeaning and that Maya should have pushed to be treated better, or with greater dignity.
Now her insides churned, instinctively gripping at the emptiness in her belly wishing to be filled. She watched enraptured as, after he finished filling the older woman and leaving hickeys and bite marks on her upper back, Shinji easily unbent Maya’s body and deposited the nearly insensate woman on the bed next to Rei, both their hands grasping blindly until they found each other, then held hands as they continued to try to catch their breath.
Some part of Asuka would have felt jealous if Shinji hadn’t walked up to her and presented his hanging cock, still slick with a mixture of his and Maya’s fluids. Not needing to be told, Asuka obediently kept eye contact as she took Shinji’s dick into her mouth and licked it clean, whimpering as in the process of that, it quickly grew to full mast under her ministrations, rapidly getting so large that Asuka couldn’t reach the base without gagging, unlike Rei and Maya, both of whom seemed to love pressing their noses into their boyfriend’s pubes and staying there for as long as possible.
Before she could try imitating them again, Shinji pulled her off his cock, made her crawl on the bed until she was looming over Rei, and unceremoniously sank inside her to the hilt in one firm stroke, almost making Asuka’s arms collapse as her eyes crossed.
The reason why he’d had her crawl over Rei became obvious as that little traitor smiled, and with the hand that wasn’t holding onto Maya’s, she reached up and began to play with Asuka’s clit while her lips clamped around one of Asuka’s hanging and swaying breasts.
Maya merely smiled and, much like Asuka earlier, settled in to enjoy the show while she tried to recover.
Shinji’s seemingly careless hammering jolted her body forward, forcing her to push back and meet his thrusts partway. Asuka wanted nothing more than for her current…this, to never change.
Maybe she should get permission to spend a whole weekend here. She really wanted to try some of the things that Shinji did to Maya and Rei, and she certainly wouldn’t be walking home after those.
=][=
Maya hummed contentedly as she typed away at her station.
Never would she have imagined that her current situation would ever happen. She was one of the smartest women on Earth, her salary made certain she was also one of the wealthiest…well, at least before the budget cuts. Point being, for the longest time, Ibuki Maya had been far too busy doing her part to save the world to ever bother thinking about romance.
Yes, she’d had a few people she fancied, Ritsuko being among that number before Maya learned the woman’s…proclivities. But she’d certainly never seen herself as the type that would happily submit to a man, then share her lover with another girl, let alone two!
However, the inclusion of Asuka to Mister Shinji’s lovers had been a boon in more ways than one. It was certainly easier to bear the burden of slaking Mister Shinji’s lust with another girl present to share that load. But the main benefit was that Asuka’s temperament had improved a lot; she was a lot less prickly, significantly less vainglorious, and even her synchronization tests had improved markedly.
The rumor mill was abuzz with the ways Azuka had changed, though most of the female staff had easily picked up on the girl’s tells and simply knew that she was getting laid, attributing Asuka’s earlier attitude to being a hormonal, horny, sexually-frustrated teenager.
That was uncalled for in Maya’s personal opinion. Asuka’s issues ran far deeper than merely needing to get laid, though that had certainly played a part. Over the time that she’d become one of Mr. Shinji’s girls, Maya had had the privilege to witness Asuka at her most vulnerable. Where all the masks and pretenses fell away and only the girl’s heart remained…seen through a filter of blushing sweaty skin and tearful eyes.
There was a deep pit of pain and need in that girl, a pit that Maya, Rei, and Mister Shinji had slowly begun to fill with love and affection.
And sex. The sex being incredible was definitely a plus, in Maya’s humble opinion.
A part of her felt that she owed Hana an apology. Maya had given the other woman quite a bit of grief over being ‘proper,’ yet Maya was the one in a relationship with a young man and two girls that were several years her juniors. Happily spreading her legs for him and for the two younger women when they but asked.
Thinking on it…Maya had become by far the most debauched of her friends.
Huh…
Well, so long as that was the case, Mister Shinji was still a little too much with only three ladies. So maybe she could get Kaede to join them? She had mentioned that she liked her men big, brawny, and feisty, and Mister Shinji thought she was cute, an assessment that Maya agreed with.
“Hey, Ibuki.” Aoba said, snapping her out of her thoughts as to what Kaede’s face would look like while Mister Shinji made love to her.
“Yeah?” She asked.
“What do you think will happen, to NERV, I mean.” He said, causing Hyuga to stop working and turn to them. “We’re working on a shoestring budget. It won’t be long before things start failing due to lack of maintenance. The Evas are still a money black hole. And there’s been no further word on the Instrumentality Project.”
“Where are you going with this?” Hyuga asked after Aoba trailed off.
“Just wondering.” Aoba said slowly. “I would have thought that we’d be disbanded by now. It’s been weeks since the last Angel fell. There should no longer be any incentive to keep NERV going, we were always meant to be around only so long as the Angel threat remained. But as I said, it’s been weeks, and we’re still here.”
“There must still be a threat.” Maya said with conviction, making her two coworkers turn to look at her. “There is no other logical reason, NERV has not received the order to stand down, because there is still a threat to humanity that has yet to be dealt with.” She turned back to her station. “We just need to be ready to deal with that threat, whatever form it may take.”
“I wish I had your optimism in our fearless leaders’ goals.” Aoba said with a sigh. “It would be nice if he were around to ask him, but he hasn’t made an appearance at the Command Room all week.”
Maya giggled. It was easy to be optimistic when it was Mister Shinji that she put her faith in. He hadn’t let her down so far, and she knew in the deepest recesses of her heart, that so long as she continued to support him to the best of her ability, he never would.
“Someone stop him!” Came the shout from far below. Maya smiled, stood, and walked to the edge of the wall, looking down to enjoy the show.
“Woop woop woop woop woop!” Mister Shinji said as he ran in a really weird manner, caps and berets stacked perilously high on his head as he ran away from a full squad of the Order of Judas who chased him through the Command Room.
“Oh hey, it’s only the third time this week.” Aoba said, watching as Mister Shinji weaved and dodged gracefully through the Command Room, knocking over no coffee mugs, banging against no chairs, and tripping nobody over. Gaining significant distance from the mercenaries as they were forced to slow their progress to a crawl to manage the same. “They improved pretty quickly.”
Maya felt her smile widen as Mister Shinji did some unusually acrobatic things, even pausing to pose or laugh maniacally to give the mercenaries time to almost catch up before running off again.
“Is that a smile I see on your face, Ibuki?” Hyuga asked teasingly. “What would those poor mercenaries think? You are the one they call to corral him, you know. If they see you enjoying his antics they’ll fall into despair.”
Maya scoffed and stuck her tongue out at him.
She would go take Mister Shinji to task eventually, can’t have people think she was going too soft on him, a part of her wondered if the only reason she was allowed to be his ‘guardian’ was that she was one of the few people who could publicly tell him to stop doing something and he’d actually listen. It did a lot to spark the rumor mill, half the rumors were that she was spreading her legs for him and that’s why he listened to what she said, the other half were that Maya was secretly a draconian disciplinarian, and that was why he listened to her. Maya felt that anyone with two neurons to rub together would realize that anyone who actually tried the second approach would not get very far with Mister Shinji.
That said, the first rumor, while closer to the truth, was far off the mark. Mister Shinji did as she said during the day, because he cared for her. Maya was certain that some people would think otherwise, that it was purely because of their physical relationship. But those people would be wrong.
With one final fading “Woooooooooop!” Mister Shinji ran out of the Command Room, the mercenaries hot on his trail, though fairly far from his heels.
Maya giggled softly and went back to her seat. She’d let Mister Shinji have his fun while he could, something would come up eventually, something that made the mischievous Mister Shinji vanish like smoke in the wind, leaving only the Miracle Child, the one who would face down any and all threats to humanity, who no matter how many times he was knocked down, he always got back up swinging.
While she loved both versions of Mister Shinji, she rather enjoyed the Mister Shinji that loved pulling harmless pranks on NERV staff. She wished she could see that side of him more often.
That’s when the alarm rang out.
=][=
“We need help recalibrating the Evas Ritsuko. We need some way to have a computer read brain inputs Ritsuko. The Magi are under attack by five of the Magi copies across the world Ritsuko.” Akagi Ritsuko grumbled as she typed at a speed that most would consider frantic, but she herself considered adequate. “There’s two Magi systems attacking from Germany Ritsuko, they’ve already cracked through the first six layers of security Ritsuko. We need to reinstate satellite communication Ritsuko. No we can’t just sever our connections to the outside world to stop this attack, figure something else out Ritsuko.”
Contrary to what most thought, the inside of the Magi supercomputer system was in actuality rather warm. It was kept between thirty-eight and thirty-nine degrees Celsius. The reason for this being that this was the optimal temperature for the human neural tissues that formed the basis of the computing core of the Magi.
All of which to say, she had been made to crawl on her hands and knees into the deepest recess of the Magi, an utter rat’s nest of cables and piping, with nothing to aid her except several laptops and cans of coffee, while it was literally hotter than balls.
At least she was made to work under these deplorable conditions in a one-piece bathing suit, she’d been busy working on Eva Unit 02’s cryogenic chamber, having needed to dive into the fluid to reach the part of the Eva that needed inspection. So while the bathing suit had ridden rather uncomfortably between her glutes, at least she wasn’t baking in her own clothing while working.
And to top things off, this would just be what was ‘expected’ of her.
So she took advantage of being in possibly the one place in all of this godforsaken location where she could be certain of her privacy to at the very least vent some of her frustrations. “What’s that? You’d like a reward Ritsuko? What could someone so intelligent and selfless possibly want? You are far too sophisticated for a candlelit dinner. God forbid you want to be pushed face-down into a bed and fucked like the bitch in heat that you are. No you’d need a man for that wouldn’t you? And you’ve literally lost all the men in your life to that doll.”
Her hands almost paused as thoughts of the doll inevitably brought back thoughts of her erstwhile assistant and protégé. Watching over her every movement like a hawk during every ‘official’ checkup of the doll. Her cheeks tingled with a phantom sensation every time Maya glared at her, but she’d been as good as her word and not told Shinji about Ritsuko’s…excessive testing.
The fact that the doll would go behind Maya’s back to get to the actually important procedures was no balm, as the uppity doll had informed her that she would tell Maya if Ritsuko ‘went too far.’
“Stupid, idiotic, moronic, self-absorbed...” Ritsuko maintained a steady stream of invectives that she dared not voice in front of the doll lest she get another visit from Maya. It was bad enough having to work with the woman, always getting those suspicious gazes where once there had been something near adoration…it had hurt.
It still hurt.
All over that damn sex doll.
She finished, hit ‘enter’ one last time, and watched with some satisfaction as the hack into the original Magi by five Magi systems was stopped in its tracks, the Danang Type B Firewall erected after that, securing their systems for at least the next sixty hours. More than enough time for her to devise something even better.
Because it didn’t matter that other lesser minds had copied her tools and machinery, they were not Agaki Ritsuko.
She leaned back, allowing the faint sound of cheering from the Control Room to reach her, deep in the guts of the Magi. And wondered why she even bothered.
After far too long spent thinking, Ritsuko came to the conclusion that she did it, because she was in too deep to stop now. Not the most inspiring answer, but good enough.
She started the arduous process of getting out along with all the equipment she’d brought that littered the inside of the Magi.
=][=
“Up our standby level to two.” Misato ordered.
“Ma’am?” Hyuga asked.
“Hacking the Magi was round one.” She said with a shake of her head. “An attempt to lock us in our own base and take us out piecemeal. That didn’t work, but these people will not take no for an answer. All non-combat personnel are to head to secure locations. Security and the Order of Judas are to get ready to repel an assault. Account for all Pilots and scramble the Evas. And evacuate all civilians into the shelters.”
“But ma’am, Hikari still can’t synchronize with her Eva very well.” Ibuki protested.
“Doesn’t matter. Either she does, in which case we have an Evangelion ready for the defense, or she doesn’t, and is in the most secure location on the Geofront. Put her in the Eva and scramble her.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“I see you’re taking care of things here.”
Misato turned around, scowling at the speaker. “Vice-Director Fuyutsuki.”
“Don’t mind me. I came to offer what aid I can, but I see you have things well under control.” Fuyutsuki said, looking over Aoba’s shoulder.
“Uh…ma’am? Tokyo-2 just issued a code A-801.” Hygua said.
“And that is?” She demanded.
“NERV has been stripped of all legal protections, control is now assumed by the Japanese government.” He explained. “We do not currently have the authority to move civilians into shelters.”
“Well screw the government!” Misato snapped. “Get all civilians to their designated shelters immediately!”
“Ma’am.”
Various screens along the radar wall turned to static.
“Radar stations eight through twelve have gone offline!” One of the technicians called. “We’re detecting multiple artillery regiments coming from the Goura Defense Line…they’re under attack!?”
“Radar station sixteen shows that they’re under bombardment from two tank battalions along their flank!” Called another. “We have several flights of VTOLs heading into the city, they’re under fire from their own forces!”
“They’re fighting each other?” Misato murmured.
“We…We have access to their communications?” Ibuki said suddenly, making Misato’s gaze snap to her.
“Explain!” She demanded.
“I…I’ve just been patched into their command circuit.” Ibuki said. “It’s a mess of contradictory orders…”
Misato held out her hand, and Ibuki obediently handed over her headset. She listened to several voices screaming about traitors, at least one scream about Revelation, something about a new world order, and at least one scream about becoming a god that ended in a gurgle.
Unfortunately, whoever was in charge in the field wasn’t an idiot and was starting the process of getting things under control. The words ‘kill them all’ did not bring Misato much peace of mind.
Can’t have that.
“Battle stations condition one!” Misato snapped. “Deploy all city defenses and weapons! Begin bombardment while they’re still confused!”
“Ma’am!?” Ibuki squawked. “But…But they’re humans!”
“They’re humans that literally just talked about how they’re here to kill everyone in NERV, deploy all defenses and weapons!”
“Ma’am!”
She stepped back, forcing herself not to micromanage her people. She very much wanted to bite her fingernail, but she had to show a strong front to prevent panic.
Tremors could be felt as more and more of the bombardment started to fall within Tokyo-3, reports of unconfirmed civilian casualties grating through Misato’s ears like glass.
“How can they be so cruel?” Ibuki whispered. “There are civilians in the city!”
“Enemy contact in the South Hub Station!” Shouted out Kaede. “Security claims contact with dozens of hostiles! More contact along East and North Hub Stations!”
“What about the Order of Judas!?”
“They’re engaging!”
She changed the Command Room screen to show security footage and saw the mixed forces of NERV security and the mercenaries she’d hired in fierce firefights against men in tactical gear with…were those G11s!?
Shit.
On the screen, she saw one of the enemy soldiers lift a shoulder-fired rocket launcher.
Double shit!
Before he could fire, he was torn apart by what looked like heavy machinegun fire. On the screen, a female form wearing ornate metal armor stepped into frame, firing the biggest gun that Misato had ever seen into the soldiers attempting to assault NERV, each and every round tearing through the best armor money could buy as if it were made of cardboard.
A sight that was repeated on several screens, figures standing next to men of the Order of Judas allowed Misato to see that they weren’t very large, their armor and weapons made them appear bulky, but those who had joined their side weren’t tall. Nonetheless, where they walked, the enemy died. Not only that, they didn’t bother taking cover as their armor was seemingly impervious to small arms fire.
“Why the frills?” Misato found herself asking, as her brain chose to focus on, of all things, the lacy frills that were attached to the plates of their shoulders, or the edges of the plate skirts they wore on their armor.
“What maid worth the title would be caught dead without her frills?” Demanded a woman’s voice right next to her, making her jump and aim her sidearm. A woman of a height with Misato stood there, her armor looked to be the same as the one worn by their mysterious benefactors on the screens, now she could see that the ornamentation on the armor were metal fleur-de-lis molded or welded onto the metal plates. And lastly, the whole ensemble did resemble a French maid outfit, if one made of metal and on the opposite side of the spectrum of what she’d grown used to seeing.
She was far more used to the fetish maid outfits like the one she kept in her closet and had worn for Kaji on special occasions, this looked like a proper maid outfit somehow transformed into power armor. And it was power armor, it whirred with the woman’s every movement.
The helmeted head, styled to look like the armor of a crusading knight turned to regard her, and she saw that the visor glowed with an eerie blue luminescence.
“Madam, do please put that away, an accidental discharge could very well cause a ricochet that could hurt someone.” The…power armored maid said.
Misato did not lower the gun, instead she demanded. “Who are you and what are you doing here?”
“My name is Virgo, the head maid of the Young Master. He has given us instructions to safeguard this location and its people, and as such, we shall do his bidding.” She said, bowing into a slight curtsey, lifting the armored skirt…thing as she did. “My presence here is to safeguard one of the Young Master’s ladies. If I may be excused.”
With that, not caring one whit about the barrel of the gun right by her head, she turned her back on Misato and walked until she was standing by Ibuki. Where she gave a deeper more elaborate courtesy, then folded her armored hands in front of her. “My lady, while I am here to ensure your safety, feel free to ask me for anything you require. If it is within reason and does not jeopardize your safety, I shall do my best to accommodate.”
Ibuki stared at the armored woman, her eyes very wide, her mouth flapping like a fish out of water. Her face turning steadily redder.
“Ibuki?” Hyuga asked.
“You had a combat maid and never told me?” Aoba asked.
“Who the hell is the Young Master?” Demanded Misato.
On the screen, in the view of one of the security cameras, a giant in drab green armor of a different make to the self-professed maid stepped into view, literally using a soldier in black armor as a club to beat other soldiers to death with.
And somehow, beyond the shadow of any doubt, Misato knew that this was all somehow Shinji’s doing.
“Wait, what did you say Ibuki was?”
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