Cast in Gold - Evangelion/Exalted

Shyft · Jun 10, 2014

Well, as more than a few people know, Spacebattles is suffering hardware errors. So for the time being, I'll throw a mirror of the 'fic here.
. I'll be making a few placeholder posts for table of contents, and hey, a FAQ. Keep an eye out for it.

Cast in Gold:
FF.net link

Synopsis: tbd

Table of Contents:
You'll have to forgive the fact that I didn't start positing snippets until chapter 13+.

Chapter 33: Tension
- Ch: 33 - Rei is Worried, Asuka vents
- Ch: 33 - Misato muses, Gendo's Ominous Action; End of Chapter 33
Chapter 34: Lure
Chapter 35: Progress
Chapter 36: Ascendant
Chapter 37: Reunion
Chapter 38: TBD

Shyft · Jun 10, 2014

How many Exalted are going to show up/Will anyone else Exalt?
1. Shinji is the only Exalted, other elements from Creation (like Thaumaturgy) are present however.
What Caste is Shinji?
1. Zenith
What are his favored abilities/Charms?
1. I choose not to answer that question completely. Instead I try to show it via narrative. I would rather not post a 'character sheet' for people to pick over. I will say that he favors Craft and Medicine.
What Setting/Edition/Books are you using?
1. Basically the Exalted 2nd Edition, but there's more to it than that.
  It's not really a question I can answer explicitly. I definitely have my preferences/biases though.
  Instead, I've been trying to follow the spirit of the thing rather than the rules/books/canon-as-written. This means that while I'm not going to be introducing anything too flagrantly out of line, I'm not building a story only out of the blocks the books gave me. So declaring whole book or charm tree as "Valid" just doesn't work here.
  If possible, the only major magical stuff Shinji deals with would be things that resonate deeply with his character and his narrative, not compulsively working in the background to make sure descriptions of Fleet Wind Thunder Kick are as accurate as possible
Shinji's characterization is confusing, what gives?
1. Basically, I'm writing Shinji as he appears in the original 26 episodes, not using the Exaltation as a quick-fix for his issues.
  I set out to write a story about how an Exaltation changes a person, and how it doesn't. The act of Exalting does not magically heal all psychological problems, in many cases it exacerbates them. This is why Shinji is so compulsively reclusive and non-confrontational; He can punch his problems away, but would he have done so before Exalting?
You've thrown the term 'Classical Hero' around a few times, what does that mean?
1. A classical hero, in context of Exalted and Earth myth, is essentially a person who decides to forge their own path, a person who wants to achieve something, badly. They are the person who decides to go out and slay the monster, despite all conventional wisdom, ethics, morality, etc, saying it's a bad idea. To a classical hero, the challenges around them are an obstacle to be overcome, they are Proactive Heroes.
  Shinji is currently not a classical hero. Instead he is a Byronic Hero, with or without his Exaltation.
  This is contrasted against the 'Modern' hero, which is the 'Good Guy', the reactive one, fighting against the villain's nefarious scheme or saving the day. The modern hero solves the reprehensible murder, the classical hero might be a murderer, but the fact that they went and killed is what made them heroic in context of their story.
  Old Heroes are 'I do what I want and earn my glory'. New heroes are 'Communicate values of the 20th-21st century to readers/consumers.'
Similar question about 'Epic', what does that mean here?
1. "Epic" is a genre definition for long stories that focus on the fate of nations, the lives of kingdoms, families. They are the epic cycles of poetry. The Beowulfs, the Lord of the Rings, and Wuxia fare such as Jet Li's Fearless and Hero. The Odyssey, Greek Myth and the like are all Epics. It's essentially a sign of Scope. The classical epics of literature are also where we see the classical heroes, the 'Go out and do something' heroes.
What is Shinji's limit break?
1. It's Temperance based, but I'd rather not go into the specifics as again, I'm not really playing him like a player; (if he was, the story would be much shorter).
Why isn't Shinji more of a badass?
1. That ties into the whole basic concept I went in when starting Cast in Gold: What are the problems with 'Super-Shinji' stories. Or the Super-Narutos, Xanders, etc. The problems were legion, but most of them boiled down to "This is wish fulfillment, not a story."
  Now I like wish fulfillment stories! I just didn't want to write one, so I aimed my sights higher. I wanted to deconstruct those kinds of stories by giving Shinji good things, and then showing how they could be soured… or how bad things turn into good things, and so on and so forth.
  Related to this, is that Shinji's personality has not changed much from being a Solar. He's still a repressed introvert, scared of human contact (to say nothing of sexuality, in which he shifts between self-loathing and completely normal fascination).
  To answer this question with a question, I say this: What would make Shinji do badass things? Does he magically know the answer to all his problems?
Is this a Shinji/Misato story, or Shinij/Rei or Shinji/Asuka? etc.
1. Like 'wish fulfillment' above, I set out to deliberately avert a lot of common pitfalls in the fandom, as well as with fanfiction in general. I'm not writing a shipping 'fic. Instead I'm writing a story that includes relationships. Relationships are however messy; this doesn't make them bad or harmful, just awkward and rarely so perfect as shipping fic describes.
WHAT THE HELL IS KAJI'S MYSTERY BOX!?
1. Izzaskerrit, boss.
Man, Misato is one fucked up lady, what gives?
1. Misato is, according to my interpretation, inappropriate but wise. This also ties into her canon character; considering she spent a chunk of her teenage years in a coma, she's actually several steps behind say, Ritsuko and Kaji as far as emotional maturity goes. She acts closer to 22 than 30. Does this make her behavior around say Shinji appropriate? No. Does it make her evil? Hell no. She has a screwed up way of showing affection, to be sure, and the trauma of y'know, living through 2nd impact. None of this makes her an awful, destructive person. A hurt one, definitely.
Why is Asuka such a bitch?
1. Complicated question. Short answer? She's 14. Longer answer? She's 14 and extremely emotionally damaged. I'm not white-washing her canon personality in favor of facilitating some nebulous goal. One thing I would want to point to out explicitly, is that Asuka is not jealous of Shinji's Exaltation. That's like being jealous of winning a lottery you never entered. It makes no sense to her to be jealous of a freak accident. She is however totally upset about how much NERV sidelines her in relation to Shinji/Corporate concerns.
What's the deal with the two-part Souls?
1. That's part of how the crossover works, and more information would be spoilers. I can tell you that in Creation, humans have a Higher and Lower soul (Hun and Po), and the Exaltation fits between them. I also can tell you that Ritsuko's soul cameras can 'see' souls, and see that human souls and Evangelion souls look amazingly different… Half different, at least.
Why isn't Shinji completely dominating say, Evangelion fields?
1. Because he doesn't really care to try. They're not in his field of interest. If Evangelions were his wife, and medicine was his mistress, he'd still be in love with his mistress. This doesn't mean he can't apply himself to the Evangelion, but the vast majority of the answers to questions like these are "He hadn't thought of it/doesn't want to."
And Why can't Shinji use Charms through the Evangelion?
1. Watsonian: There are metaphysical associations with how all the abilities of Creation work, there are 25 constellations for the 25 abilities, and they all have related astrological/fate/whatever functions throughout the whole setting. You don't wear an Eva (Solar Resistance), and you don't Sail or Ride one, therefore there's no way to harness Essence through them. (yet if ever).
2. Doylist: I wanted to do something more interesting (to me) than "Evas are Hellstriders." I don't like how much screentime Yozis get, so I wanted to push away from all the memes that surround them. Thus, Evangelions do not map to Warstriders/Hellstriders.
Will Shinji ever learn such-and-such charm?
1. Maybe! If he figures out how/wants to learn it. I've been trying to show the 'Solar Experience' from an in-character view, instead of a player one. Shinji's stumbling into old wuxia tropes like finding his own training montages- for example, he might learn Thunderclap Rush Attack by trying to grab roasting chestnuts out of an open fire. He doesn't see a character sheet and pays XP for charms, he 'feels them out' through his actions and daily life. That's how he also learned a Bureaucracy Excellency, from trying to do NERV's accounting. He also realized he absolutely HATED doing accounting, so gave up.
Is [Favorite Thing from the books] going to make an appearance?
1. Maybe! I'm writing a story, not a polished-up Actual Play of an ongoing campaign. Things will pop up if they need to and be ignored if they don't, because all of those are simply narrative tools in the box for telling the story I want to tell. So if the tool doesn't fit, I'm not going to Make it fit simply because it made print.
Can Shinji make AT-field charms?
1. I haven't decided, but it's theoretically possible. The idea is that a Solar can make charms based on Human Skill, the qualities of BEING human. Punch better, Design better, Ride/Sail better, etc. If you can quantify AT field manipulation as something humans can become skilled in, then yes he could make charms for it.
  That being said, human AT fields are largely automatic/passive aftereffects of well, having souls- sort of like how matter/mass is directly related to Gravity. If a normal human could manipulate their AT field, then Shinji probably could too and be alarmingly good at it. But as long as it is not normal for humans to do, then he can't.
Is Shinji making Artifacts/Doing Magic?
1. Not as often as people think. As long as it's just him doing things or using an Excellency (represented by the results being amazing), it's still 'mundane effort'. For example, when he cooks, he's not blatantly violating the way things work. Thaumaturgical prepared food, or a consumable Artifact would have a lot more arbitrary 'stuff' behind it.
Where are the Other Exalted/Exaltations?
1. See Entry #1. Alternatively: I dunno, Creation?
How do Shinji's Charms work in NGE-Earth? How does he respire Essence? Is it a Future Creation, or something else?
1. The answer to that ties into my planned plot, so I really can't say because it'd be spoilers. Part of the story is the characters learning about the nature of Exalted and Essence.
  I can tell you that I've done a lot of worldbuilding behind the scenes as to where most everything connects.
  I can also tell you that I try to present deliberate details to encourage discussion. Shinji obviously can respire Essence, so there's got to be Essence in NGE-verse somehow. I just dislike the assumption that NGE-verse is future Creation or something.
Are the Dead Sea Scrolls Yozi Artifact/Fate/Sidereal-related? Is it the NGE Equivalent of the Broken-Winged Crane?
1. Nope!
Expanding on the above question, whenever the question "Is [NGE thing] an [Exalted thing]?"
The answer is "Most likely not." I'm not going for a base-level fusion, which is to say one 'verse serves as the foundation for the other 'verse. I don't usually like the results. Further, nothing really changes if the First Ancestral Races were Primordials or not. considering the scope of the story, it's just not relevant.
Even if true, that resulting cosmology isn't something that will really get explored all that much, so any interesting stories resulting from it are instead left as an exercise for the reader.
Stuff from Creation, like Thaumaturgy, is showing up in NGE- does it go both ways?
1. Well, looking at it from the NGE side with the various Creation-inserts, there are a few places where NGE takes precedent or has an unexpected interaction. AT fields for example. I haven't gone into a lot of in-narrative detail though on how AT fields work, so I'll elaborate on that later.
  If the story ever went to Creation, then who knows? We might see it go both ways.
Shyft, why are you so often ambiguous about this stuff?
1. Mostly that comes from me believing the best stories are the ones that give readers room to think. Exalted as a game/setting suffers from being over-explained.
  Now, that doesn't mean I haven't made mistakes; I've probably been far too vague or opaque with what I'm trying to show in the story more than once.
What about Guns/Modern Technology/Military vs Exalts?
1. Complicated question: I'm not really any kind of military tech/tactics expert, but the Doylist answer is "I'll put in enough to make a good story, according to my judgement."
  More importantly, I write not to simulate, but to tell a story. "Shinji is shelled from all sides from artillery and dies" is not a good story. Neither is blatantly ignoring how utterly hellish that would be for him.
A given character suddenly got animal features/animal relevant screentime - Are they Exalted as a Lunar?
1. Anyone who Exalts as a Lunar has an unmistakable visitation from Luna. There is no ambiguity. Animal Features != Lunar Exaltation

Shyft · Jun 10, 2014

As a rule, Rei did not really spend much of her time worrying. However, the increased awareness of her own mortality and limited capability of being replaced had given her a much greater sense of proportion. Her life was unique and finite, despite having extensive infrastructure dedicated to always ensuring there was an Ayanami, somewhere. Most teenagers didn't contemplate the concept of mortality either, so in that regard Rei considered herself an exception. All of that rumination lead to one inescapable conclusion: Life was finite, and by extension so was time.

Therefore, Asuka was late.

At first it had not really concerned the girl. Rei had gone about her nightly routine. She showered, dressed, and secured her much more manageable reserve of stabilizing agent. Asuka however had developed a reputation in her mind for being punctual. Again not usually a sign for concern, Rei knew there were ongoing, extended product demonstrations in the Geofront, and any number of tasks that needed the Second Child's attention. Being late was understandable. Not being called to explain why, now that was confusing.

It was for that reason that Rei decided to start a search. Her phone had come pre-programmed with a handful of relevant names and numbers, and she had added to more as the years went by. Project E offices connected her to one of Akagi-sensei's underlings. That person directed her to someone in Tactical, then the liason between Special Research and Public Relations. In hindsight, Rei noted that it probably would've been easier to call Section 2 first, but she felt more reassured by being thorough.

Section 2 however had only given her a simple, painfully unhelpful answer. "The Second Child has headed up north."

Rei had no idea what that meant, which lead her to scroll to the third name on her list, after the Commander and Akagi-Sensei, respectively. Three rings later, Misato picked up. "Y-Yeah?"

The girl sucked in a short breath. "Misato-san, I'm not sure where Asuka-san is. I think you should be made awa-"

Misato cut her off mid-word. "Asuka is here, Rei, at the harbor." On her end, Rei could hear water beating against the side of a ship, and the Misato had to speak over the evening coastal winds. "I have no idea what happened, but Asuka got into it with Shinji or something! I've barely been able to get a word out of her."

Rei cocked her head to the side without thinking. "I see."

Misato sighed, overloading the speaker for a second or two. "L-Listen, I'll see if I can get Asu-Asuka! Get over here!" There was a muted, extremely familiar shout on the other end. The sounds were muffled further when Misato clamped her hand over the mouthpiece, but not before Rei heard "It's Rei!"

Waiting patiently, Rei heard a rumbling, shuffling boom and scrape, the phone being passed between people most likely. Asuka's voice crackled out the speaker, hoarse from screaming. "Rei?"

"Yes, Asuka-san."

The other girl was silent for long time, save for her breathing. Rei was nothing if not patient. "Rei... Shit. I guess we're not going to hit the arcades before I ship out, huh?"

Despite herself, Rei nodded. "No, that seems unlikely."

"I'm sorry," Asuka growled at something, Rei wasn't entirely sure what. "I just, I just can't be in the same country as them, alright?"

Again, Rei cocked her head, otherwise alone and unobserved in her room. "'Them'?" She echoed.

Asuka's reply was a wordless sound of frustration. "Not now, I'll try to explain later. You need to take care of things there alright? I need someone I can trust in Tokyo-3...."

"I understand, Asuka-san." There were some parts Rei had to admit she didn't understand, but Asuka wasn't exactly a master of doublespeak or controlling her inflection. More 'business' was not what her friend needed at that moment. "I will watch your apartment while you're deployed."

"You don't have to do that...." Asuka trailed off. She'd started strong, but it was clear to Rei her heart just wasn't in it. Belatedly, the blue-haired girl realized she finally understood that particular idiom, but reminded herself that Asuka was the priority.

Taking a page from Misato, the girl kept her tone deliberately light. For Rei, it came out even more like a whisper than normal. "Correct, but I want to."

Plastic creaked, then audibly relaxed. Asuka must have gripped the phone pretty hard. "...Thanks, then. You know where my spare key card is, or you could just vault the balcony...."

Reassurances, Rei thought, as many as she could think of. "I can manage. Everything will be alright here."

Both pilots went quiet again, but Asuka refused to let it last for long. She mulled aloud into the receiver. "Yeah.... So..."

"....So?"

The redhead let out a gusty breath, blatantly temporizing. Not that Rei could begrudge her. "Well, I'm glad you called. It was..." Asuka let the statement hang. "...nice."

The two teenagers lapsed into another stifling silence, just listening to each others breathing for several seconds. Nearly a year ago, Rei had been given a piece of advice that now started to make much more sense. Saying goodbye was sad, almost tragic.

Her smile was tiny, but Rei could feel the change in her voice as she spoke. "Asuka-san, I'll see you and Misato-san when you get back."

Asuka coughed a little, but she smiled too, all the way across the country."Yeah... Yeah, I'll see you later too, Ayanami. Don't let anyone fuck with you, alright?"

It was then that Rei had an idea. She grinned into her phone and licked her lips. "I believe you have made it sufficiently clear that I am 'claimed'. We can attempt another rendezvous some other time."

She hit the end-call button before Asuka could reply, but Rei had absolutely no trouble imagining her friends' red-faced scream.

Shyft · Jun 10, 2014

Lashed to a concrete peer extending out into the post-Impact Bay, the converted transport ship Soyokaze sat almost motionless in the harbor. The sun had set hours ago, and the wind was cold. Leaning against the port-side rail, Misato smoothed her hair back into the collar of her jacket and tried not to shiver. A few yards away and behind some nautical something-or-other, Asuka mumbled into the Major's borrowed phone. Misato sighed and looked up at the sky, seeing low clouds cut slashes out of the star field.

There was just no good solution, at all. Draping her arms over the railing, Misato leaned further forward and pushed her hips back, braced against the deck with the heels of her boots. Whatever had happened... happened, and the dark-haired woman had absolutely no idea what to do about it. Asuka had come in blazing by VTOL a few hours ago, and she was still seething mad. Something to with Shinji, which of course piled problems on top of problems.

Misato's jaw tensed as she remembered. Earlier, her first thought had been to demand an explanation, to apply discipline. But when Misato had seen the hollow, drained look on Asuka's face, the only thing that could come to mind was asking why. She hadn't gotten an answer then, and still wasn't getting one now. The girl had looked brittle, almost. Never broken, Asuka was too tough for that and Misato knew it, but whatever had happened between her and Shinji had taken it out of the girl.

And Shinji was her other concern. Of course without knowing even Asuka's side, she couldn't make any sort of decision or form a course of action. Misato stared out over the harbor and the bits of light that proved people were still working. Shifts were going around the clock to get everything set up in those last few crucial days, and to Misato, the logistical weight bore down on her shoulders with a vengeance. Asuka was still talking to Rei, enough that Misato had to strain her ears if she cared to. At that moment though, Misato felt as if she were being stretched between Japan and Vladivostok.

Drop everything and run home, aiming to fix whatever was broken with both her pilots.... Or stay and focus on Asuka, trusting NERV to handle Shinji. Her choices, in a word, sucked. She rubbed the bridge of her nose and sighed. Shinji needed her, probably, Asuka needed her definitely, and the mission needed her. Misato's lips compressed down to a razor thin line, almost hard enough to bruise.

"Major Katsuragi-san?"

Misato's hand clamped around the rail hard enough to shake it, and the rest of her body locked up tight in less than a second. Wide-eyed, she glanced to the side, seeing a crewman saluting her with his free hand. A clipboard hung from his other hand. Slowly, Misato willed herself to relax and straighten out, returning the salute.

Formalities out of the way, the crewman handed the board to her, explaining. "Apologies ma'am. " He helped her find a few specific pages, requiring her signature and input on the continuing preparations. While Misato scribbled her name where indicated, the sailor added- "We would've called you, but your phone was busy."

Wincing, Misato let out a short laugh and pointed over her shoulder. Timing was on her side, because Asuka stepped into sight, staring blankly at the loaned phone. Then the girl screamed.

* * *

Deep inside the Geofront, Ikari Gendo sat in his office at his desk. The massive chamber was silent, save for the faint whine of a holographic projector, and a pair of recordings; one audio, and one video. The Commander extended one finger, halting playback for a moment. He brooded then, quietly and barely blinking. Mused, schemed, and above all, planned. If it were Akagi or the Old Men, paper and pen would have been his weapon of choice, but Katsuragi Misato, simple wit was enough.

His hand moved again, and the system obeyed his gestural command without hesitation or complaint. The playback resumed, scrubbed and looped over the relevant slice of conversation. The Second Child's voice filled the chamber, crystal clear and free of distortion. "-just can't be in the same country as them, alright?"

Light from the display reflected off his glasses, mirroring the user interface in off-color tones. Several minutes passed, and Gendo deemed his preparation sufficient. Unlacing his fingers, Gendo laid his hands on the desk and summoned the single fully holographic MAGI terminal in the Geofront. Command codes nearly twenty years old gave him system access that defied even Akagi's understanding of the triumvirate. The salvaged and restored Dawkins protocols were reactivated, and new parameters set in line.

"MAGI command sequence. Redirect incoming UN Pacific Fleet communication to primary terminal." He spoke the terms aloud; a bad habit Gendo had to admit, but he was an administrator, not a programmer.

"Suppress all outgoing communication from Tokyo-3 to the UN Pacific Fleet, Second Child Sorhyu Asuka Langley, and Major Katsuragi Misato."

=== Chapter 33: Tension ===
END

Shyft · Jun 10, 2014

because It's worth a repost.

Shyft · Jun 10, 2014

Then spake Leothric, son of the Lord Lorendiac, and twenty years old was he: "Good Master, what of the sword Sacnoth?"

And the village magician answered: "Fair Lord, no such sword as yet is wrought, for it lies as yet in the hide of Tharagavverug, protecting his spine."

- Excerpt from The Fortress Unvanqushable, Save for Sacnoth

* * *

The flagship of the United Nations Pacific Fleet was a former American aircraft carrier, sectioned to the UN Navy under an agreement older than the Second Child. Over the Rainbow was home to over five thousand people. Sailors and airmen drawn from over twenty nations filled its bunks and passages, and they represented both the best of humanity's naval tradition... and the worst. The Pacific Fleet was the strong water arm of the world that had stopped waging war.

Standing on the bridge, Katsuragi Misato couldn't help but consider both it and her captain as living fossils.

Altogether, the fleet was already several days into the first leg of its trip, where the NERV facility in Vladivostok waited to offload necessary supplies. Raw material from the greater Asian and Siberian territories were destined for the numerous cargo vessels following along, both to keep the fleet running, and to keep Asuka's Evangelion in one piece. The great war machine itself was still safely stowed aboard the Soyokaze, pre-loaded with B-type equipment. Asuka had insisted, considering more than sixty-six percent of the earth was water.

Misato kept a firm grip on her neutral expression, but inwardly, she wilted. Surrounded old dour men with grizzly, salt-and-pepper mustaches, Misato felt distinctly... out of place. Asuka, still clad in her plugsuit and jacket, hung sullenly in the older woman's shadow. Over the Rainbow's commanding officer, Admiral Stolocker, scowled past the low-set brim of his cap, and Misato suppressed the wince; she was supposed to be briefing them, right.

One of the crewmen manned his console and flipped a few switches, before handing her a headset microphone. She licked her lips and cleared her throat before holding it to her lips, but not before giving the technician a look. He gave her a decidedly thumbs-up; she was live.

"Good Afternoon," Misato's voice rang out over the public address system, and extended out from the carrier to ever other vessel in the fleet. "This is Major Katsuragi Misato of NERV. As of July twentieth, Two-thousand-sixteen, the UN Pacific Fleet is under my command as per Special Treaty Seventy-Eight."

The speakers hummed and crackled with feedback on the last word, and Misato waited for it to die down. The bridge crew and officers were all carved of granite, for how much they reacted. Misato swallowed thickly and pressed on. "Our mission is to investigate XT sightings throughout the Pacific and Atlantic theaters, with Unnatural Warfare support from Second Child Sorhyu."

Clipped, professional, and above all English, Misato tried to get her point across. Only at the end did she let some of her real self through. "For the past fifteen months or so, something has been chewing up coastal wilderness and civilian installations across the planet. "The pattern interception system classified these unknowns as Angels."

She paused, and her eyes cut left to right across the people staring right back. May as well go for broke. "Whatever they are, the threat they pose is no different. So we are going to find them, chase them to wherever they hide on this planet, and kill them. You may all return to your duties."

* * *

A week later, Misato settled into her seat and sighed. She had long since made it clear to Asuka that the pilot got the bed. Misato was going to just make due with the desk chair.

It was the tiniest stateroom aboard the massive aircraft carrier, and Misato knew it. Barely fit for one person, the pair were going to have to get real used to the idea of sharing each other's personal space. The whole room was maybe two strides wide and three deep with a shared desk along one wall, and a single, narrow bed along the other. To make matters worse, the bathroom and facilities- the head, Misato reminded herself-were not part of their quarters. Instead the NERV officer and pilot would have to walk ten yards down a dark hallway. And that wasn't even the most painful part.

The most painful part, was that when Asuka had rushed up north, she left behind everything she'd packed. Which meant that the girl only had the clothes on her back; the standard red plugsuit, the leather jacket, neural headband and patch. Her scarf had been hurled on the small bed across from Misato's. Clad in one of Misato's spare sweaters and a pinned up pair of boxers, Asuka raged.

Not that Misato would blame her, much. Two days ago, hygiene had become a very pressing problem. Asuka had sworn a blue streak and marched into the showers, not quite demanding Misato stand guard for any gawkers. A handful of helpful crewmen reminded the Major that when at sea, long hot showers were a luxury... and that Asuka had taken up twenty-odd minutes of their time. It was an enlightening experience for everyone involved.

The girl's plugsuit though was clean, after nearly two days of being sealed up against her skin. Misato shivered, and not for the first time, wondered how her pilots took care of other kinds of business... She decided then it wasn't a question that needed an answer.

It was also cold on board the carrier. The floating city soaked up the ocean's chill and held on to it like nothing Misato had ever encountered, and she cursed her vanity for wearing her mini dress. Snug cotton leggings kept the edge off, but that wasn't helping Asuka either. The older woman pulled off her red NERV jacket and draped it over the other girl's shoulders, pointedly ignoring the palpable fury. Asuka tried to jerk her shoulders away, but it wasn't like there was anywhere to go either. Gently, Misato guided the girl to her bed and pulled the leather jacket off the chair, draping it over Asuka's bare legs. That done, she slid in behind and wrapped her arms around the girl's middle.

* * *

Lacking more traditional inter-service rivalries, Misato figured a sailor or airman was close enough to a soldier for her to make a good impression. The trick was finding them. Over five-thousand people were on board the carrier, and several thousand more were spread out amongst the ships in the fleet. Coming from Japan, Misato also thought she understood what it meant to conserve space. The design of the Over the Rainbow informed her she was incorrect, in no uncertain terms. Near-vertical stairwells and cramped corridors made navigation confounding at best, outright treacherous at worst. Misato was by no means a tall woman, by Japanese standards or any other, but Asuka was having a better time getting around than she was.

Finding a place to go or something to do was one of a few dozen concerns at that. Misato ducked into an alcove between two bulkheads, where nothing in particular looked important enough to bother. She let out a gusty sigh, but smiled regardless.Counting the list over in her head, Misato ticked points off on her fingers. Work helped her focus, it seemed.

One, she had to finish helping patching in the fleet's communications to the detection network. The UN may've controlled the satellite interception system, but she helped design it; the strategic side at least. Two, she had to track down Kaji and lean on him until he needled the right people around the world. Glad-handing alone would not help her fight up this particular jurisdictional hill.

Looking around the corridor, taking in the numbers and letters stenciled along one bulkhead, Misato added a third objective to her list: Prove to Asuka she wasn't lost.

* * *

A week into the voyage, Misato found her sea-legs. Beyond that, she learned enough about the carrier's layout to make a fair attempt at getting around. Her shins ached however, from one too many hatch-rim impacts. She had however found something resembling an off-duty culture on board the carrier. The half of the crew that weren't at their given post tended to gravitate to the various galleys and few public spaces. And, in a surprising show of grace, Misato had been invited to the Officer's wardroom.

Settling down at a bench between a pair of junior officers, Misato looked up and watched a steward set a mug of coffee before her. Rank was observed, she couldn't help but note, but it was informal. 'Major' didn't carry as much weight on board a ship, but she wasn't going to complain either. A flash of red caught the corner of her eye. Twisting in her seat, Misato very nearly lost the grip on her mug: Asuka had been invited in as well.

That might have explained the reduced decorum- the girl was almost holding court through sheer, bullheaded force of personality. Asuka wasn't one to be charismatic, but she sure as hell tried. Misato stared over the rim of her mug and felt one of her eyebrows arch high. She had to lend Asuka some of her clothes, and there hadn't been enough time to negotiate something with the ship's tailor. On Asuka, Misato's black mini-dress needed a belt for cinching, and the rolled up slacks were... not flattering.

To her right, a Lieutenant nudged her elbow, pointing at the girl with his own mug. "I know she's one of the pilots, but you two have the same tastes Major Katsuragi... is she your daughter?"

* * *

Flipping a tiny switch on the side of her patch, Asuka's vision blurred. Orange lines overlaid her field of view, first describing angles, then shapes, finally three-dimensional polygons. Every edge and surface in the ship's corridor had been outlined, flagged with material analysis. The prosthetic was somewhat self-programming, or it piggybacked some of it's functions off of her own brain. Without a lab, Asuka couldn't say which. Concentrating, the girl pushed the schematic into the devices' memory.

Leaning against the cold steel wall, Asuka tried not to shiver. Misato all but preened next to her, well out of anyone's way, but watching, waiting. Every so often, a crewman would charge on by. Flipping over to image enhancement, Asuka had to note it was a crew-woman.

Misato must have noticed, because her smile curled at the corners. "Modern Navies may be co-ed, but relationships while at sea are strictly forbidden."

Asuka let out an ugly snort and crossed her arms over her chest. "And yet you're still treating this like a singles cruise."

The corridor went dark at the far end, as something blocked the hanging lights one after the other. The looming shadow approached, and as it neared, Asuka's eye went wide. Olive-green shirt, crew cut hair, rock-crushing jaw, and unambiguously masculine. Asuka felt the temperature drop a few degrees as the man's shadow passed over them. He flashed the pair a pearly white grin, and the narrow hallway suddenly swam with testosterone. Leaning out from around Misato, Asuka watched the man move away, and one eyebrow quirked up at the jigsaw muscles visible through his T-shirt. A marine, definitely.

"And you," Misato grinned and switching to Japanese, licking her lips. "Have never been able to appreciate the fine art of window shopping."

* * *

Officer country was 'invitation only', and as a 'civilian with special liberty', Asuka was not allowed anywhere particularly important. Not that there was much to do anywhere. A given ugly grey corridor was the same as any other. The galleys were often full of constantly moving flow of people, taking meals, swapping stories, hurrying back to their posts. In a way it reminded her of high school.

With nothing better to do, Asuka got in line and grabbed a food tray and got in line. Still uncomfortably similar to high school. There were a few strange looks, but that was due to the plugsuit. She couldn't afford to wear it constantly, but it was the closest thing she had to proper clothes. The jacket helped too, covering a good bit of her thighs. Anyone staring did so because she was a pilot, and not just a civilian girl. The scowl kept awkward questions to a minimum as well.

Pulling away from the serving area, Asuka threaded through the press of bodies, utterly lost beneath people inches if not feet taller. More than a few of them made way as she passed, out of courtesy or curiosity she couldn't tell, and wasn't interested in thinking about. She found a mostly empty table at one end of the galley and sat down, picking at her food.

Off to the side, someone said something to her, and Asuka looked up. She stopped, poised with forkful of possibly mashed potatoes hovering near her mouth. A crewman with curly red hair and a face made of curves loomed over her. Whatever he'd said hadn't even sounded like language. "I'm sorry, what did you say..?"

He tried again, smiling like he was used to it, and then Asuka understood. It was English dialect, somewhere from Ireland or Scotland. Her patch was already borrowing her language and pattern recognition to break the phonemes down. With the translation in clear text across the left side of her vision, she figured out what he said as he repeated it.

"What's your name?"

Oh, entirely reasonable. Asuka set her fork down and reached out for her composure, clamping hard on her temper. Her face settled into a dour mask. "Sor- Asuka Sorhyu Langley." Her standard English was a little rusty.

The redheaded sailor sat down without an invitation, smiling broadly. Without so much as a by-your-leave, he started in on something, a topic Asuka couldn't make heads or tails of. At first the accent was almost impenetrable, but bit by bit Asuka figured it out. "-And so I say to him 'you're crazy for that- making a pass at an admiral's daughter!"

Asuka didn't bother holding back her surprise. Admiral's daughter? Did she look like a sailor, or a man? She opened her mouth, ready and willing to utterly destroy him and his story. A new hand beat her to the punch, cuffing the curly-haired sailor upside the head.
Tray in hand, the newcomer nudged the other man off to the side. She sat down with a huff. "Nobody wants to hear your admiral's daughter stories, Carter."

Asuka felt her mouth click shut, and hope welled up in her chest; a lady soldier. Sailor, she amended. A plain looking brunette with her hair kept short, bleached at the fringes. She speared a hunk of meat with a simple fork and wagged it at the other man, before pointing at Asuka. "Especially around a kid!"

Being doused with a bucket full of icy seawater would've been preferable for Asuka, right about then. The scowl worked its way onto her face without thinking, but the woman and Carter ignored her in favor of bantering. Between Carter's accent and the woman being a motormouth, Asuka couldn't make heads or tails of the hashed conversation.

Finally though, the pair remembered the girl they sat across from. Smiling broadly, the woman reached over the table in greeting. "Sorry- Mind gets away from me. My name is Kim Bolton, E-3, or OR-3 depending." The pilot stood to shake her hand, but Kim's hand aimed higher, pressing against the girl's head and tussling her hair.. With the blood draining out of her face, Asuka dropped back down. Her thighs hit the bench hard enough to make it creak.

Neither Bolton or Carter didn't seem to notice. The brunette toasted the girl with her mug. "You're one of the pilots, right?"

For a moment the girl stared over the table, trying to process that question. A foul stinking shame built up in the back of her throat, because just for a moment, she'd forgotten her own status. Asuka willed the green tint away from her cheeks and sat up straight, drawing on every bit of imperial pedigree her teutonic ancestry allowed. This was familiar territory, and she desperately needed it. "I am! Second Child and Pilot of the Production Model Evangelion."

"Cool shit," Bolton almost gushed. "So is it remote or something? Like a video game?"

Asuka drew herself up as much as she could, not even bothering to stop the shock leaking into her voice. "What? No! I sit in it and pilot!"

Bolton leaned back and held her hands up in surrender, shaking her head. "Sorry! I just thought what with the gadget and all." Her hands dropped, but not before she tapped her own brow.

Asuka's hand few up to her prosthetic. "This isn't a controller!"

Carter leaned in, squinting. "Then how'd you lose it?"

"I didn't-" The girl scowled, clamping down and shooting her best glare at the other man.

The sailor bowed his head in apology and begged for forgiveness. As he spoke, Asuka read her patch dialogue for translation. Then she realized Carter was trying for an accent. "Beggin' the captain's pardon, when does this whipped dog of a bilge rat walk the plank?"

The crowd around fell silent, and red crept up the sides of Asuka's neck, past the collar of her plugsuit and jacket. That man had just crossed a line. Bolton's hand lashed out again. "Don't be a dick, Cart."

Asuka's lip curled, but she didn't quite snap. She wasn't made of glass- she could fight her own battles. Instead she pulled the patch up and blinked by reflex. "I didn't lose it, but-" Repeating herself, she stalled for a moment. For one there were security clearances.... She sighed and said what she could. "There's nerve damage."

What little conversation there had been ended on that note, and Asuka stewed in the silence. Two more crewmen joined Asuka's table then, slapping Carter and Bolton on the back and shoulders as they shoved into position. More followed, crowding and jostling around as space around the girl rapidly filled. Glancing around, there were tons of empty tables, so they all must have gathered for the company.

Men and women in a whole range of uniforms and kit, shoving and laughing between bites. A dozen accents, full-on dialects and a smattering of French, Mandarin, Russian and English. Asuka felt her cheeks burn red-hot with some of the things they joked about, indignant and mortified by turns. Another sailor wedged in next to Asuka, a meal tray in one hand and textbook in the other. The girl almost declared her salvation to the heavens- Academia, something I can talk about!

She nudged the man's elbow, and couldn't help but note the elaborate, almost three-dimensional tattoos that wound up his bare arms. He looked up from his book and blinked, and Asuka jerked her chin at the page. "What are you studying?"

He licked his lips, wincing. "Ah, world history. I'm trying to get my GED."

Rocking back in her seat, Asuka reeled. He hadn't even graduated high school? Looking around, a bit more than half the people were maybe five years older than her. As she thought about it, she realized of them were serving to pay for college, and Asuka had already gone and graduated. She sunk back deeper into her jacket and picked at her food.

Bolton whistled sharply, smiling again. "Hey kid, you alright?"

Another sailor broke in, giving the girl a playful shove. "We're probably boring her stiff. Listen," The man put on an understanding look. "Wardroom 6-B's set up for books and movies. You want me to show you?"

Deep down Asuka knew they weren't trying to be patronizing, or at least, not offensively so. It rankled though. She stood up and pulled herself out of the lunchroom crowd, flipping her eye patch down. "I'll find it myself."

* * *

Being given more or less the run of Officer's country on board the carrier, Misato did her best to keep busy. Unlike say, nearly every other armed force in the world, she had one facility and six assets to manage, compared to armor, infantry and twenty other odd things a commander had to track. The Pacific Fleet basically ran itself, as long as they didn't see an Angel. Basically, Misato had nothing to do except wander.

A quick glance into the kitchens saw her ushered out by white-smocked stewards. A steaming mug of coffee was pressed into her hands, along with the utmost diplomatic urging to stay out of the way. Nonplussed, Misato took the cup and sipped. Polite, courteous, and pointedly distant; those were the words that defined the UN Navy. The Marines were okay- serving as a unified American unit attached to the Over the Rainbow. But for all her past exploits, there wasn't a lot of common ground.

Taking another sip, Misato leaned against a bulkhead wall and shivered. She was lucky and knew it, most of the crew on board went months without seeing sky or daylight. Assuming she had permission, she could make her way to the bridge for a bit of fresh air. Misato wasn't interested in wearing out the Admiral's hospitality, anyway.

There were things that still needed to be done though, things that had to be pushed through jurisdictional boundaries and fleet politics. Another reason why she wasn't interested in being a bad guest. The Evangelion power supply had to be tested, and drills needed to be set up, adapting carrier operations to Evangelion deployment and vice-versa.

Stodgy old fools all, she figured, and there was no point in denying the horror. There wasn't anyone fun in the fleet.

Another thought occurred to her then, as she finished off her coffee. Swallowing the last mouthful of bitter drink, she realized she was going to have to get used to it. Over the Rainbow was a dry vessel; only the captain or admiral's had mustaches, and those were under lock and key. Misato was certain a still was somewhere in the fleet, moonshine vodka and the like... but she wasn't that desperate.

Finding a place to hand back her empty mug of coffee, Misato sighed and hoped Asuka was having better luck making friends than she was.

* * *

A topographical map of the aircraft carrier made navigation exceedingly easy. Trivial almost. As long as Asuka knew which end of the ship was which, she had no trouble finding her way around... to a point. Her map had filled more than two-thirds of the vessel, but it lacked labels. It took her less than an hour to find the room set aside for crew entertainment, and it was thankfully empty.

Cramped, like every other place on the ship, every surface was filled with closed cabinets and sturdy shelves. Some basic tables were wedged into alcoves and bench seats, along with a handful of board games; the staples, chess, checkers, even a go board. Interesting, but impractical without an opponent. Asuka stalked along the cabinets, rifling through each one. Fifteen year old movies, Every one an ancient VHS tape. Most of them were recordings too, hand-labeled from and mailed from who knew where. At the last shelf, she whipped her hand away from one shelf as if burned.

They didn't even have the decency to hide their...

Asuka sighed and let her hand fall. More movies, none of which interested her. The other wall was lined with well-aged books of all kinds. She didn't consider herself a literary elitist, the classics were often just as dull to scientists and engineers. She was pleased to note the Lord of the Rings on one shelf, though she'd read that one years ago.

Aside from solitude and enough space to stretch, the wardroom was looking more and more like a bust, until she investigated the TV cabinet. A tangle of black cords hung from the half-opened panel, and a bit of exploration completely salvaged her day: a console and games. A few more minutes of effort had her blasting aliens in the most generic of side-scrollers.

* * *

Days later, Misato found herself back in the tiny stateroom aside Asuka. The pilot's plugsuit was being washed in the ship's laundry, so Asuka yet again had to raid Misato's luggage. The black mini dress came out once more, and Asuka hunted around for a belt to cinch around her waist.

Wincing, Misato tried to hazard a bit of friendly advice. "That dress really isn't meant for a belt, you know that right?"

Asuka just looked up at her like she was crazy, for once not wearing her eye patch. She tugged the fabric around her hips out and let it drop. The bottom hem dropped plenty low enough on her thighs, but Misato understood perfectly. A stiff breeze.... Asuka made it even clearer. "This belt is all that stands between me and decency, woman!"

Misato crossed her arms and smirked. "There you go, calling me woman again..."

* * *

There were times Ryoji Kaji hated being a smoker. Being on board an aircraft carrier was one of them. A double-dose of nicotine gum sat braced against his cheek, and he willed the stimulant to flow faster into his bloodstream. It never worked as well as he liked.

Maybe that was why he snapped a little harsher than normal, when the crewman nearly spilled his important cargo. "Hey!"

The sailor stumbled, fighting to keep balance. "Sorry Inspector," He cradled a double-stack of small metal-walled cargo crates in his arms, while a few other similar containers lined the hallway. Kaji stepped up and took the topmost crate and saved the man further trouble, or embarrassment.
Tucking it under his arm, he turned, only to see Misato passing through the nearest hatch. "Well, You brought more luggage than I did."

Kaji just tossed her a jaunty salute. "What can I say?" He hefted the crate in his arm. "I need spare batteries for my razor, and ties for my hair. You know I want to look my best for you."

Misato stalked forward, rolling her eyes. Her hips rolled like a tiger, or a terrible, sexy dragon. Grinning, he couldn't help but imagine the jets of smoke shooting out her nose, even as she nearly bowled him over.

* * *

It was a beautiful sunny day outside, and Sea of Japan was warmer than Asuka expected. Which was to say it was wet, miserable and cold, as opposed to freezing. Even accounting for the noonday sun. Thanks to the wind and ever-present mist, Misato's borrowed wardrobe was only good for their tiny stateroom. Otherwise, the Second Child wore her plugsuit and jacket as often as possible. It may not have been warm, but it kept her drier than most other people out on deck. As for being on deck, she had to swear up and down on more rule-books and manuals then she'd ever seen in her life. Then the captain made her swear on an actual bible, just to drive the point home.

All of that, because the carrier flight-deck was dangerous, and loud. A handful of the carrier's on board aircraft were being sent out, equipped with highly sensitive blood-soul pattern detectors. The catapult launches and screaming jet engines rattled her bones from hundreds of feet away. An ugly pair of headphones protected her ears from the worst of the noise. She watched another fighter move into position, and Asuka had to admit, the whole process was a lot like deployment out of the Geofront. The few times she'd gotten to ride the launch rails had been amazing.

Closer, someone shouted, loud enough to make the girl turn...

* * *

On the flight deck, huddled close to the bridge-island and well out of the way of everything important, a middle-aged man rubbed his hands together and tried not to freeze. His name was Wyatt Levidon, and his life was suffering. A professional military photographer on attachment with the Pacific Fleet, he had no idea his lazy, puff-piece tour was going to turn into a fantastic, lengthy crusade against Stygian horrors from beyond the stars. The original plan was simple; take some photos of sailors and airmen hard at work keeping the peace. Now, the fleet charged for one of the two warmest parts of Siberian Russia, which actually didn't sound too bad, if not the Stygian Horrors. From Beyond the Stars.

Still, Wyatt suffered, because there was no new material on board the fleet, save for the Evangelion- which he was not going to get anywhere near. No matter what his publishers said or did, there were things man was not meant to know, and he drew the line at giant goddamn robots. Fortunately the war machine was on an entirely different ship, far and away from his petty mortal concerns, like breathing.

Off to the side, a flash of proper cherry red caught his eye. A few dozen feet away was a girl- an actual girl, like his neice back in England. Seeing as how she didn't look or dress anything like the rest of the crew on board, that put her in one of two categories. Either she was a civilian, like him, or considering the shiny rubber suit and over-sized jacket, the Pilot. The giant robot he happily ignored, but this darling redhead was an opportunity. Like any good photographer, Wyatt always kept a camera handy, and against all conventional wisdom, shouted for the girls' attention.

She turned, just as a gust of wind caught her hair and swept it forward over her shoulder. With all the speed, grace and skill instilled in him over his long career, Wyatt mashed the shutter button.

Then the girl snarled. "What the hell are you looking at?!"

* * *

Three weeks into the mission, the Pacific Fleet reached Vladivostok. Impact had changed Primorsky Krai, scouring away miles of city and industrial infrastructure. In its place, the United Nations had sunk massive foundations, superstructures and manufacturing facilities. Vast trainyards spread out tracks like arteries, meeting up with surviving lines and new paths leading inland. Evangelion armor and weapons were assembled all across Siberia, funneled down into the ports and testing facilities all along the mechanized coastline.

The fleet itself was on rotation, coming into port a few ships at a time while the remainder held off at sea as a defensive picket. On the bridge along the outside walkways, Asuka leaned against the railing and looked out over the city. Somewhere out there in a sunken bunker, a rapid, crashing metallic scream echoed out, enough that it shook dust from concrete walls and roads, even as far out as the docks. Not that anyone around would care- this was a place where people worked. Asuka could not spot a single house or apartment.

Elsewhere, massive cranes lifted equally huge containers. From where Asuka stood, the workers and docks looked like anthills, boiling with activity. The cranes lowered one container after another into a fleet cargo ship, the top deck hatches spread wide open for more material. The red slashes across each container marked them clearly as weapons. Misato had pulled out all the stops, it seemed.

Then a voice out of a dream hit her ears, and Asuka shivered. "Haven't seen you for a while, Asuka-chan!"

A few dozen thoughts crashed into each other, fast enough that she only had a second to really process. Asuka's mind went into overdrive as it considered her options. Coy and sweet? The past few days were leaving her without much good cheer to go on. With her plugsuit, Asuka contemplated a more flirtatious approach, hiking up her jacket and taking advantage of the lean and rail... But at the same time, Misato was on board, and a battle of the body wasn't one she could win.

It all proved to be a moot point anyway; her mouth was open and speaking, even before she even finished her assessment. She tried and succeeded at keeping the wince out of her voice. Mostly. "Ka-ji-san~ Where have you been?"

Kaji himself looked like he hadn't seen the sun in weeks, which wasn't saying much, because Asuka had been stuck below decks just as much. He had however found enough time to keep his beard well-trimmed. The man of her dreams shrugged, and his hair whipped around in the harbor breeze. "Filing reports, mostly. Calling up the chain of command. How's my favorite girl been doing?"

The illusion shattered. It self-destructed, detonating into successively smaller secondary explosions. Girl?!

Asuka clamped down on her disappointment though, and did her best not to let it show. Twisting around, she rapidly discarded pretenses and paths proven ineffective. She'd show him. Standing straight, arms at her back and the picture of perfect poise, Asuka squared her shoulders, nodding curtly. "I've been fine, Kaji-san. I've been looking forward to putting the crews through start up procedures, once we've loaded up the extra gear here."

Bemused, the UN inspector leaned over the railing and pulled out a cigarette- even outside, he wasn't allowed to light it. "Procedures?"

"Evangelion launch drills. There's not a lot of precedent for an At-sea deployment, but we're going to be patrolling the attack sites as we make our tour anyway." Asuka sighed, but couldn't help the theatrics. "They'll need to know how we do things."

Kaji just stared at her, increasingly unreadable. A single eyebrow crept up his forehead as she continued. "That's an awful lot of responsibility, isn't it?"

There was a sense Asuka was missing something, she couldn't quite put her finger on it though. She pulled more professionalism out, draping it over her shoulders like a mantle. 'Too much' had never entered into her vocabulary. Re-centering herself, Asuka pushed through the uncertainty.
"It certainly is, that's why I'm here." She tossed her head, as if his question was a bothersome fly. "I should probably go and check on how they're loading the weapons too. It won't do me any good if I can't reach ammunition for a reload."

With that, Asuka turned primly on one heel and marched for the hatch. Once she was down the stairs and out of sight, she realized something, and a bit of red spread out across her cheeks. In a roundabout way, she was playing hard to get.

* * *

They were only a few days past Vladivostok now. The Pacific Fleet had pushed east, cutting across the ocean toward California and Central America. Impact had obliterated most of Panama, to say nothing of the Canal. Still, it enabled an oceangoing vessel easy passage from the Pacific into the Atlantic. Misato however, had no idea as to their progress. Without a map, she only had the admiral's word they were on track. She didn't doubt the man's word of course, but being cooped up in a dim metal city for days on end wore on a person.

Weeks sleeping in a stiff desk chair wasn't doing her any favors either. Misato stretched, bracing hre back against the chair and rocked her hips back, drawing out a long series of pops and crackles. Her spine melted, tangibly relieved. Two feet away and stretched out along the bed, Asuka huddled under a double-layer of blankets, with a dog-eared book propped up in her hands.

Twisting, Misato tried to work out more kinks, sighing softly. A little small talk would be good for the nerves too. "I never forgot how to sleep in crappy conditions..." She licked her lips and pulled, popping another disc into place. "But this chair-" Misato just tossed the girl a wry smile.

Asuka just turned a page, sullenly noncommittal.

The major slumped in her seat then. "Back before I came to Tokyo I had insomnia. I'd be up all night, or I'd be lying in bed half-awake for hours..." A proper grin worked its way across her lips. "You however, sleep like a rock."

Marking her page, the girl thumbed the book closed and gave the older woman a wan little grin. Misato was happy to count it as a victory. "I do what I can to keep busy."

Desperate for a change of pace, Misato eased herself out of the chair and sat on the desk, hands hooked against the edges and leaning forward. She rubbed her calves together, hoping to keep some blood moving. "Yeah.... I have to say though, some of my best nights have been back home. Shinji's like the best teddybear in the world."

Almost immediately, Misato realized just how badly she stepped in it. The girl let the book drop into her lap and she just stared at the older woman, through her. The dark-haired woman kicked herself again, fighting off a scowl and putting on the best, understanding smile she could muster. Whatever happened back at NERV must have been one hell of a fight, but the specifics, Misato had no idea. At the end of the day though, Misato just didn't know, and her hands were tied.

Asuka for her part had retreated behind her unassailable wall of pride. Her shoulders rose high and trembled, tensing enough for Misato to see lines of muscle. She turned enough to make sure Misato could see both her eye and patch, scowling. "If you're so sore, you can have the damn bed if you want it."

Misato's hands tightened around the edge of the desk and grit her teeth, cringing. There was no way for to talk around that statement; their bedding arrangements had already been set weeks ago for a reason. The girl had plain out maneuvered her. Distantly, some part of Misato's mind wondered if that was what other people felt like when she spun out elaborate verbal traps and double-entendre... Unlike those times though, there was no laugh or easy joke out.

Instead, all she could do was slap one palm into her face and offer the most sincere look of apology she could muster. Dragging her hand down, Misato spoke past her palm. "I'm sorry, that slipped out. Been a hard few days."

Asuka slumped and let her shoulders drop, exhaling softly. "Yeah, I'm sorry too."

With that, Asuka reached over to the light switch and flicked it down, leaving the stateroom in total darkness.

* * *

The Soyokaze was a hastily modified cargo ship, converted into an Evangelion transport and deployment platform. That was a fancy way of saying the internal holds had been gutted, replaced with a complicated mass of internal pumps, watertight sealant and security devices. The Evangelion itself floated on its back in chilled containment fluid, half-submerged in the ships' internal spaces. A massive tarp covered the rest of it, while massive restraining bolts and inset locks kept the war machine pacified.

Nearly fifty technicians and engineers swarmed over around the weapon, dashing along bridges made of air-filled oil drums lashed under plastic deckplates. Above, the cargo hatches laid into the top deck yawned open on hydraulic springs, letting in sunlight and suddenly hot Pacific ocean air. The tarp began to billow and writhe under the growing breeze. One by one, those bolts holding the Evangelion down were removed, some by remote and others with wrenches and muscle power. Halfway finished, a special controller entered the appropriate commands, and the machine sat up. Bending at the waist, the Evangelion moved under battery power.

The public address speakers crackled and snarled with static, feedback screeching through the hold. The electronic shriek easily gave way to a shout. "Stop dawdling! The longer you guys blunder around the less power we have for combat! Thirteen minutes and counting!"

As one, the engineers hurried.

* * *

"I can see you guys- Watch it when you raise the Evangelion! Those doors aren't fully cleared yet!" Asuka let her finger off the transmit button and sighed into the radio. "I mean, seriously...?"

Onboard the Over the Rainbow, leaning against the railing and platforms lining the bridge island, Asuka watched the crew of the Soyokaze run through a deployment drill. She closed her eyes, but the field of view on the left side of her face persisted nonetheless. Her perspective jumped and stretched, shooting forward in telescopic zoom. The cargo ship was several hundred yards away, and she could see far enough to read nametags.

A handy thing, when reminding people when not to screw up.

Less useful though, when it disrupted her peripheral vision. Achingly familiar dress-shoe sole on metal deck plates were enough to get Asuka to lean back, banishing the telescopic vision and open her eyes. With her hair caught in the wind and jacket billowing around her her, it was a perfect moment for Kaji to arrive. The ponytailed man leaned through the open hatch, waving lightly.

Then Asuka's face fell when Misato stomped through the same door. The older woman shouldered past Kaji, scowling something fierce. Asuka's eye cut down to the Major's hand, and how it rubbed at her apparently sore rear. That, plus the scowl and- No, that would not stand. Asuka planted her feet, pulling on that professional mask like her life and dreams depended on it. Because they did.

Turning back to the Soyokaze, Asuka raised the radio and took a breath. She had to put her best foot forward. Her vision jumped forward, but not before she saw Kaji lean against the rail, elbows hanging over the edge. She forced that pleasant sight from her mind and focused. The dreamy picture was going to be her reward; oogle later. Across the ocean, the Evangelion was sitting fully upright, still swaddled in the forty-meter long tarp.

Frowning slightly, she scanned the deck for problems. "They're still slow. I know these conditions aren't ideal but..." Asuka clicked the radio in hand. "Keep an eye on the battery levels. It takes us days to charge off of the ship's diesel generator."

A smattering of aye-ayes and 'yes-ma'ams' echoed back over the speaker. Letting her eye and proesthetic adjust again, she turned back to Kaji and Misato, allowing a tiny smile. Still sore over whatever had happened earlier, Misato had claimed a wall and planted her back against it, arms folded over her middle and still scowling. Asuka smiled a little wider and counted it as a conceeded, but still unconfirmed victory. She preened as subtly as she could manage, standing tall and proud.

Kaji smiled, making Asuka's heart slam into her ribcage hard enough to hurt. "What say you give those guys a bit of a break for a minute, I was meaning to talk"

Inwardly, Asuka was doing backflips and cartwheels, and cared not one bit how silly the metaphor sounded. Despite the glee, the girl did her best to keep cool and collected. "Oh? What about?"

The UN Inspector looked across the ocean at the Soyokaze and the crew running around, levering the Evangelion into deployment position. "You've been working hard the past couple weeks, huh?"

"Of course!" She turned away and almost struck a pose, banking again on the ocean breeze to help her out. It didn't disappoint. "My talents are legendary, after all."

Kaji let out a short laugh, grinning a little wider. "You might be overdoing it a little though."

That brought her up short, confusion leeched the warmth out of her chest. It gave way to indignation. She spun and stomped one rubber sole on the deck. "What?! Those guys over there wouldn't be managing half as well if I wasn't here to hold their hands!"

Another gust of wind pulled at them, tossing Kaji's ponytail over his shoulder and thuroughly ruffling Misato's hair. Asuka stood facing into the gust but did not bend, waiting for an answer. There wasn't one, just the sound of the ocean pressing against the side of the ship and the scream of jet engines in the distance. Misato kept her position, watching but not intruding.

Glancing sidelong at Asuka, Kaji broke the silence. He was painfully unreadable even now. "Say, Asuka-chan?"

Professional, the word hummed in Asuka's mind. "Yes?"

He waved with one hand at her, gesturing from head to toe. "Why are you in such a rush to grow up?"

The question hit her hard enough to knock the air out of her lungs. Meanwhile, Misato pulled away from the superstructure wall, suddenly and strangely subdued. Asuka forced her will out, clamping down hard on the dozen of things her body and emotions demanded. Betrayal was the wrong word, but something in her gut coiled tight, squeezing her stomach hard enough to make her gag. The wind picked up again, blowing her hair back and forcing her exposed eye wider. The gust stung, but she refused to let it show.

Instead she wished Kaji would stop asking stupid questions. "Because I am."

Kaji just stood upright, rubbing the stubble along his jaw and looking her over. Plugsuit, jacket, patch. I'm beautiful, a mature, elegant lady! Why won't you see that!? The older man shook his head and smiled softly, leaning forward to ruffle her hair and kiss her bangs. "You're on your way, Asuka-chan. I promise you that."

With that, he slid past Asuka and back through the hatch, leaving her alone with Misato.

* * *

Lech one minute and Father the next. Misato shook her head and sighed. If he weren't so damn insufferable she'd actually be able to admire him. Still, Kaji had tried when she asked him to help. She took short steps over to the railing where Asuka stood, concern plain on her face. Asuka stared at her with an empty eye and the pride drained out. It made her look brittle, like she'd been made of badly cooked clay.

She sighed, and not for the first time loathed her inability to say anything. Misato could fill the air with words, but it took her nearly a year of living together to learn how to speak clearly to Shinji. She had to do the same thing to Asuka in a few weeks, if not days. There was so much more going on in the background of their world, the plans and projects surrounding everything they did, the emotional stability of a teenage girl looked positively tiny.

At that moment though, Misato believed Asuka was most important thing.

Asuka meanwhile sighed, tapping the radio against her thigh. She didn't bother to look up, and her question came out more like a statement."You put Kaji up to that, didn't you."

Misato winced, but couldn't help the small smile. A clever Asuka was a good sign in her mind. "Yeah. We're just worried about you."

Huffing, the girl just spun away and scowled over the railing, looking at nothing. Misato took the chance to step closer, until she was standing next to the pilot. Asuka had pulled herself together somewhat, no longer looking so fragile.

Leaning forward, Misato draped her arms over the railing. "Listen... I really don't need to know every detail, but I want to help. To do that I need to know what's going on."

Asuka kept her eyes on the horizon, not that Misato could see past the black plastic patch. The oceans were calm at least, and the Pacific stretched out glass-smooth and shining. Asuka shifted, and Misato watched let out a sound close to resignation. "Am I really a tyrant?"

Misato cringed, caught between trying a bad joke at a bad time, and an honest answer. She went with the latter, sighing softly. "Yeah, sometimes."

The girl was quiet for a long moment, brooding and stone-faced. "Good, right now I want to be one for a little while longer."

Any answer to that was cut short by the sound of snapping metal and the crackle of the radio in Asuka's hand. The girl surged into action, leaning over the rail and thumbing the transmit button. "Oh you idiots! Watch what you're doing! We don't have enough of that to waste!"

* * *

A hundred yards away, cables and metal buckles snapped as they strained against bad angles. Caught on machinery and internal structures within the hold, the binding that held the tarp down over Unit-02 broke apart in a dozen places. The thick material still billowed in the wind, throwing heavy folds of tough woven plastic around while ragged bands of cargo straps whipped around.

While Asuka's voice rang out over the intercoms and radio, technicians and engineers rushed, trying to corral the growing hazard and fix the problem. One by one the torn straps were secured, tied or bolted down. On the top deck, one unlucky crewman however found himself at the wrong place at the wrong time, wrestling with a circulatory valve at the Evangelion's elbow. The tarp shifted, rippling and snapping hard enough into him to knock the man clean over. His hip connected with the wrench jammed into the valve, and the seal cracked under the strain, drenching the man with a thick gout of LCL.

The geyser shoved the man hard, back into the railing and nearly sending him overboard. The orange metallic blood washed over his legs and cascaded down the side of the ship, taking his hat and tools along for the ride. A smear of color spread out in the wake of the ship, trailing for hundreds of yards.

* * *

Shyft · Jun 10, 2014

without further ado: Act 2 Part 1:

===================

The Pacific Fleet was less than a week away from the Panama Transition, and Katsuragi Misato found herself in the Operations room on board the Over the Rainbow. She eyed the consoles and screens, acutely aware that their systems and such were a bit more than half her age. The NERV Major felt her eyebrows spasm, twitching madly. Or maybe the twitching was due to Kaji blatantly invading her personal space. He stood close to her, arms behind his back and close enough his for his elbows to brush against hers.

Misato puffed up her cheeks and huffed, taking a deliberate stomp to the side. Kaji's achingly familiar laugh followed and seemed to drape around her shoulders, lingering. Around her, crew and equipment operators chanted over their consoles in low tones, mostly in clear English with a smattering of French. The screens and readouts didn't glow the stereotypical green, but covered a whole range of colors and squiggling lines. Compared to the holographic displays back home, it was laughably crude.

All told, it was an uncomfortable step back in time, in more ways than one.

Still, they were patched into the interception system. Kaji had handed over the codes earlier and Misato made sure the fleet sensors were set up right.

A bead of sweat crawled down the side of her neck, and Kaji had to notice. He leaned in, rumbling in low tones. "You know Katsuragi, if you're hot, you could always take off that jacket."

Misato's scowl etched itself deeper into her face and she zipped her NERV jacket all the way to the neck. The 'nothing I haven't seen before' was left unsaid. Tucking her chin into her collar, Misato focused on business. "What's our data look like."

"Asuka's been a bad influence on you..." Kaji let out a short, drawling laugh. Sobering, he stood up and glanced at the myriad screens. "Sticking mostly to the Atlantic territories, against all established wisdom."

"Despite the fact that to this day, we know the Angels were going to come for the Geofront and the Evangelions."

The UN inspector gave her a hard look. "Is Asuka bait?"

"I hope not," she admitted. Misato showed her teeth off, but it wasn't a smile. "But if anyone wanted to dangle on a hook in order to kill an Angel, she'd be second in line after me."

* * *

A bit more than a day away from Panama, Wyatt Levidon found himself out on deck of the carrier once more.

This time there was something interesting to see- flight operations had been suspended for some kind of maintenance effort, or training. Still under the aforementioned tarp, Wyatt could still see the edges of the red, black and orange war machine. Limbs, legs. From heel to toe, the thing's shoe was several times longer than a car. As long as the Evangelion was on deck, he was denied from taking photos, due to lack of clearance. Despite that, his liaison on board the carrier had graciously allowed him to keep his cameras, just so long as he kept the shutters closed.

And it really was a shoe. A foot would've made more sense, with tendon-sprung claws or hinges and hydraulic actuators. For a supposedly revolutionary war machine from the advanced hub of the Japanese tech sector, he hadn't expecting something that seemed for all the world like a homeless figure swaddled in a blanket with a pair of high-end trainers- right down to the soles. Instead it was still a shoe and Wyatt realized he was rambling. It reminded him of a corpse, now that he thought about it. He'd seen enough in his profession. The same kind of unnaturally human stillness projected leagues larger was something to inspire pause... or even terror.

Without being able to take pictures, that left Wyatt with little to do. On deck, he made sure to stay out of the way of everything, but at least there weren't any aircraft hurtling around. More than a few crew members were out and about, no doubt under their own non-disclosure agreements. Not surprising of course; even in a Post-Impact world the sunny Pacific Equator was tropical. The sky was blue and cloudless for as far as the eye could see, and the waters were calm. Aside from boring, it might've been a vacation.

At the bow end of the carrier, Wyatt did spot something new, a woman. He pulled his camera out and zoomed in for more detail. Not just any woman, but Major Katsuragi Misato. Standing next to Admiral Stolocker, the woman pointed out to sea, clipboard in hand and hair tossed in the wind. Wyatt knew a glamor shot when he saw one, and as long as the Evangelion wasn't in frame.... Well, his editor wasn't going to complain.

* * *

Over the Rainbow's bridge was crowded that day, packed in with officers and three NERV hangers-on. Misato was glad to know that Admiral Stolocker had thawed somewhat over the past days at sea, willing to let Kaji, Asuka and herself come up to the bridge. Granted the Major needed to be there for the transition. To the north and south, two long smudges of land stood out on the horizon- the last recognizable bits of the Panama Canal.

What remained was a straight shot through to the Atlantic, at the cost of the land bridge between Central and South America. Fifteen years ago, tidal waves had swamped the low-lying lands, obliterating the canal and structure. That and a subsequent tectonic event had all but sank the small country into the mantle. Now, dark clouds tended to hang high over the region, whipping into tropical storms and worse whenever inconvenient.

Seeing land remained something of a morale boost though, even Asuka was cheerier than normal, if only slightly. The bridge was one of the few places she hadn't yet fully explored, and it showed. Just out of earshot, the girl spent her time asking questions, and since there wasn't a lot to do outside of normal duties, nobody had a problem answering her. Misato just hoped nobody started actively patronizing her pilot. It would not end well, for anyone.

One of the bridge officers stepped up and gave the Major a polite nod. As long as she was outside their chain of command, there was no reason to salute her. Misato grinned regardless, switching mental gears for English. "Is there something you need?"

The clean-shaven man grinned, ducking his head and sneaking her a sly look past the brim of his cap. With a mug of coffee in hand, he toasted her, then Asuka. The girl was standing pretty in one of Misato's button down blouses and hemmed-in pants. "Your daughter's a peach, Major, first impressions notwithstanding."

Misato blinked, and a finger of dread crawled up her spine. Or maybe it was Kaji via some puerile sorcery. "First impression?"

"Real princess type. 'Yes Majesty, go forth my peon.'" He let out a short laugh. "My daughter was the same way at that age."

Laughing quietly behind a hand, Misato wasn't sure what to correct first; her family tree or his estimate of the girl's character. "Asuka? Oh no, I wouldn't-"

"Wouldn't what?" Even within the limited confines of the bridge, the pilot was unexpectedly to her left. She'd apparently ambled over after the half-hearted exploration had run its course.

Misato slammed hard on her verbal brakes, willing her voice to go smooth and lilting. She flung one arm around Asuka's head and pulled her into a one-sided hug. "Wouldn't want to sour that sunny disposition of yours!"

Rumpled and with her hair suddenly piled up on one side, Asuka crossed her arms and huffed. "Hrmph!"

Responsibilities were what saved Misato from further scrutiny, and she found herself offering thanks to her job. Watch stations on both sides of the Central American gap were tracking the Pacific fleet as it approached, and Panama control was on the radio and asking for her.
A crewman handed her the appropriate headset, already patched in. "Major Katsuragi here."

Speakers throughout the bridge and in her ear hummed, letting a pleasant, accented baritone ring out. "Major, welcome to the Pacific/Caribbean transition. Standard housekeeping procedures here, we'd like for you to transmit appropriate clearance any time."

She'd been expecting that, and had handed the Admiral the codes ahead of time. "Transmitting now," She let a little bit of charm leak into her voice. "Anything else we can do along the way?"

"Not particularly, Major- wait one." The line went dead for a moment, before the radio operator clicked back on. "Just got word your fleet is tripping our SOSUS lines. You have any submarines trailing you?"

Misato blinked and shook her head more out of habit. Most submarines were strategic weapons, N2 and nuclear equipped. Both far outside the pull she had at hand. "Not that I know of, " She turned to the Admiral, and he confirmed. "No submarines in the United Nations Pacific Fleet."

The operator on the other end hummed thoughtfully. "Hmm, we'll none of our active pickets in the area are seeing anything. There's just too much displacement for how many ships are in your fleet." Misato was sure he was shrugging on the other end. "Whales sometimes tripped our sensor nets, but whales don't come round anymore."

The Major frowned, and a different, icy chill settled in around the small of her back. That sounded suspicious, even Kaji thought so. Misato watched as the nominal UN inspector slid into the seat next to her, while Asuka watched over her shoulder. Kaji pulled out a pen and bit of paper, scribbling a quick word out: The Committee?

Misato just mouthed 'could be' right back. Looking out the window from side to side, she counted what ships she could see. "I don't presume to speak for the Admiral or any of the captains in this fleet, but maybe someone forgot to file something when we left Vladivostok? We did take on a lot of gear."

Another thoughtful pause before the operator replied. "Well, your clearance checks out. Major, I would love to take you at your word, but I'm going to call ahead to Norfolk and get a couple of subs to shadow you for a while."

There was already enough jurisdictional bullshit going on, Misato saw no reason to add to more of it. Considering possible involvement from the Committee, a little extra insurance was welcome. She explained the situation and held the headset out to the old officer. "It's your fleet Admiral, until we see an Angel."

The old man nodded grimly and took the microphone, coughing lightly. "This is Admiral Stolocker, we'll rendezvous with your submarines along the way."

"Thank you. Admiral, Major- enjoy the Atlantic and good hunting." With that, the radio clicked off.

* * *

Even post-impact, the Caribbean was a vacation destination for a significant portion of the world. Which Misato felt was a tragedy, as she was most assuredly not on vacation. Two American attack submarines had briefly joined the Fleet without incident, but Misato quickly learned almost no sailor in a surface navy was happy with submarines in the area, no matter their political affiliation. No tears were shed several days later when the pair had broken off, citing a need for extended diagnostics. Something to do with sonar.

Her other problem was scowling into a radio handset and peeling the paint of the bulkhead wall. Misato padded through the hallway as quietly as she could, wincing. Asuka's voice carried. "Uhm- Asuka?"

"Wha-Oh. Misato," Asuka let go of the transmit button, and the scowling, imperious look all but vanished. Clad in her jacket and plugsuit, the girl looked up and sounded more than a little pleasant. "Whatever you need, can we handle it fast?" She waggled the radio in hand. "The cross training thing I set up isn't going well, and we're going to need months of crew shifts for this hunting trip."

The cringe that worked its way up through Misato's neck and into her face, there was no way to suppress it. She raised a hand, hoping to lay it on Asuka's shoulder then thought better of it. No need to agitate the girl needlessly. Best to pull it right off, like a bandaid. She held Asuka's attention with a steady look. "We're not going to find an Angel on this trip. We're not here to fight Angels."

Asuka whirled then, nearly running into a structural support before sliding around it. Having cleared the obstacle, she just stared, jaw hanging slack and her bare eye gleamed dully. "... What."

Misato knew she deserved it, even as she explained, tight and rational. "There's... Really no way we COULD like this. Whatever's been screwing around the Atlantic, it's always going to be ahead of us. It can move faster than the fleet, choose when and where to engage us."

The girl stammered then, incredulous. "B-but we have the intercept system!"

"Assuming it is an Angel, they can drop in and out of our detection- it's never been perfect. If a blue pattern shows up, by the time we get there it'll be long gone." Misato sighed, completely aware how frustrating she sounded. She ran a hand through her hair and waited, tense.

Now a bit of fire surged back into Asuka's voice. She stomped her foot and held her fists clenched at her side. "Then we bring it to us!"

"The ocean is a big place, Asuka." Misato shook her head, wishing it was so easy. She wanted it to be easy, for Asuka's sake as well as her own. "We can fish all day, but you and your Eva aren't enough bait."

Plastic and rubber creaked loudly in the corridor- Asuka's plugsuit gloves. Her hands shook wildly. "Then why?"

Misato threw her arms wide, not helpless but close to it. "Because NERV has to show the world we are doing something! Telling them 'we're out here, and we're not going to leave the rest of humanity out to dry.'"

There was a brief war of emotion on Asuka's face as the blood attempted to drain from her features. Misato watched the color be pushed back up by an almost glowing surge of red. Asuka's scowl bordered on furious, but her voice had dropped deadly flat. "So that's it then, isn't it? All just another demonstration for you fucking people?"

Misato blanched, giving the girl needed ground in response. Her eyes drifted towards the floor. "Asuka I-, it's not-"

A sharp stomp put a stop to that, locking her back to Asuka's accusing glare. "Why can't you adults all just say what you mean?! All this... cloak and dagger public relations bullshit! What happened to being honest and speaking your goddamn mind?!"

For once in a long time Misato had nothing she could say or do in reply. The over-large coat slid down Asuka arms and onto the floor, and Misato licked her lips. "Listen, we..."

Asuka all but tore past her instead, voice rising up and echoing off the steel. "Whatever it is, forget it! I always listened, that's why I'm even here!" The snarl echoed behind her as Asuka pushed out into the hallway, drawing shouts from distant crew. "I'm through with listening!"

Misato blinked once and slumped back against the wall, staring at the jacket spilling over her toes. She stayed there for one heartbeat. On the second she slammed her fist into the metal and heaved herself upright, snatching the coat up in the same motion. Charging after the girl, Misato strained her ears for the sound of rubber on metal, vaulting stairs and shouting at sailors and crew to stay out of her way. Asuka's trail wasn't hard to find- the girl had left a path of rumpled and disrupted soldiers.

A flash of red down another hallway was the last hint Misato needed. She planted a foot and wrenched her body to the side, ankles protesting harshly. A straight shot through a dark corridor let Misato's longer legs eat up the distance. There was no way she was going to let this fester. She whipped an arm out and caught Asuka by one wrist. The leather jacket came next, draped around Asuka's shoulders. Pulling, she ducked under the wild fist and swallowed the girl in a bone-crushing hug.

Curling forward, Misato pressed her face into Asuka's hair, talking but not really speaking. Mushed against her chest, Asuka squirmed and tried to thrash, but Misato had locked the girl's arms against her side. The struggling slowed and faded when the girl ran out of fury, leaving the two of them standing alone in the dark corridor. Asuka's shoulders shook, but even Misato knew she was too tough to cry.

The girl growled into Misato's sweater, and she felt the words hum in her chest. "You lied. Everyone lied. Why should I trust you now?"

Misato rubbed her cheek against Asuka's hair, speaking softly."If it was all show, we could have brought any of the pilots. It had to be you, Asuka. Had to."

Now snarling, the girl's shoulders flexed and she tried to shrug free, but Misato refused to let go, not now. Asuka gnashed her teeth and hissed, again about marketing.

Misato just squeezed her tighter before letting go. She hunkered down and draped her arms over the girl's shoulders, looking Asuka square in the eye. "Yes, it's completely marketing, and did you ever stop to think about why that is? Because you are the standard of pilot I want the world to see. I want them thinking we have a dozen, two dozen more pilots skilled like you sitting back home on their hands, waiting for the hammer to get dropped."

The floor pitched beneath them, and a concussive, echoing boom shook the carrier. Whatever Asuka had hoped to say died under the screaming klaxon alarms. Red strobe lights flashed along the walls, and Misato felt herself go weightless, Asuka still bundled up in her arms. Listing, the corridor twisted around the pair. Impact was inevitable, and Misato shifted, curling around the girl before the hit. She felt her head slam back into the bulkhead hard enough to see stars.

Forcing her eyes open, Misato's body hummed with a sudden surge of adrenaline. She couldn't see. Then she realized her eyes weren't malfunctioning, the ship was. The dark hallway plunged into almost complete darkness, Lying on her chest, the only bit of light in the area was the dot of blue on the side of Asuka's face. The eye patch function light was a tiny pinprick in the dark.

Asuka pulled herself up on hands and knees, jaw hanging slack. Misato for her part ached all along her shoulders and the back of her head. Worth it though. She looked up at Asuka, and the girl stared right back with her one uncovered eye. The ship pitched again, but Asuka just rocked back on her heels and twisted, ready to charge. A hand on her wrist stopped her cold. Speakers throughout the ship crackled with static, and a crewman's voice rang out over the alarms.

Groaning, Misato pulled herself upright. "Asuka wait-" She stared up at the girl, and absolutely knew how desperate she must have looked, but it didn't matter. She had to make herself clear, now. "Can, can you do that for me?"

Asuka looked down at the hand then back at Misato herself. "Yeah. Yeah I can do that."

Misato watched the girl dash off, jacket and hair whirling behind her. She stood and steadied herself, even as crewmen with flashlights and tool kits stormed the corridor. Hooking a hand around the nearest sailor, she demanded a flashlight and directions. She had to get to the bridge herself.

Above, the public address speakers crackled again, this time in the clear. "-tack. I repeat, the Pacific Fleet is under attack."

Shyft · Jun 10, 2014

* * *

Glowing lines of orange spread out before her, and Asuka sang her praises to whoever came up with 'augmented reality'. Charging through the halls, her heads-up display outlined every floor plate and obstacle yards before she hit it. Photoreceptors sucked in every bit of light it could, casting the left side of her view in electronic green. Rounding a corner, Asuka nearly bowled over a sailor before spinning around and sweeping forward. "Sorry!"

Ship interiors began to blur together as she pumped her legs for all they had; she could catch all the breath she needed in the plug. Her rubber soles squealed against the floor as she slid to a stop. Up, she needed to go up. The ship pitched again and crewmen shouted in the distance. Whipping her head left and right while toggling vision modes, she flicked through the patche's memory looking for that map. The wireframe schematic unfurled in her field of vision, twisting and rotating along an internal compass.

Her eyes traced a path and Asuka moved. The emergency lights lining the corridors snapped on one after another, flash-blinding her prosthetic for a split second and flooding the rest of the ship in yellow. Vaulting up a flight of stairs, Asuka found more people running to and fro. Water from a burst pipe sloshed over the steps and the higher level. Men with wrenches and welding torches rushed elsewhere, looking for far more serious damage.

Another stairway and two more corridors gave way to the cafeteria, then she backtracked, blocked by a sealed hatchway. The carrier lurched for a third time, and the intercom crackled. "Othello down, Majorie down!"

Breathing hard now, Asuka hauled herself up a ladder, into some engineering space she didn't recognize. Oil and grease mingled with the smell of oxidizer and cutting torches. Someone in the crowd knew her though. Carter muscled through a press of machinists and repairmen, fighting with a dozen problems and damage. The redheaded man gave the girl one look before scooping her up by the arms. She was over his head so fast, there was no time to even get angry. Carter all but tossed her into the crowd, and she surfed the bodies until she reached the far end.

Along the way he shouted instructions over the crush of people, cupping his hands to his mouth.. "Two levels to flight-deck missy! Your chariot awaits!"

Framed in that far hatchway, Asuka blinked and nodded. Dashing forward once more, she passed through more crew spaces, threading between more sailors rushing to fulfill their orders. Two decks down, muted booms shook the ship hard enough for her to feel it through the floor. Dust from ceiling-mounted pipes caked her hair. Surface bombardment. The last leg of her run passed by mostly unseen, save for obstacles in her way. Sunlight at the far end of the final hallway gave her all the motivation she needed.

Breaking out onto the carrier deck and open air, wind whipped at Asuka's head and the leather jacket still in her hand. Salt air stung her nose and bare eye for a second, while flight deck crew flagged aircraft down the catapults, risking debris and more to get planes in the air fast enough to matter. The jet engines screamed louder than the catapults, throwing pilots and their fighters into the air two at a time. If they wanted to land, Asuka was going to have to move her Evangelion.

Somewhere someone shouted, and the call repeated across the deck. A woman near Asuka waved her arms. "It's breaching!"

Whatever it was, Asuka couldn't see the surrounding water past the end of the flight deck. A low, rumbling pulse of sound washed over the carrier, drowning out the jet engines and catapult by sheer mass. The deck pitched again, and Asuka set her feet against it.

A column of water a over twice the height of her Evangelion shot into the air, showering the deck and swamping everyone and everything on it. Asuka tumbled, carried along by the two-foot wave along with almost every one else. More than two dozen people were already lost overboard, followed by aircraft and racks of missiles. A fighter already on the catapult broke apart at the landing gear, skidding even as the pilot wrenched at the canopy. Everyone on deck scrambled for any handhold they could find- grooves in the deck, cables and the plexiglass catapult control domes.

Others reached out with human chains, lashing together by arm and leg or whatever they could grab. A gloved hand clamped around the corner of Asuka's jacket, and the girl felt her arm jerk even as more water poured down over her. A shadow crossed over the carrier, and Asuka twisted, looking up into the sudden cover.

Whale was her first thought, if a whale could get longer than a thousand feet nose to tail. Asuka knew, because her patch told her. White skin like uncooked fish arced over the ship, from port to starboard, showering the center of the carrier with a sudden downpour. The thing seemed to move in slow motion, and Asuka found herself thinking back to the time she spent in the MAGI VR. Flicking its tail, the perception-breaking creature angled in toward the ocean once more, dropping underwater with another gargantuan splash.

"Yeah. Right then." Asuka turned and realized the woman who'd caught her was Kim Bolton. The crew-woman had lost her helmet in the flood, shocked and sickened by the cold. The monster probably wasn't helping either. Asuka shoved her jacket into the woman's hands. "Don't you dare lose that!"

That shocked the woman out of her stupor, and the deck crew strung out along the carrier shouted after the NERV pilot, Bolton being the loudest. "Hey kid don't just-!"

Asuka had already put them all out of her mind. Her Evangelion was more than a hundred yards away and the carrier was a sitting duck. The rest of the fleet had been strung out over a mile in all directions, a handful of them already smoking smears of black on the ocean, dotted with lifeboats. Escort battleships swung their cannons around and fired potshots at the water, but even Asuka knew the physics- no hope for a hit that way.

Ahead of her, the Evangelion loomed over everything, even swaddled by the tarp and lying on its front. It had slid along the deck while the carrier was being tossed about, leaving one arm dangling over the edge. That was fine, she just needed to get on top of the neck. The crew she'd been training had seen her coming, and they scrambled to enact the start-up procedure. Beneath the tarp, Armor plates along the back and shoulders split open, and the entry plug spiraled out, hatch open and waiting.

Crawling under the tarp, she made her way to the half-full plug and dropped in. Ocean salt and dust billowed out into the LCL around her hips, even as she started the activation sequence. The hatch clicked closed above, and more LCL poured in beneath her. Asuka wrapped her fingers around the controls and held on tight. "Set language mode to German, synchronization... start!"

* * *
On the bridge, Admiral Stolocker pressed his cap down on his head and scowled. He looked out over the ocean and his sinking fleet. "Dammit. Katsuragi said we weren't going to find one."

* * *
Asuka's discarded radio in hand, Misato made her way through the lower decks much like Asuka had earlier, though she lacked a map. Stumbling into the main hangar, Misato got her bearings via the wide open elevator platforms. Outside, ships were sinking. "I didn't think we were going to find one!"

* * *

"Dammit Misato!" Asuka exhaled last empty breath and sucked in a lungful of LCL. From that point on she did not so much speak as make her machine simulate the act. "You just said we weren't going to find one!"

Reaching up, the Second Child powered down her patch and let the Evangelion take over for her perception. Input from four eyes interpolated into the pair she was used to, and she tugged hard on the butterfly controls. Fingers flicked out at joystick controls, calling up system diagnostics. Breathing was harder in LCL, but her lungs were strong. The emergency power timer clicked on, and Asuka willed her Evangelion to rise.

The wind hit her machine, pulling at the tarp and binding it around her arms and torso. Shifting, Asuka moved and bundled the cover around her like a sweeing cloak, even as she took a knee then stood, towering over the carrier bridge. She dared not move her feet, painfully aware of the men and women still dashing around the deck. Aviation fuel burned at one end of the carrier, throwing a plume of black smoke into the sky.

Asuka felt her thoughts move toward the radio before her fingers did, patching into the bridge. The Evangelion translated for her.

* * *

Redlining the engines, the Admiral gave the order to the fleet, charging ahead while their battleship escort trailed behind. The bridge staff stayed glued to their stations and consoles, issuing orders along the way. Damage reports filtered in from all over the ship, smoke, fire, structural damage. Over the Rainbow wasn't meant to take massive swells and bottom out, or list so severely.

The NERV woman barged in just as the radio crackled. "Admiral Stolocker!"

He twisted, glancing at Katusragi first then the speaker. A vein bulged in the side of his neck. "What is that girl doing on the line?! We can't afford to mess with her toy right now!"

"Unfortunately Admiral," Misato eased herself in, huffing faintly and sweating. "There's an Angel out there tearing your fleet apart. I hereby claim operational control." She grabbed the microphone and licked her lips. "You ready Asuka?"

Outside, the Evangelion moved, passing the bridge superstructure. The tarp billowed out and scraped against the exterior walls, shearing off railings before a massive hand held it back. Asuka's voice burst out of the bridge speakers once more. "Been ready! Plug and power supply are moving up!"

The ship groaned again, and the booms of distant guns rattled the windows. Stolocker held on, trusting his fate to a crazy woman and a child. "Expanded batteries and C-Type equipment?"

"Everything's set, Armor's locked in tight." The pilot moved her machine to the ship's bow, where crew and tow vehicles were already pulling its power plug into play.

Katsuragi grinned into the receiver, holding tight. "Then let's go fishing. Evangelion launch!"

* * *

Misato had called down to operations and confirmed it- Pattern Blue. Asuka felt fresh power flood her Evangelion, running along conductor cables into batteries muscle systems. The tarp billowed around her, even as her Evangelion stood on the end of the carrier deck, watching the horizon. Eight ships sunk in four minutes. Tapping buttons and console keys, Asuka thought as much as typed her intent to the computer. Without the MAGI, she had to update her HUD manually. Information swept through her field of vision, marking the sinking ships and those still seaworthy.

In the corner of her eye, the mission timer ticked up by milliseconds. Half a mile distant, the Angel breached and arced over another cargo ship. A whipping line of flesh cleaved the hull in half from port to starboard, and the Angel slid under the surface. Across the ocean, two pairs of battleships opened fire, hitting nothing but water. Asuka huffed, and a bubble of spent air slid past her teeth. Othello, Majorie, Helvetica, UN Regent... Mostly cargo ships, with one destroyer that had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The mission timer hit three minutes, and Asuka huffed again. She hated waiting. A box marked 'sound only' slid into her field of view, but she tossed her head and banished it to the side. A list of vessels in the fleet spread out on the other side. Misato's voice echoed inside the plug. "Asuka, are you getting this?"

"Yeah," The girl turned left or right inside the plug, and her Evangelion's head and shoulders followed. "It's sinking whatever it feels like."

Stolocker broke in then. "Be that as it may, my navy's getting slaughtered out there. The girl and her toy better be worth it, Major."

Asuka chose not to dignify that with a response, silencing the radio with a thought. She leaned, adjusting her Evangelion's center of gravity enough to ride the carrier's leading edge like a surfboard. Not that she'd ever surfed before, but the physics were close enough. The tarp caught the wind and fluttered, bound against her body with an arm around her collar. Asuka slid her eyes over the horizon, marking the smears of smoke along the way. None of the mundane weapons were cutting it, not as surface bombardment.

Now... how to increase her threat level. In passive mode, the AT field was like a third limb that always hung around, curled close to the body. She let it unfurl, almost lazily. Today there wasn't any need to chase after her synchronization, it was just there, waiting. Asuka felt her perception shift, the world around her didn't so much go solid as full, like her sight and will could be anywhere within her domain. The Absolute Territory of Evangelion Unit 02.

The second her field interpenetrated the water, the swell that marked the Angel cut hard right, making a shaper turn than it had any right to. Asuka licked her lips and tasted blood- no matter how they filtered the LCL she knew it was there. "Well, that was a lucky guess."

Most of the fleet were charging ahead, moving at full speed and leaving the wrecks in their wake. Rescue craft lagged behind, scooping up crew who'd been knocked overboard, or around the lifeboats from the sunk ships. Spots of fluorescent green dye dotted the Pacific, marking where men in life vests bobbed. Whatever the Angel was, it moved faster underwater than they did. Then the creature crossed into Asuka's range of influence, and her senses went haywire.

Synesthesia was the accurate term, but she just called it mush. Her inner ear was telling her the color orange tasted like chocolate. Her stomach growled despite the sudden nausea; she hadn't eaten all day. Asuka pulled the field in and grit her teeth. Sickness aside, she knew where the Angel was coming from. She pivoted smartly on the deck, tarp wrapped tight like a cloak and billowing behind her. Misato broke in again on the radio, saying something about the Angel's field, but there was no time. The swell burst and the whale-thing jumped.

Long and thin, it had two scoop-like fins on either side, like forward-swept manta ray wings. The Angel crossed over the ship, trailing more than enough water to sweep the deck clean of everything save the Eva itself. Sunlight scattered through the falling water, throwing rainbows across the carrier and fleet. Asuka looked up at the creature's white underbelly and grinned. Everyone outside should have gotten below by that time, but for whoever hadn't, they were in for one hell of a show.

Then the Angel brought its primary weapon into play. A length of flesh and muscle like the lantern on an Angler fish whipped forward, drawing a line through her Eva and across the deck. Asuka felt her skin prickle beneath her plugsuit as she wrenched hard on the controls. A hard spur of bone on the striking end raked around even as the Evangelion backpedaled half a step, pounding a heel-print crater into the deck. The bone edge missed her left arm by yards, but the nearly invisible AT field cut through her own opposed space, and the armor lining her wrist.

Standing though, Asuka brought her other arm up, knife-hand and aiming to tear. The Angel's massive weight worked against it, and the Evangelion's fingers dug a long ragged trench into its underbelly. Grey blood splashed out and down Asuka's arm and cloak, flushing seawater away from the deck. The shock and impact ran down the Evangelion and into the carrier below, buckling deck plates and shoving the vessel down into the water.

For a split second, the open hangar accesses flooded, before the ship righted itself, springing up and almost bouncing out of the water. The Angel twisted in mid-air, disengaging and screaming even as it lashed out with the cutting limb. Asuka twisted and planted her feet, letting the blade pass through where she stood. A ragged end of cut tarp blew out to sea, even as the Angel darted back underwater, shaking the carrier along the way.

Asuka stepped around and held up her arm, checking the thick band of poured composite surrounding her Evangelion's wrist. Bolted around, and sometimes into her partner, the new upgrade bulked out the Evangelion in round curving shapes. What she'd lost in grace, the Eva made up for in sheer volume of presence. Asuka let her arm drop and turned to watch the Angel slide around.

As a purely physical defense, the new armor was amazing, but no amount of material science was going to stop a weaponized AT field. "Misato!"

Misato's audio-window flipped back into view. "Yeah Asuka?"

The girl kept one eye out on the ocean while she toed the deck with a foot."You saw what it did?"

"We did. Everyone down in Ops on the AT field gear got readings." There was a rustle and hustle on the bridge before Misato came back. "I'm no Ritsuko, but we're thinking it's AT field adapted for the water. Cutting's just a side effect."

Very much a self-evident effect, Asuka could see the results firsthand. A line several yards wide cleaved through the carrier, all the way down to the hangar two or three decks down. Fires were already starting to throw smoke out into the air. Asuka glanced back up at the horizon, only to see the Angel leap out of the water again and cut a battleship apart. A sickly grey smear of ichor stained the ocean, trailing away from the carrier, mingling with the wakes of nearly twenty surviving ships.

The tarp billowed out around the Evangelion again, coated with blood and beading water. Asuka uncurled her index finger and tapped a particular command sequence. "I can handle this," She sighed and reached out over her back, even as a series of charges detonated along her back and shoulders. ".... Though I really never wanted to fight like a samurai."

Shredded by deployment, the tarp gave way completely save for a ragged collar around the Evangelion's neck. It clung to her throat and caught on the shoulder storage fins, trailing behind like a scarf. A hilt as long as three of her Evangelion's hands popped out from over her shoulder. Drawn overhand, the weapon was half as long as the Eva was tall and heaved up by payload rocket assist. It all but leapt into Asuka's waiting hand. Held under tension by a core of self-tightening cable bundles, a series massive double-edged ceramic segments clicked and linked together.

NERV called it the Non-Progressive Prototype Blade. Asuka called it Wellenbrecher.

Unfurling her field once more, Asuka turned to track the rushing surge of water. She grinned faintly and tasted LCL -blood- again. Tasty treat- good to eat, come to me my sweet...

* * *
Stolocker stared at the radio, jaw hanging slack. "What is that girl doing?"

Misato paid him no mind, though Asuka's impromptu rhyme stuck in her head just as insistently. Hands were clamped tight around every rail and console, leaving knuckles strained white. Misato was no different, holding on to the a stanchion for dear life. The sudden jerk from earlier had nearly knocked everyone to the floor. Meanwhile Asuka had already figured out how to bait the hook, maybe faster than the Major could have, but Misato wasn't feeling picky right then either. She scanned the bridge and every screen she could for information.

The planes in the air were at best expensive lifeboats- no way for surface to air missile strikes. A muted screech of metal and booms marked the destruction of another ship, probably loaded with extra fuel or ammunition. More and more of the Eva's specialized weapons were being taken out of play by random chance, and that bugged Misato far more than anything. A smart enemy she could respect. This one was dumb, for now. She glanced at a sonar screen, watching a wobbly patch of water move closer to the center line and the Over the Rainbow itself.

Faster, but there was only one of it... and it liked to jump. Misato leaned around her handhold, hissing. "Admiral!"

The old man snarled in return. "What!?"

Misato waved her free arm, sketching out a tightening circle. "Bring everyone in closer- all the surviving ships!"

The carrier shook again, from what no one could say for certain. Another officer rattled off a damage report, but their engines were still running at the red. Stolocker forced his cap further down on his head and growled. "That's insane Katsuragi!"

"Running isn't working and we can't spread out. Don't you realize guerilla tactics when you see them?" The blank stare the Admiral gave her answered that. Well, it wasn't her fault nobody else understood Unnatural Warfare. She just shrugged, wide eyed and expectant. "Whatever you can manage then! It's like fighting an animal submarine. Bigger shapes in the water might confuse it- it can vault the carrier, but can it jump three ships in a line?"

Outside, Asuka stood her Evangelion on the bow once more, remnants of the tarp fluttering around her neck. Arms held wide at its side, the massive sword waited, presented edge on toward the ocean. The girl's voice crackled out over the radio, lilting and bubbly. "I like Misato's plan, but you're going to have to wait- it's coming back for round two!"

* * *

She was glad the sun was out for her debut combat. Even with the armor, Asuka could feel the heat through her Evangelion's skin. She watched the rushing bulge of water curved around the fleet, tracing a lazy teardrop shape as it circled. It knew she was there now- no need to rush in. Crew on ships all across the fleet rushed to life-boats, letting the freighters churn ahead on autopilot. The destroyers and battleships stayed in though, alternating fire and doing their level best to score a hit.

"Misato-" She snapped, urgent and focused.

The Major's voice came back immediately. "What do you need, Asuka?"

Scanning the carrier and rest of the fleet, Asuka bit her lip, thinking. "Is the deck clear?"

Admiral Stolocker answered in the affirmative, and Asuka nodded mostly to herself. The pilot shifted, holding her sword forward at the ready, hands stacked on top of the other along the hilt. Ahead, the Angel completed its turn and accelerated, angling in straight for the Over the Rainbow. Asuka started counting seconds. "When I say, hit the breaks. Cut the engines, drop the anchor, whatever works."

"Wha-?" Misato was only confused for a fraction of a second. "Okay! You got it."

The girl dismissed the reply as soon as it was made. Seconds, she had to count them. That's what she needed. Asuka kept her eyes on the approaching bulge of water. Vier, drei. White curls of foam built up on the leading edge, spilling over and spreading out. Zwei. For a moment she wondered why it wasn't diving lower, letting the ocean hide such an obvious tell. The rest of Asuka's mind decided it wasn't important yet and kept counting down. Just off the bow, the bulge of water dropped, and Asuka's heart leapt into her throat. She screamed the order.

Ein!

Exploding out of the water, the Angel sailed up into the air and lashed down with its bladed limb. It hung there in the sky for a long, agonizing second, and Asuka shouted to Misato. The pilot couldn't see it, but a hand came down on the throttle and the carrier groaned, jerking to not a stop but a bouncing, skidding turn. There was too much ship moving entirely too fast to stop in any meaningful way, but the sudden slowing was more than enough. With it's jump miss-timed, the Angel screamed as it bottomed out hard on the deck, ripping up deck plates and crushing what few aircraft remained. One wide fin gouged a hole in the bridge structure, leaving a handful of floors gutted to open air.

Asuka meanwhile stepped neatly to the side, letting the Angel grind along the deck. The ship lurched and bobbed in the ocean, suddenly off balance as it strained to remain upright. The Evangelion took a pair of stalking steps around, utterly composed even as Asuka raised her weapon. That blade came down and directed the weight of a small building into its cutting edge. White flesh split apart, drenching the deck in grey blood once more. Some flooded into the holes and rents torn in the surface, running down into the hangar and lower decks. From her vantage point, Asuka could see the crew already leaping to action inside, taking fire hoses to the soupy mess and growing fires.

Buried tip first up to the second segment in the deck, the sword had cleaved the Angel's tail off in one blow.

The foremost third of the Angel almost slid to the far end of the carrier, leaving it's limp tail far behind. Over the Rainbow groaned as the bow lurched out of the water. Forced to take strains it hadn't been meant to, the ship groaned at the middle, tugging hard on every bolt and weld. The Angel's massive weight settled at the stern, just to the side of the bridge island. The creature's alien fins twitched and spasmed on the flight deck, thrashing for a bit before going still. Blood spilt off the carrier's edges and into the water, spreading dirty white gunk in its dwindling wake. With hands wrapped around the hilt, Unit 02 wrenched the sword out and gave it a rough shake.

Standing bow-legged against the deck tilt and coated up to her knees in grey ichor, Asuka stood between the pieces of her kill, turning to face the bridge. "So, how's that for Angel hunti-Grkl!"

A wall of white half as tall as the Evangelion slammed into its torso, cracking dorsal armor and throwing a glittering cloud of red flakes into the air. Against a human the thumb-sized shards would have been deadly hazardous shrapnel. The Angel's tail however felt no pain. Like a severed lizard's tail, the limb squirmed and bucked, coiling across the carrier and bashing against the Evangelion again and again.

Inside the plug, Asuka coughed, feeling her ribs creak from synchronization backlash. Pushed to the ships' port edge, the Evangelion windmilled over open ocean. She willed her AT field into being, angling and aspecting it to protect her against all comers. The flailing tail hit thin air, stopping cold against the crackling orange boundary. Tangled around her free arm, the Evangelion's power cable stretched taut, holding her and the Evangelion leaning over the edge. She stalled, balanced on the arches of her feet while the front half of the Angel stirred.

Misato shouted from inside the bridge, ordering the crew to activate the cable winch. The tail kept thrashing, mashing deep craters into the carrier's top level and crushing the chambers below. Shit. Asuka scowled, staring through her Eva's eyes at the spreading damage. Shit-shit. Secondary fires were spreading throughout the ship, and the rest of the Angel was stirring. The finned bulk shuffled forward, seemingly desperate to get out of the air and back into the water. Small favors it wasn't whipping everywhere with the blade-tentacle.

Asuka looked up at the winch holding her up, then the bridge. The view jumped forward, zooming in far enough to see the shattered windows and handfuls of people belting orders into radios. Misato was spread between three phones, half working alongside Stolocker and half around him from breath to breath. Turning back to the tail, Asuka let out an ugly snort. That thing had to go. If she left too long and there wouldn't be any carrier to fight from, and she sure as hell didn't want any more people to die either!

Shifting her grip on the sword, Asuka tugged on the cable and snapped her weight forward, dropping her AT field in the same instant. The Angel tail writhed and reared up almost like it could see her, but that suited her just fine. Thrusting the sword up, she skewered the tail at the thickest point before the sliced end, leaving the tip of the blade sticking out the other side. The carrier shook as the tail beat another line of dents into the metal, and before Asuka could move, the severed limb swung back and caught her full in the chest.

The Evangelion sailed bodily over the edge of the deck before it jerked back. The plug wrenched hard in the socket along her spine, nearly snapping off on the winch end. Over the Rainbow swung in the water a few dozen yards as the Eva spent all its energy pulling the ship. Asuka hung over the water for a split second, watching the tail and Angel slip back under the surface.

Then she fell.

* * *

Cold!

Saltwater soaked into the Evangelion's every nook and cranny, boiling under water and throwing up a cloud of rapidly collapsing bubbles. The Eva itself sank not unlike a stone, corkscrewing down and spindling oddly around the still-connected power socket. Inside the entry plug, Asuka's arms shook, straining against the controls as the tumble forced her into out of the seat and into the walls. She grit her teeth and heaved, jerking hard on the butterfly sticks. The Evangelion understood her mental directive and threw its arms out, sweeping through the water and stopping the spin.

A hundred meters down, any light in the water was so faint as to be useless for regular eyes. Floodlights all over the Eva's neck and shoulders threw out beams of white that caught clouds of dust and scattered fish as well as the spreading cloud of angelic blood. Looking up, Asuka could still see the hulls of the Pacific Fleet, silhouetted against the afternoon sun. On the surface, ships slowly moved into tighter formations, lashing their hulls together and providing mutual support. Asuka could only see that by the cigar-shaped shadows changing position, or the simple map her Eva's on board computer provided.

More importantly, the Angel was gone.

All told she'd been sinking for less than fifteen seconds, and the radio snapped on. "Asuka! Asuka can you hear me?!"

The Eva panned its head left and right. Silt and whatever else was in the ocean cut her visibility to damn near zero. She flipped to other vision modes while she answered. "I'm here Misato."

"The winch is shot, not that we ever expected to have to reel an Eva in by their umbilical cable." The officer's voice came in clear, which made sense really. Asuka wasn't that far below. The pilot took a short breath, surprisingly calm given the circumstances. Still high on adrenaline, she supposed.

Misato had kept talking too. "So, just sit tight for now. The Angel's shoved off somewhere- it's hard to track by sonar and radar, maybe something to do with it's AT-Field."

Asuka nodded, more out of habit than anything. They'd have needed a NERV setup to get plug video. "I can sense the thing with my field if I tune it right but-"

"You can make an AT field do that?"

"Of course I can do that." The redhead snorted, too distracted to feel particularly offended. "I was going to teach Rei and Ikari too."

There was a shout on the other end of the line, the Admiral giving orders and people moving to and fro. Misato came back a second later. "We're on damage control up here and preparing for the second round. Is there anything we can do here?"

Asuka scanned the surrounding area with thermal enhancement, not seeing anything worth mentioning. She twisted around the cable, uncomfortably like bait on a hook. Everything was sluggish, even if the Type-C dive equipment- The girl sighed then, groaning. "Stupid rush job!"

The Major stammered, letting out a brief sound of indignation. Asuka shot back with a clarification. "No no, it's the armor," She shrugged her Evangelion's shoulder, testing her theory. Sluggish, very sluggish. "That' s it. Wasn't built with the dive equipment in mind. My buoyancy's all screwed."

"Are you going to be alright?"

Asuka felt a frown work its way onto her face. The concern was nice but.... "I'll be fine, I just can't maneuver worth a damn unless I blow the skin off." Switching to light-enhancement, Asuka tried to make heads or tails of the murky Caribbean. "Dropped my sword too. Do you guys see it up there?"

A half-dozen ships with surviving sensors were patched in then, alongside Misato and the Over the Rainbow. A chorus of 'negatives' and 'no ma'am's were her only response. Meanwhile the Evangelion's eyes began to adjust, or maybe Asuka's were. Her synchronization was hovering at a steady eighty-eight, and she resisted the urge to clamp down on it like vice. Trying for sync just made it harder.

Without a frame of reference either, there was almost no way to tell how long she'd been underwater. The LCL and Evangelion itself would protect her from most everything except the Angel, which still wasn't showing up. A flash of white caught her eye, but it turned out to be a dead fish. Normal dead fish, her mind amended. She let out a long slow breath, head drooping forward. The most recent surge of adrenaline drained out as quickly as it had arrived, leaving her shaky.

Staring out into the bloody murk, Asuka triggered a new control. Her left shoulder pylon popped open and revealed a boxy and familiar shape; Progressive Knife. She drew the weapon and took a deep breath. Now all she had to do was wait.

Crap. She sucked at waiting.

* * *

Smoke rose up in thick plumes over several miles of ocean, marking ruined and sinking ships. More than a few survivors were burning too, with crew fighting hard to put out the fires. The fleet had lost over a dozen ships, but no one was certain yet. The bulk had thankfully been skeleton crews, freighters loaded with Evangelion weapons and replacement parts, alongside more pedestrian fuel and naval materials. Past that, there was no clear word on casualties. Hundreds easily, to say nothing below decks, probably more.

Misato bit her lip and looked out over the horizon, barely noticing the wind rushing into the bridge. The windows had shattered when the Angel jumped and fell onto the carrier. Over the Rainbow's flight deck was absolutely totaled, left crumpled and shredded. The Evangelion's umbilical cable had caught on an aircraft elevator and crushed the device. Now the carrier just struggled to stay level. Massive tears had been ripped all the way through to the hangar below.

Mere minutes after active combat, the Admiral had ordered damage control and rescue.

"We can't afford that." She turned to stare the older man down, not at all bothered by his height, rank, or weight. "We need to get ready for round two or we're all good as dead."

Almost everyone present on the bridge fell silent at that statement. Officers and crew slid their eyes over to her, and Misato met every glance with a full, sharp stare of her own. There was not going to be any miscommunication, not here, not now. Hands were tight on consoles while the wind tugged at shirtsleeves. The Admiral moved over, apparently calm and carefully restrained. The air still shook from his passing.

"Explain to me why, Katsuragi." Stolocker stopped just short of Misato's toes. He threw his arm out, waving past the broken windows and the deceptively calm waters. "I have men and women in the water waiting for pickup."

Misato just folded her arms over her chest, scowling. "Simple. Angels don't hang around for any reason. It probably attacked somewhere else and we simply haven't heard it yet, and any help we call in is going to come in after that crisis."

Now eyes were sliding between them. A part of Misato thought it was something like a strategic tennis volley, bouncing between ideologies. She forced her mouth to stay fixed and scowling. A smirk would've sent the wrong message. Officers halted their tasks mid-motion. Some had been clearing glass away from consoles, others were in the process of being bandaged.

The Admiral stared down at Misato, and white of his eyes stood out in the shadows cast by his hat."So what then, you expect me to leave them stranded in the water?"

"For now? Yeah, that's what I expect, Admiral." Misato dropped her arms and stalked across the small walkway between bridge stations. She leaned up, standing on tip-toes but not caring, not as long as it got her nose-to-nose with the old fossil. "I expect that, because I am in command of this fleet until the Angel is dead. I expect that because if we're not ready for the next attack we all will die, and then no one will be around to save your people."

Stolocker growled through his steel-wire beard and bristly moustache. His hat down to his fists were shaking, before he grit out a quiet, furious 'Yes Major'. Misato had no trouble hearing what he hadn't said. She looked around the bridge, admittedly aware that guiding aircraft was the Operation Room's responsibility.

She caught the eye of another officer and nodded, speaking quietly. "How many fighters made it into the air? Never mind, doesn't matter; tell them to run search patterns for people in the water as long as their fuel lasts. After that they should go to the nearest airfield."

The man blinked once but nodded, relaying the orders, but during a break he paused. Holding the microphone against his shoulder, he frowned. "But shouldn't we keep fighters on station anyway? They're full on munitions."

Misato stretched languidly, for the moment unconcerned about an impending Angel attack. Uncertainty was her stock and trade after all. To his question, Misato just gave the man a slightly bloodthirsty smile. "Well, the Angel is probably going to attack a long time before those jets have to land so..."

The Admiral glanced over, and the trembling eased, slightly.

Kaji leaned through the an open door, already run ragged. He'd been bandaged, gauze taped around his head and soaked through with blood, and more had trailed down his face to stain the collar of his shirt. In short, he looked like hell, and Misato winced.

"Yo, Katsuragi." He waved then, a little sluggishly. She watched the inspector stare blankly at the officers and crew milling about the bridge. "So, what's happening?"

She ignored him and turned to another sailor. Now Misato allowed herself to smirk. "Question: About how many torpedoes can we put in the water?"

* * *

Asuka wasn't sure what was worse; not being able to see or having nothing to see. She panned the Evangelion's head left and right, having long since shut off the floodlights. Fidgeting, she flexed her actual fingers and rolled her shoulders, letting out a low, short grunt "M'sato gonna owe me ten dozen massages after this..."

Waiting still sucked too. Bits of grit and tiny marine life spun in curling clouds around the Evangelion's eyes. It was just enough movement to catch her attention, but frustratingly random. The blood wasn't helping either. Thick and silty, more like mud than anything that belonged in veins. Asuka sighed and let a bubble of spent air out. Boredom always brought out her annoyingly analytic side.

Then the ocean currents changed. Water started to move, pushed or pulled by something Asuka couldn't say, but the surrounding ocean started to clear. Twisting shafts of sunlight reached down to her level, and one played over a distant, deadly familiar shape. Adrenaline spiked up and Asuka snapped to action, directing the camera to zoom and taking in whatever detail she could.

Half a mile away, the Angel hung nearly motionless in the water. Not dead, as far as the pattern sensors informed her. It had swum around and collected its tail, or maybe its tail had collected it, she wasn't sure. In any case, the clean slice she'd inflicted had changed, healed together with bulging, tumorous-looking growths. At the base of the tail just behind that wound, a thin trail of fresh grey blood leaked out from where she'd stabbed Wellenbrecher. The sword haft jutted out at an angle along the Angel's belly.

And, as soon as Asuka realized that, the Angel twisted. It went from a drifting dead stop to relentless speed. The leading edges along its massive beak and fins were churning with white froth, driving up spiraling corkscrews of ocean dust, dead fish and blood.

Stuck dangling on the umbilical, Asuka spat and jerked hard at the controls. There was only so much she could do without a full range of motion! Her extra armor was great, but it threw off her dive upgrades too. Biting off a sigh, she put the could-haves and if-onlys out of her mind. Instead, the Evangelion swung its arms and legs, pushing enough to start swinging. Ahead the Angel charged in, cleaving through the water like it wasn't even there. It blew past in a near miss, sending Asuka wildly out of control. Trailing at the end of the power cable, Asuka swung around in an awkward, erratic circle. Up on the surface, the Over the Rainbow was probably pitching to one side. At that moment though, Asuka could not afford to care.

Curling around, the Angel lined up for another pass. Asuka let out a quiet snort and nodded. As long as she was still hooked to power she might as well use it. Unfolding her AT-Field, Asuka visualized an actualized opposition between her and the creature. This was what she was good at, and Asuka was more than ready to prove it.

The Angel finished its turn and spun neatly, charging in once more. Asuka continued to spin on the end of the line, kicking her legs to steady the orbit. The whole time, she kept her eye and attention on one particular bit of ocean, the one place she declared immutable. She was no where near that point, but that honestly didn't matter as long as the Angel crossed the invisible line- and it did. The creature hit her unfolded AT-field almost head on, and for a moment it compacted, its beak-nose flattening out before snapping forward. A heavy, concussive clap of displaced water created an ominous swell up on the surface, and it sent Asuka whirling again, even though she was hundreds of feet away.

Energy spent, the Angel skidded along the plane-aspected obstacle, it's own water-cutting fields tearing a gaping line in Asuka's before it deflected fully. It beat the water with the massive tail before shooting off again, gearing up for a third pass. Inside the plug, Asuka unhooked her legs from the seat and let out a long, slow breath. It wouldn't fall for that again.

At the moment though, the Angel was content to take an even longer circuit, probably thinking of a new angle to attack from. Asuka wasn't going to complain, short of it making things complicated. It was an Angel, she was a pilot. She was going to kill it, no need to gild the lily. In the meantime though, she wondered. Raising her Eva's arm, Asuka focused, tugging at the region of altered space that defined her AT-Field. She'd hundreds of experiments back in Germany, but none of them with or even under water. The Angel's water-blade trick didn't look that complex, she wondered.

The radio snapped on and Misato's voice filled her ear. "Asuka! We're getting tugged around a lot up here, what's going on!"

"It's trying to kill me and probably the fleet." Asuka couldn't help the distant tone, focused as she was. She swished her arm through the water a few times, but no joy on reducing resistance. "Right now I'm trying to figure out how the Angel moves so fast."

"Shit- Well we're having trouble tracking it on radar and sonar, but we've got cameras in the water now and gearing up for torpedo cover." Misato clicked off the line for a second, and Asuka wiggled her fingers, keeping one Evangelion eye out for the Angel. Misato came back a second later. "As for movement, the Admiral's boys tell me it's something like a pump-jet. Like a jet-ski"

Another familiar voice broke in then, though Asuka wasn't up for her normal routine, not right then. She could still feel Kaji's smirk through her radio. "So like that one time in Cuba?"

Misato squawked, stammered and for a moment, completely lost her military composure. "I told you never to mention that again!"

"Relax Katsuragi, you looked fine." He didn't wait for an answer from Misato. Instead he focused on Asuka, audibly concerned. "So how are you doing, Asuka?"

Ahead, the Angel was getting closer and moving fast. It was going to eat up the mile between them in no time. To Kaji she huffed and tossed her hair by habit more than anything. "Bit busy for you right now, Kaji-san. Go flirt with Misato some more."

Letting go of any progress on water-cutting, Asuka refocused her field on defense. She fixed a point of space ahead of where she'd be, where the Angel was going to try and cut her down. The massive fish-thing hurtled forward, and Asuka counted the seconds before impact. At the last moment though, the Angel shifted, abusing its flexibility and cutting a new spiral path through the surrounding ocean. It swept past her field, only cutting a slice out of one edge as its fin crossed her Absolute Territory.

Asuka reeled herself in mentally and physically, throwing a warding hand up to block the inevitable. The hasty last-second barrier she put up between her and the Angel shattered. A half-second later the full weight of the Angel slammed into her Evangelion's stomach, and Asuka felt a rib crack. Acceleration forced her forward, bent half over the seat's center console, and her jaw clamped down so hard it was a miracle she missed breaking any teeth. After that, her whole face ached on top of the growing pain in her side. A second, metallic snap echoed out through her Evangelion, and for a split-second, the plug went icy cold.

Her power cable had been ripped out, and emergency batteries kicked on. Plugsuit life-support spun up, numbing her chest and forcing her body to relax. She would have rather dealt with the pain. Asuka heaved back in her seat and grabbed the controls once more, turning her attention back outside. Pinned by water and the Angel's own constant movement, Asuka at least had more free reign to move, unhooked. She glanced at her left hand and grinned. Raising that arm, she brought the progressive knife down into the Angel's snout, hard.

The strike had cut a ragged slice through the tip of its beak, well forward of the tiny bird mask at the top crown. Oddly, it wasn't using the blade tendril either, just letting it trail behind. A fresh plume of blood flooded into the ocean, and the Angel bucked, flinging her up then as soon as her blade met flesh. Tumbling hard end over end, Asuka only got one glimpse of the Angel before something completely aborted her rational train of thought.

"Nobody said anything about teeth!"

Banking over and curling up like a serpent, the Angel stood poised before her Eva. It hung there for a long second, just watching. Then the water-cutting whale opened its mouth and bit down.

Whatever pain Asuka expected never came. She cracked one eye open and checked a damage report- superficial. The armor still worked. Outside, Asuka and her Evangelion hung out of the Angel's mouth by one leg, stuck limp even as the Angel carved through the water. A handful of it's teeth had broken off against the ceramic wrapped around her Evangelion's thigh. Ha! Serves you right!

Still, she needed her weapon. The pilot ran through her options and resources, scowling more and more every passing second. Her batteries were good with twelve-minutes of power left sure, but using her AT field for any length of time was right out. The progressive knife thankfully hadn't gone anywhere, still buried in the Angel's nose and just out of reach.

"Asuka! We lost the umbilical- what's happening!?"

"Damn thing tried to eat me!" The pilot bent the Evangelion forward at the waist, reaching for the Angel's nose and coming up short. "It's gonna take me a sec to get loose."

"No that's perfect! Listen, we can track your Eva, and we've got enough more than enough torpedoes up he-" A sudden burst acceleration cut Misato off, and Asuka's vision greyed out along her right side.

Shoved into the plug wall, Asuka forced her awareness out, into the Eva and the surrounding ocean. The Angel twisted hard in the water, whipping the Eva around by its thigh. It spun and twisted and angled up for the surface, towards the aircraft carrier's hull.

The Angel turned, curving around while Asuka flailed both as the Eva and inside the entry plug. In one smooth arc, the Angel turned and ground Asuka against the ship above. Shrieks of metal on ceramic echoed through the plug and every inch of the Evangelion itself, and Asuka felt the sudden shaking twice over. Barely five seconds had passed since the Angel had caught her.

Misato's voice came back a moment later, full of static and sounding liquid. "-suka! What's that noise?!"

Asuka peeled herself away from the wall and rubbed her brow. She sucked in a quick breath and pulled her hand back, not at all surprised to see it come away bloody. "Just... getting my bearings."

Whipping around for another pass, the Angel carved out into open water. Asuka found her Evangelion folded over the whale-thing's nose. Water tore at the Evangelion's arms and shoulder pylons, pulling out interior bolts and connections. The pilot willed her attention forward, eyes focusing in on the bit of red and black metal still wedged on the white, toothy beak. Her massive hand curled around the knife hilt and ripped it free, throwing up a new plume of blood. The Angel shuddered, biting down harder with broken teeth.

Tumbling, the Angel rolled her in the water like an alligator, or a frenzied shark. Asuka's own thigh burned, even as her Evangelion's limb creaked. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw the fleet getting closer and closer. By that point Asuka had lost track of her adrenaline highs, but another fresh burst flooded her veins. Pinned or not though, she still had her free hand and her knife. Screaming, Asuka brought her empty fist down into the nearest exposed tooth, cracking it apart in one shot. A second hit shattered more enamel, as did the third and forth.

Not enough to get free though. Now Asuka turned to the knife. Flipping it over in her fingers, she brought it down overhand, carving a new scar into the Angel's snout. It bucked and twisted hard, but still held on. More slashes carved away chunks of white flesh, and the Angel bore down faster on the fleet flagship. Asuka risked a look over her shoulder and paled. Spending minutes of her backup battery, she unfurled her field.

The Angel bit into the sudden obstacle, one of the water-cutting fields around its right fin collapsed and forced it to grind along the altered space for seconds or more. Stopped short of the carrier by a hundred yards, the Angel coiled up and snapped its head around. It's mouth opened at the last second and Asuka found herself free for the first time in what felt like forever. She tumbled through the water and pumped her arms and legs- fighting for whatever bit of distance she could get.

Misato and Kaji said something, but Asuka didn't have time to listen. The Angel spun around again, faster than a snake and just as limber. It cut through the water, mouth yawning wide open for another bite-and-pin maneuver. This time Asuka was ready for it. She kicked down, catching one armored heel on the Angel's mauled nose. Flipping overhead in the water, she, caught her hand around the base of the whipping-blade tendril and slid back. The creature's undulating mass of flesh spread out beneath her for hundreds of yards, going narrow and wide as its whale-manta body shot forward.

Orange lines and telemetry spread out through Asuka's field of view, highlighting her sword hilt, just past the tumorous scar. She reached out then, part computer assistance and part raw skill. Her fingers hooked around the massive pommel and her whole arm jerked, hyperextended as she bled off momentum. Motion caught her eye, and for a second, Asuka swore she was seeing double. Ahead, boils and pustules of flesh shook lined the ragged wound, and wriggling shapes squirmed inside. Infantile angels, part regeneration and part spawn.

Asuka drove her knife into the nearest blister and cut the embryo apart. "....Gross."

Hundreds of feet ahead, the Angel's nose dipped down towards darker waters. Asuka had a second to note the delay of watching the body curl and flex away from her. A second later, the tail snapped up, tossing her away from the Angel and ripping the sword free in the same move. Stuck at neutral buoyancy, Asuka twisted slowly in the water while the Angel prepared for another high-speed charge. Asuka settled back into her seat and let out a long, slow breath. Six minutes of battery power and dropping fast, Spreading her arms, she waited. Progressive knife in her left hand, Wellenbrecher in her right.

A thought-command reconnected her to the fleet. "Misato, Kaji? I think I could use some help down here..."

* * *

Over the Rainbow listed dangerously off to port and threw smoke into the sky from a dozen fires. Half the bridge officers had rushed below decks to help with damage control. Katsuragi Misato stood at the radio console while Kaji hovered behind. Not a concern, not when her enemy was down there with Asuka.

The radio hissed out static, and Asuka's voice pitched faster and higher with every word. "I have ten seconds before this thing hits me again. Misato, If you've got a plan, do it fast!"

Misato leaned into the radio and pressed the call button. "Asuka, you are going to let the Angel hit you and then hold on for as long as you can."

"You want me to what!?"

Seconds ticked by even as she explained, but it was necessary. "Our torpedoes can't track it, but they can track you. Get away from the Angel as soon as the torpedoes get close."

"Okay I'll do it-ohshithereitcomes!"

Misato turned to the nearest officer, already holding a phone to his ear and waiting for the order. She opened her mouth-

* * *

"-Fire torpedoes!"

The Angel slammed into Asuka's Evangelion, this time catching her not on the beak or nose, but in the shoulder where the fin flared out and merged into the beast's neck. Asuka coughed, wondering for a moment if another rib had just cracked. She put the pain out of her mind and focused. Sword and knife in hand, she rolled in the crook of the Angel's body. Swinging hard, her sword cleaved a long line into the Angel's side, sending a spiraling jet of blood into the water. The Angel shoved, flexing its body and throwing her forward only to whip around and slam her again with its tail.

Thrown around her plug again, Asuka spat out blood and snarled. Damn thing was learning!

A new countdown timer popped up in her display, marking time to first torpedo impact. For the moment alone in the water, it was a great reminder they were focusing on her and not the Angel. Biting off a curse, Asuka kicked hard and swam, shedding hubcap-sized flakes of cracked composite as she went. The Angel met her halfway then, circling around and darting in for another attack. Rolling on her back relative to the Angel's top, Asuka swung her knife down and drove it in deep. Acceleration ripped a long line of ragged flesh out of the Angel's head and back, spending momentum until the Evangelion shuddered to a halt.

Asuka shook her head then and worked her knife in deeper, holding on for dear life. To her right, the base of the blade-whip tendril rose up beside her, trailing behind the Angel even as it hurtled through the water. Raising her sword, Asuka hacked it off for good measure, sending the length of white flesh off into the ocean. Sonar pings started to bounce around Asuka's ears, enhanced or interpreted by the Evangelion's own sensors. The torpedoes were close now, filling the surrounding ocean and hunting for the one thing they could see; her.

Just ahead and below the rise of it's round head was the tiny, chitinous bone mask, like the First Angel's. Wellenbrecher's pommel made short work of it. The Angel screamed then, making a sound other than moving water and muscle. It shook the water and Asuka inside the plug, rattling her bones against her heart and lungs. Bucking hard, the Angel flung her off its back and into the open water for a third time, already moving in for a kill. Its gap-toothed mouth yawned wide and swallowed her whole.

For a second it was dark, and warmer than the surrounding ocean. Floodlights snapped on, and Asuka found her Eva squished between hard palate and a tongueless jaw. "Shit! Misato! I'm in it's goddamn mouth!"

No answer. Against all odds Wellenbrecher had made it inside too, but there was no room to swing. Crunched in as she was, Asuka shifted and kicked, aiming for more of the Angel's massive teeth. Behind her the Angel bellowed again. Glancing past her shoulder pylon, a flash of red against white sent the blood draining out of her face. A goddamn core. Now she didn't just have to get out, but keep the thing's freaking mouth open.

Now she kicked harder, breaking one tooth, then another. Blood wafted out of ruined gums even as the Angel rushed around the Caribbean. Asuka's depth gauge flicked on and she watched it climb, drop and climb. Gravity and acceleration tugged at her hair, and she forced herself to focus. Along one shoulder, a battery shorted out, lost to saltwater contamination. The impact timer ticked down faster and faster, and Asuka swore. Stupid adrenaline throwing off her perception of time!

Inching forward, Asuka worked her way to the Angel's mouth and shoved one arm out. A shoulder pylon snapped off against a surviving tooth, but Asuka paid it no mind. Easier leverage in the long run. Asuka worked to get her legs under her, bearing down hard on the butterfly sticks as she urged her Evangelion onward. Her synchronization jumped two points in response. The torpedoes were seconds out, twenty, more likely ten. Planting both feet in the jaw, Asuka heaved. The Angel thrashed hard and tried to bite down, but Asuka refused to bend.

Two meters, five, ten, twenty. Braced against her shoulder, Asuka forced the Angel's mouth open, nearly as wide as the Evangelion was tall. Then she pushed it more, arms shaking inside the plug alongside the Evangelion's. The torpedoes were close enough to see, throwing tiny spirals of bubbling vacuum out behind, even as they zeroed in on her red machine. Again Asuka counted down, timing everything down to the closet second. The first torpedo blew past her hip, right into the Angel's mouth.

Asuka didn't bother counting the rest; there were far too many.

* * *

The explosion was few hundred yards away from the Over the Rainbow. A column of water a thousand feet high and a third as wide shot up into the air along with a swell that lifted dozens of surviving ships and people bobbing in the water. Seawater rained down all over the Pacific Fleet, and more than a bit made its way into the bridge, soaking everyone inside. Dripping wet, Misato and Kaji stared out at the calming ocean, and for once, she didn't mind it when his hand found hers.

He glanced out the corner of his eye and squeezed her fingers. "I think it worked."

Misato bit her lip and worked to keep her voice steady. "Yeah."

The carrier jerked, hard enough to throw people to the floor, rail and safety rope. Misato spun, using Kaji partly as a handhold and stepladder to find a working phone. "What the hell was that?!"

"Jeez, overkill much, Misato?"

As one, the pair from NERV turned to the radio console, blinking dumbly. The ship still tilted hard, shuddering every few seconds. Misato found her voice first, and the smile spread across her face faster than light. "Asuka! Where are you?"

The girl's voice came back dry and matter-of-fact, audibly smirking. "Climbing the damn umbilical. The Evangelion can't swim in this armor, remember?"

Misato nodded, smiling even wider while holding onto the console. She would've fallen over without it. "Roger that. Once you get on board we'll start recovery operations. I'm just waiting on kill-confirmation from the intercept system."

Behind her, Kaji wrapped one arm around her hip and reached for the microphone. An hour earlier, Misato would've slapped his ponytail clean off. Right then, she decided to let it slide. For now. He pressed the transmit key, smiling wide and relieved. "You gave us quite a scare there, Asuka. How're you doing?"

Outside a red hand shot out of the water and wrapped around the edge of the carrier deck, just as Asuka answered back. "Tired. And my Eva's almost out of power."

Misato smirked and broke in, nudging Kaji aside. "We'll get the spare socket hooked up a soon as we can." The ship shook again when Asuka's other arm came out of the water, along with her sword. "Had to get that back too, huh?"

"It's kind of grown on me." Asuka hauled herself completely out of the water and slumped forward, and both the machine and pilot sighed. "Guess I'll have to thank Ikari when we get back."

A flushed, sweat-streaked crewman charged out the open bridge door, a fist full of crumpled printouts in his hand. "Major Katsur-"

The Angel burst out of the water less than a hundred feet away from the aircraft carrier, covered in new, tumorous growth.

* * *

Cameras on the Evangelion's back and shoulders fed video to Asuka's forward-facing view. The Angel had changed. Covered still-healing scars and the squirming pod-growths, it stood on the water almost like an insect. Its fins had extended at the tips into long striding legs, but Asuka was completely certain it could still swim like nothing else. The water-cutting AT field now pressed into the waves, and as Asuka watched the water shift beneath the Angel's shadow, she couldn't help but think of a damn hovercraft.

Sliding sideways across the water, the Angel almost lazily circled the carrier, sizing it up for a meal. Its tail still dragged in the water, and the stump of it's whip-blade bulged with squirming tissue. Asuka sat in her plug, pitched forward by gravity and all too aware that she had ninety seconds of power left. The spare umbilical waited on board another cargo ship, a lucky survivor. Seeing that ship lashed against Over the Rainbow's side, Asuka watched massive cranes hoist the power plug out of the bay while men with ropes dragged it further onto the deck. Tens of seconds, minutes of preparation.

Turning her attention back to the Angel, Asuka took a knee and heaved her Evangelion upright. She left Wellenbrecher on the deck, carrying it would have just drained her batteries faster. No progressive knife, no guns, just her fists. The Angel pivoted lightly in the water, turning its beak and cracked bone-face

Asuka raised her hands and grit her teeth, for once unable to bring out her customary bravado. She watched the power timer tick down. "Yeah... I can handle this."

The impact of the pressure wave was the first thing that registered, before the ocean simply erupted. Asuka rocked back in her seat and felt her jaw go slack. The radio hummed in her ear, and Admiral Stolocker's voice rumbled out. "Fire again!"

* * *

Cruise missiles, anti-ship warheads, and sixteen-inch guns bombarded the Angel from three sides or more. The second it had surfaced, the Admiral had put in the order to all his surviving ships. Detonations and the concussive impact of thousand-pound artillery shook the bridge. Misato's nose and eyes started to water as rocket fuel and explosive fumes filled the air. Outside and wreathed by black clouds and fire, the Angel screamed, slewing around the water even as more guns turned to track it.

A line of missiles stitched a near miss in the water, throwing up massive columns of hot water one after another. Decks of nearby ships and the carrier itself were pelted with a fresh coat of the Caribbean. Still less than a hundred yards away from the carrier, the Angel turned. Misato dashed for the window and leaned out, waving away the smoke and ash. She saw the Angel, bloody and mauled along every surface. Hundreds of yards of flesh boiled with squirming growths, and just behind the bone mask, the whip-tentacle's stump split apart.

New material spiraled out of the tear, unfurling into a second larger mask that framed a sharp slash of red crystal. Not a core as Misato recognized it, and less than a second after the thing finished forming, a beam of white-pink light raked across the ocean. A missile cruiser melted in half and detonated, but not before being thrown up out of the water on a column of discharged energy. The first Angel's ranged attack.

Thrown aside earlier, Kaji pushed himself off a console and stared out at the sudden attack. His jaw worked once, twice, then he caught Misato's eye. "I'll... I'll be right back! Help Asuka!"

Misato blinked and whirled in place, shouting at his back. "Wh-What? Kaji!" She spat and scrambled over to Stolocker and his remaining bridge crew. Vaulting a cabinet and row of screens, she dragged the radio set from his hand to her mouth. "Target the weapon crystal!"

* * *

Hurtling down the stairs and over ladders, Kaji barely had the presence of mind to keep a hand close to a rail. Corridors blurred into each other as he dashed past one door, then the next. Half his crazy plan banked on one particular cargo having survived the battle. The other half of his crazy plan depended on him surviving the battle. Fire and smoke choked nearly every hallway and chamber below decks, while the rest were slick with water and fire-retardant foam.

The ship lurched again, and sunlight streamed through a crack in the hull leading all the way outside. A flash of red and orange up top proved Asuka was up and fighting. Rounding a corner, Kaji's eyes went wide and he lunged, scrambling backwards. One hand found a dangling cable. Friction burned his hand, but he jerked to a stop, dangling over the edge of a ragged tear. Spread out about as wide as he was tall, Kaji could see four decks up or down. A bead of sweat dripped down his nose and off, falling twenty feet or more.. Heaving hard, Kaji pulled himself back onto the ledge.

Outside, the Angel fired its new primary weapon, and the temperature inside the carrier jumped up by degrees. Kaji swore and hung on to the cable tighter. It was easy to put on a brave face for Misato and his girl, but the pounding dizziness from his recent concussion made Kaji suddenly and violently aware of not only his situation, but also that he was remarkably out of his element in every way.

Another blast shook the ship, and Kaji muscled his way back onto steady ground. Standing at the edge, the gap seemed to spread wider, and Kaji felt his vision swim. Nothing for it he supposed, not if he wanted to see Misato and his girl again. Stepping back into the hall, Kaji backed against the nearest bulkhead and gave himself the most space for a running start. People shouted in the distance, and more ships exploded outside.

Sucking down a quick breath, Kaji shot forward and leaped, hoping his eyes would stay clear long enough to make the landing.

* * *

Debris and grit jumped as Asuka moved, twisting her machine around the carrier deck. Explosive bolts ripped out the remains of the old plug and made way for the replacement. Her voice boomed out from her Evangelion, thrown down by external speakers into the deck while crew hauled the power cable into position. "When I get out of here, I am going to shake every goddamn hand in this fleet, and then I'll kiss the cute ones, you all got that!"

Inside the bridige, Misato leaned on the handset, still bearing down on Stolocker's arm. "Jawhol Asuka!" She turned and pushed the Admiral's hand back toward his face. "Keep hammering that Angel with everything you've got!"

The old man squawked, shouting after her even as Misato darted for another console and free officer. Another blast shook the ocean and rocked the carrier, while ozone and smoke flooded the bridge. Outside the Angel twisted, diving for a moment to dodge the latest wave of missiles before resurfacing, only to let loose another beam.

Hiking around the console, Misato pulled out another radio and paged in on Asuka, urging the girl to get back up and into the fight. "Power's good and batteries are charging, you can do this Asuka!"

The Evangelion loomed close to the bridge, waving one arm at the ongoing ocean battle. "What am I supposed to do?! It's over there and the damn thing's shooting now!"

A concussive boom shook the ship, and a dozen more followed, cannon fire and more missiles. Misato braced a arm over her head and hair while hot air and sulfer stung her nose. "We're the genius soldiers here, we can think of something!"

"Yeah well I-hohshit AT-Field!"

The world burned white, and for a moment Misato was back in Antarctica, watching a giant of white stand out against a black sky. Instead she saw an Evangelion in silhouette, and a girl screaming in the face of a searing pink beam. The Angel's attack burned away against Asuka's shield, boiling water and heating the carrier's hull on the abused port side. Steam shot up in scalding towers of white vapor, and Asuka waved her Evangelion's arms. She beat away the steam, oozing contempt.

Defending was enough to catch the Angel's attention, charging in on the thin stilt legs. It dove under, bobbing and weaving past naval artillery fire while fire control aimed missiles ahead of where the Angel was, leading the target. Connected to main power, Asuka put up her field once more, drawing a line in the ocean and throwing down the gauntlet.

The Angel slammed nose-first into the field, coiling hard against the conceptual barrier. Atop the Angel's head, the razor-tipped crystal gathered a charge. Asuka, Misato and everyone else outside saw their vision wash away pink.

* * *

Kaji stumbled to his feet, bloody and sore in places he didn't even want to think about. He passed by men and women fighting fires and damaged systems, working hard to keep the ship afloat. Round one corner and down another set of stairs, lights flickered as Over the Rainbow directed every bit of power it could into the hands of his favorite girl. Finally on the right deck, Kaji started counting doors. He dashed down that last hallway, weaving past vertical pipes and blowing through smoke and lingering fires. Cinders caught in his hair but he didn't have time to pat them out.

The door he needed was up ahead and standing open- small favors, he supposed. One hand on the frame, he wrenched himself around and slid across the tilted deck, landing hard on a pile of crates. Lashed against the deck, they strained under their own weight, creaking ominously. That was fine, he knew what he needed. A black case stood out against the gunmetal grey and olive greens. Pulling it free of the stack, Kaji slapped at catches with bloody fingers. Familiar brass and copper fittings framed a titanium clamp, and in that clamp sat an equally familiar bit of smooth, black volcanic rock.

Kaji grinned madly and smashed his thumb down on the glowing green button.

* * *

IT had many names.
IT did not need to know its name.
IT wondered.
IT wondered if it should be able to wonder.

And then IT understood pain. The signal crushed its feeble mind beneath ancient instruction, and that which had been Gaghiel gained understanding.

MORTALITY

Thunder split its mind, even in the fraction of a second it took to gain one.

WEAPON

New capacity for thought and emotion flooded the Angel's being, now self-aware enough to comprehend the most basic of fears.

TERMINATION

Gaghiel screamed in denial of this awful truth.

* * *

The Angel stumbled suddenly, going slack in the water and scraping down against Asuka's field. The girl slumped in her plug and stared at the thing even as it fell. A grin spread across Asuka's face, and hands curled up so tight her knuckles cracked. She was not above a free shot, not in the least.

Bringing her Evangelion's fist up high over her head, Asuka breathed deep, channeling every ounce of fear, stress, adrenaline and sheer bloody rage into that limb. She held it there, counting heartbeats even as she watched the Angel writhe and spasm against the side of the ship. Every bit of her body, from toes to hips to back and shoulders went into that punch, coiling up and ready. Her arm dropped, crossing the distance faster than the eye could track, and the air cracked with its passing. She drove armored knuckles down into the Angel's snout, punching it so hard the flesh rippled out from nose to the tip of its tail. And when it's jaw hit the ocean, the water was as unforgiving as solid stone. The impact forced the waves to swell in turn, lifting the carrier by yards before settling.

The beast sagged in the water, leaking blood from a thousand wounds. On the edge of the carrier deck, Asuka stood over her victory and laughed.

* * *

Both of them leaning out the window, Misato watched Admiral Stolocker's jaw drop loose. He stared at the floating Angel, cuddled up against the side of his ship like a giant dead squid. Wordlessly he stretched his arm and handed her the radio. A bit of shuffling had her connected to every surviving ship in the fleet.

"Marines!" she gushed, grinning into the afternoon sky. "I want that Angel boarded and scuttled! Let's make sure it's dead this time!"

* * *

Men and explosives boiled out of the carrier and Pacific Fleet, ferried along by raft and small ships towards the creature. Others cut trenches into the Angel's cold grey flesh, shoving explosives in handfuls at a time. Rifles made short work of the still-squirming tumor-sacs, and yards long embryo sloughed out into the water, limp and sinking quickly.

Torpedoes and air-to-land missiles were carted out of racks alongside other surviving ordnance from the air wing. Experts pulled at cases while other specialists wired up satchel charges. Aircraft engineers working alongside navy gunners laughed and shouted at each other- you're doing it wrong!

Standing up on the deck and still connected to main power, Asuka sighed and let her batteries recharge. More and more fleet vessels were hooking up, drifting close for mutual support and rescue. She watched as people who'd spent the whole battle in the water finally get brought back on board. They threw caps in the air, waved their vests like flags, shouting and hugging by turns. The girl just leaned back in her seat and tried to get her heart back under control.

All over the fleet, a dozen or more boats still burned, spreading oil and fuel into the water. The smoke and grit of a small war finally started to settle, staining the ocean a sooty black.

* * *

Misato sagged into the nearest seat and ran a hand through her hair, laughing quietly. Damage reports weren't going to be fun, but there wasn't much that could damage her good mood right then. Not even Kaji stumbling back inside, carrying a black and silver box under one arm. He shuffled across the bridge and set it down next to her before sitting at her other side.

One dark eyebrow quirked up, and Misato jerked an elbow at the thing. It looked like some crazy art project, or something Shinji might have made. Kaji just shrugged, smirking faintly. One of his eyes wasn't moving quite right.

"Side project from the Committee. I kept it, figuring it'd come in handy." He glanced out the windows at Unit 02 and the Angel. "Guess it did."

"No shit." Misato mumbled, then she laughed. Lightly at first, then a full on shoulder-shaking effort, hard enough to lean against Kaji and not care that it was Kaji.

A fresh wave of sulfur and acrid chemicals wafted into the bridge. Burning fuel threw up wider and wider columns of black smoke into the sky. Misato looked out and whistled. "We sure did a number out here, huh?"

Kaji turned and nodded, but before he could answer, a phone rang. Another officer relayed the call from Operations. "New Contact Admiral, Major. To our starboard, out there."

Gingerly, Misato eased herself out of the seat and suddenly felt every inch of her thirty years. She moved over to the starboard side windows alongside Stolocker. A pair of binoculars had survived the battle more or less in tact, and the Admiral had the pressed against his eyes. He handed her the binoculars and rumbled out the obvious question. "Katsuragi... Is that what I think it is?"

Taking a look while Kaji stepped up behind her, Misato adjusted the focus and scanned the murky horizon. A flash of white caught her eye, then shades of grey and a thin slash of red. Blood drained out of her face, and she found herself forming the words even before the rest of her acknowledge the impossibility. "Admiral I need you to fire everything you have on that contact right now. That is not one of ours."

The white shape stepped out of the haze, and the gentle waves beneath its booted feet were flattened, like water sloshing against a pane of glass. More swept over the surface, scattering across even as it stepped closer. It lacked the distinctive shoulder pylons, but the silhouette was the same. Long, gangly limbs wrapped in flexible armor, layered in warnings and decals. It walked closer still, moving across the water atop an AT-field platform.

Too-red lips spread out along a tube-like, almost phallic head, and the thing grinned with broad, thin teeth. A length of wet pink muscle lashed behind those metal blades, and the thing stopped a few hunded feet short of the carrier. By that point everyone was close enough to read the text stenciled along the intruder's arms.

MP-EVA 01

======

Dun-Dun-Dunnnn.

Shyft · Jun 10, 2014

===

If he survived, Wyatt Levidon would never want for work or prestige again. He was now a member of an painfully exclusive club- those who had set foot upon an Angel's flesh and lived. Swept up in the mad rush to scuttle the alien, the photographer triggered his camera almost at random, catching snatches of soldiers and sailors carving into the whale-beast like ants. People vaulted over long ropes and hastily fabricated harnesses that dangled from belt loops and around shoulders; there weren't enough life jackets. Jet aircraft screamed overhead, and their delayed sonic booms rattled the camera lenses.

From nose to tail, the Angel was longer than the Over the Rainbow, some eleven-hundred feet, splayed out and bobbing in the cooling Pacific Ocean. Ghoulish white flesh was pockmarked with tumor-scars where fetal Angels had spawned. They progeny had in turn been found around older wounds, boiling up from ruined skin. Even as Wyatt cycled his camera, he found himself thinking back to high school biology, and the idea of platelets. Another embryo popped in the face of gunfire, and the dead simulacra Angel tumbled into the ocean.

Shoes soaked through with blood and seawater, Wyatt picked along after a particular crew. The viewfinder helped, distancing him from the situation. Shovels and axes made short work of the pallid skin, while high explosive was shoved into the bloody rents. Sandbags came next, to direct the blast downward. Elsewhere, experts cooked up proper scuttling charges, able to cut a ragged hole in the hull of any ship. Standing upright and looking to either side, Wyatt had to wonder any of it would be enough.

A shout from behind made him turn, and through the smoke, Wyatt saw the giant of white. The camera shuttered by reflex.

* * *

Inside the plug, A lance of heat pressed into Asuka's back just below her shoulder blades. A direct line to nuclear power flowed in through the spare umbilical, and Unit-02's systems sucked it in greedily. The batteries hanging from the Evangelion's shoulders and upper back warmed, throwing up faint clouds of steam into the afternoon air. Standing on the edge of the Over the Rainbow, Asuka watched as every seaworthy ship turned their attention on the invader. Cannons and missiles swiveled to face the white Evangelion.

Faceless, the thing stared across the ocean without eyes, panning over the ruined fleet. Crew on the carrier deck clutched at themselves, suddenly chilled... and Asuka felt bile rise in her throat. The touch of a hostile AT field. Tied back on less than a hundred meters of umbilical, Asuka waited. She squirmed in her seat, knuckles itching.

* * *

Over the Rainbow bent every hand to the fight. A beige-clad officer pressed a hard-plastic handset to his chest. Sweat and grime from cannon fire had stained it and him sooty black. "Weapons primed and ready in all respects, Major Katsuragi!"

Misato's hand wrapped tight enough around her cross pendant to leave marks. Out of everyone there, only she had any idea what they were facing, save maybe Asuka. Even then, the girl might not have grasped the full extent of the situation. Seconds ticked by, even as she acknowledged the word. She turned to Stolocker then, while Kaji hunkered down on the floor, braced against a bank of consoles. The Admiral's eyes hadn't left the windows, locked on the interloper.

"Admiral-"

Stolocker just raised his hand and uttered the sweetest sound Misato had ever heard. "Fire."

* * *

What ordnance hadn't been spent against the Angel now bore down on the white Evangelion. The near synchronized assault rocked battleships into the Pacific swells, and the Angel's inactive bulk shifted under the added force. Rattled down to their bones, men and women across the fleet clapped hands to their ears on that opening salvo. Over the Rainbow groaned, listing as more alien flesh beat up against its side. Tens of thousands of kilograms of high explosive arced across a hundred meters.

Atop its crackling platform, the invader craned its head around. From her own Eva, Asuka watched its too-red lips ripple, bulging around like a watery impression of a snarl. There was no intercepting field, nor did the white Evangelion simply ignore the attack. Instead it stepped forward... dropping into the ocean with barely a ripple. The fleet watched their first and best assault sail harmlessly over the enemy's head, even as it disappeared beneath the waves. The jets from before curled around for another pass, ready to bring their munitions to bear.

It was then that Asuka said what everyone across the fleet was thinking. "There's no way we're done ye-"

A black shape edged in white burst out of the ocean, leaving a spiraling trail of water in its wake. A limb of white and black snapped out and cleaved through the air and a passing fighter. An ugly black smear of burning jet fuel and debris bloomed in the aftermath.

Airborne, the MP Evangelion crossed the sun and spread its vast wings, bound and determined to swat every fighter from the sky.

* * *

Even when beaten and exhausted, the Pacific Fleet and Admiral Stolocker were back on familiar ground. The old man bellowed for information, and the officers on deck met his every demand. For a moment, Kaji and Misato were left adrift in the sudden surge of activity. NERV's Operations Director watched as Stolocker and his fleet geared up century old game of air combat.

Unlike the Angel, the white armored Evangelion did not baffle radar and other sensors. Surviving radar apparatus flung out waves of energy unseen and unfelt by those on the surface, and the returns came back. Racks of surface-to-air missiles boiled into the sky and left long twisting corkscrews in their wake.

Above, the enemy Evangelion beat its massive wings and dodged, evading most and taking the rest head on. Shrapnel and high, unfocused explosive did little more than scratch the armor, even as surviving fighters swung in for a pass with machine guns and their own rapidly dwindling supply of ordnance. Those in the fleet heard more than saw the aircraft go down, snatched out of the air with sudden bursts of speed and grasping fingers.

Stolocker though was not going to give up so readily. While he worked at bringing every bit of worthy steel and destructive force to bear, Kaji rubbed the bandages at his head. His palm came away bloody.

He looked over at Misato, haggard and pale from exhaustion or maybe blood loss. "We're all good as dead you know."

"Excuse me?" Misato blinked and almost snarled, rounding on the man.

Kaji just shrugged and waved at the darkening ocean. "This was the Committee's trump card. I never found proof, but..."

Misato stared at him for what seemed like a long, awful moment. The color drained out of her face, but her eyes went hard and focused. She muscled past the bridge crew and tugged Stolocker aside, her free hand holding a radio handset. "Admiral... We need to call the jets off. Get them out of here."

The old man bristled, more from the interruption than anything else. His voice went low and intent, enunciating clearly. "If I do, we won't get them back. Can we afford to lose them now? I doubt it."

"That thing is here because of us, Admiral." Misato's jaw worked, and her free hand had wandered to the cross pendant hanging from her neck. "Because of Asuka and I."

Outside and overhead, another aircraft exploded, crushed by the white Eva. Kaji stepped over then, grim-faced. "Right now those pilots might be our only chance of achieving any kind of victory." The spy ran a hand over his head, sighing softly. He'd lost his hair tie earlier. "Send them away Admiral, and tell the pilots..." He trailed off, thinking.

Stolocker grumbled, both at the answers he wouldn't be getting, and wondering if he was sending men off to fates worse than death; Attention of vastly more important people. The aircraft broke off the engagement and split in three directions, leaving the white Evangelion with nothing to kill.

Thanks to Kaji, they left with a message. SEELE now considered NERV a liability.

* * *

It was hard to count how many ships had been sunk. Most had been left miles behind as burning smears of oil and debris, others hung around Over the Rainbow, just as dead in the water as the carrier. Inside her Eva, Asuka sat and looked up at the sky. All around her, a cloud of system alerts and diagnostic informed her of Unit-02's impending full recharge, and it could not come fast enough. Asuka's calf and toe bounced, crossed over her other leg. Clenching her fists and teeth, she willed herself to stay somewhat calm.

It wasn't working.

Bound to her umbilical, the girl watched the interloper play its game with the surviving aircraft. It looped and glided, supplemented with furious waves of an expressed AT-field. Asuka could feel it unfurl every time the thing needed lift. The Eva lunged for another kill even as three more fighters swept in for a strafing run, peppering the white armor with machine gun fire. But just as quickly as the attack had begun, the jets broke off on some unheard signal, leaving the enemy hanging dead in the air.

Just as well. The surviving batteries registered a full charge, and Asuka triggered the cable release command with a thought. She scanned the horizon and the still-surviving ships of the Pacific fleet. Spread out over hundreds of meters or more, the ships bobbed in the low swells or steamed toward the growing cluster around the carrier. Battleships on the periphery swung their cannons from side to side and reloaded their missiles and artillery. Asuka had memorized the names of every vessel, and more importantly, their cargo.

Glancing up, Evangelion enhanced vision showed the white Evangelion tracing a lazy loop through the air.

Asuka's lip curled, mumbling low under her breath."Ignoring me huh?" She gave the white intruder another bitter, acid look, settling deeper into her seat. "Yeah well, fuck you too."

She gripped the control yokes so hard they creaked, already turning for the ship she needed some five hundred meters away. The red Evangelion hunkered down and the carrier deck groaned beneath her. Synthetic muscle bulged under composite armor and the skin-sheath. Another thought command cranked Asuka's external speakers to full volume, and her voice shot across the water. "Hey, Miroslava! Clear the deck!"

Then Unit-02 uncoiled and leapt, leaving another pair of footprint craters in the carrier and sending itself soaring through the air.

* * *

As a Russian merchant ship conscripted into the Pacific Fleet on order of NERV, the Miroslava had not been intended for or expecting combat conditions. Its crew were proud and skilled sailors though, and above all else, they knew their ship was lucky. It had survived Second Impact, pirate raids in the subsequent war and lawless ocean. It had even endured readiness drills run by one Sorhyu Asuka Langley, a trial Miroslava's captain believed worthy of medals and honors.

Then it had been subject to Unnatural Warfare, to an extent that only a handful of men and machines had seen. The Angel battle itself had only lasted fifteen minutes, and a close fifteen, considering the Evangelion's limited power reserves. Sorhyu had beaten that into everyone's head.

The latest and greatest challenge was coming in overhead. Men and women charged to every safe point they could- lifeboats and secure bulkheads, all towards the bow and safe from the rapidly growing shadow crossing over the stern. One man was not so fortunate as to get more than amidships, running along the top gantries lining the container ship's outer edges. He stumbled, tumbling over and spun half around.

Evangelion Unit-02 dropped, ending its arc on the ships stern and helipad. Two whole decks of civilian steel were crushed beneath the Eva's weight, buckling metal and mangling the hull like a crumpled beer can. The fallen sailor was flung bodily, much like others all over the ship, up and then down. He landed hard on the rail, cracking his thigh bone but fortunately landing on the inside edge, spilling back onto the platform and safe from the ocean. Miroslava groaned as seams popped and welds burst. Even through the pain, the injured man knew the impact had probably popped the ships two engines clean out and apart, breaking them like eggs.

The red machine stood tall then, casting its shadow over the deck. The temperature dropped by degrees and the thing moved, shoving enough air out of the way to rip wind socks and flags clean off. Nearing the fallen sailor, the Evangelion slowed and one massive hand pointed forward in askance. The pilot's voice boomed out, archetypical loud American. "Sorry- Cargo's amidships, right?"

Snarling, the man just shook his hand ahead, angry or indicative neither could say. The man-god-thing marched forward, stomping into and through the cargo doors, barely bothering to peel them open. Sorhyu waded into the guts of the ship, swearing and apologizing by turns. The Evangelon was bent over at the waist, rooting around in the dark while the Miroslava listed.

Holding on to the rail for dear life, the sailor swore at the red machine's back. "Yob tvoyu mat!"

The Evangelion stood upright then, the tight whine of heavy electric motors growing from the deadly shape in its arms. A gatling gun several times longer than a city bus swiveled into ready position, gleaming in the sunlight. "I understood that, Nekulturny!"

* * *

Her first reaction was one of great joy.

Depressing the trigger stud, the Evangelion spun the gatling up and let loose, throwing a nearly solid stream of glowing hot metal across the ocean. The unbroken line of orange raked the water, throwing up dozens of densely packed columns. Heaving and twisting, Asuka felt the muscles in her own arms stand out beneath her plugsuit, and the Evangelion's limbs followed suit. The barrel rose by a handful of meters before a dozen warnings sprang up, screaming for her attention.

Another test shook the fleet, and around the listing Miroslava, the ocean against the gun's absurd rate of fire. And just like before, Asuka made to raise the gun, aim it high and fill the enemy with hot lead. But it wouldn't budge- Alerts and overrides told her the gatling would have broken under its own weight, leaving it locked to flat and horizontal arcs. Asuka spat out a wordless curse, and the cool anger spiked white hot. The white Evangelion was there and her own weapon was refusing to kill it. Reality was at that moment so inconvenient!

She glared up at the thing through her own true Evangelion's eyes. The intruder, imposter, offense-to-her-core ideals.... Asuka licked her lips, tasting blood and the most appropriate word. Anathema.

That it continued to exist was unacceptable.

A thought banished the warnings and restrictions, and Asuka gave her machine the codes to release its limits. She breathed, and that extra limb of her AT-field unfolded, expanding in a volume and sapping minutes from her batteries. Above, the MP Evangelion twisted lazy, angling toward her almost curiously. All the better. Inside the altered space, the Miroslava bobbed despite the damage, popping up out of the ocean like a cork. Wrenching hard and both hands tight around the grips, Asuka willed her weapon up. She defied its construction, material and center of gravity, and the smoking barrel tilted higher.

Within the Absolute Territory of Sorhyu Asuka Langley, she declared her gun would not break.

The barrel swung wide, moving far more lightly than it had any right to. A pair of targeting reticule crossed over her perception to meet in the middle, and Asuka pulled the trigger. Shell casings the size of cars spilled out the side of the gun, crushing the Miroslava's aft decks even more. Tilting, the white Eva banked left and right, aiming to slide through the stream of lead. Asuka corrected in response by leading the shot. The line of gunfire stitched the sky and slapped into the enemy's black wings, riddling them with holes and pockmarking armor.

Orange dripped from the sky and the tiny wounds, but the white thing stayed stubbornly airborne. Asuka's vision jumped forward as her view zoomed in... and the Eva's phallic head seemed to turn, staring straight at her. An opposing AT-field lashed out and the damaged wings beat the air, sending the MP Evangelion down! It arced low, shifting and adjusting its angle of attack with the fingertip-feathers at the end of each wing. Hugging the ocean the thing bored down on the fleet and then on Asuka herself. Hurtling forward, the flyer corkscrewed, weaving between then stream of bullets Asuka sent its way.

It crossed the distance between them in an instant, spreading its too-long arms wide and tackling Unit-02 around the middle.

* * *

The two machines hurtled through the air, fast enough to carve a valley in the ocean swells. They bore down on the damaged aircraft carrier and the cluster of ships huddled close by. Great flakes of Unit-02's armor cracked and sheared away, and its torso bent double over the white Evangelion's shoulder. Asuka meanwhile bounced hard in the plug, throwing whatever arm or foot she could ahead of her. She'd lost the gun on impact, but her elbows and knees worked fine. Acceleration gave her leverage, and she landed every hit she could in the few seconds available.

One trailing red foot caught on the edge of the carrier deck, and Over the Rainbow groaned. Shoved through the water, it slammed back into the Angel's cooling corpse, crumpling the hull on that side even more. The Evangelions themselves tumbled, skidding over the broken runways and grinding away more paint, armor and steel. Asuka's machine left a glittering red smear across the deck right at amidships, before her Eva slipped over the edge.

Unit-02 slammed hard into the Angel's back, and Asuka's armored chin crushed what was left of the laser crystal. Below and all around, sailors and soldiers ran for their lives, scrambling for any bit of safety. The MP Eva landed on its rear, crushing one wing beneath a leg and the Angel's tumor-ridden tail. Asuka worked the controls, piloting and pulling herself upright. The enemy did the same, sucking its wings back to wherever they went. The two Evangelions squared off then, separated by two hundred meters of corpse flesh.

On some unspoken cue, they charged. Asuka's strides were long, driving her feet into the Angel's hide and beating shockwave after shockwave through its skin. At sea level, men and women looked and saw giants. The two Evangelion met in the middle, crashing into each other grill to tube-head. More of Asuka's armor blew off in a rain of shards. Those who knew the term now understood what NERV meant by Unnatural Warfare.

Infantry scurried, surfing the waves of tissue and dashing for boats and ladders, anywhere to get away. The more brave or foolhardy brought their weapons to bear, squeezing off shots at the white Eva's red lips and lashing tongue. Seconds passed, and the two Evangelions moved faster than anything had a right to, big or small. Tendons under armor cracked with strain, almost as loud as punches and kicks. The MP Eva was implacable, refusing to acknowledge pain or injury. Great strips of its own flexible skin had been torn free, leaving pink cloned flesh open to air.

Asuka meanwhile grappled, breathing silently through clenched teeth. She worked her Evangelion's arms around, forcing the imposters' limbs into locks and joint-straining binds. Seams on both their machines strained and burst, snapping like suspension cables stretched too tight. Asuka shifted, caging the MP Eva's wrists in the crook of her elbow, just long enough to kick out its knee. The joint all but exploded inside its armor. Whatever momentum it had was lost, and the MP Eva collapsed. Asuka was on it in the following instant, both hands locked around the thing's too-wide throat.

* * *

On the bridge, Kaji, Misato and the crew of the carrier had an eye-level view of Asuka throttling the MP Evangelion. Over the radio, they heard the girl gnash and strain, squeezing on her controls just as hard. The rival Eva thrashed, clawing at Asuka's arms and chest. It dug at the cracks in the bolted on armor, at her head and eyes. Nothing worked. The white leering head bulged obscenely, veins beneath the skin crawled up and down from around Asuka's hands.

Stolocker growled orders into a phone before he looked up at Misato. He jerked his chin at the thrashing machines. "Katsuragi, I've got every remaining heavy gun in my fleet zeroing in on that thing. If Sorhyu can keep it still-

The dark-haired woman blanched, shaking her head. "Asuka's got it handled." And I already used her as a target once today... I don't need to do it again.

Outside, the MP Eva had managed to swing Asuka's machine into the carrier. The impact echoed out over the bridge and the ship lurched to the side. Everyone reached for whatever handholds they could find. Asuka kept a tight hold though, fighting back across the Angel's flesh and forcing her opponent back on its knees.

When he recovered, the Admiral scowled and fixed his cap lower over his brow. "And if your girl can't put that thing down then I will fire, NERV authority or not. We're just about out of options."

Misato's hands found the nearest rail and held on tight, leaning forward out the window. The two Evangelions struggled harder, and everyone on the bridge could feel the titanic muscles straining. The Admiral held onto his phone, ready to give the order. NERV officer glanced back at UN Navy brass. They both nodded as one; they'd give Asuka her chance.

"C'mon Asuka," Misato breathed, having turned back to the battle. Somewhere in the bridge there was a microphone that heard her. "You can do this. It's not an Evangelion, it's a target, an enemy..."

The White Evangelion spasmed again, and its mouth yawned wide open. A length of pink muscle spilled out, bloated by blood and pressure. The tongue lashed wetly against its lips, the air and Asuka's own Eva. The pilot bore down harder on the things' throat, and Asuka's voice boomed out over the fleet. "...It's... Ugly!"

Pale hands edged in black shot out and hooked under the red Evangelion's arms. A second later, the wings unfurled. Over the Rainbow and all aboard watched as the enemy Evangelion shot up into the sky, with Unit-02 in tow.

* * *

Three thousand meters, five thousand. The altimeter pressed in on Asuka's awareness more and more as the two Evangelions shot up into the sky. Another thrashing, oppressive surge of AT field flared out from the enemy, beating at the air and temporarily violating physics, demanding both machines rise higher despite all reason saying otherwise. Its wings didn't even need to flap, short of curling and twisting at the edges for fine control.

Inside her own Evangelion, Asuka grit her teeth. Acceleration shoved the girl deep into her seat, bruising her tailbone. Muscles along her arms bulged as she tried and failed to keep her arms straight and hands on the controls. Outside, the two Evangelions punched through the wispy clouds. Spread out over nearly three miles of ocean like grains of rice was the Pacific Fleet.

The White Evangelion let go with a lunging snap, flinging Unit-02 up higher into the air. Inside the plug, Asuka shifted and bounced, half-cushioned by the LCL. Her stomach lurched painfully, stubbornly empty of anything other than bile. The view of the outside world was a tumbling split of dark and light blue, switching between ocean and sky by turns.

At the apex of the flight, Asuka and her Evangelion slowed, the tumble easing just long enough for her to see the horizon and the curve of the Earth as it spread out in all directions. The tops of white clouds were practically glowing just below her, almost close enough to touch. Above, the MP Eva crossed the sun, casting a brief shadow over Unit-02 and the ocean far below. Buoyed by LCL, Asuka felt the top of her head bump into the plug ceiling, bleeding off the last of her upward momentum.

Then she began to fall. That was when the panic set in.

FuckfuckfuckfuckingshitwhatdoIdofucking-!

Pressed against the top of her plug, Asuka fought to get back to her seat. She flailed wildly with arms and legs, fighting for a handhold or traction. The drugs that had numbed her cracked rib were starting to fade-that was good though, the pain was good, kept her focused. One rubber-soled toe got the right angle and she pushed, clawing for the seat and her controls. Clamping down hard on her fear, Asuka hauled herself back into place and pushed her will back out through Unit-02. Panic gave way to training, and though some distant part of her admitted she'd only done it before in a simulator, there was no question as to her success; She was Sorhyu Asuka Langley!

Her Evangelion responded to the unvoiced command. Snapping its arms and legs out, the great machine strained against the air. Face down, It aimed for as much surface area as possible, anything to control the wild spin and descent. Spiraling contrails of air whipped up through the Eva's fingers, around its ankles and elbows, and its one remaining shoulder pylon. Wind caught in every gap and rend in the armor, shaking the anchoring bolts down to the bone and Asuka inside the plug. The ocean stretched out below and grew closer by the second.

The radio crackled on, and Misato's voice rang out, distorted by damage and Asuka's own lack of attention. A half-dozen options ticked through Asuka's mind in a half-second, and she discarded them just as quickly. Between how massive the Evangelion was and her speed, Asuka knew just how hard that water could be. Even with unlimited reserves, an AT field would have done her no good here. Or at least none of the ones she knew how to make. A solid platform would be just as deadly as calm water.

Concrete would have been more forgiving.

Asuka reached for the radio with a thought, hoping maybe Misato would have an idea. Then a white hand clamped around her Evangelion's head.

* * *

The white Evangelion lumbered even when airborne. Long limbs had reached out for the red machine and clamped on with graceless, straight forward intent. Clinical, expedient and unthinking. Its hands did not paw or fumble, and it ignored the cutting chill of the upper atmosphere. Nor was it accurate, only unrelentingly decisive. Wind clawed at its wings and there was no sign of it noticing, no hint of effort or strain. Every move was telegraphed, but inexorable despite it. The most basic of full-body holds let the winged monster bend Unit-02 at the spine. Yet more armor sheared off in car-sized flakes, and the muscle beneath tore under the twisting force.

Kite-like, the MP Eva drifted through the air with Unit-02 in tow. They grappled almost silently save for the air rushing past them, and the muted sound of burst seals and creaking bones. The red machine flailed beneath it and tried to reach back, to kick and break free. The angle was wrong, leaving it out of position and helpless. The eyeless face seemed to look down at the thing struggling in its arms, leering at the straining expanse of shoulders and NERV armored flesh. The MP Eva's tongue rolled out, slathering and searching. Freeing one hand, it stretched out that arm with one broad motion, curling back for the armored protrusion rising from the red Evangelion's neck...

* * *

Adrenaline and bloody-minded fury was the only think that kept Asuka from blacking out. Even so, the agony unfurling out through her spine was enough to blur her vision and send her head spinning. Despite all that, she still tried to move, to fight back. She jerked at the controls, over and over, trying and failing to think of a tactic, to imagine a successful offensive. Power drained from the batteries in fits and starts as the girl pushed her Evangelion. The fear was back, impenetrable and all-encompassing. The distance between her and the ocean shrank by the second.

Wind howled past her Evangelion's head, coiling and beating against the MP Eva above her and her own thrashing limbs. Together the two machines punched through a plume of oily black smoke, a lingering leftover from the first half of the battle. Fires and black oily smears dotted the Caribbean.

Then something in the back of Asuka's head yanked, and for a split second she didn't see anything, think anything, or know anything. The plug walls were back, and her mind was void of that presence she had begun to welcome. Gravity shifted, and Asuka realized by the second turn that she'd begun to tumble once more. Maybe it wanted to make her sick before it killed her, or something. A heartbeat later synchronization returned, and the plug walls washed away in rainbow mist and brainwave patterns. The ocean pivoted around her and the blue sky swirled above, and she saw the dangling edges of her enemy's feet and wings, tiny slivers of white and black out the corners of her eyes.

Asuka shook her head and chewed back the nausea, wondering why her neck hurt of all things. A second yank terminated that thought, and something inside her neck gave way. There was a sudden visceral strangeness then, and Asuka felt something. Meanwhile outside, the world spiraled even more wildly. A spike of cold surged into and through her body, soaking into her neck and torso like a gust of wind hitting wet skin. The chill settled the roiling sickness in stomach somehow, and she counted the small blessing.

Just as well though; the spin and tumble had gotten worse though, pressing her against the plug wall. Pinned as she was, all Asuka could do was stare outside with Evangelion eyes, openmouthed and disbelieving. A red hunk of armor spun off into the distance, trailing massive hinges and cables. Following just after it was a long white tube, achingly familiar and terrifying in the implication. Some part of the girl noted the mental distance, the lack of reaction to what she was seeing. That cold and uncomfortable certainty....

The last thing she saw before synchronization cut out was Unit-02's arm reaching out for her entry plug, held in the hands of the MP Eva.

* * *

Neither Misato or Kaji could voice a reason as to why they had left the bridge. Together they grabbed binoculars and scrambled down flights of stairs, vaulting broken walls and at one point, crawling through a hole gouged in the side of the island superstructure. They had to get out, to see what was happening to their girl.

Kaji's hand had found its way over to Misato's and laced his fingers with hers, clamping tight. The Major meanwhile stared up into the sky. Her heart beat in her chest hard enough to hurt, like her ribs were going to crack. Above, the white monster Evangelion held Asuka's plug in one hand. Its mouth split wide open and teeth flashed in against the sun. Bile rose up in Misato's throat, for a moment utterly disbelieving. That thing wasn't doing...

The MP Evangelion bit the plug in half.

A spray of orange LCL spilled out over the sky several thousand meters up, and to the naked eye looked like little more than a speck. To Misato and Kaji it looked every bit like blood. The white Evangelion chewed then, mechanically, before it spat out mangled metal. More orange dribbled down its cigar-shaped chin and spilled over its chest, even as it twisted lazily through the air. Unit-02 tumbled away, its neck broken in more ways than one.

Throughout the remnant fleet alarms rang out, signaling ordnance at the ready. Misato and Kaji both tore their eyes away from the sky and whirled on the carrier deck. Hatches on surviving destroyers yawned open revealing what few missiles remained. That was it then- without an Evangelion, NERV was out and the Admiral was back in command. Misato's hand cinched down tighter on Kaji's, and her other went slack. The binoculars fell to the deck. She barely heard the lenses break. Looking up at the bridge, she hoped Stolocker had a good shot. If he failed, they were all good as dead.

Dead like Asuka.

Misato looked over at Kaji and read it plain on his face too. It wouldn't end with the fleet. Losing here meant losing face, losing what little goodwill NERV had gained in the past few months. Misato's insides clenched then, the stress and sickness coming back for a second round. The pair looked up at the sky. Unit-02 continued to fall, still a speck in the distance. They hadn't just lost a battle, an Eva or pilot.... They had in a very real sense, utterly lost the war.

One of the air crew came up behind them. The black-haired woman was missing her helmet and waterlogged. She cleared her throat, choked up herself. "The Admiral's requesting you sit the rest of the battle out below decks.... There's not much else for you to do here, I'm sorry."

Misato and Kaji nodded numbly, but the Major's eyes wandered down to something the soldier had in her hand. A familiar, black leather jacket. "...Asuka's."

The woman nodded and sniffled. 'K.Bolton' was stitched across her breast. "Yeah she... She told me not to lose it."

Misato took the jacket and hugged it, looking past the rumpled collar at Kaji. He just gave her a desolate look before turning to the crew-woman. The bandages that had been wrapped around his head were loose, flying away in the breeze.

He pulled out a crumpled pack of cigarettes and dug one out, lighting it without much thought. "I think I'll stay out here, if it's all the same. Take the lady inside?"

Though Kaji wasn't an officer, nobody minded the breach of decorum when the woman saluted. Misato meanwhile set her jaw and stood tall, striding toward the bridge. She got no more than three steps when something closed around her wrist. She turned to see Kaji tugging on her hand. He said something, but Misato was more bothered by his tone. What did he know that gave him any right to sound hopeful? The closest thing he had to a daughter just-

"Katsuragi!"

Now the tears started to fall, and Misato ripped her hand free, almost stomping on the deck. "What, Ryoji!?"

He just shoved his unbroken binoculars into her hand and pointed skyward. "Misato, just look!"

She did. Then she manhandled Bolton and stole her radio. It took her less than two seconds to dial the bridge. "Hold your fire!"

* * *

She had dived to the far end of the plug for no other reason than better to try. The walls had buckled and sheared away behind her, and teeth as wide and thick as car doors sliced through the plug material with ease. Her pilot's chair had been crushed in half twice over. Pressure boxed her ears from the inside as the sealed environment collapsed. Her world tilted again and the LCL drained from the shredded walls in a gushing torrent.

Then the plug fragmented completely, and Asuka found herself tumbling through open air.

Her chest clenched painfully, pressing hard on the gunk that now filled her lungs instead of oxygenated life support. Free falling, she wretched and spun, coughing out gouts of orange into the sky. The rest of the LCL that clung to her suit and hair dried rapidly, whipping away into a crusty film that was honestly a distant concern. The ocean was still below and getting closer by the second. Her eyepatch initialized on its own, throwing up a painfully unhelpful rangefinder. The MP Eva circled above, not that it had any need to be fast, only thorough. It had time to play with its food.

Through all of that, Asuka could only think. Not that she had much choice; there was nothing else to do but wait and fall. Her eardrums rang and throbbed, even as the rest of her ears stung from the increasing chill. The pain just seemed to make the drop go on longer. Then the vertigo hit, catching the girl between her graceless fall and screaming inner ear. She screwed her eyes shut and relied on the patch's direct feed into her brain, insulating herself from her rebelling sense of balance. A flash of red and black caught her simulacra eye, and her heart clenched. Unit-02 tumbled away below her, spinning away uncontrolled with a gaping hole in the back of its neck. Without a properly socketed plug, there may have well been entire vertebrae missing.

Is this how I die? The question didn't upset her as much as she would have imagined. Failure and death had felt so distant not even twenty seconds ago. The wind howled around her, and Asuka flexed her fingers. The plugsuit kept some of the cold out, but not much. Her patch rangefinder pinged on her Eva again, some few hundred meters away. Three or three hundred. At that moment, either distance were so vast as to be impassable.

Asuka twisted in mid air, falling now with her back first and hair fanning out around her head. She looked up into the sky and sun. The MP Eva continued its lazy corkscrew, still content to take its time. "....Yeah, fuck dying, and fuck you too."

She turned back and folded her arms close, angling down like a spike toward the water and more importantly, her Evangelion. She reached out with will and mind, almost singing the one word that had proven their existence. "Partner!"

Unit-02 continued to fall, unresponsive and uncontrolled. Asuka grit her teeth and felt the fury rise up in her once more. She threw out one arm and reached for her machine, even still more than a hundred meters away. It didn't matter if the plug was gone or its spine broken; she'd already done it once before and she was Sorhyu! Asuka Langley! In the face of certain death, she banked on absolute success.

Unit-02's eyes flashed white.

Synchronization spun up, and despite lacking a plug and MAGI interface, Asuka felt her senses double over. They went liquid, mixing her perceptions with the combat cyborg below. It matched her motions, her intent, throwing its arms wide and clawing at the air. The great machine slowed almost imperceptibly, but it was enough for her. Asuka reached out with her arm and the Evangelion replied, meeting her move for move. Then the massive fingers filled her vision and Asuka suddenly wondered if she could manage not to pulp herself on impact.

Fighting for what control they had, the pair cut through the sky even as they fell steadily closer to solid ocean. The smoky columns of wrecked ships were thicker, choking the air with hazy smog. Asuka hissed out wordless prayers of don'tfuckthisup as she neared her Eva's waiting fingers. The range-finder threw out yet more unhelpful numbers. Ten meters, five, three, one-!

She hit the ring finger hard, folding over double and very nearly sliding off. One foot caught on the armor seam and hooked on, holding on by her toes and nothing more. Her ribs creaked and a new wave of pain shot up through her side, hot and sick enough to send her stomach churning. It didn't matter. She was back on her Eva and it was moving.

Synchronization hummed in the back of her mind and she strained, closing her eyes and fumbling along the Evangelion's arm. Gore slicked the armor and she tugged herself along, shying away from the razor-sharp spreads of abraded composite. Asuka settled and found her feet on the Evangelion's shoulder, just against the broken pylon cuff. Running a finger to along her patch cut the visual feed, and Asuka looked out though her Evangelion's eyes. The chill in the back of her neck, her Evangelion's neck was all the more acute, raw nerve endings exposed to open air.

Asuka relished the sensation.

Unit-02 straightened out almost as an afterthought, spread eagle and arms wide to catch the air. High above, the MP Eva's AT field thrummed, and she felt it all the more strongly, exposed and unshielded. Twisting its head, Unit-02 looked over its shoulder at Asuka's scowling mental command. She had no sensor, no computer readout to say, but she knew her batteries were limited. Nothing for it- she'd fight until they drained, or die trying.

The white flyer seemed to deliberate, swinging around in a figure-eight before it decided to attack. It turned into the wind and went at near vertical, like a kite in a stall-out dive. Asuka's Evangelion lashed out with its arms and legs, twisting over to show its belly, and more importantly, bring their fists to bear. Punching through a low cloud of oily smoke, a white palm reached out for Asuka, even as she willed her machine to defend her. She felt every ache in both her bodies, and her chest was sore and strained from long, ugly combat. Four green eyes locked behind armor stared up at the plummeting enemy.

It telegraphed every move, and this time, Asuka met it halfway.

Mid-air and still falling, Asuka brought her Eva's arms up even as wind tore at her hair and threatened to pull her off her machine once more. She clung on with one hand against an armor seam while her toes dug into the maintenance grips. Unshielded, the impact of Eva on Eva was deafening, and Asuka felt the shock ride up her machine's limbs, numbing her legs up to the hip. Overbalanced, the two Evangelions tumbled, spinning end over end. Asuka worked through the clinch, drawing her foe's arm in by the wrist and bracing her Evangelion's free limb against its elbow. The joint snapped, and Asuka continued the pull.

Scrambling, Unit-02 wrenched itself hand over hand along the MP Eva's back, digging into skin and wing. As for Asuka, a fresh surge of adrenaline kept her focused, let her block out the pain. Exhaustion and altitude though had left her running on empty, and it then hurt just to breathe. Still she urged her machine on, riding high on its shoulder.

Coiled and ready, Asuka's Evangelion crouched atop the MP Eva's shoulders with its chest bowed forward and arms pulled taut against the enemy's back. Red fingers reached under the seam that connected the wings to the spine and dug in, gripping tight. Muscle bulged along Unit-02's arms; its knees bent and braced, its back tensed and its teeth clenched tight behind a layer of armour. With a scream of effort and fury, Asuka clawed at the air and pulled.

With a whip-crack retort and a horrible noise of tearing flesh, the NERV machine kicked away the MP Eva's torso and ripped the white-backed wings clean off.

Free-falling again, Asuka and her machine spun through the air, still manhandling the broad span of flesh and alloy. Below the MP Eva flailed. Sparks shot out from broken cables and metal bone stood exposed between its shoulder blades. The girl couldn't be bothered with it now, she'd won. Asuka stared down at the falling machine, too tired to smile. The white imposter would hit the water and die same as her.

But, something nagged at her. The electric thrum of AT field bled away all around her, eerily close but fading fast. Asuka turned her attention back to the wings and let her synchronization shift, wanting to see it with her own good eye. The same pink-white flesh as her own Eva, leaking the distinctive orange of circulatory LCL. She could work with that. Hope wasn't the right word, but Asuka felt something close to it shoot through her.

Diving back into sync, Asuka welcomed the doubled perception and urged it higher. Her Evangelion followed her, shifting and twisting in the air until it managed to line the stolen wings with its own back. Asuka knew the limits of her machine, knew its functions and parameters. Knew the limits of NERV's own understanding.... And she knew that if these had come from another Eva, then there was no difference between its flesh and that of her own.

Batteries along Unit-02's back shorted out, exploding and shearing away in black acrid smelling smoke. Power was in short supply, but Asuka had enough, she demanded she had enough. Willpower expressed through the Evangelion extended its altered space, and Asuka pushed her machine's identity out, reaching for the wings own denaturing presence. The pilot filled the gaps with Unit-02's presence, feeling air catch on the leading edges and billow up. A smile spread out across Asuka's face.

A sudden jerk nearly knocked Asuka off her machine once more. Something had been set into motion, and now she could only hold on tight. Muscles spasmed and spinal vertebrae shifted, accepting the connections and locking together. New limbs entered Asuka's awareness, and she gave the wings an experimental beat. She didn't have time to ponder the new development though. Staring down at the nearing ocean, Asuka urged them both to head up. Her AT field responded and Unit-02 slowed, halving speed and leaving the MP Eva far behind.

The white Evangelion hit the water just shy of a battleship. Great rings of white skin had peeled off on impact, sheared away by solid water. Ships nearby swayed and threatened to roll over. Asuka pulsed her field again, feeling the power leave her Eva and change the region around her. The wings made it easier, she realized, to visualize, to be efficient. It was still a phenomenal drain. Clumsily, the girl guided her machine with its new addition over the ocean, dropping steadily faster as her most resent push ran out. She aimed for the carrier deck, and Unit-02's legs dangled uselessly, dragging her down all the more.

Beneath another ship some hundred meters distant, the ocean churned. A column of water shot into the sky, halved by the ship's hull. Asuka atop her Eva's shoulder blinked and wobbled, for a moment wondering why a battleship was rising out of the ocean. Braced against the keel and looking worse for the wear, the MP Eva stood on its AT-field platform. The ship above buckled, cracking into limp thirds as it was heaved high. There was no sound other than shrieking steel as the white Evangelion launched the ship into the air.

Nearly forty thousand metric tons of metal and weaponry slammed into Asuka and Unit-02.

Knocked out of the air, the red Evangelion tumbled, folded over the ships' side as it crashed into the ocean. Together they skid across the surface, the ship shuddering and tearing itself even further apart. It came to a grinding halt and started to sink, but slowly, losing buoyancy in fitful bursts as water rushed into its shredded hull. Unit-02 clung to the wreck, waist deep in the ocean.

Asuka herself had been flung bodily away, heaved from the Evangelion's shoulder just before impact. Unit-02 twisted against the wreckage, off-balance and half pinned by metal and water. It wrenched one arm free and left an arcing trail of broken steel in its wake, arching out and back to catch the girl. The Eva reached, leaning back and Asuka poured everything she had into matching speed.

Hitting its palm hard enough to knock the wind out of her and see stars, Asuka managed to hook one arm between two enormous fingers. Her shoulder jerked hard at the sudden impact. She shook her head, and hissed for the spots and ringing to go away, even as she wedged herself between Evangelion thumb and forefinger. Carried back to her rightful place atop Unit-02's shoulder, Asuka found her grip once more.

Driving Evangelion hands into the ruined ship, Asuka willed her wings to beat one last time. The MP Eva stood on its platform of crackling orange and seemed to wait, oddly inquisitive.

"You just threw a battleship at me! That's cheating!" Somehow the external speakers had triggered, and her voice echoed out across the ocean. "Take it back!"

Asuka threw the battleship.

* * *

The MP Eva took the blow head-on. Its AT platform gave way even as the ship skipped across the water and rolled, grinding away more steel and structure against the ocean. A great smear of ruin spread across the water, throwing up a wave big enough to send Over the Rainbow listing once more. Smashed against the angel's side, something finally gave way inside the monster. Air ripped out of a bloody wound and the thousand-meter long span of flesh and muscle slipped under the waves.

As for the battleship, the twice-tossed wreck ended its journey just ahead of the carrier's bow, and the MP Eva struggled to shrug off the cage of twisted metal. Seemingly unaffected, it wrenched itself loose and stepped out into the water, stalking forward on another hardened surface field. Those close enough heard crackling footsteps and smelled ozone with every footstep.

Meanwhile, Asuka circled, forgoing flight for stepping from ship to ship. The remaining members of the fleet were close enough together she hadn't needed to leap between them. Cargo freighter and warship suffered her footprints and little else while the wings folded into a misshapen mass along her back- the union wasn't perfect. She didn't have much time to care. The two war machines prowled around, gradually closing in on the carrier and climbing aboard. Over the Rainbow groaned under the weight of two Evangelions, but it still held against all odds.

By her mental estimate, Asuka had about a minute of power left. Setting aside synchronization for the moment, she stared down her opponent with her own eyes and stepped along Unit-02's neck. Eyeless, the MP Eva seemed to stare right back. Standing opposite from the intact shoulder pylon, Asuka guided her Eva's arms up. Lacking plug controls, she made due by digging into alloy and fasteners to rip the housing apart. A reserve progressive knife dropped into her Evangelion's waiting hand from the ruined holster. One massive thumb extended the blade and its internal power supply hummed, loud and close enough to set Asuka's teeth on edge.

The MP Eva took that as a good sign to attack. It strode forward, leaving more footprints across the carrier deck, and Asuka moved to meet it. Conscious strategy was already starting to fade away. There was no great speech or miracle tactic. She'd already forgotten the quip said not ten seconds ago. A steadily dwindling list of thoughts ran through Asuka's mind as the two Evangelions wound up for their initial attack.

First, disable with extreme prejudice. Knife in hand, she sliced forward, aiming for the damaged elbow and equally weak side. The MP Eva ignored her move in favor of a lunging grab. The two machines tangled together by the limbs, slashing and ripping at armor and flesh by turns. Bloody gashes on both Eva spilled orange gore onto the deck, flooding yet again into the lower holds through thousands of cracks. Asuka grit her teeth against the sound of impact and the reeking stench of blood.

Second, maintain momentum against all opposition. The MP Eva swung its arms forward and clamped its fingers around Unit-02's throat. Braced and straining, it dug its heels into the deck and held Asuka at bay. She felt the fingers close around her throat as much her Eva's, but it was a distant problem. With its arms locked at full extension and straining to hold her back, Asuka saw an opportunity. She exploited it ruthlessly.

Swinging its free hand up, Asuka brought Unit-02's forearm across the enemy's elbows, folding them in line with the joint and dragging the pair together. The red Evangelions' head slammed hard into the enemy's own face. Again Asuka saw stars. Still strangled, Unit-02 moved, driving her knife into the MP Eva's chest. Once, twice, over and over, and always in the same spot. A bloody ragged hole grew in the MP Eva's side, and it shed rings and panels of white armor and flesh on the deck.

Unfeeling or unaware, the MP Eva ignored the wound and bore down harder. Asuka felt something give way in her throat, and her priorities shifted. Twisting, Unit-02 curled and bowed, wrapping its arm around the other Evangelion's white limb and tensed, locking the joint tight. Knife flipping over in her hand for an ice-pick grip, Asuka shoved the blade into the crushed elbow and pried. Sinew and bone cracked under the strain as the red combatant yanked and twisted, tearing the MP Eva's damaged forearm clean from its socket.

The Second Child threw the ruined limb away and charged back in. The MP Eva stumbled back, shaking its broken stump. Its tongue rolled out again, thick and bulging with thin tooth marks shot through the muscle. The damage it ignored, hunkered low and feral. Asuka let out a suffering breath and sighed, watching for her next chance. The surge of energy scratching at her soul reminded her of the third and most important thought, even as she charged back into the fight.

Never let it raise a field!

While the two machines dueled above, inside the carrier in one of the few still-functioning holds, an old console glowed. Its operator long dead, the machine still bore the add-on modules that let it interface with the Evangelion. Simple telemetry showed the most basic of traits, blood pressure, Electrocardiogram, Synch Ratio and battery power. Ninety-one percent and twenty-six seconds, respectively.

Denied and distracted, the MP Eva abandoned the field and changed tactics. It met Asuka's headlong rush with one of its own, slamming its own phallic head into Unit-02's brow plate. Hammer blows cracked its teeth but did not break the plastic jaw inside its head, but the red Evangelion came away with a dented and mangled visor. Asuka reeled atop her Eva's shoulder, beaten against her own armor and holding on by a few fingers. Taking its own chance, her opponent reached out and drove its thumb through the top of Unit-02's left eye.

Now Asuka screamed, cradling her face and feeling tears spill out across her cheeks. Unit-02 pulled back with one long leg and swung forward, catching the rival Evangelion between the legs. The impact was enough to lift the MP Eva off the deck and break its pelvis, but seemed to do little else. The white machine dropped back down on weaker but steady legs. It surged in despite broken parts, outright ignoring Asuka's dangerous knife and now going for the girl herself. Unit-02's arm came up in response, catching its fingers with its own. Their hands locked up palm to palm, steadfastly useless for either machine.

Power: 22 seconds. Synchronization: Ninety-four point eight percent.

With both arms compromised, the MP Eva had no defense. Asuka abandoned most pretense of sane combat for most basic of basics. Aiming for the hole she made earlier, Asuka set her mind to making it bigger. She lunged and stabbed with her knife as fast as she could will her Eva to move, breaking the blade twice over before the handle fragmented in her grip.

The MP Eva however continued to fight. Its bound hand clenched tight enough on Unit-02's to break it, mangling the fingers and locking them even further together. One combatant could not give up, the other refused to. With a screaming, painful jerk, Asuka pulled Unit-02's hand free, feeling the broken fingers through her own limbs.

Power: point-five seconds. Synchronization: Ninety-nine point four percent.

Separated from her foe by a hundred meters of runway, Asuka crawled out of the bloody hole in the back of her Evangelion's neck. She let out a shaky breath. The plug socket had been the safest place she could think of when that hand reached for her. She looked across the carrier, sick and tired and broken. Unit-02 crouched hands and knees on the deck, drained of nearly everything it and Asuka had. The stolen wings draped over its back like a misshapen cloak, clashing white with the red and orange armor.

Power: zero-zero seconds. Synchronization: one-hundred-one percent.

Already the MP Eva was setting its feet for another attack. Even with broken hips the thing charged, eating up the distance with two long strides. Asuka's bare eye flashed in the afternoon sun, and below her, Unit-02's visor shifted. Three slits of white appeared in the black. The red Evangelion's good right hand closed around something, and Asuka felt a familiar weight in her own arms.

The MP Eva lunged, leaping forward with one good arm and a bloody stump. Asuka and her Evangelion moved as one, rising up from her crouch and carving a long curve in the deck as she brought Wellenbrecher to bear. The MP Eva came down on the blade and slid forward, skewered through the chest. Asuka continued her charge, tilting forward and pinning the enemy to the deck. Thrashing, the MP Eva bucked, scrabbling at nothing before it finally stilled. Unit-02 slumped forward then, with its wrists draped atop the sword hilt and head propped up against the same.

A handful of long, quiet seconds passed. Then Over the Rainbow's surviving crew surged out en masse.

* * *

Asuka wasn't sure what to feel. She had all but tumbled out of her Eva, barely avoiding getting hurt even worse as she made her way down. She slid off Unit-02's thigh and hit the carrier deck. Not a second later she was on her knees and retched out an already empty stomach. The dry heaves gave way to sobs.

Wiping her mouth and eyes, she looked to the side to see the massive letters 'Mass Production Evangelion' stretched across a dangling white arm. She stared at it for a long moment, and the tears started to flow in earnest.

Holy shit, I won?

A scratchy blanket dropped over her head and Asuka found herself in Misato's arms. Numb, Asuka barely felt the hands running through her hair or wrapped around her ribs. The dark-haired woman cried, hugging her, kissing her forehead and rubbing away the dirt and blood that clung to Asuka's cheek. Kaji hovered nearby, smiling and laughing with his hair loose. The lines of his face faded away, and Asuka caught a glimpse of the Kaji of ten years ago. Some small part of Asuka's mind couldn't help but think that Misato had been lucky.

Sailors, airmen and marines along with rescued civilians all joined the crowd, shouting and hollering. Helmets and hats were thrown into the air even as the cooler heads among them all hauled out cables and tarps, ready to lash the two hulks down to the hull. Out in the mass of people sounds and creaking metal, Asuka heard the winding click of a camera shutter. The girl sobbed harder, shoulders shaking and smiling by turns.

Then, something cold and dry was draped across Asuka's shoulders, smelling slightly of seawater. Fingers reached out to touch leather, and Asuka found her jacket, and that Bolton woman smiling. Carter was there too amongst the survivors, arm in a sling and stained with blood and soot, but resoundingly alive.

Misato hugged her all the tighter, and Asuka just soaked in the warmth.

Holy shit. I won!

* * *

AN: Whew.

* * *

For a week after the silence order was given, the Geofront remained quiet as a grave. Merely a week, before a man's face dimly flickered on a video intercom screen. A pirated connection. With wide and livid eyes, he stared into the camera, haggard and unshaven. "He won't let us sleep! We're working twenty hours a day and eating but no sleep! Commander Ikari you've got to help us!"

Shyft · Jun 10, 2014

Chapter 35: Progress

And so Leothric came into a well-lit chamber, where Queens and Princes were banqueting together, all at a great table; and thousands of candles were glowing all about, and their light shone in the wine that the Princes drank and on the huge gold candelabra, and the royal faces were irradiant with the glow, and the white table-cloth and the silver plates and the jewels in the hair of the Queens, each jewel having a historian all to itself, who wrote no other chronicles all his days.

- Expert from The Fortress Unvanquishable Save for Sacnoth

* * *

July 17th, 2016

Voices outside the tank were distorted by thick glass walls and orange fluid, leaving Ayanami Rei undisturbed as she bobbed lightly within the neutral suspension. Her lungs easily drew the oxygenated LCL in, long accustomed to the extra effort. She was nude save for the small socket in her arm, though what modesty she had grown to feel necessary was preserved by her now far-longer hair. It was a clinical sort of nakedness, and one she only recently began to relate with vulnerability.

Half-obscured by shadow and fluid distortion, Ikari Gendo stared at her with an unreadable look.

Still deafened from the outside world, Rei continued to muse. She was still as a grave in most respects, but her eyes wandered up to the upper reaches of the Memory Transfer Machine. Some part magnetic imaging and part psychic resonance, the curling assemblage of pipes resembled the gryi and sulci of a human brain. Its form had no bearing on its function, and the machine's ability to record was more a product of her own unique metaphysical anatomy. Asuka would have called it pointlessly symbolic and the mark of a vain egoist.

Asuka and Misato had been gone for two days.

The Commander turned to face the darkness, and a cherry red coal flared in response. The hand that held the cigarette cut through the air and left a burning orange line in its wake. "-en do I get my- -boratories back?"

Gendo's eyes narrowed imperceptibly. "The situation is in hand Akagi."

More angry orange-spot-slashing. "...ituation is untenable, Commander"

"I will resolve the matter in due time, Doctor."

The use of titles seemed to mark the end of the discussion. Lights within the cavernous chamber shifted, and Akagi Ritsuko stepped forward. She glanced at Gendo for a moment and pressed her lips into a thin line before looking Rei in the eye. "As you can see we have refit the transfer system now for independent and semi-autonomous operation."

Whisper-quiet, Rei spoke softly and let her eyes drift closed. "I understand. Thank you, Akagi-sensei."

"Rei." Gendo's voice was low and quiet, but it still filled the space. He nodded to Ritsuko then the banks of new devices, expanding and enhancing the transfer system. "Your purpose remains."

Taking one more step closer, Ritsuko bristled minutely. "Sir... her purpose in the scenario is essentially suic-"

"Her loyalty is absolute." Gendo cut the scientist off with a curt wave of an arm. "There is no issue."

Ritsuko swallowed her response, and Rei found the subtle shifts of emotion fascinating. The blonde looked as if she had swallowed something truly sour. "...Sir."

The pilot, Commander and scientist all fell silent at that. Ritsuko stamped out her spent cigarette and returned to the transfer console while Gendo resumed his vigil, watching Rei. Long minutes passed, and Ritsuko returned with three key cards with dangling lanyards.

"Only the three of us have access to this chamber," she explained. Ritsuko set one card aside for Rei as the Commander silently pocketed his copy. "One mandatory scan per month, alongside your pilot physical. This card will let you initiate an automatic transfer session." She gave Rei a wan smile, and the bags under eyes stood out even more. "You can come in and take as many memory saves as you like."

Turning and looking between both Child and the Commander, Ritsuko continued. "All Unit Zero entry plugs have been upgraded with emergency memory recovery as well. I don't think you'd ever want to use it, but it's there if you need it, Rei."

Rei took in a shallow breath and nodded. She couldn't reach out to touch it, but the card.... It represented something. A quality of life that she was just beginning to fully understand. Her own control, perhaps, or maybe volition. The Commander turned and made for the door, already sure his presence was no longer required. Rei watched the door close behind him.

The teenager and adult looked at each other, then at nothing at all for a long while. Focusing back on the card, Rei glanced between it and where the Commander had been. Limited control, but control nonetheless. Meanwhile, Ritsuko sighed and pulled the lanyard over her head before moving back towards the console. She pressed a key and terminated the session.

As the LCL drained out of the tube, despite everything else going on, Rei smiled.

* * *

Tokyo-3 stood isolated from both Japan and the rest of the world, serving as a nearly self-contained system and largely detached from Japan itself. Crouched in the defensible pocket formed by hills on three sides, the low-slung industrial and armor buildings of the lakeside city was the ideal battleground. Scarred twice over by Angel attacks, the city had rebuilt. Modularity and prefabrication had eased the process, alongside vast subterranean systems. New buildings and roads stretched out over earthen gashes and flooded craters, leaving ragged edges and mis-matched streets throughout.

Life went on in the fortress city, where the hottest days of the year caught and reflected off of every chrome and mirror-polished surface. Invisible towers of hot rippling air surged up into the sky and beat at any aircraft who dared fly over the city proper. Electric cars ran across too-wide boulevards and over striped hazard bands, which in turn doubled as pedestrian crosswalks. Civilian foot-traffic was a misnomer, as all who lived and worked in Tokyo-3 were in some way part of NERV, part of the war effort.

Every morning, great streams of people and product flowed into massive bunker-entrances. carried by equally huge trucks and flanked by armed guards, the industrial, economic, and intellectual might of Tokyo-3 all vanished underground.

* * *

Shigeru Aoba ran a hand through his still-growing hair and sighed. His fingers caught on the thin surgical scar that cut at an angle, leaving a long bald furrow. The technician let his hand fall to the side and continued on his way through the Geofront catacombs. Hyuuga had taken over for Major Katsuragi in the wake of her departure. Any other week, Aoba would have run the other man ragged for how hard he mooned over their superior officer.

Instead, the Geofront itself seemed to have come under siege.

The sandy-haired man sighed once more and looked to his thick tablet interface. Its screen flashed green and filled with a list of alerts and events, marked by blank spaces and voids empty of information. Whole sections of MAGI conduit and connections had been re-routed for two-score projects or more, and there wasn't one he could name. No reports or requests had been filed, thus leaving no paper trail. Proof of something came in the form of mysterious data storage and the increasingly frequent prototype. Doctor Akagi had them all stacked up in her main lab, and Aoba had seen her eying them fitfully more than once.

Back in the present Aoba shared some of her trepidation, sighing as he stared at the traitorous absence of data. Do I try reporting this, or do I act like I'm at lunch right now and hope some other poor bastard catches hell for the past two days of dead-air...?

The decision came fairly easily, despite how it set his empty stomach twisting. Tapping the touchscreen, Aoba walked along the corridor just like he had any other day, fulfilling his normal duties as a lieutenant in NERV's employ. He made a turn left aiming for a shortcut, but stopped in the face of the blocked hallway. Welded shut. Right, he had to go the long way.

It felt longer, lifetimes even. Being closed off. He dragged a long-fingered hand down his face, pulling on thin stubble and stretching his cheeks away down from his eyes. He let go and everything snapped back into place, staring at the blocked door.

* * *

On the other side of wall, lights flickered and died.

Unnecessary spaces did not need upkeep, as that was an inefficient use of resources. Instead, whole hallways had been stripped of their sturdy panels, wiring and insulation. Other passages had been blocked with undulating coils of cable and sheathed conduit, and only strange symbols painted in human blood saw fit to keep the temperatures fit for mankind.

Men and women trudged through those tangled passageways at all hours. They had lost all sense of time- their watches and cellular phones confiscated and cannibalized in favor of progress. Heirlooms, like an ancient pocket watch dating from the Meiji Restoration had been rendered down unto raw silver for purposes unknown.

We can do better was the only explanation offered.

Staff bathrooms meant for brief intermittent use had been converted to pressure-scrub showers. When set properly, a fully clothed man could go from filthy to clean in an uncomfortable twenty seconds. If set improperly, one such station could go through dirt, fabric, skin, subcutaneous tissue and possibly bone. None had dared adjust the temperature after that warning, and the thirty scientists and technicians endured the icy misery.

Meals were relentlessly scheduled, left not to habit but an almost all-seeing eye, who knew their bodies better than they did. Dense sustenance bars had been baked automatically, run by ramshackle contraptions made of vending machines and repurposed microwaves. Their taste had been a concession to simple human fallibility; food would have done them no good if they had not been able to stomach it.

Sleep was a mysterious thing, forgotten in the repeated application of medical thaumaturgy. The new science of pressure points worked, despite more than a century of contrary evidence. Those who graduated from the higher education in late seventies and early eighties were no strangers to all-nighters. The sad fact was, as a loose collection of seniors and the middle-aged, many of them had not felt this healthy in years, if not decades. There was no mistaking the steady, inevitable grind for the weariness and decrepitudes of age. What they were experiencing was every way they could experience it, as any less could compromise yet more progress.

An indeterminant volume of the Geofront now sat apart from the rest, blocked at all access by solid steel barriers welded seamlessly from floor to ceiling. And every single line of fused metal ended with the same thing.

A fingerprint.

* * *

Inside the cordoned off section, three floors and approximately twenty rooms had been converted into rapid research and prototyping engines. Salvaged tools and new devices constructed by his hand hung from the ceiling or spread out across the half-dozen work tables. Bent over those stations for hours at a time, every scientist and engineer felt Ikari's mark on the process.

Every man and woman had been placed where they would do the most good, that their specialties would compliment their assigned task and maximize synergy with their neighbors. One man leaned over a computer terminal, dutifully punching in code. Others turned to calculators and chemical formula, rubbing at three days of stubble. They were not chained to their desks, but they stayed in those seats just the same.

At the far end of the primary research chamber, there was a secure sliding door. It had once been a clean room for electronics assembly, now it served as a private laboratory. A sudden surge of intent swept across the research floor, and each scientist stiffened in their seats. Persistent, almost intangible pressure hit their skin, like the almost physical feeling of walking into warmer air.

That sudden awareness gave way to panic as sweat broke out across nearly every brow and under each collar. Those who had been between desks for one reason or another scrambled, hurried but deliberate. Inefficiency was unacceptable, but the consequences for mistakes.... The unspoken consensus was unanimous. Papers were shuffled and consoles strained to keep up with the furious inputs.

The light from within came first, cast out in thin lines at the seams and edges. Bright enough that it flooded every nook and cranny between the door and its floor and ceiling tracks. White-gold filled the space as the door whipped open, and everyone blinked behind welding masks and opaque tinted goggles.

It was difficult to describe tangible brilliance. Ikari Shinji filled the doorway, so much so that the structure itself seemed too small to hold him.

Their project leader stepped out into the room without pause and took one look across the room, head swiveling left to right with his gold brand shining like a searchlight. Muscles shifted under a threadbare shirt, and everyone present knew what strength he could bring to bear. They had watched him rip down walls. Somehow vacant and intent, he turned his attention from the room itself to everyone in it.

Behind their masks and visors, sweat beaded down their skulls.

He pointed at a handful of them, already having made it halfway across the room. "You, and your teams. Follow me and report."

So indicated, the scientists and engineers leapt to their feet and clustered around him. They did their best to clamp down on the fear and unease, but none could keep their voice fully level. If he noticed, there was no outward sign. Project summaries filled the air as the growing entourage of beleaguered innovators followed his command. Synthetic muscle both cloned and constructed, improvements to MAGI interface, and plans regarding the manufacture and distribution of the enhanced MRI system.

Three days of full-burn effort had resulted in progress more along the lines of years. Maybe not revolutions, but instead vast leaps forward nonetheless. Still, they lacked his inherent advantages, the almost tangible brilliance on demand. The reports from every angle were riddled with questions and challenges they could not do- not in the hours Ikari had demanded.

So the boy-leader cocked his head to the side, then the other, visibly mulling over each obstacle as he marched through the isolated Geofront chambers. His shining aura glowed almost constantly, flaring brighter and showing all the edges of its more iconic elements. Brief glimpses of wire-mesh arms and hands threaded between equally ornate mandala traceries. Answers flowed from his lips almost non-stop.

Desktop prototyping and computers of the previous room gave way to manufacturing floor and assembly where unlucky NERV staff had been scooped up in the siege. Those men and women in the orange coveralls and tan uniforms worked with larger tools and bigger projects, overseeing the assembly of the things the Shinji and his specialists had designed.

Strung-together MAGI terminals connected intangibly with the rest of the Geofront. His entourage followed and those already present dared not stand at his presence. He did not tolerate distraction. Efficiency was earned with brute-force calculation and growing experience. Hours had been stretched, and the lack of sleep broke what grasp of time remained. Ikari Shinji had made himself the center of their world in three days. He had secured them against exhaustion and sickness, and demanded that they work his pace.

At the end of his circuit, Shinji stopped and turned to his collection of employees and conscripts. The gold disc on his brow flared brighter, and he turned awfully focused eyes on each of them. He spoke softly, and those nearly forty years his senior were again reminded that for all of Shinji's height, bulk and sheer presence, his voice hadn't changed.

"It's time for dinner."

* * *

He couldn't actually multitask. At least not any further than an athlete or martial artist could, trusting their physical training to share the load of doing, leaving room for thinking. Shinji stared out past his plate at his employees and direct subordinates. His mind churned away at complex problems that most people would struggle with, even with a calculator or computer. Balancing the dietary requirements of over thirty people was again, not a matter of dividing his attention. Linear progression of thought and logic chewed through the complex organic chemistry and metabolic science.

That he did so in a matter of minutes was what made people think he could multitask.

Not that he had much care for what other people thought right then. That was part of the problem; he thought too much about the wrong things. None of that led to progress. Behind in his office were the plans for MRI cable bundle manufacturing and eventual implementation across Tokyo-3. At the head of the long cafeteria table, Shinji watched the rows of scientists, engineers and common NERV employees. They ate quickly and spoke little, as he'd already implemented a strict schedule for meals. What whispered complaints reached his ears were shushed by their neighbors, urging everyone to just keep their heads down. Distractions everywhere.

As for dinner, that was a special event. NERV kitchens were surprisingly well stocked, and the bulk foodstuffs gave him a great deal of room to stretch out. The lavish meals also served as a nightly incentive. Disposable chopsticks and the ubiquitous spork scraped against the plastic trays heaped high with fresh breads, expertly prepared rice and preserved staple meats. Face thick with three days worth of stubble, Professor Kurosawa ate with big bites, but Shinji could read his face, read that something was bothering him. The boy made a note to watch the man in the future.

The schedules aimed for the best use of everyone's time according to his plotting. Shinji frowned while leaning back in his chair. The seat creaked ominously. There were so many things that needed to be done. Engineers worked on the material sciences, refining the composite research he had started. Neurologists and programmers were grappling with the symbolic language he had developed for the MAGI, dusting that off and seeing if it could be of use. Shinji had anticipated a degree of hand-holding, but between extensive and irrational preconceptions, they needed almost constant oversight. Distractions!

Mental distractions Shinji could handle. Problems based in the theoretical and procedural. Physical ones on the other hand were annoying; they wasted everyone's time. Looking up and down the table, Shinji focused back in on Kurosawa. He knew that the professor was not alone in his thoughts. Others were more obvious about their states of mind. Haggard, drawn faces with sullen looks. They stared at their plates and ate, and the food tasted good, but they all knew its source. Shinji wasn't overly worried- Progress was wearing away at the last of their resolve.

Not completely, however

"Ikari-sama..." One of his underlings whispered. Every utensil froze mid-motion and conversation slid to a halt. The woman broke into his train of thought, speaking softly. Her clothes were rumpled and hair unkempt, and it stubbornly refused to go grey. She swallowed thickly and licked her lips. Shinji knew the question before she asked it. "You told me three days ago when this started, that you could treat my..." - .

Shinji nodded, but did not spare the time to smile. Shinchiro Ami- forty-seven, mother of two, Doctorate of Computer Scientist and expert programmer, carpal tunnel treated by prescription NSAID, kidneys suffer congenital -

Waving at his glowing forehead, he looked her in the eye past the smoked glass visor gave her the same answer he had given to over a dozen others. "Discomfort is not mortality, you are still productive."

He made a note of her desolate look and frowned. "My time and resources haven't permitted me yet, but your conditions do not interfere with your productivity. I will treat you fully when we are finished, not before."

Doctor Shinchiro nodded woodenly before hunching back down in her seat. Shinji tilted his head to one side, then the other. The rest of his forces were sharing similar expressions. What little morale present was draining rapidly. A brief mental cost-benefit analysis lead him to consider a stopgap measure. Alongside that thought, he couldn't help but wonder just when they'd stop being so stubborn about things.

The boy suppressed the sigh and stood up, walking around the table towards the woman. Shinchiro wilted further, but her legs locked tight against the bench. Shinji had already anticipated the fear response, but a smile no matter how sincere would have failed utterly. Actions were his only recourse. With one hand on her head, Shinji pressed a point above her right eyebrow and laid his thumb against her left-hand temple. Shinchiro sucked in a quick breath and her eyes went wide, but Shinji ignored it, focused on the procedure and its execution.

Reflexology and traditional ritualistic medicine had been debunked for decades. Now though, Shinji had developed pressure point techniques that gave concrete results. With his other hand, he let fingertips trace over the important loci and intersections of the scientist's vital systems. It was more difficult without appropriate tools, but he invoked the thamaturgic sequence without issue. Shinchiro slumped in her seat and for the moment, she would not suffer the internal pangs. He may not have had the metaphysical resources to heal her and maintain his required levels of productivity, but Shinji knew he needed to maintain efficiency at all costs.

They had a lot of time to make up for, after all.

With the basic pressure point treatment done, Shinji stepped back from Shinchiro as she slumped back into her seat and giggled quietly in relief. A whole host of her physical inconveniences had for all intents and purposes gone silent, after all.

Now though, Shinji couldn't fully restrain the exasperation. "Doctor, You have lived with your condition longer than I have been alive. I made certain we had sufficient supplies on hand to meet your needs. You were more than able treat yourself."

Shinji's then focused his stare down like a fine-beam laser, looking every one of the his employees dead in the eye. "Regardless of how effective they are, my abilities are not free."

Having made that declaration, Shinji turned away from Shinchiro's place at the table and made for his seat. Just as he was about to sit down, another professor stood up. "Ah, Ikari?"

The boy felt himself freeze, and almost completely without thought turned to face the man. The professor -Tsukasa Hirano, masters degree in material sciences. Instigator. Healthy. Wears contact lenses. Moustache - wilted slightly when Shinji's eyes met his. "...Sama?"

Hirano made a remarkable effort of composing himself before speaking again. He licked his lips and glanced at his neighboring scientists, and all eyes were on him for good or ill. "Ah, Sir. I understand our work here is important, and I wouldn't want to compromise that but-"

Whatever pitch he had prepared fell flat in the air between academic leader and gifted teenager. Hirano stuttered, swallowing thickly while Shinji just watched with a somehow even more impassive expression. "My family hasn't heard from me in three days, and I'm sure there's quite a few people here who'd like to call out past the barricades...."

Hirano trailed off, and almost despite themselves, a dozen or so nearby heads nodded. The commiseration spread out in a ripple of bobbing heads, and all eyes turned to the head of the table. Shinji was quiet for a long, increasingly tense moment. A bead of sweat built up on Hirano's brow and tracked down the side of his face before curving across hard cheekbones.

The Division head stared right at the man and said one word: "No."

The engineer blanched, almost as if he realized what was coming next. Shinji let more of his frustration leak out, but it had the effect of deadening his voice. He spoke in clear, uncompromising tones. "Doctor Tsukasa, you are dissenting."

Shuddering, the middle-aged man blanched, and broke out in full nervous sweats. Shinji pointed at the door and his face could have passed for a granite statue. "You either work or you don't. There is no in between. Report to the holding cells, Doctor Tsukasa."

Nearly thirty pairs of eyes switched between the now whimpering man and Shinji's own implacable stare. He matched their looks of fear and growing panic with one of unambiguous certainty. "Your health and continued productivity is my concern."

Shinji sat down and prepared to finish his dinner. "Your comfort is not."

* * *
It started with a whiteboard.

After dinner, Shinji retreated to his ad-hoc office. The once clean room had been quickly converted to suit his needs. As with the rest of his Geofront, he had spent that first day securing the entrances and exits, welding doors into place and ripping down walls as raw material for other barricades. In so doing he finalized yet another technique that made the deconstruction all the more efficient.

It still bothered him that he had only successfully secured a comparative handful of useful workers. The whiteboard dominating one wall was already filled corner to corner with diagrams and calculations. Shinji himself ignored the utilitarian chair for the moment. Standing upright allowed him easy access to everything he would need, and if he had to walk elsewhere, there was no interstitial step of 'getting out of his seat'. He nodded once, satisfied with his own reasoning.

That being said he still had to maintain a certain state of non-activity for several hours of the day. The inherent thaumaturgical potential in blood and sublimating the offerings could have supplemented his reserves, but the logistics behind maintaining healthy blood volume amongst his workforce rendered the idea useless. Still he rewrote that proposal and shortened it. When Shinji pulled the marker away from the glossy surface, something odd struck him.

He had switched from Japanese to the strange block-character ideogram locked in his memory. Despite being more complex than the most complicated kanji, it felt... natural, logical. A more efficient means to convey the ideas he was struggling to articulate, and freed him from needing to translate between his mind and his hand at the board for the benefit of some other, unseen observer.

He tapped the marker against the board, musing while his body and soul rested. No excuse to be completely restful, even if by being restful he was renewing his lifebreath.

Flipping through sheaves of papers themselves thick with notes, Shinji mulled over more of his future projects. One stack happened to be the diagrams for the A-MRI assembly. The 'A' standing for Advanced, at the moment. He was sure someone else could think of a trendier name. The digital clock on his desk read ten at night. Not important at the time.

More plans and proposals took up the next hour, and he filled the whiteboard with even more cramped notation and schematics. There was potential in the MAGI, untapped by far. That thought lead him to another, looking inward to the mind itself. His helmet, the disguise NERV created for his public relations persona had used the same synchronization technology as the Evangelions. As long as the functions were kept simple, or borrowed the brain's own physical hardware for interpretation...

By that point he had discarded the board entirely and moved onto the wall itself, trusting his growing skill to protect against error. Direct neural interface wasn't exactly accurate. It was more potential of a more direct user interface... Shinji wondered then how the mind and soul interacted at that stage. Shrugging he let that thought go; there was far too much already on his plate, and a great deal of it came down to lack of manpower.

The answer came without asking, that was how obvious it was. He'd have to get more people then.

People... Shinji mulled that word over, the very concept of manpower even as he rubbed at his chin. Still no sign of beard but he was due for another surge of hormones any day now. People thundered around in his mind for a few more minutes. People were power, they were means, extensions of his will. People under his command were force multipliers, resources.

Resources he could use.

Shinji turned then back to the wall and started to draw. He ignored his original plans and the previous implementations. He wouldn't need a factory or assembly structure for the A-MRI. Progress demanded the best and he was tired letting things get in his way. The MAGI were sufficient, and vastly underutilized anyway. Marker in hand, Shinji all but attacked the wall, scribbling away. A finely detailed symbol appeared beneath his hand, and it's concept-meaning spoke to him as vitalexpressor. He would need to develop the actual ritual, but the initial draft looked promising.

The gleaming disc on his brow flared out then as he urged a small amount of power into his efforts. It was a minor setback as far as relaxing and restoring his strength, but he considered the sudden burst of inspiration worth following. Blood was power, and a power-harnessing/storage array... He could convert that inherent potential into something his machine could use perhaps, disconnect it from city power....

Yes, his mind hummed. Run it off the patients themselves.

It was genius! A mechanical-thaumaturgical method to collect a blood offering and transcribe the appropriate ritual inside the A-MRI itself. Automation was going to be a concern- there had to be a trained operator there at all times, as he could not fully grasp how to remove the vital will component to thaumaturgy. That problem lead him to the solution though, the synchronization technology! Ignore the fallible distance between the hands and mind that guided them. A doctor could perform surgery with a perfectly dextrous set of robotic arms- or even run multiple limbs with sufficient practice!

The wall started to fill in with more black scribbles as the marker squeaked along the surface. It was definitely going to be a MAGI-only project however. There was no way 'off the shelf' components could handle the neural interface, or the A-MRI even with it's compressed data. Shinji started to sketch out the computer-triumvirate's basic architecture while he thought.

One mind of three parts. Woman, Mother, Scientist. Naoko Akagi was brilliant but limited. Shinji looked at the three squares he had drawn on the wall, marked with Melchior, Casper, and Balthazar. They too lacked that will, that sense of direction and purpose which pushed thaumaturgy out of pointless mysticism and into objective reality.... Shinji stepped back from the wall and wondered. Where would he get that will, and... what would it look like?

It looked like pain incarnate. Not that something that would inflict pain, but something that suffered instead. She wandered around the lab, her chestnut skin reflecting against the crystal prisms as she observing her lowest circle acolytes. The protective etchings were in place and freshly consecrated, and the halycon-plating was secure. Zenith they called her, teacher, leader, priest-king. Her students and peers hung on her every word.

Bowed by age he did not show, a young man hovered nearby. "Our ambassadors within the Prisonshell are being inundated with summons and requests for clarification. Your work is brilliant, but two thousand refraction experiments at a time?"

"I need a sufficiently large sample size," she answered, and one gold-painted brow arched high. "All of my great works are strictly above-board, and have been for two millenia."

"Your paperwork is in order, true." The man nodded to the nearest research station, where a man in wet silk robes raised his arms high. The skein of the world split and unfolded. Twisted lifebreath was pulled through the gap with a squealing cry. Focused through the crystals, the being could at one point have been considered attractive. Sensual even. Now it was a twitching mass of inverted organs and spongy cartilage and bones.

"If they exist to suffer, then they will suffer for me." The priest-king frowned at the contained mess before allowing her eyes to slide sideways. "So what is the problem?"

Tired eyes looked back at her. "The problem is that They noticed."

* * *

Shinji blinked once and stared at the half-filled wall. He glanced at the clock and realized twenty minutes had passed. He wondered then, shaking the marker still in hand. His last completed thought had been 'where to find will'. That had been strange. Interesting, but strange. Refraction had been the running theme. Refraction of wills, refraction of self, reinterpretation? He hummed thoughtfully and stepped forward to write once more. While his mind worked his fingers listed out the assets. Himself, personnel, the MAGI... The Evangelions themselves. He tapped his marker on that last entry- it was on the tip of his tongue.

Gold flared out bright enough to dry the ink staining the wall and render it dull and flaking. Readable, but aged by relentless sunlight. The Evangelions in their own way possessed will- in the same way that the AT field was intrinsic to them and humanity. But the AT field itself was not will. Connected to it, maybe, but separated enough that they were perhaps rooted in a deeper underlying structure. Not that he cared overmuch about that structure- Shinji needed a different sort of will, something he could use.

'Evangelion' had been written in English, and he tapped his marker at the end of the last vertical slash on the 'n'. He looked at that word for a long moment before very deliberately reaching out with his other hand. His fingers swiped at the cracking ink, half-erasing the word. Beneath his glowing brand, Shinji's brows slanted down, and a strange smile tugged at his lips. Ritsuko just happened to have a ready source of will handy, deep within the Geofront. It wouldn't take much to convince her to hand it over.

Still, he would also need the MAGI as the refractor- pushing his potential solution through the system, wondering what would come out the other end. Something useful, he was sure. Shinji snapped the cap back onto the marker with a thin click and turned for the door. There was a lot to be done, and he needed to retask his team. Maybe even call out for more supplies and manpower. So many things to do... But Shinji was alright with that. He was making progress. As he left the office, only the closing door saw what he wrote on the wall.

A N G E L

* * *

Inside the Commander's office embedded within the Geofront ceiling, the two most powerful men in Japan watched the slowly twisting hologram. The pair were drawn, haggard, though only the older of the two showed any sign of it. Fuyutsuki Kozou dragged a hand down his face and felt the wrinkles not so much spring up as ooze back into place over his bones. Two half-full mugs of thaumaturgically brewed and filtered coffee sat nearby, while a percolator hummed in the office shadows.

Crisis management was an inevitably twenty-four hour affair.

Up the corner of the holographic diagram, Ikari Gendo watched the combat event timer tick upward. The same bit of code had been often used for marking the duration of an Angel engagement. Here it tracked the isolation and mad dash of effort the Third Child had undertaken. Just starting four days now. The habitable Geofront itself was an air-filled dome, while the vast majority of research and manufacturing were under ground within the cavernous space. A hexagonal structure descended into the ground beneath Central Dogma's mismatched pyramids, and it was there that most of NERV's research and development happened.

Fuyutsuki slumped into a nearby chair and groaned, massaging his eyes. "Your son continues to make even less sense. Abrupt disruptions in personality are... nothing like this!" The old man huffed, and Gendo could tell it was more out of compassion than any rational sort of indignation. A desire to help the boy. The professor continued, rasping past his hands. "Considering our sample size it's not wise to make assumptions, but his behavior is so consistently inconsistent."

Within the map itself, blobs of angry red bled out into the space, marking an insignificant fraction of the facility as 'damaged'. Gendo's hands and beard kept his thin scowl well hidden. In another section of the holographic display, a muted recording of the one message out of the quarantine zone played, and the engineer screamed silently into the camera pickup. The Third was becoming disruptive- complicating matters beyond even the scenario's planned use on him. With the increasingly comprehensive self-imposed isolation, the boy had whittled the Commander's own options down to almost nothing.

Still, there were patterns to exploited, just as Fuyutsuki noted. Gendo examined the isolated section once more. "The boy is following medical quarantine procedures over sound military doctrine."

"I loaned the boy my copies of The Thirty-Six Stratagems and The Art of War, but as it is, your son's interest was largely academic." The older man grunted, and Gendo heard the creak of stiff joints. "Though I'm sure he only read them because he was bored. That was back before the Major mandated rest periods."

"A quarantine is just a siege in reverse. He will be asking for raw materials today most likely."

Fuyutsuki couldn't help pointing out Shinji's more recent developments, and his knack for repurposing materials. "Even setting aside his mania, Shinji is meticulous and showed an eye for efficiency. I wouldn't be surprised if he stretched all his resources to their limit."

Shifting slightly, Gendo considered the merit of asking an open question, and deemed it worthwhile. "Have we gleaned any new data regarding his personal limits?"

"Akagi was reaching some interesting conclusions with her energy container." Fuyutsuki shook his head then and continued uninterrupted. Gendo listened, intently.

During those months when the boy forced himself to defy human limits, he ran into his own altered ones. Limited access to food or water had not impaired him, but forgoing sleep had resulted in a steady buildup of stress. More importantly, Shinji's exotic reserves had replenished at an agonizingly slow pace. That in itself was interesting and in some ways heartening, Gendo drew the correct implications. His frown deepened.

While they lacked particulars, NERV's various observers had gathered enough data to verify several previous conclusions: Metaphysically speaking, Shinji himself could not be permanently run down. Fuyutsuki had already anticipated the next question, and the Commander felt his stomach churn. "Upon demonstrating his repair technique, Shinji was able to restore something to working condition even after most of it's mass had been lost to combustion."

The professor gave the younger man a wry look. "He restored a burnt letter to full legibility, blatantly violating conservation of mass and energy."

Project E and the Human Instrumentality Project had inured Gendo to a great deal of existential trauma. He did not shiver at the implication or feel as awed as Fuyutsuki sounded. Instead Gendo suppressed a sigh and turned his to thinking the matter through. Something would be done, that much was obvious. What however, would have to be reasoned, well-thought out, and with a goal in mind....

Gendo eased up out of his seat and straightened his coat. "The boy is not yet a Von-Neumann device. Even if evidence suggests he can reach that point, he is still just a boy, and easily managed."

Eyes wide, Fuyutsuki sat up straighter and stared at Gendo in askance. "Need I remind you what happened to those criminals during his first manic state?"

Hands in his pockets, Gendo smirked knowingly. "You assume I plan to confront him directly. A show of force is a child's gesture." He spoke over his shoulder even as he made for the exit, and heard Fuyutsuki just as the door slid closed.

"At this point, Ikari, I don't know what to believe."

* * *

Six prototypes filled her desk, along with attached data storage for their blueprints and manufacturing technology. Safe in one of her numerous labs, Ritsuko sucked down hard on her latest cigarette. She looked them over one by one, and a leaden weight built up on her shoulders. One of the items happened to be a hand-held MRI scanner, no better than modern examples save for its much more portable form factor. Fifteen years ago the idea would have earned Shinji a Nobel prize. Today it was a castoff of his manic phase.

Exhaling softly, Ritsuko pressed her lips together and felt the too-dry lipstick crack under the pressure. The prototypes continued to mock her with their presence. Next to the scanner-MRI, a more generalized neural interface helmet had been opened up for examination. On the panel interior, someone had written a message:

Help us.

Seeing as they had access to machine tools and the like, Ritsuko was fairly certain the author wrote it in human blood to emphasize their point. She sighed again, shaking her cigarette free of ash. Without putting the mangled carcinogen down, she reached for the nearby bottle of antacids and chewed through two tablets. Four more remained in the bottle. Leaning back in her chair, Ritsuko felt her spine pop back into alignment.

"Are you concerned?"

The scientist snapped forward, nearly catapulting her glasses clean off her face. Lenses askew, she turned to Rei. The girl had held vigil alongside the scientist for hours at a time, ghosting away for who knew what. She repeated the question when Ritsuko blinked. "Are you concerned? For Ikari-kun?"

Swallowing thickly, Ritsuko sucked down another lungful of smoke and mulled over her answer. The answer came out in a low mumble. "He concerns me."

Turning back to her desk and MAGI console, she listlessly stabbed at the keys, reviewing the latest on system security. No changes. "I know what he can do." A new report appeared on screen and she took a moment to fix her glasses. "I helped talk him down after the last event like this, but we never thought there would be a second. Just one episode and his brain reverts back to it's normal plasticity."

Rei went silent at that, and Ritsuko took a moment to glance sidelong at the girl. The teenager stared at her lap and folded hands, while her bangs hung down and masked her face. The longer hair suited her somehow, it helped change the shape of her face and push Rei away from Yui. There were other changes too- A Misato diet was by far objectively better than what she ate before.

The past four days had taken their toll on both of them however. Ritsuko stamped out the cigarette and sucked on her teeth. She might have been too blunt. "The last time this happened, we got to him with Section Two and tranquilizers... Right now we just have to wait and see what happens."

Silence stretched on between them for a while, and Rei's legs kicked idly in the darkened lab. Ritsuko moved to light another cigarette, but stopped when Rei looked up. She spoke softly, as usual, but even the scientist could hear the thin, wavering uncertainty. "He swore, Akagi-Sensei, to do no harm...."

The statement hung in the air for a moment, and then the door to Ritsuko's lab slid open. Ikari Gendo stood framed by the far brighter corridor lights. Ritsuko squinted past her glasses, stiffening slightly in her seat. "C-Commander."

He moved inside, not even bothering to sit. The scientist saw him look at Rei for less than a second before refocusing on her. "Report, doctor."

Ritsuko put out her most recent cigarette and sighed, heading over to the desk full of plans and prototypes. "Minimal change. New devices appear fairly regularly. Seeing as he has about forty or fifty of our best minds in there with him..." She waved at the row of inventions- the first one was the portable MRI. "It's like watching someone's neurochemistry changing under the influence of a hallucinogen. Every one after the first is just that bit more absurd..."

She trailed off, sucking on her teeth once more. Among the examples were more material-science experiments. A gel-form of that composite material he had developed that could be sprayed onto a surface and strengthen it akin to bronzing. He had sent a video demonstration along with the test sample, where he coated his own arm with the compound. Shinji was the only person strong enough to still be able to flex his fingers, despite being bound in something equivalent to a few millimeters of steel.

The last one however was.... She shrugged helplessly. "That one is another infusion pump prototype, like what he made for Ayanami."

Moving over, Ritsuko waved her hand at the device. It sat on the desk as an almost seamless mass of shatterproof glass and medical plastic, there were almost no indications of much of anything. What little surface detail there was had been taken up by slots for prefabricated reservoirs and the requisite surgical tubing. A fantastically dense holographic display appeared over the device as Ritsuko neared it. Shinji had added features and functions at will and almost compulsively. Filling the air with unlabeled buttons and data, Ritsuko had needed the hundred-page manual to even begin to make sense of the interface.

She watched out the corner of her eye as Gendo looked the device over. Between the glasses, darkness and beard, he was unreadable as always.

At her console, the screen crackled and dissolved into static. Ritsuko blinked once and bit her lip. She saw the white noise reflect off Gendo's glasses, and Rei perked up from her place in the back shadows. Another screen monitor on the wall lost the signal, and the blonde wondered just what else could go wrong.

Then Shinji appeared on the wall, compromising every screen in the lab.

Bent over a desk and keyboard with the gold disc over his head, he seemed to look past the screen. He tapped some keys and several monitors shifted, wiping his image away and leaving charts and graphs in their place. "Ah, Doctor. Glad that I caught you. We're behind schedule."

Acid roiled in her stomach, and the scientist blanched. Her eyes cut to the computer and Ritsuko felt her stomach drop down around her ankles, and the blood continued to drain out of her face. The boy had breached her security. Gendo's nearby presence was less than comforting.

Shinji barely even seemed to notice her though, or anyone else in the room. He was focused more on another screen, even as his hands did something just off camera. "We're coming up on our first production milestone, Doctor. For maximum market saturation for the structural gel and bio-electrical implants we need to start seeding our contracts to bait the hook. You have those contracts ready, yes? It's been a full day now, that's more than enough time."

There was an overpowering desire to move, to reach over to her console and enter the commands to banish the Third from her screens. Ritsuko though was caught between the four days of increasing tension and the sudden disconnect. Of how rational Shinji sounded... despite the impossible demands. The requests had never made it to anyone's desk, let alone hers, and had been destroyed in transit by her own hand.

He punched a few more keys, squinting at something off camera. "Ritsuko? I've been more than patient here, you could at least answer me."

The red lights of active security cameras stood out in the darker corners of the ceiling, and servos whined faintly. "I have spent far too long compromising this terminal- Set the MAGI to open access across the Geofront. I don't want to have to automate this access method if I need to." Shinji had not even bothered to look up as his own camera before he continued, almost resigned. "Automatic processes can rapidly become destructive."

He tilted his head slightly. "Doctor? Akagi Ritsuko- Have you been following my instructions? Have you secured the contracts and manufacturing details? The prototypes must be mass produced and in the hands of humanity at large right now."

The scientist could only blink, and Shinji didn't even wait for an answer. "Unacceptable. I'll see to it myself- Commander. It's been a long time."

The boy finally looked up at the monitor, and Ritsuko wondered if she was going to have an arena-side seat for a conflict almost a decade in the making. Shinji was nearly half a kilometer away in an isolated section of the Geofront, and the unease worrying at her was tangible. Rei sidled up next to her, close enough that Ritsuko felt the heat of the girl's hand near her own, but not yet touching.

Gendo grunted. "Shinji."

"Good-" the pilot nodded once. "I'm short on time. All of my requests for resources have apparently failed. As division leader I invoke my authority. Where are my supplies?"

"Authority which does not supersede my own." Gendo stood up straighter, hands in his pockets and far more composed than Ritsuko believed possible. "Explain yourself, Third Child."

The pilot, the Exalt watched from the highest vantage point, and for some unspoken reason, Ritsuko found herself looking up at the screen set the furthest up on the wall. Rei and Gendo had done so as well, despite Shinji's face appearing across six or more screens. Her eyes slid left to right, and her mouth went dry. Two of them!

Shinji's eyebrows slanted down, and his eyes hardened slightly. "Explanations aren't important- I have objectives that must be met." Some of the screens changed to show lists of materials and items. Foodstuffs, medicine, tools and equipment. "Are these items on the way or are they not?"

The commander's unflinching response soothed Ritsuko, and she was sure that the tension building up in the lab was all in her head. "No. First, I require a manifest of existing employees and their current well-being."

If the question shocked Shinji however, Ritsuko only saw the barest hint. He shook his head, and his eyes narrowed slightly. "This isn't a hostage situation."

Rei moved again, but Ritsuko was only able to pay half attention. She watched the sparring match between father and son, and could not help but note something was wrong. Wrong with Shinji, his means and methods. The reason was on the tip of her tongue, but she followed the pair as they tested each other with demand and counter response. Gendo was unreadable as always, but she knew plans and contingencies were forming even before as he answered.

"I never said it was, but it can be if you want your resources to remain steady."

Shinji was quiet for a long moment before hitting another key. One of the larger screens changed to a list of names. "Blood sugar, daily calorie intake, kidney and other functions. Professors Mizushima and Tsukino are classified as 'dissenting residents' and have been afforded living space in the containment area until project completion."

The officer, scientist and pilot all seemed to share the pause as Shinji took a breath. Gendo had just begun to nod.

"Dr. Nakahara, slight myopia, high cholesterol, weak liver and the beginnings of lung cancer from smoking. Dr. Akiyama, defect in left ear with deafness, recent hip replacement, arthritis."

Gendo nodded then, otherwise stone-faced as he cleared his throat. "You've made your point. The safety and well-being of your dependents remains your responsibility. As for the other matter-"

"C-Commander?!" Ritsuko felt her lungs freeze. She hadn't intended to speak up, wasn't even sure why the thought came up. But once she started speaking she couldn't quite stop. "The safety of Geofront is everyone's concern, including Ikari-kun's! This situation cannot be-"

Shinji cut her off mid-word. "Doctor, unfortunately you are not in a position to solve my problem. I will call on you later when your field is needed."

Rocking back on her mental heels, Ritsuko almost missed Gendo's odd look. There was no chance of missing Rei's hand slip into her own. Her skin crawled, but heat seeped up her arm all the same. Barely a few seconds after the interruption, Gendo nodded back to his son, frowning slightly. "Your requests are denied. End this foolish endeavor."

The boy frowned himself, already turning away to some other task. "Well. Then you're of no use to me."

Shinji vanished, and the screens went black.

* * *

An hour after the confrontation in the laboratory, Rei sat at the edge one of NERV's sprawling indoor pools. She wasn't swimming, but her bare legs dangled in the water all the same. The ripples played around her calves, and she mused upon the fluid dynamics. She couldn't have calculated formula in her head, but she knew the math in broad terms. Rei wondered then if Asuka could have done it.

Her second and third friends ever had been gone for four days. The Commander and even Ikari-kun had apparently been the reason why Asuka had left so abruptly. They had angered her somehow, to the point that she had been almost spitting fire. The metaphor made her smile despite herself, and Rei had to admit, Asuka would have approved of fire-breathing as an ability.

Misato meanwhile had been a surprisingly stabilizing presence in their lives. Dependable for being so faultlessly casual and irreverent. Now they were both gone, and Rei had no idea what to do about the one friend she had in Tokyo-3.

Fear was the wrong term- apprehension maybe. An unsettling sense of wrongness. Shinji had been driven, but painfully terse and blunt. It had been a familiar behavior, one she had known for her whole life, and not one she had ever expected from Shinji. Growth was inevitable, but the Third... Rei didn't shudder, but she felt something icy and cold run up her spine.

She realized then, that she liked that there was only one Commander Ikari. Judging by the curt dismissal and exit barely an hour prior, apparently so did he.

Better to say that she appreciated the Commander, in a way she felt few others could fully understand. Her circumstances were unique however, and the more and more she observed, the more she began to form new opinions. Sitting up, she kicked the water from her feet and started to walk around the pool edge. The problem hung in her mind while she moved. Shinji was isolated- had isolated himself. Asuka, despite not being his friend, would have done something like blow the wall down and shout the boy into submission. Rei thought about it for a moment and noted that Asuka might have helped cause the problem....

Akagi-sensei had been fairly clear, cause or not, it was most likely condition unique to Shinji's status as an Exalt. Making one full lap, Rei decided that if she used any of Asuka's methods, they would need tailoring. Misato on the other hand came in at odd angles. She upset the status-quo and stalked around the problem like a big cat, building elaborate tricks out of honest affection and double-entendre. The Major saved true hostility and savagery for her enemies.

That left Rei herself, stopping just ahead of the doors leading out and deeper into the Geofront. Shinji was alone, surrounded almost entirely by negative influences. Even himself. Especially himself.

Rei turned for the doors and stepped into her shoes, already contemplating how to break through the quarantine.

* * *

Five thousand seats filled the auditorium, and each had been filled with an eager, attentive student. For a moment she wondered if the her Awe-Inspiring-Technique had been too much, but she discarded the thought as soon as it fully formed. She lifted her arms for attention, sunlight catching her accessories with a sparkle, and five thousand breaths rose in collective gasp to fall silent like a wave. The great secrets of the world were hers to impart upon the next generation.

His eyes refocused abruptly, fast enough that he felt his irises contract. Concepts and plans boiled in the back of his brain as he blinked away the fugue. It hadn't hurt, exactly, but the isolated office looked darker regardless. Scanning for a bare surface to record his fleeting understanding, he instead saw a pair of patient, red eyes. Rei, of course. She must have been standing there for some time. The corner vent cover swung by one screw behind her head.

No matter- now he had an audience.

Wiping a wall clean with one hand and readying a fresh marker in the other, Shinji lectured. "It's that language locked in my head. I can see it, read it, but I can't say it. The concepts are there!"

He scribbled a new symbol, barely conscious of Rei watching from under his arm. A compact ideogram built out of marker strokes appeared beneath his hand, but he drew it oversized, big enough to cover a foot square section of the white surface. The calligraphy was immaculate, drawn out of some place that went beyond mere memory or instinct. Like the word had been left behind for him to bring out at that moment.

Three interlocking symbols made it up, and Shinji spoke as he finalized each line. "It's a vital component for advanced alchemical reactions, this concept here. I know the literal meaning of its parts, but the whole escapes me!"

Another section of old notes gave way to more drawings. A triangle first, then a group of curving lines that cupped each other. A tapered square ended these sequence as a sentence-phrase made of symbols. "Down-Fire-Stone. That's what these things mean."

He tapped the triangle. Against all conventional wisdom the narrow point was facing up, toward the ceiling. "I know this means down... but..." Shinji trailed off, mumbling faintly. Sketching out another icon nearby, he frowned. "These both mean down... But they're different."

"Differing perspectives?" Rei cocked her head to the side, and Shinji felt something akin to the overwhelming urge to hug her take over. A few seconds later, a significantly more rumpled Rei dropped back to the floor and Shinji snapped his fingers, grinning savagely. "Yes. Perspectives are key!"

The triangle-that-meant-down, he tapped that one first. "Down... Down from Above. Looking down and then 'down' from birds eye view? That makes sense in context of the other matching symbols." He drew three more triangles surrounding the first, all of their points facing inward and their widest edges on the outside.

"Up, down, left and right." Shinji breathed the words out and felt the rightness. The translation was still off, but he felt closer than he had in months. The other symbol for down was different. That one was 'Down in relation to me. Down There- Down the Hole. It was an adjective. A new nugget of understanding, and with it, progress.

But still, down-fire-stone. The concept vexed him. The thaumaturgical formula was for the refinement of base matter, and all that implied. It went past 'eerily similar' and moved right into 'convergent principles'. Conversion of lead to gold, which the formula stated was possible if difficult, had also been the driving goal of actual alchemy in Earth's history.

Shinji looked up at the wall and the mark on his brow flared up for a moment. He'd been carefully hoarding his reserves, keeping himself from draining too much. "Fire... Fire as a symbol. Heat maybe? A heated stone..." The actual pictograph itself was of a snarling skeletal face, bestial and wild with a burning crest. Not a lion's mane, but more feathers or the frill of lizards. Salamander perhaps.

He shook his head and scratched out some of the drawings and remade them. The symbol for fire and stone had been merged, like before with the completed concept-phrase. "A fiery stone? Beast of fire trapped in stone..." He squinted at the pictograph-creature, the way it seemed to hiss and spit for freedom. Anger, hunger, adrenaline, heat, warmth, life, and a thousand other words tumbled around as he tried to put them in working order.

Muttering under his breath had made another symbol pop into his mind. Rushing. A similar beast, with long lines representing muscle and leaping strides. Freedom, a freed monster. A fast fire. Pumping limbs. A fast fire boxed in by jagged lines. Not clouds but caves... Fast fire of the caves, rushed towards escape. Boiling with life and heat, a running fire of the underground... Hot blood of the earth!

Shinji stepped back from the wall and smiled, and a great sense of accomplishment welled up inside him. Rei crept up on one side. "You understand it?"

"Only when you have been speaking," she whispered. Odd, maybe she had a sore throat- no, a cursory examination just revealed overproduction of adrenaline and other fight-or-flight secretions. She was still the stunted-tree Rei he'd known for more than a year now. Glancing back at the wall, Shinji re-read the sentence. Down-blood-of-the-earth-stone... No he needed stone not blood of the earth!

Sighing roughly, he rewrote the symbol for stone again, but this time added a new line over the top of it almost as an afterthought. All together it looked like a box with the top line pinched in, and another line right above like a halo. The stroke itself was a jagged, ugly thing, lacking any artistry and looking like a child's first attempt at Hiragana.

"That... That's the symbol for pure stone. No, not pure, noble stone." He looked at the first fire-stone glyph, of the snarling lizard-skull face contained inside the box of stone. The extra line was easy enough to add. "Down-While-Looking-From-Above-Noble-Fire-Stone...."

Looking over at Rei, he shook his head. "I don't suppose that means anything to you?"

Rei just shook her head as well. Shinji sighed again and settled down into his chair, but his hands fell on the keyboard and he started typing. On his desk, a cage of white lab mice roused at the sound of the keys. Noses and paws picked through the bars with expectant stares, punctuated by squeaking.

More unwanted distractions, a routine which he warded off with a shake of his head. "No, no I'm alright."

"...I did not ask how you were, Ikari-kun."

Shinji blinked once, still typing. Rei was staring at him, unblinking and visibly concerned. She was emoting much more openly these days, and much easier to read. Refreshingly so. The mice squeaked again and he laughed lightly. Focusing back on Rei he shrugged.

"Sorry, I've just been hurting for some decent conversation, I started talking to them." He waved to the cage. "Turns out they talk back? Far less frustrating to deal with than scientists. They don't demand answers, only food and company. I give them both, and they will die for my goals. A good working relationship. Efficient."

Rei just nodded once, seeming to take that at face value. Good, means he didn't have to waste time on unnecessary explanations. A few more minutes and he'd be done updating his progress on language decoding and further thaumaturgical study. He looked up at the clock, eager to save power. Two hours to his next project review.

Thinking about his schedule reminded him of how often people were interested in delays. Suspicion built up in the back of his mind, and Shinji's eyes narrowed.

His hands hesitated at the keyboard for a moment before resuming, but harsher, more purposeful. With the rush of discovery finally cooling, he filled in the blanks with a steady surge of realization. Rei was here. His new audience was more than just a receptacle for his ideas, she had found her own way in.

Shinji's voice stayed as low as his eyes, never leaving the screen. "My father sent you, I guess. Wanting a firsthand account of everything here. We're useless to each other."

He distantly heard the stutter pump of a blood-pressure spike, and zeroed in on it. "All of this scares you, doesn't it? Me progressing is frightening or something. 'Shinji has to spin his wheels' for everyone to feel normal. You want me back out there again, don't you. Where I can be monitored safely."

Rei just shook her head, and her eyes hardened. Not against him, he noted, but more just out of an increasing sense of conviction. "No, Ikari-kun. I just do not want you to be alone."

* * *

Hours passed. Shinji had allowed Rei to remain, under the condition that she do nothing to disrupt his progress. In his increasingly focused state, the single thing he did not block from her was the opened vent. It was a chance for escape that she silently refused. The girl shadowed him where able, observing and listening by turns. She had been denied freedom to go where she wanted within his domain, or to see the other personnel. Her presence would have encouraged 'dissension' which Shinji desired least. She watched him drift between fugue and long, rambling rants. Sometimes they were directed toward her, sometimes towards the mice on his paper-strewn desk... and sometimes towards people who did not exist.

Every distant comment or hyperactive shift in tone helped build a stronger, more complete and unsettling image of the present Shinji in Rei's mind.

With Ritsuko and the rest of NERV outside the barricade, a lack of information gave way to full paranoia. More prototypes appeared almost without cause in Ritsuko's now-abandoned lab, and its screens remained active, where insistent progress reports were pushed out and went no further. The scientist herself had rounded up a team of her own technicians and crew, taking axes to the fiber-optic cables surrounding the quarantined Geofront. Bit by bit they cut the connection between Shinji and the MAGI, and shut down wireless access across the Geofront. Even so, with his limited resources and worrisome grasp of instantaneous mass creation, the head of Project E feared Shinji would soon build his own MAGI.

His division had all the brains he needed.

Inside the domain of Ikari Shinji, scientists and engineers worked to exhaustion and past it, driven by twisted morale. Left with nothing but the project, over the course of hours each began to equate their happiness with progress. Every success that kept Ikari satisfied in his ivory tower office was welcomed and praised, anything to keep the boy from stalking between workstations with a critical eye. His approval became their paramount concern, as it fluctuated so harshly with the research quota.

Night came and went under Tokyo-3. Shifts changed and NERV slept, some less than others. unseen by anyone, the siege clock in the Commander's office ticked over to the sixth day.

* * *

Ritsuko coughed wetly and glared at the full ashtray... and the old mug of coffee that had also overflowed with cigarette butts. Maintaining successful stress-management practices seemed to be a failing throughout NERV. Leaning back in her chair inside a distant, secondary lab, free of baleful prototypes, Ritsuko held the stretch until her back popped audibly.

Not that there was anyone else to hear- she had the space to herself. Maya had been tasked with purging Shinji's influence from the protected MAGI. He may have been brilliant, but the boy lacked Maya's experience. Turning back to her desk, Ritsuko curled forward and sighed. Sleep hadn't come easy, but the pressure point vitalizing technique still worked in a pinch.

She felt her nose scrunch up at that, and Ritsuko wondered just when she had begun to accept Shinji's little revolutions as a fact of life. Thaumaturgical coffee and fatigue-banishing reflexology were such small, human things, it was easy to forget how much he had changed things. A kid's answer to problems, but their impact had been unmistakable. Now she and the rest of NERV had to contend with the fact that Shinji might not always work for NERV, or with.

A stack of papers thick with annotations and sticky notes stood nearby. Rolling over, she skimmed the first sheet and let it drop with disgust. Psychological reports from Section Two analysts and NERV's own medical staff. Useful to someone, she supposed, but not her. Neurology needed things like brain scans and the like for proper diagnosis. But if she could not attack the human side of the problem, then she'd focus on the strange side.

Sliding back, Ritsuko reached out for the one container of Shinji's power. Secured in a nearby locker were a set of prototypes she had made- third generation soul-pattern cameras. Studying the Angel Computer had been just what she needed to advance the new technology. Sliding the cover open, Ritsuko revealed the single incandescent flake of power and lit up the darkened lab.

The science itself came easily to her. Observe, record, repeat. Even a year after Shinji had Exalted, Ritsuko was still only comfortable in gathering data. Idle speculation aside, she had not bothered to develop any sort of universal hypothesis. She set the cameras up and took her photos. She captured a control image of her arm, much like a dozen others she had taken over the past few months.

Sending the information into deeper parts of the MAGI, Ritsuko waited for the results. She eyed the candle-bright quantum of power and hummed. "Maybe you can tell us what's going on with Shinji..."

With almost no demands on its time or resources, the supercomputers returned with the false color image files. Hitting a few keys, Ritsuko pushed them to the monitors that took up one wall. The problems with the rest of the Geofront seemed distant, in the face of exploring the unknown. Squinting, she re-ordered the images, comparing each of them one by one.

The first generation cameras could have only seen the soul as not really any sort of visual information. They weren't grabbing reflected particles off of spiritual matter, or at least that was what she had thought. From the first images she had discovered the two-soul structure of mankind, along with Shinji's own third part. The second iteration had provided more resolution, able to glean more information which in turn allowed her to assign more meaning to what she had found. Those refinements had also enabled the improved blood-wave pattern detectors, which themselves could track Shinji's presence and activity throughout Tokyo-3. His 'Pattern Green'.

Now though she stared at the latest set of photos, taken less than five minutes ago, and wondered if she had somehow made a mistake. Writing a quick script, Ritsuko ordered the MAGI to pick and plot densities of the green pattern from the images. On each screen, the false colors intensified, like a thermographic camera, and information unfolded in scrolling boxes around hotspots and cold zones.

The MAGI extrapolated without further command, reaching into archives for similar data. A graph appeared, dated March 2015. From those first days and the most basic of soul sensory technology, the computers assigned the value of 'baseline one'.

Ritsuko stared at the latest images, and their average rating of five. "...Why is there more pattern green here?"

Every picture showed an increase in green pattern saturation across the whole viewing angle. Impossibly so. Taking a steadying breath, Ritsuko reminded herself that one data point does not constitute a result. Tamping down her thoughts, the obvious answer was soon taken care of, by closing the power container and leaving the room dark. Process of elimination had seen her through many issue with Project E, and it would see her though this.

Another set of photos followed the first, and then another from the lab down the hall. A stack of evidence quietly grew as she worked, the methodological, almost ritualistic process giving her something to focus on besides the potential implications of what her discovery might mean. Finally, with larger sample size in hand, she pressed the compile key, leaving all her hopes to the rigors of calculation. She had done all she could. Leaning against a bare bit of laboratory wall, Ritsuko sighed and pat down her coat and skirt for another pack of cigarettes. Empty, of course.

The updated set of photos came in not long later, and Ritsuko felt her cheeks go pale and cold. "No change in levels from all samples. Removing the source of pattern green did not result in perceptible change."

She even looked at the second photo of her arm, and the levels were again identical, and more importantly, higher than one year ago.

* * *

Twenty minutes of searching lead to Ritsuko finding no cigarettes and far too much coffee. Half the evening shift were running on the drink, and she honestly did not want to be one of them, not right then. She did however find Rei in one of the hallways. The girl was more than a bit dusty, smudged with dirt and oil across her whole body, coughing into her hand. The scientist took a moment to eye the girl, looking for signs of lost cohesion or worse. The infusion pump hanging from the pilot's side was working apparently, and the stabilizing LCL solution still worked. Small favors for her, apparently.

She watched the girl finish coughing and start to dust off her skirt. Rei was usually less concerned about such things, and often more deferent. When was the last time Rei hadn't acknowledged a superior's presence...?

Ritsuko's hand started to tingle, and she thought back to the previous day. "Ayanami. Why did you grab my hand?"

The girl looked up, not fast enough to be surprised, but alert and intent. "You were hyperventilating. I considered it a reasonable gesture of support."

Had she been hyperventilating? Ritsuko honestly couldn't remember considering Gendo's presence as well as Shinji's trampling through her best security. She could have handled mortal terror, rationalized it as an outmoded fight or flight response. That option hadn't been available though. Rei however proved to be a present and far more soluble concern. Ritsuko tried to keep her face and voice neutral.

Her expression must have shown regardless, because Rei cocked her head to one side before speaking. "Is something wrong, Akagi-sensei?"

Ritsuko wiped a hand down her face absentmindedly, mirroring some of the smudges on the girl's face. That hand, she noted inwardly. "I'm... afraid I might be more magic than previously thought."

Saying it out loud seemed to break something open, and half the compartments Ritsuko shoved her thoughts and feelings into started to spill out.

I am not up to the task of running herd on this kind of bullshit. The thought shot through her mind and stuck, and Ritsuko half-felt the almost vindictive smile take over her face. She was venting now, thank you very much. That's why Misato was here, to manage personnel and related affairs. Stalking around the hallway, she started to pace, more march and throw her arms up along with the unvoiced rant. No more closed gestures and aloofness- she was a woman and she could breath fire with the best of them.

And she was a scientist! Her job was to make the results happen. She did not write either of her doctorate theses on reality-warping teenage superhumans. Rei was still standing pat even as Ritsuko stomped in loose circles. The taller woman cast a shadow that shifted with her proximity to lights and wall, and her breathing grew more and more ragged while her lips moved silently.

Finally she came to a stop facing a wall and let her forehead thump solidly against it. A thousand problems- Shinji, NERV, Angels and Evangelions....

"....And now my only confidant.... Ritsuko turned her head and shot the girl a dark look. "is Yui."

Then Ritsuko blinked once and realized what she had just said. Rei stared at her, the girls own eyes slightly widened and focused. For her- Ritsuko supposed- that was just about as close to outright, wild-eyed shock. The silence stretched out between them for another long moment, and Ritsuko felt the blood and adrenaline drain out of her body and into somewhere near her feet. It left her limbs cold and leaden.

Rei just raised her hand to lips and coughed lightly. "I am not competing with you, not as Ayanami Rei or Ikari Yui. Not at all."

Still close enough to the wall, Ritsuko let her head thump against the cool surface once more. "What."

"Whom you engage in romantic or sexual intercourse with is none of my business. Truly." Rei's expression had barely changed, but she spoke clearly. The surreality of the statement did nothing to help the scientist's calm.

Staring past her hair, Ritsuko sighed, physically and emotionally drained. "You're not supposed to know that. Any of that, least of all that."

The girl just shrugged in response, eerily like Misato's casualness and Asuka's egocentric disdain. "I am not supposed to know many things. It has been tiresome."

A handful of previous inconsistencies suddenly started to make sense, now that Ritsuko thought about it. She stared at the pilot, wondering what sort of personality let themselves just walk towards certain death without flinching.

Cocking her head to the opposite side, Rei's eyebrows slanted down slightly. Not an angry look, but an intent one. "As a scientist, you as well should know that attempting to understand is purposeless without the knowledge of why it needs to be understood."

Ritsuko pulled back from the wall and looked at her arm, thinking back to the higher pattern saturation and not knowing. "Yeah. Yeah, I do."

That was it then. Ritsuko looked over at the girl and felt her anger melt away. Actually taking a moment to really see, Ritsuko was finally able to put a cause to her sudden fits of compassion. Rei was still a child, and now the scientist saw that. Ritsuko felt her stomach churn and bile made the back of her throat burn, but she forced it back. She thought back and wondered, just when had it started. When had Rei stopped being predictable.

The doll-like girl had shed her programming a long time ago, it seemed, and only now was it becoming obvious. The pilot had broken free of the data plot and easy categorization and had become a person. Sighing, Ritsuko stood up straighter and locked eyes with the First Child. There were wheels turning behind those large red eyes now, that much was clear. Thoughts and ideas that Ritsuko had no basis for guessing. The girl's neutral, indifferent attitude had become a disguise around NERV, and Rei had taken it off long enough to give Ritsuko a look past. At the moment, the scientist was too tired to analyze away a plainly open expression of empathy.

"I'm sorry, Ayanami-san." The honorific was sincere that time, instead of habitual politeness.

Still alone in the hallway, the pair stood quietly. In some ways Ritsuko felt lighter, like a handful of burdens had fallen off her shoulders. New weights had piled on right after, but it was different. And maybe, just maybe, she had a chance to shed those too.

From her own patch of floor, Rei looked up at the older woman. Dust had settled in clumps throughout the girl's blue hair. "Akagi-sensei... How do you encourage someone to listen to you? Especially when they aren't..."

Ritsuko just slumped against the nearest bit of wall, sliding down til her knees and ankles locked. Gendo never listened, Fuyutsuki humored her, and her mother barely gave her the time of day. A lifetime of interaction came down to a few thin connections and an apartment full of cats. The last decent conversation she'd had among peers instead of hierarchy had been nearly ten years ago, back in college...

Tilting her head, Ritsuko gave Rei a wan grin. "The secret to getting someone to listen to you, is to listen to them. To express interest in what they like and not drag the conversation towards you. For Ryoji Kaji it was girls. Misato liked cars...." For Shinji though, or Gendo.... She left the specifics unsaid.

"...Sometimes you have to do something more difficult. Challenge a belief or ideal- do something big enough so they'd stop and pay attention." Her tone went rueful then, and she looked up to the ceiling. "I suppose all of us need a bit of a... shock to the system, every once in a while."

Facing Rei one last time, Ritsuko gave her an intent look. "To get someone out of an unhealthy cycle, you need to break the conditions that enable it."

* * *

Nutrient stores were sufficient, schedule changes were happening on time with minimal fuss, and every hand had the right tool for the job. Ikari Shinji walked through his fabrication halls and breathed deep, content with his progress. New and better MAGI modules were being assembled by the hour, and almost ready for their use as computational refractors for their prisoner elsewhere in the Geofront.

Brahmin of Lifebreath-circuit technology worked hand in hand with sorcerer-engineer, bent over gleaming desks of gold-banded oak and mahogany. Rune-scrived harnessing crystal were buoyed aloft by immaculate aerial conveyance paths, safely ensconced in protective wards against all impurities. She considered the hurdle of acquiring the last vital component.

The Creatormented would buck their chains at her audacity, and raise their muted voices to cleave starlight in their fruitless rage. Even only as mere remnants, this could still sear the souls of mortalkind, stripping back the layers like blackened and curling paper until only a husk remained. She was no mortal, however, and had wrapped her soul in unbreakable sapphire long ago.

Nevertheless, braving the prisonshell gates openly was a fool's errand. The captured Angelic intelligence was secured deep within Central Dogma, beneath hundreds of meters of rock, earth and metal. Wandering around his secure zone, Shinji considered the floor, and the logistics of simply building a secure tunnel towards his objective. His was the constant of destruction, no obstacle could stand in his way.

Certain that his forces could continue the assembly without further oversight, Shinji headed for his secure office. His mice were making good progress on basic addition and subtraction, and they deserved a reward.

The door opened without a sound, and every surface threw up a dazzlingly reflected wash of sunlight from on high. Open walls lead to balconies and blue skies, while Halycon dripped from every surface. Self-wetting silks clung to her body and eagerly drank in the enchanted breeze. The best way to beat the deep south-western heat, she considered. Bound attendants flocked to her every need as she queried the cogitation arrays for status of her great works. The Four Hundred Parables of Lifebreath spread like wildfire across the world- such was the sign of progress.

Rei had been waiting, it seemed, freshly smudged with dust and grime from the vents. "Good, you're here. Perhaps you can help me!"

Shinji nudged chair and desk out of the way with his feet, easily moving the furniture to the walls with heavy moves. The mice in the tank squeaked, thrilled and frightened by turns, and he quieted them with a terse apology. Clear space made, he started tapping his heel into the floor, gauging the industrial tile and construction of the floor.

"I need to go down- to get out of here." The grin worked its way across his face and he had no reason to hide it. "Do you know what's beneath this chamber? I don't need to know but-"

Shinji had closed his eyes on that last word, and that was the only reason he felt the surge of fast-moving air before impact. It'd been so long, months since he'd felt anything like that. Pain radiated out from his cheek in a hot, prickling wave. Liquid nitrogen on his arms had barely blistered, and he fought through multiple gunshot wounds.

With his eyes open, he watched Rei let her arm fall to the side. The blue-haired girl stood there in mussed and soiled clothes, and for the first time Shinji could see sorrow on her face. Which was right to feel, because she'd just slapped him. Shinji took a reeling step back, off balance more by the absurdity than any sort of damage or inner-ear malfunction. Rei had slapped him. Right in the face.

The anger was slow but inevitable. While it built up, Shinji mouthed the obvious question. "W-Why?!"

Rei stood tall, all four feet three inches of her, unflinching. "This is not the path to progress. NERV does not need two Commander Ikari."

She locked eyes with him and set her jaw. Every shift in her expression was small, and for most people it would have barely registered as emoting, but he could read her like a book. Frustration- with herself. Apprehension, resolution. She sucked in a quick breath, and her eyes shone bright under her hair. "For years I had not cared, except to die and live and die again."

He mouthed the words like they was a strange foreign thing. Maybe it was- he hadn't made progress with care and affection, ever. Rei continued speaking, and her brows angled down more and more.

"I still feel things though, Ikari-kun. Especially now. " She pressed a hand up to her chest and gripped her shirt. "I care about you- but I only have the basic terms to express it."

Shinji shook off the initial confusion, surging forward in a rush of wrath and sheer bodily mass. One hand grabbed the girl by the front of her shirt, lifting her up and letting her toes dangle. "You care?! You slap me, and more importantly waste my time because you care?!"

Hanging by the breaking stitches of her shirt, Rei lifted both her hands to rest on his forearm, and looked Shinji dead in the eye once more. "I care, because I can see you hurt. Yourself and others. I care, because I am your friend, Ikari-kun, and I cannot allow you to hurt like this anymore."

With that last declaration, Rei shut her eyes and waited.

There was an unexpected emptiness, and for the first time in ten-score years her attention faltered. Breath catching in her throat, she twisted to face the cloudless southern sky... and squinted into the glare. Accusingly she stared harder into the fiery light, though it stung her eyes in ways it had not for an Age or longer. She was undeserving.

Blinking rapidly, Shinji took a step back and let the girl go. She landed with hardly any sound. The boy looked over his office, the desk full of diagrams and the walls covered with a mad hash of notes and brainstormed ideas. Behind him the door to the rest of the lab stood closed, but he could still see past it. His vision blurred as unshed tears welled.

A wave of something built up in his stomach, hard and nauseatingly awful enough to bring him to his knees. Still staring at the door, he realized it was shame. "I've done everything wrong."

That morning's half-digested nutrient bar came up with a vengeance, and Shinji doubled over. Wiping the bile from his mouth he looked up at Rei, sobbing silently. Rising to his feet, he stepped forward and brought one bare foot down. With his stance set he faced the wall and flexed that inner reserve and expressed the old techniques.

The wall gave way in one blow. A wide and ragged hole appeared beneath his fist, and fresh Geofront air swept into the once-sealed office. The sudden gust tossed papers and whipped at their clothes. Rei's ponytail snapped under the strain and let her hair fall loose around her shoulders. Shinji lashed out again, kicking and punching down the wall between him and the rest of the world.

Breathing heavily and with his gold brand glowing freely, Shinji stood in the dust of his work. One whole wall and the former door to the rest of his lab had been destroyed. Past the wreckage he saw his employees, men and women he had worked with for months before, and then into the ground for the last week. He saw them as they were- haggard, sick. A half-dozen different strains of cold or flu ran through the populace- sicknesses he had refused to treat. The nausea returned in earnest.

"All of you- I'm sor-" He buckled over and heaved, sick again. Looking up Shinji threw out his arm toward the gaping tear. "You're free to go. Go!"

Slowly, the scientists and engineers stood up from their desks on shaky legs, rubbing their throats and eyes. The hallway lights were bright, and hadn't been corroded over with constant corona exposure. They stepped gingerly past Shinji, helping each other past the rubble and into the light. It didn't take long for black suited Section Two agents to swarm the breach, or for Free-Geofront personnel and medics to pile in behind.

Rei knelt down next to him and pushed her small hand into his much larger one. He glanced over and her and blinked, still crying. She just squeezed his hand, nodding once. "Let's go home, Ikari-kun."

Shyft · Jun 10, 2014

Two days passed over Tokyo-3.

Sunlight at the height of summer baked the streets and the glass surfaces scattered the heat down and out. Great bands of rippling air spiraled up into the sky, carrying the last bits of spring pollen. Those who lived and worked within the surface towers and densely packed industrial blocks went about their business as usual.

To the vast majority of the fortress-city, the trials underground had remained unnoticed, and only the thinnest rumors made it to the surface. A hundred families seethed quietly, or let themselves feel freedom after the long week in the Geofront.

Down in the streets at dusk, men and women in slick suits and fantastic gowns stuck to the shadows and thin alleys. Tradecraft was paramount, and the coveted multiple-fake out and the equally long con were in full effect. Block by block the agents and infiltrators made their way deeper into the city. They savored the irony of breaching a fortress through the weakest link, its people. Some were glamorous, others nondescript and easily unseen. A lamentable few stood out as burakumin, and were actively ignored even in the most modern city in Japan.

Surrounded on three sides by mountains, proper night came quickly in Tokyo-3. Ashinoko's shores lit up orange and blue as the sun set, and the temperature dropped slowly. Nights downtown were muggy. Overhead and out on the street, gaudy neon signs marked clubs and upscale restaurants, catering to the military-industrial interests of Tokyo-3. Past the flashing lights and bright civilian foot traffic, hulking bouncers stood guard over shadow-filled open doorways.

The rich and the powerful enjoyed the greatest distractions- secret casinos held under the nose of the most powerful man in Japan. They however were a petty lot, and their wealth and prestige only amounted to so much. True power in Tokyo-3 was information. It was the home of the thief and operator. They drank in the ambiance and dined on the potential for intrigue. This was life, they thought, of knowing things they weren't supposed to. Knowledge moved between hands, stuff of pure value.

There was much to know, and even more to prepare for.

In ones and pairs, they walked in to one such casino like they owned the place, because they would soon enough. Planning was a mere formality, but formality was something the hierarchy had grown something of an affection for. So they donned their new skins, new lives and embraced that affection for the time being. Attendants appeared out of shadow and through low palls of smoke, hanging off of every word and shoulder, or safely in laps where appropriate.

Speaking with languages not meant for the listening, and paying with money not their own, the infiltrators grinned.

* * *

Hot July sun beat down on the back of his neck, and for once, Shinji enjoyed the sensation. Walking through the gates of Tokyo-3 Municipal High, he wondered when he'd last felt proper daylight. His skin hadn't lost any color at least, what with spending months underground. Everything looked so bright after all that time. Bright and new. Heading to familiar territory had seemed like a good idea, to ease into some old routines and maybe make new ones. The school had opened for lunch when he arrived, easily waved through as alumni and on his pilot status. There had really been no problem with him being on campus.

The stares though, he wasn't so sure about.

Looking at it rationally it wasn't so surprising- he had tested out of junior high and high school outright, and had earned more than enough credits via correspondence to qualify for a degree. All of which lead to him having stopped going to school… Shinji stopped for a moment near a bench and thought about it. One minute. Two.... and he realized he couldn't even remember the last time he'd been on the grounds. Or even above ground.

And that lead to the almost deafening silence of the student body. More than three dozen teenagers and more than a few faculty all kept an interested eye on him. Shinji wilted slightly, hunching down by half inches. Funnily enough, once he'd fallen into an apparently familiar pattern, the scrutiny all but vanished. The dense crowd chest-high teenagers that filled the courtyard all seemed to scatter like fog at noon.

Shinji straightened and scratched his head at that, bemused. "Huh."

Ambling further into the school grounds, Shinji made his way past the main buildings, waving tentatively to a few people here and there. Most of them he'd spoken to once or twice in passing. Others he'd met after his first... episode, or the terrorist attack. Finding himself in the cafeteria, he nodded to Kensuke. The devout student of military history was still swamped by girls and comfortably riding on the fame he'd earned six months ago.

Crossing through a familiar hallway, he caught the hints of old damage. Things NERV and the city council hadn't smoothed over. No bullet holes or anything like that, though. More things like peculiar scratches along the walls, or a ceiling beam that wasn't quite true. Rounding a corner, he almost ran into a shide. The folded paper charm had been strung up to the ceiling, and Shinji was the only one tall enough to have ever been at risk of hitting it. Blinking once, he bat at it with one hand, bemused. Someone followed Shinto practices it seemed.

The bell for the next class rang and almost immediately, every hall was full of teenagers. Still bemused, Shinji watched as they rushed to and fro, easily weaving around while he stood beneath the bit of traditional papercraft. In some ways it felt distant, being so tall and broad around everyone. Distant in other ways too. As the last few students slid back into their classrooms, Shinji hummed to himself and headed outside toward the athletic field. There were far more traumatic ways to get used to life than a campus tour.

Crossing onto the field, Shinji saw the track team running a lap on the far side with Toji among the leading handful of runners. The grass had been freshly cut, and the rubber-surfaced track smelled faintly of old sunbaked tires. Snorting faintly, he hunkered down to take a closer look, mulling over the material properties. It felt good to let his mind actually wander, instead of just compulsively clamp down on idea after idea.

A shout from somewhere in the center field made him look up though, and he saw a cluster of other students stand up in arms. Some girls had been waiting in line for the pole vault it seemed when someone on the track team had started heckling them. Ears perked, he caught something about an 'old married couple' .... Hikari's iconic pigtails were hard to miss in the crowd of incensed girls, and whatever else the guys had said must have hit her real close to home. Toji ducked in on himself while and started to run harder, even as the class representative started in on the rest of the runners she could catch, already worked up enough to peel paint from the walls.

Watching all of that, Shinji found himself frowning, realizing that he had no idea what to think about it all. While it wasn't right to just shrug, it was all he could do right then. A few seconds later Shinji found himself staring up at the clear blue sky, blinking away dust and grit, with his clothes and face stamped by cleats. Rolling to one side, he watched a horde of teens in protective gear and round wire-faced helmets run away, laughing along the track en-masse.

The track team rounded the turn and breezed past him while Toji came to a stop, braced on his hands and knees and huffing. Shinji sat up then and scratched his head, and a bit of rubber and grassy turf dropped off his cheek. "I thought swimming, track and basketball were our big sports clubs?"

Still panting, Toji just shrugged. "Nobody tells me anythin'."

* * *

It was novel, taking time out for herself.

Smeared with grease and dressed down in her rattiest clothes, Rei poured more and more of herself into her hobby. Raising a restored part to her face, she blew off the dust, smiling softly. Late-afternoon sunlight filtered through the high windows cut into the garage walls, scattering through the moving clouds of fine grit. She smiled through sudden brightness. Setting the part aside, the girl wiped a hand across her brow before leaning back, stretching languidly. Her infusion pump and harness cuddled up against her side as she moved, but it never once caught or tugged.

Feeling her spine pop and the tension drain out of her back, Rei could say she believed without a doubt that skipping school was the best thing she could have done.

Weeks prior, Shinji had turned his attention to the space, tearing down most of everything and building it up anew. Her car and Misato's Renault sat in pride of place, where hydraulic lifts could push them up for maintenance or anything their owners wanted. Rei found herself smiling wider as she took in wall after wall of tools, from hand-made wrench sets all the way up to a small if fully functional machine shop. Shinji had promised her- if there was a part that could not be bought, their garage could make it, and if that garage could not, he could.

Sitting up and slapping the dust and grit off her legs, the girl stepped around the workbench, throwing her boot-clad feet around. Laughing silently, she walked around the garage and her car, adding in lazy twirls and spins. She held a hand to her chest, and wondered if the tight-but-light feeling was what Misato meant by having a song in your heart.

Coming to a stop near a concrete pillar, Rei found herself eye-level with a decade-old fireman's calendar. A joke on Misato's part, she was sure. July's winsome smile was just one among a dozen other calendars, race-queen magazine centerfolds and automotive posters hanging from every free surface. They were dog-eared at the corners and crinkled in places, but somehow, the wear and tear made them all look more real to her. Spinning one more time, Rei took in the garage and found herself smiling even wider. Her hand came down to the grease-stained hem of her tanktop and the ragged gap she'd earned while digging around her car's empty engine bay.

She was starting to fray too. The thought pleased her in a way she couldn't quite name.

Peeling her gloves off, she stuffed them in her back pocket and turned, only to bump face-first into a warm wall of human. Stepping back and rubbing her nose, she looked up past Shinji's collarbone. The boy had barely moved at impact.

Rei's smile shifted then to something smaller, but no less meaningful. "How are you, Ikari-kun?"

"Fine. So..." He trailed off and offered her a shy grin of his own. He looked less haunted, willing to make eye contact and keep it. A good sign, she believed. The boy scratched the back of his head and glanced around. "You about ready for dinner? I think I'm about ready to make dinner."

The smile came back in full force, and she nodded. She wondered if it were possible to feel her own eyes shining. "Dinner sounds great."

* * *

Dinner preparations were uneventful. Rei had ducked off to take a shower, leaving him with more than enough time to really put some effort in.Coated in lambent sunfire, one hand worked on a vegetarian stir-fry with eggs and tofu. Conventionally speaking the combination wasn't exactly something one would find out in the world, but Rei needed the protein, among other things. Moving between skillets and pots, Shinji paid every dish the exact amount of attention it deserved.

Fully engaged in that moment, Shinji found himself falling into a state of almost total awareness. Counting the bubbles from the sauces as they simmered proved to be a perfect timer and gauge of temperature all in one. The kitchen smells and sounds told him everything he needed to know- the meal cooked itself, and only needed him as an impartial observer.

In some ways though it was a retreat, an hour where he could turn his mind away from everything and instead focus on nothing, and hopefully leave whatever had scared him behind. Today though there was something different.

Fresh from the shower and thankfully dressed, Rei had stepped in and pulled her still-damp hair up into the standard tail. The tiny girl leaned around with equally small motions. Reserved was the best word that Shinji could think of. Still, he found himself smiling at the interest. "It'll be ready in a few minutes."

She smiled at that and nodded, not quite skipping over to set the table. Not that she really knew how to skip, however. Pilot training and years of swimming counted for a lot of grace though. When she was finished, he turned off the burners faster than one could blink and moved to serve. An hour of miraculous effort lead to a near-banquet for two, spread out across the kitchen table.

They ate quickly and silently, and Rei smiled wider after every bite. Weeks before, Misato had gone on at length that the meals he'd made were too good to delay with small talk. Shinji had to admit he enjoyed the smiles and praise more than the food itself, though. Servings for three men ended up on his plate along with pan-seared beef. Rei may have been vegetarian, but he liked well-prepared meat as much as Misato. The girl across the table never made anything of it. Taking another bite, Shinji settled into his chair, suddenly realizing it was the first time he'd had a full stomach in weeks. He chewed slowly, eager to savor the feeling.

Picking now at the last bits and with no food to distract them, the silence started to wear. Shinji coughed lightly. "So... "

Looking up, Rei let out an almost imperceptible burp, and a hand shot up to her mouth. He blinked once and smiled despite himself, and was sure neither of them could say where she picked up the gesture. A bit of red built up on her cheeks and vanished just as quickly. "....So."

The moment stretched between them, drawing tight enough until Shinji snapped, snickering low to start and building to a full, watery laugh. It proved to be contagious, and Rei's shoulders shook silently. When the giggles died down, she licked her lips and spoke. "How do you feel, Ikari-kun?"

"Okay.... And not." He pushed what little remained on his plate around fitfully. "Just... wanting to put some distance between me and.... Me."

Sighing, he shook his head. "That's not right.... I need to get away from being... that, but I was that." He exhaled again, this time more harshly. Like the last episode, the whole thing had felt amazing, and he'd explained that to Rei and his friends months ago during the terrorist attack. "Going to out into the city helped, but I can't just avoid everything either."

"It often wears on a human to leave things unresolved." Rei spoke softly, and Shinji looked up. Sometimes she said things like that, falling into an odd turn of phrase.... He put it aside for the moment, accepting that Rei was Rei. She took a tiny, artful sip of her tea, looking all the world like an ancient feudal empress, tank-top and short-shorts notwithstanding.

She set her drink down and locked eyes with him. "There is not much you can do about it at the moment, and little point in over-thinking the matter."

Her eyes cut up to the wall clock next to the chore calendar. Five after eight. Something of a late dinner, he supposed. Looking back at Rei, he did kind of wonder just where she was going with that. The answer came rather quickly. "Right now, I think sleep seems to be the best course of action."

Blood drained out of his face, and suddenly all the good food in his stomach felt like a leaden weight. "I... Don't think that's a good idea..."

He trailed off, watching her step away from the table and move to clean up. Rei didn't give him a chance to join in or even put a word in edgewise. He hunched over in his chair, more than a little worried while the other teen bustled about the kitchen. There wasn't any need to go to that much effort for him... "Listen, I still have the night terrors and I can go a couple more days without sleep. You don't need to-"

Rei just breezed by, utterly ignoring him as she ducked into the bedroom hallway. She came back a moment later with a rolled up futon mattress and bedding tucked under her arms. "I am not Misato-san, but I am a perfectly effective companion." Shinji felt his jaw unhinge, and Rei turned to look over her shoulder. "Come. Asuka-san has taught me the art of pillow-fortress construction."

At that declaration, Shinji heard his own train of thought skip tracks, and hot blood rushed back up into his cheeks. Still, he made an admirable effort of keeping his cool despite the non-sequitur. "I still don't think it's a good idea... I mean.... "

He trailed off helplessly, but still managed to make his reluctance abundantly clear. Rei just cocked her head, and her stare went flat, and her voice leveled out to its patented deadpan. "Do you expect or intend to ravish me?"

Train of thought fully derailed, Shinji blinked over and over while he tried to process whatever the hell that was. When finally got back into the present moment, he saw that in the living room, Rei was more than halfway done building an actual pillow fort. Glancing up at the clock, he realized ten minutes had passed. The tiny smile on her face turned out to be the last straw.

Sagging down in the dining room chair, he shot his roommate a dark look. "Misato has been a terrible influence on you."

Rei's answering smile was outright beatific. "As has Asuka-san and yourself, Shinji-kun. I consider myself all the better for knowing each of you."

Right then, Shinji felt like someone had taken a baseball bat in hand and knocked knocked his heart clean through his ribs. For all the intensity though, he could only call it good. Misato in her own way had made her approval clear, lots of gestures of affection, but to hear someone just say it... Something in his chest uncoiled and let go.

Still, another something stuck in his head. He looked at the half-built thing, openly hesitant. "I... think I'm a bit big for this"

Pulling away from the fort, Rei stood tall and gave him a no-nonsense look. "I am more than certain we can make a fortress suitable for two." She stepped around the couch to grab him by the wrist and tug him out of his seat.

Joining her wasn't much of an issue, seeing she needed to take two steps for every one of his. Leaving him standing and bemused before the defensive bedding wall, Rei pressed a pillow and bed sheet into his hands and pointed. Bemused and put to work, he hummed. "I mean more... I've never done this sort of stuff. It's kid stuff."

Between Rei's direction and a bit of his own Exalted ingenuity, they ended up with a sprawling tent-like affair strung between the couch and two spare chairs. She ducked back into the kitchen for a moment and came back with two bowls of chocolate ice cream, slathered in chocolate sauce.

Handing him one, Rei cocked her head to the side. She crawled through the open tent flap and onto her half of the futon, or what half was visible under the pile of cushions. Cradling her own bowl with painfully exaggerated care and sitting in the shadows, her eyes stood out as red points. "You did not do 'kid stuff', back where you lived before?"

When was the last time I did anything like this? Movie Night? That was June of last year or something, and nothing before. Easing under the front flap with bowl in hand, he flopped back on a pile of cushions under the stretched sheet canopy. "Not really..."

Just as he sat down, Rei made a rough show of a shrug. "Asuka-san is the extent of my experience in these matters."

About six or so compelling thoughts all crashed into each other right then and Shinji cut them all off at the root as fast as he could. Coughing, he fumbled and tried not to lose the syrup-covered spoon in the nest of cushions.
Swallowing and blushing red hot, Shinji felt his voice creak ominously as he tried to change the subject. "I miss Misato."

"As do I." She took moment to address her neglected treat before continuing. "I am curious. How does she help you sleep?"

Clamping a hand against his face, Shinji sputtered, but smiled past his fingers. "That's a... good question. Sometimes I wonder."

Rei stretched out on her stomach, cushioning her head on top of her folded arms. She looked up at him and blinked once, openly curious. Rubbing the back of his neck, Shinji mulled it over. "She helps me stay sane around here." He waved at the apartment. "Misato's why I can come back here and feel good. She's why this place is home."

He shrugged, but more out of a sense of what-was-would-be. "I guess she just gives me something else to focus on instead of the nightmares."

The clock ticked aware in the dining room. Even through the walls and past the hills, the two teenagers heard the all-clear sirens and the low rumble of Tokyo-3 shifting between modes. It was a familiar sound for both of them. Shinji himself had lived in the city for more than a year now, and so far protected it three times in open combat. Misato was always the one in the lead though, more than anyone....

Having said one thing made saying the next thing easier, and the thoughts started to bubble up. They dodged his complexes, and Shinji found himself smiling ruefully. "She drives me crazy though too. Misato I mean."

Coughing, he rubbed his nose to hide the blush. Rei just watched, intent but without a hint of judgement. That was probably the only reason he could even speak. "I've thought about her, you know." He waved a hand to complete the thought. Shaking his head, he let out a short, wry laugh. "She taunts me, of course. It's har-difficult, sometimes. I can't not notice her. Or other girls."

Rei propped herself up and nodded. "I am still missing something when contemplating attraction, but I do understand." She cocked her head to the side, and again the flat tone was deployed to full effect. "Misato-san does however have an undeniable presence. And figure."

Dragging a hand down his face and groaning, Shinji rolled back into his pile of cushions and laughed against his palm. "S-Someone must have owed her in a past life, because she doesn't look that good because of her diet."

Tilting her head in the other direction, Rei's tone lightened. She spoke softly, but it managed to carry a kind of reassurance. "Do you feel better for having admitted that?"

Looking over at Rei, he easily picked her out despite the shadows. She looked up at him, and he could see a bit of curiosity mixed with something else- triumph, perhaps. He thought it over for a long moment, then nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, I do."

Another weight dropped away at that, and he sucked in a low, calming breath. Between Rei's encouraging presence and the sudden relief, there was more than enough momentum to help pull his thoughts out. He sat up in a rush and Rei dropped back onto her side of the futon, bouncing lightly.

"You're really pretty, Rei." Leaning forward, he waved his hands largely at nothing.

Tongue-tied, he struggled to find the words he needed. He wanted to tell her how happy he was to get everything off his chest, to thank her for not being terrified when he waved his arms. Inadvertently putting himself on the spot, the groans and embarrassment had been taken over by terror that froze his gut solid when he realized just how much he was letting go. He glanced over at Rei, hoping to gauge her reaction. She just stared right back, not unkindly but intent.

Suddenly cold and shivering, the unwinding tension almost seemed to double back in on itself, clamping down in new ways. Shinji found that he couldn't stop though, once he started. For all the near-crippling intensity, it was a good feeling, trying to find the right thing to get what he meant across.

She needed to know, and he needed to say it, because it was true. "You're exotic, gorgeous even! I can say that, I'm able to, because you're a girl, but I don't see you as so uh... overwhelmingly attractive?"

A second after he finished speaking, he cringed. Shinji screwed his eyes shut and dared not to look, but his mouth started running again. Shinji grabbed himself by the metaphorical neck and squeezed, hard. Not that it helped.

His voice went higher and faster with every word, fumbling for the right explanation. "I mean, Misato wishes her legs could look as good in those shorts! Uh... or Ayumi's for that matter- she's the girl I'm dating!"

Rei was silent even as he dug himself in deeper. Under the fortress canopy and having turned all the lights off in the apartment, there was hardly any chance for her to see how far the blush went down his neck. "I mean that anyone would be lucky! To date you, or something!"

Spent, he flopped back and laid his arms across his eyes, painfully aware it did little to hide the way his face burned. "This isn't helping at all, I'm going to shut up."

"I understand." The blue-haired girl offered him a tiny, reassuring smile. "When you say things like that, I believe I can look ahead in my life without fear."

Hearing that, Shinji felt the mortification drain out along with the tension all throughout his back and shoulders. He let out a long ragged breath he hadn't remembered holding, and the back of his throat loosened up considerably. She caught his relieved look and smiled wider.

"I do agree with you regarding Saneda-san." her smile shifted to an almost impish grin, tracing lightly in the air with her spoon. "She shares with Misato-san something of a provocative presence. Could this be your 'Type'?"

Feeling his jaw unhinge, Shinji tracked the girl with his eyes as she finished off her melted bowl of ice cream. Twice- no three times now- that had to be deliberate. He'd been asked that very same question more than once, and he fell back on his tried and true response- blush more. Rei didn't seem to notice though, which certainly made calming down a lot easier.

"I am still practicing humor. I don't mean to overwhelm you either." Having scraped it clean, Rei set her bowl aside and sat on folded legs with her hands in her lap. "Even though she was the one to explain it to me, I believe Asuka-san's view on certain matters were... unrealistic. We are not consigned to attraction or acting upon it, just because we're of the opposite sex. I wasn't offended by anything you said."

A new wave of heat flared up the back of his neck, but the soaring feeling did a great job of balancing it out. Another part of him was honestly surprised, caught up in how open the other girl was, and somewhat envious. Rei rarely spoke, but when she did, she said things outright.

Bringing his knees and tucking them under his chin, Shinji draped his arms around his shins and sighed. The German pilot bothered him, enough that she might have even been the first person he'd gone off at. Frustration aside, he was glad she got off easy. "You bring up Sorhyu a lot."

Rei just nodded, pulling a pillow up into her lap and hugging it to her chest. It was an awkward movement, unrehearsed. "She is my friend, and I owe much of my current understanding to her, biases aside."

"And I don't understand her at all. Being nice to her didn't work, and shouting her down sure as hell didn't." Massaging his eyes with the heels of his hands, Shinji let out another long, suffering sigh. "I just don't know what to do."

The girl mirrored his own posture, but kept the pillow wedged between her chest and thighs. Crossing her arms over her knees, she laid her head on one forearm. "I don't think you try enough, Ikari-kun."

"That's just it, trying is scary!" He rolled up, wide eyed and piqued. "Ayumi does help. I'm glad that she pushes me, to go for more or whatever... but I can't afford to push myself. I can't do anything, because if I do I know there's almost no way for anyone to stop me!"

Rei was quiet for a long moment, and out the corner of his eye, he saw her watching him. Study was more like it. Her eyes remained the brightest points in the room. A year ago that much attention would have driven him up a wall, second-guessing every thought. He was right though- there was only one person who could stop him once he got going, and it sure as hell wasn't him. A tiny hand found one of his and tugged it out from around his legs, forcing him to look up at Rei as she inched a bit closer. His fingers burned under the contact, but for once, he didn't immediately want to pull away.

He was coming to realize that when it mattered, Rei didn't do ambiguous.

Giving his hand a reassuring squeeze, she tugged his attention back up to her face. "I believe you are underestimating those around you, and their resilience. More importantly, I believe you are underestimating yourself and your strength."

The earnest tone dropped away for her original deadpan one more time. "I would also say we have taken the same correspondence courses on basic psychology; Failure, Ikari-kun, is the best teacher.... and very little you can do would make people stop giving you a chance to succeed."

Huddled up in the fortress, Shinji sat there for a long quiet moment. The clock in the dining room seemed to tick louder as the apartment and neighborhood noises died down. The smallest trickle of his inner reserve told him the exact time; half-past midnight. Putting the sound out of his mind, he focused inward and started counting breaths- his and Rei's. He felt his heart slow as the time stretched out, falling into a two-step beat as he matched his rhythm to hers. There wasn't any why other than to do it, and it calmed him down with the simplicity.

Opening his eyes, Shinji looked to his left. Rei had kept her hand wrapped around his, leaving their arms stretched out between them. The compact black infusor clung to her bicep, and the bag of yellow medicine hung from her shoulder. The question came surprisingly easy. "How is the pump working out?"

Rei looked up and gave him a half-smile. "I do appreciate being able to sleep on my side once more."

Pushing a free hand through his hair. Morose and more than a little resigned, Shinji let out a ragged sigh. "I still want to just, magic it all away."

She frowned at that and opened her mouth to answer, but Shinji stopped her with a wan grin. He was always more confident when it came to medical matters, it seemed. "I know, I understand."

Mulling it over, he did wonder. Something she'd told him months ago popped back into his mind, juxtaposed against her own fits of grace and awkwardness. "You told me once you were made unfinished, right?"

Rei nodded once, and her eyes were wide and focused. Staying silent for a few seconds, Shinji looked at her sidelong, wry and feeling more than a bit foolish. Still, he couldn't quite shake the thought. "We're related, aren't we?"

Collapsing in on herself all at once, Rei's eyes dulled, and suddenly Shinji could only see the girl he'd met the day he'd come to Tokyo-3. The normally pale girl had gone well past ashen, losing what little color remained.

Despite all the internal alarms telling him not to, Shinji shifted around and locked eyes with Rei. Smiling a wider and pouring whatever assurances he could for her benefit, Shinji waved at his face when she finally focused on him. "I can't read genetics with my techniques, but we have the same jaw." He let out a short laugh. "I know I didn't get mine from my father."

She looked away and tried to pull her hand back, but this time his fingers tightened around hers, and it was on him to deliver the comfort. Rei kept her eyes away from him though, focused on a bit of futon near her knee. "...Are you upset?"

Rei looked up on that last word. The fear was muted, like the girl wasn't sure how to show it, and realizing that gave Shinji all the confidence he needed. Shaking his head, Shinji gave her hand another reaffirming squeeze. "Not really. Its nice to not be... alone, for once. Only Child."

Letting out a long breath, Rei picked up the animation she'd let go and shook her head. "You were never alone, Ikari-kun. We are the three Children of NERV."

Shinji found himself nodding at that, for once not apathetic regarding the title. "I suppose that is one way to look at it, sure."

In the silence that followed, the ticking clock took over as the dominant sound in the apartment, and Shinji was satisfied to let it all rest for now. Rei apparently had the same idea. As far as he was concerned, all the ups and downs of the past few hours had left him wired higher than being under fire. Meanwhile, Rei had let go of his hand, pulling up cushions and blankets for a moment before unholstering her infusor and setting it up for the night.

Falling back into his much larger pile of pillows, he laid down on his back and pulled up a cover. The canopy above had grown even darker, and it locked in the drowsy mid-summer heat. A tiny hand reached out and took his wrist once more, and after a bit of shuffling, Rei curled up atop his and with a pillow under the both of them. Cupping her neck and feeling her pulse in his palm, he started to count the beats without thinking. Staring up at nothing, he was only dimly aware of his eyes drifting closed.

* * *

The following day, Shinji headed up to the rooftop lab. It hadn't changed much since he'd been there last. A bit of garbage Kensuke hadn't picked up, and Deja had continued to add some more homey touches to her customary spot. He hadn't seen the agent for a while though, but Section Two's presence was unmistakable.

Looking out across the rooftop though, Shinji realized there was potential. Maybe not for a lab- it was probably a better idea to move everything into the garage, or even further underground. Consolidate everything, and maybe get Kensuke Geofront clearance. More than a handful of new thaumaturgical formula rattled around in his head, and he needed to get them written down at some point.

He could handle that later though. Right now all Shinji could feel was a great desire to do something amazing.

Breaking down the sheds and prefabricated structures, the boy started piling the pieces up and hauling what he could down into storage. There wasn't a lot he could do to accelerate the process yet, save for skipping the stairs in both directions. Eventually, he had the apartment roof stripped down to its normal surface. Sitting down on one of the remaining patio chairs, he let out a pleased sigh. Reaching for the notebook on the nearby table and ready and eager to start planning, Shinji looked out across the cleared space and the neighborhood beyond. Tapping the pencil to paper, he wondered just what he could do....

A few hours later with the sun high in the sky and steadily heading for the horizon, Shinji smiled faintly as he heard footsteps coming up the stairs. Rising up out of the stairwell and dressed for the season with a sports bag slung over her shoulder was Saneda Ayumi.

The brown-haired girl gave him a jaunty wave and grinned, looking out across the apartment complex. "What is it with you and rooftops."

Standing and stretching, Shinji closed his notebook and moved over, more than a little happy to see his girlfriend, and he thought back to their first date. "At least I didn't jump you up here."

A gust of wind seemed to punctuate the statement. "I didn't mean it like that."

Closing in enough to reach, Ayumi grinned and poked his chest. Her eyes crinkled and she grinning broadly, utterly unrepentant. "Oh I don't know. I think I could stand to hear a bit more."

Grinning despite himself, Shinji coughed into his hand as the red built up in his cheeks. A hand shot out to take her bag while the other waved at a canvas-stretched chair. Bouncing lightly and falling artlessly into the seat, Ayumi to his eyes radiated cuteness. Blushing, Shinji rubbed the back of his head and sat down as well. "I'm glad you got my page."

"I wasn't really expecting one, its been awhile." She cocked her head to the side and her brow furrowed. "Did lunch not go so well?"

Holding back the grimace, Shinji looked off to the side and waved it off for the most part. It was a small complaint as far as most things went, but...

"You ever get a bad order at a restaurant?" He glanced sidelong at her, and Ayumi just nodded, curious. He let out a short, wry laugh. "Just about every order out is like that for me. I can taste the flaws."

Saying it outright like that made Shinji take a mental step back, even as Ayumi winced. "You didn't call me over here to talk about food, did you."

There was a forced casualness there that flattened out her words into a statement of fact, and even Shinji could recognize it. He found his thoughts circling back onto the March before last, when he'd taken the second breath. More than a year of being Exalted. Staring at his hands, he curled his fingers, wondering openly. Tilting his head up, he caught Ayumi's concerned look. He waved it off, asking for a moment. That she gave it to him without a word was enough to let him relax and really think.

Still feeling oddly free from yesterday, Shinji decided to just say it outright and rip it off like a bandage. Thinking about it though, he forgot the last time he'd needed a bandage. Shaking his head, he sighed and let his head fall into his hands. "I had a second episode. A different one."

Ayumi's face managed to go pale and turn red at the same time, leaving her cheeks splotchy. She sucked in a quick breath and kept her voice level. "Different how?"

Gallows humor seemed to like the best place to start. "I think I turned into a fascist dictator, or my father. I'm not sure which is worse."

His girlfriend winced regardless, but she reached out and took his hand anyway. Any other time, Shinji knew he wouldn't have said anything. He knew he'd have just found something else fill his mind with. Ayumi tightened her hold on him and looked him in the eye. She nodded once, and Shinji took a deep breath. Bit by bit, Shinji pulled out the siege and picked it apart one event at a time. It was too big to hold in.

When he was finished, Ayumi let out a watery laugh. "Well... I'm glad you didn't hurt anyone. I think that means a lot more than you might think."

"I held people hostage with their own organs." The deadpan delivery seemed oddly natural to him right then. "Short of killing people I'm not sure how I could do much worse."

Scrubbing his hands through his hair, Shinji let out another ragged breath. "I don't think I told you about my first one, but both of times I snapped..." His hands fell into his lap. "Being like that felt good. The first time I got tranquilized like a day after it started, but this last one was nearly a week long."

She coaxed him gently. "Good, as in...?"

To that Shinji could only shrug, painfully aware that he'd only heard these kinds of things. His chair creaked as he moved. "Good, like stretching after a long car ride? Or screaming your head off at whoever got in your way. Good like, doing what you're thinking instead of just thinking it."

He waved at the rooftop and the ten story neighborhood skyline. "Part of that is why I'm out here. Akagi-sensei - and NERV - both told me to keep out of the Geofront for a few days. Give me a chance to settle down."

Ayumi worried at her lower lip, trembling faintly in her own seat. She picked a bit at the weather-beaten chair arms. "And... how do you feel right now?"

"Honestly?" The word itself felt new and strange. Not because he lied or anything, but... when had he ever talked? "Good. Better than I had expected. It was cathartic, I guess."

Admitting that sent a wave of nausea up through his body to settle on his face. "What I did was horrible, but while I was doing it, it was all so logical, rational even."

"That's not even the worse part." He let his head fall into his hands again, morose. "I'm wasn't even sure I was me half the time."

Considering how often he'd seen it last week, fear was an easy expression to read. Ayumi's apprehension had faded though, and somehow Shinji felt better as he realized that. She was still curious though, leaning forward with a questioning look. "What do you mean?"

Again, shrugging seemed like the best opener. "I'm not even sure where to start. I saw things. Impossible things. I saw myself standing at the edge of an abyss that went down forever. Like, it was right there in it's name, it went down forever. And inside it were teeth and knives and it could have eaten whole worlds. It was all that, and I just had a sword."
He'd gone pale by then, hunched over and locking eyes with her. "I held the sword up and the abyss cowered before me."

"And that's just one of the simple things." Shinji huffed and rubbed his eyes. There was nothing easy to describe, words he couldn't think let alone pronounce, describing ideas and events that he had no way to understand.

Ayumi meanwhile moved out of her chair and gave him a nudge. It took him a second before he understood and leaned back. Smoothing her skirt out, the girl sat down in his lap and grabbed his arms, hooking them around her waist. The existential awfuls met up and dueled with his own lingering aversion towards physical contact. He wasn't in the mood to be touched, but for all of that he at least recognized she was being comforting. Tugging the girl in a bit closer, Ayumi met him halfway and tucked her head against his collarbone.

"There was another me." He mumbled toward her hair. "She was... more. More than I was. I'm just fifteen, and I got the impression she was over five thousand."

Another fact clicked into place and he shuddered. She was older than human history. There wasn't anything to say to that, and Shinji grappled with the sensation that his whole life might have been- what, a footnote compared to hers? He shook his head and focused on Ayumi's heartbeat. "I only saw a few snatches. Conversations in that woman's life, but they were...."

He trailed off for a moment, and Ayumi's hands linked in with his and squeezed. "She did incredible things. Fought wars, tortured and was tortured. Loved and lost. She lived somewhere that had trees so tall they held up the sky, and caves so deep they left the earth behind. It sounds poetic, but they were there."

Tears were forming now at the wonder of the half-understood memory, as well as failing to find the words to convey the serene and joyful era. "It was beautiful. And it was horrible."

Freeing a hand to wipe his eyes, Shinji leaned back into his chair, dimly aware that it creaked ominously along the way. Heart pounding in his chest, he felt something like exhilarated, or drained. That much life weighed on him, and left Shinji feeling raw right down to the bone. There was a temptation, to find the floodgates and throw them open. To know something, or be someone to know, instead of having to guess himself. The hazy images in the back of his mind pulled back into whatever vault they came from, and he let out a long sigh of relief. Something he'd have to settle another day.

He barely registered Ayumi's weight on his legs, but she was warm. And more importantly, real and in the present. For once he wanted to hug her, and did so without thinking. She twisted in response, bringing one hand up to turn his face towards her, interrupting his thousand-yard gaze with her own look of concern. After that kind of story, Shinji couldn't really blame her.

Pausing for a hesitant moment, Ayumi's expression softened, offering him a coy half-smile. "You know, most girls would kill to hear one word of poetry, but I think I've heard enough-"

Before Shinji had even realized Ayumi moved, she completed the turn atop his legs and kissed him. For a long, happy moment, Shinji put a halt to all extraneous thought.

Pulling back and draping her arms over his shoulders, the brown-haired girl smiled softly and made sure to catch his eye. "If you get your head in the clouds, remember I'm down here. Someone has to keep you grounded."

Holding a misgiving groan behind his teeth, Shinji's face soured. More at himself than anything. "That's... not exactly fair to you. I couldn't ask you, or anyone to keep tabs on me. I barely can, sometimes."

Leaning in a bit further forward, Ayumi touched her forehead to his and gave him a wry grin. "Probably not, and maybe this won't work forever, but its working right now"

Shinji considered that for a moment, more than a little aware that his lips still tingled and that hers were still really close. He nodded once and matched her smile with a shy one of his own. "For now is good."

A gust of wind picked up and blew over the apartment roof, flipping Shinji's notebook open and sending Ayumi cuddling in a bit closer. They were still tangled together with Ayumi not-quite straddling him and face to face. Smiling faintly and more than a little bemused, Shinji found himself enjoying the closeness for once. Really enjoying it, instead of constantly evaluating and second-guessing. It was like whole parts of his mind had decided to just take a vacation.

He liked the sensation.

Getting all of the poisonous thoughts out of his head had helped too, leaving him with a bit more clarity than normal. Picking Ayumi up by the hips and glibly ignoring her squeak, he moved her around til her back was pressed against his chest once more. Leaning in and wrapping his arms around her middle, he hummed. "I really do like you, Ayumi-chan. You... you matter to me. I don't say stuff like that enough."

She just gave him a questioning look, swinging her legs around to sit astride his thighs and make sure he saw her pout. He just let out a bitter laugh, one that sounded less and less sad as it went on. "I mean it. Like..." He fumbled for a topic, laughing a bit at himself along the way. "I like your legs."

Ayumi blinked once and her face went beetroot, going so hot her hair might have begun to frizz out. She was smiling though, with teeth and cheeks. "R-Really? They're not too skinny?"

Glad he hadn't fumbled too badly, Shinji shook his head at her question. "No way, they look nice- you look nice." He hugged her from behind. "You take good care of yourself."

A sparkling smile was his answer to that. Shinji let out another short laugh. "I like that you push me to do things."

Ayumi's grin did a fair job of heating his cheeks up. Rocking back, she bumped her shoulder into his chest and bounced back, while he barely moved. "Well you are so very pushable, after all."

The silence was surprisingly comfortable after that. Easy going. Looking up at the sky, Shinji watched a few wispy clouds drift along. Reaching around his girlfriend and clapping, Shinji rubbed his hands together, grinning.

"You know what I want to do?" She gave him an odd look and shook her head, not understanding. Shinji found himself smiling wider. "I want to make out with my girlfriend."

Dumbstruck, Ayumi blinked rapidly before her own grin matched his watt for watt. "That is an interesting proposal. I also note that it's a sunny day, and that we happen to be on a private rooftop."

She leaned in to give him a quick kiss. "You might be interested to know that I'm wearing a swimsuit under my outfit. Shall I change?"

Hearing that, Shinji smiled, realizing he had about half as many reservations about the concept than usual.

Her swimwear turned out to be rather modest, for a bikini.

* * *

Shyft · Jun 10, 2014

* * *

It had taken a bit of doing, but Ritsuko had managed to create a sort of telepresence across three continents.

A complicated tangle of couriers and conference calls had let her isolate as many variables as possible for the upcoming experiment. Clocking in at close to fifty-seven hours awake, she had demanded Maya supply thaumaturgical assistance and coffee as needed. The scientist needed a clear head for what was coming. It had stopped being a scientific curiosity, or a new field of study she could use to step out of her mother's shadow.

It had become personal. She was a part of the experiment now, and every action she took with her miraculous arm was another reminder of that. Ikari Shinji was the only Pattern Green on record, the only one they had been able to glean a sizable amount of data form. Data which, by any stretch of the scientific method, was absurd and terrifying to see projected on such a massive scale as this. Two psychotic episodes were coincidence. A rogue third, which could easily come from somewhere new and unexpected, was her responsibility to contemplate.

Browbeating various professors across the world, Ritsuko had found as many campuses that studied Metaphysical Biology as she could and sent them the abbreviated plans for her most recent iteration of soul camera. She was bending her mandate as head of Project E, and there was a chance the technology might make its way to the Committee, if it hadn't already. The risk seemed worth it to her though. Plus, they'd still need to upgrade the satellite sensor system, or rely on ground based detectors.

Sitting in one of her dark labs before a bank of monitors, Ritsuko laced her fingers together and cracked her knuckles. Live voice communication would have distracted her, but she spoke out her commands anyway, even as her hands flew over the keyboard. A screen lit up and had already begun gathering data.

"Kyoto-2 University is online..." More screens started flickering on as graduate students high on caffeine and stranger substances worked alongside their teachers to patch in.

NERV Oh-Three, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.... Online.
NERV Oh-Four, Nevada.... Online.
University of India... Online.
Kyoto-2 University... Online.
NERV Oh-Six, Bethany... Online.

The list grew longer until all twenty four physical screens were lit up and streaming. Racing the MAGI to complete her program before it could write it for her, Ritsuko compiled the tool and set it to work. Turning in her seat, her glasses caught the light. A holographic array warmed up and threw a hazy web of light into the air. An image of the planet Earth resolved. The continents as recognizable as ever, save for new, ragged fifteen-year-old coastlines. A wire grid wound around the projection as the globe surface rippled to reveal topology and elevation.

Standing with her hands in her labcoat pockets, Ritsuko waited for the MAGI to cook the data and give her a result. A red pip appeared over Japan, and Tokyo-3. Kyoto-2 was next. Then two more, six, fifteen, and finally all twenty four sensor locations.

Ritsuko found herself mumbling the program schedule, even as it worked in the background. "Graphing the primary events..."

The holographic Earth dimmed and shrank slightly while it rotated to bring the island chain of Japan into view. A green smear appeared over Tokyo-3 and cut off abruptly at the city limits. The ground-based sensors throughout the only had so much range. The dot lacked gradation, but she knew her city was thick with hot zones. For the moment, she hoped to keep the search simple for now.

She eyed her home nation and bit her lip. This was the deciding moment- the next observation sites were several hundred kilometers from Tokyo-3. "Expanding sample size to Kyoto-2 University and Sendai research team."

Another green smear appeared on the map. The crew at Sendai reported nothing on their end. Chewing on the inside of her cheek, Ritsuko slid back into her chair and pulled a remote console into her lap. Typing furiously, she added in new search parameters, running down hunches while the base analysis continued. Weather data ranging from hurricane tracking to pollen forecasts appeared across the holographic globe, and none of them passed over Tokyo-3 or Kyoto-2 with any semblance of pattern.

She waited then, and her mouth compressed down to a thin line. Feeling the empty space between her lips, Ritsuko really could have used a cigarette right then. More and more of her data points resolved upon the map, leaving twenty two empty spaces and two terrifyingly green ones. "So, it is spreading."

Filtering the data and focusing on those two confirmed zones, Ritsuko ordered the display to render the green pattern intensity. A heat map appeared over Tokyo-3, much like the one she'd shown Misato and the Second Child a few weeks ago. Writing out another quick script, she plotted the course of the Pacific Fleet across the holographic planet. It was on its way to Vladivostok, if all things had gone to plan. Frowning, Ritsuko put her friend out of mind and focused on the data.

As before, Tokyo-3 was a dense cluster of high intensity readings, and now she tracked a steadily increasing background level- a pervasive field. The data was live, so she was able to watch the edges of each saturated region shift and move slightly. The densest points were the Geofront... nearly all of it, and a tiny Old-Hakone neighborhood just over the hills. Misato's apartment. At least those were expected.

Kyoto-2 though, it's levels and events were much lower. Almost reassuringly so. Standing, Ritsuko leaned into the globe and commanded it to shift, zooming in on the university campus where the sensors had been. "How did you end up all the way over there..."

Another hunch brought her back to the remote console, digging up an old wargame scenario Misato had cooked up. An Angel-derived biowarfare attack, like a super plague. Years ago, the raven-haired woman asked Ritsuko to model it with the MAGI. Back then it had seemed like a good test of the Triumverate's powers. Now she tasked it to track the spread of Pattern Green. Plugging in the variables, she set it to run ten thousand times.

The hologram flickered faster and faster as it iterated, burning through permutations. Ritsuko watched the green try and spread from her city out into the rest of Japan, and the display threw up potential transmission vectors faster than she could track. By the end of it, the MAGI could only predict worldwide saturation in less than two percent of the results, and partial saturation in another seven.

They returned another, uncomfortable result, and Ritsuko read it out loud while she examined the program. "Insufficient data to generate predictive model."

Stepping away from that dead end, Ritsuko reverted the globe to the view of Japan. She eyed the zone covering the fortress city, and the shifting movements throughout. Focused on one particular intense point, a new idea grabbed hold. Pulling out the materials didn't take long, and she settled in and started scratching out the ritualized calculations. Doing it longhand was necessary for the thaumaturgical principles to take hold....

Finishing with a flourish and enduring a creeping a sort of mental exhaustion, Ritsuko held up her results. Now for the next step. "Assuming this is invoking the same Pattern Green..." She glanced over at the map and completed the second ritual with another intangible surge of effort.

One of the Geofront hotspots jumped up a fraction of a fraction of a percent.

"Sonnovabitch."

Ritsuko stared at the completed calculation for a moment, and her heart pounded hard and fast against her ribcage. She changed the resolution on the Toyko-3 overlap, digging for every bit of information she could over her densest cluster of samples. The MAGI worked with her commands, exaggerating the pings and fluctuations into a bouncing point graph. Several thousand pings registered every second across the city. Her fingers flew across the keyboard as she reorganized the maps and data, trying to plot some kind of recognizable pattern.

She got one. A new map of the city appeared complete with roads and buildings, registering the nearly uncountable tiny spikes as Green events ticked over and over. She ordered the MAGI to filter for density and ran searches for those hot spots within the hotspots. "Colleges and Schools, funeral homes, hospitals, and temple grounds."

Staring first at the readings, then at the predictive ritual pages still in hand, she groaned at the otherwise empty lab. "Thaumaturgy is a pattern green event. Thaumaturgy has spread outside of Tokyo-3."

Slumping back in her chair, Ritsuko sighed and pulled off her glasses. There were readings in Kyoto as well, which meant that Thaumaturgy had shown up there too. Or something. The holographic earth had returned to its original state, showing the twenty one red pips and three greens.

India's Herman Institute of Science confirmed a pattern event. Thaumaturgy might have crossed the Sea of Japan and the Indian Ocean.

More data flowed in from the Indian team, and Ritsuko massaged her eyes with her fingertips. She still hadn't gotten to why she even set up the teams in the first place either. Reaching out to enter in the last command, she held her face in her hands and watched the hologram through splayed fingers.

The three bright glowing green marks sat there, happily confirming active Pattern activity. Then another twelve points tinted to a darker, muted green. Background levels were increasing across the Asian continents. Ritsuko stared at the readings.

It probably wasn't all going end up being thaumaturgy.

* * *

Walking through the city and toward Ayumi's apartment, Shinji spun a flower from his terrace garden between his fingers, careful not to bruise the stem. Watching the petals move, he couldn't help but grin- the train ride into the city proper had been interesting. Morning rush hour had packed the train car up tight with bodies wall to wall. It had been a challenge keeping the flower safe through all of that.

Clumping up among a dozen or so other pedestrians at crosswalks and stoplight, Shinji towered the crowd by at least a head, if not two. As far as awkward things went, it was one of the few he'd at least gotten used to. A tiny hand shot up out of the group across the street, and when the crowd parted, Shinji smiled as Ayumi waved. The walk signal blinked cheerfully and the two pedestrian masses charged out into the street while the cars waited their turn.

Shinji outpaced the rest of the surface and civilian workforce and nudged the flower into Ayumi's hand. "Walk you to school?"

Threading a hand through the crook of his arm, Ayumi grinned. "Sounds like a plan!"

* * *

As far as Tokyo-3 Municipal High was concerned, the novelty of his presence hadn't worn off. All throughout the exterior grounds and inner halls, teenagers kept up silent stares as he approached and broke into whispered conversation when he passed. Ayumi gave his hand a squeeze and bumped her head into his arm. With fifteen or so minutes til first bell and class, they ended up claiming a patch of wall to themselves. Standing comfortably close, Shinji just let the minutes tick on by with his hand wrapped around hers.

Bit by bit the throngs of students thinned out as they made for their various classes. Just as the last few stragglers vanished through doorways and around corners, Ayumi hooked an arm around the back of his neck and moved in for a quick kiss before the bell. A delicate cough stopped them both mid-motion. A part of Shinji, a relatively new and inexperienced part, fumed at the interruption.

Dropping back down and bouncing with her toes, Ayumi's voice dried up audibly. "Nanba-san. Can we help you?"

The apparently named Nanba-san blinked once. She had been looking up at his face, craning her neck more and more to even meet his eyes. Snapping her eyes back down to Ayumi, the brown-eyed girl let out a short squeak. Shinji kept his mouth shut, but looked the girl over all the same. She was sweating a bit, and breathing a bit faster than was strictly normal. Pretty, just like almost every girl in the city as far as he could say, and black hair like the vast majority of people in the school. There weren't teenagers in Tokyo-3 to justify having separate buildings for junior and senior high.

Putting a hand on Ayumi's shoulder, he took a moment for a deeper diagnosis on the new girl. "A-Are you alright, miss?"

Age seventeen, Healthy, no sign of trauma or infection. Elevated heart-rate, perspiration; social anxiety response within normal parameters.

"Saneda-san, I-Ikari-sempai I mean-" The new girl squeaked and cut herself off.bowed at the waist and her voice shook. "I-Ikari-sama. I... Normally I wouldn't ask directly but I have a problem that involves you and I'm sorry for interrupting but-"

It all came out in a rush, and Shinji had not even been given enough information to get on-track, let alone get lost. Confusion aside he tried to place a face to that name- there weren't any other Nanbas in the school. She was three years older than him though, so they only would have met up during lunches or in the halls. K-something...

Scratching his head, Shinji tossed Ayumi an apologetic look before looking back up at Nanba. "Ah... I'm sorry but, Nanba Ki... No, Ko-?"

"Nanba Kasumi, Ikari-sama. It's alright, we haven't exactly met." She bowed again, smiling weakly.

Shinji felt a shiver run in and settle on his neck. "So... what can I do for you?"

The first bell rang, and Ayumi scowled at the timing. She shot a glance at the other girl and pouted a bit harder. Shinji only caught the edge of her expression, but he was pretty sure that wasn't exactly jealously....

Meanwhile, Nanba-san nodded sharply and sucked in a quick, calming breath. She let it out slowly and sounded much more composed. "Sorry, I'll keep it brief. I'm the president of the Shinto Cultural Club here at school, and we've restored a shrine outside the city. Someone's been coming by every week and vandalizing it. Destroying the grounds, spilling pigs' blood everywhere. We're losing members and it's not like we have funding..."

Shinji felt his eyebrows shoot up toward his hairline. "A-And what would you like me to do? I mean...?"

Nanba looked up and up at his face again, giving him a sad little smile. "I was there, Ikari-sama. When you fought the kidnappers. I saw what you did."

Oh. Oh.

The older girl picked at her uniform sleeve and looked to the side, suddenly hesitant. The calm she'd had just moments ago burned up, and Shinji watched as her cheeks turned red. "It's a silly thing, I admit, but we converted the shrine to respect Amaterasu.... and maybe you could check it out? If for no other reason than... to score points... with your patron?"

The silence that followed was tangible, and the second bell rang. Nanba picked up her wits in a rush and dashed off, apologizing profusely as she ran. Shinji turned to his girlfriend with an almost mechanical ratcheting, feeling his neck grind and creak like a rusty hinge. Ayumi fidgeted in place, ignoring the bell and turning increasingly crimson as he stared, unblinking. Finally, Shinji's jaw dropped open, working soundlessly up and down.

"...Patron?"

Ayumi drew out her response, hemming and hawing. "Iiiiiit got started right after the terrorists and all that? You did kind of throw a giant tower of sunlight about three miles into the air?"

Hot blood thundered through in his veins, and Shinji felt a muscle in his cheek start to twitch. With laughter or frustration, he wasn't sure which. "S-so, I apparently have a following, and people don't tell me?"

His girlfriend cringed so hard her eyes closed. "Devoted fans. We... thought you knew?"

Shinji slumped against the wall behind him, letting the back of his head hit and bounce back. He barely even felt the impact. Dragging both hands down his face, he blew out a sputtering breath past his fingers. At the end, he glanced at his girlfriend. "Well, I may as well check it out.... Though what was that face about before?"

She purpled furiously at that, but smiled and smacked him on the arm. "Okay so it was kinda silly of me- just forget it okay?"

Laughing for once without something else getting in the way, Shinji nodded, even as he kept his guard up for a second swing. "Okay, Okay. I'll walk you to your class then."

Taking her hand in his, Shinji ambled along, and neither of them were overly concerned about being on time. It was difficult to be late twice over. Rounding the corner, Shinji let out a little snort and shook his head. "I'm not sure how I'm going to break it to them."

Ayumi cocked her head to the side, suddenly curious. "Break what to them?"

Glancing down once more, Shinji gave her a wry grin. "That I think Amaterasu might dress like a third century Roman god."

* * *

Catching up with his friends between classes had been an interesting experience. Kensuke was popular, Toji was driven. When he had first stopped by class 2-A, Rei stepped primly out into the hall and with an almost mechanical precision, wrapped her arms around him. Looking down at the mass of blue hair under his chin, Shinji could only guess she really liked that morning's breakfast, and her packed lunch.

Picking up Ayumi from her classroom, the growing circle of friends and pilots made their way to the cafeteria. Standing head and shoulders above them, Shinji still smiled as the conversation wove around him. Ducking through an open set of double doors and into the common dining space, students at a good half the tables stopped talking and eating. Shinji sighed and felt his shoulders drop a half inch. More staring. At least he was getting used to it now. Ayumi snuck a warm hand around his and squeezed.

After finding an empty table, Kensuke and Ayumi ducked off to buy lunch while Rei and Toji both hauled out their packed meals. Settling down into a chair himself, Shinji frowned at the creaking plastic. Focusing a bit, he willed out some of his reserve, leaving it more than strong enough. Waving aside shared food from Rei and Toji, Shinji just leaned back and waited for the rest of his friends.

Caught looking out at the other students, Shinji didn't quite see Ayumi in time. Nor could he have guessed she planned on using him as a seat. Suddenly occupied with a giggling sixteen year old girl in his lap, Shinji was glad he'd reinforced the chair.

Kensuke slid into a seat right after and laughed, pushing his hair up out of his eyes. He'd started slicking it back for some reason. Girls, most likely. The unrepentant geek toasted Shinji with a carton of milk. "Glad you're out and about Shinji. We haven't seen you for a few months."

Pressing a hand against his nose, Shinji tried to mask his face and keep his voice level. It was nothing Kensuke had done.... He wondered if all the school meals smelled so disgusting. Shinji let out a short cough past his palm. "Y-Yeah. I... made some bad time management decisions. Let's leave it at that."

Toji paused from inhaling the meal Hikari gave him to fill Shinji in on some of what had happened over the past few months. The short of it though was 'not a whole lot'. Fuyutsuki Kozo was a far more effective and interesting teacher, especially considering he was somehow a clandestine celebrity.

Waving a pair of chopsticks at Kensuke, Toji smirked. "They had to station a Section Two suit outside the Professor's office, so 'Suke wouldn't accost him or anythin'."

As one, those who had been present for the awkward moment burst out laughing, and Shinji found himself joining in more easily than he'd ever thought possible. Kensuke scowled and shook his fist. "That only happened once!"

Ten or so minutes later, the doors on the far end of the cafeteria burst open, and Shinji caught Kensuke muttering the odd phrase 'Hurricane Horaki alert'. Why became clear a second later when Hikari charged in, haloed by the open door and bright noonday sun. Masked in shadows, the girl's eyes stood out brighter than hot coals. Scanning left and right, her eyes settled on Toji, sitting between Rei and Shinji.

Her eyes narrowed.

While the others had to squint against the glare, Shinji watched, utterly mystified. Her cheeks were deep red, and vein on her forehead bulged in time with her heartbeat. Hikari was on the warpath. Still in his lap, Ayumi pressed her back hard against Shinji's chest and her hands clamped around his wrist like they were lifelines. Feeling her fingernails dig in, Shinji couldn't help but think that maybe they were.

For a split second, the face of terror blanked when Hikari locked eyes on him and the girl in his lap. The break in her fury vanished as fast as it appeared, leaving Shinji even more confused. Hikari's eyes started to mist up, even though the rest of her face was unreadable as marble. She stalked forward and glared, daring students four years her senior to move or squeak in her presence.

Hikari stopped right at their table, well within arms reach of Toji. Again the frightening look seemed to shift to something morose when she looked at Shinji and his girlfriend.

"Ikari-kun," She gave a short bow to the pair. He could hear the concern in her voice. "I'm glad you're up and around."

While he nodded dumbly, Hikari whirled on Toji, throwing her arms wide and clenching her fists. Unshed tears started to build up in the corners of her eyes. "You on the other hand have some explaining to do!"

"...O-okay?"

She glared at Toji, planting her hands on her hips. The tears started to fall. "It's not okay! I shouldn't have to make a spectacle like this just to be seen with you!"

Toji meanwhile stumbled, falling over his words and making a complete hash of the Japanese language. "Can, we somewhere else can handle this please?"

By some unspoken cue, Rei and Kensuke picked up their lunches and escaped, leaving Toji to his fate. Hikari's wet eyes snapped to everyone at the table even as they left, and again they settled on Shinji and Ayumi. The scowl flickered and gave way to anguish, leaving Hikari to screw her eyes shut and get angry all over again. Shinji found himself wrapping his arms around Ayumi's middle while his mind worked hard to keep up. Even as his girlfriend shivered in his lap, Shinji began to realize he had a ringside seat for the archetypical teen drama moment.

"Why? Why can't you just talk to me without some kind of condition attached?" The wrath turned to a choked sob in less than a second. "I don't understand what's wrong. I thought-"

She cut herself off at the last minute, and the whole cafeteria continued to stare openly and unapologetically. Shinji looked between the pair, concentrating hard as he tried to think of.... something, anything. His girlfriend still held on tight, but he was pretty sure it was out of fear for Toji and Hikari, than anything else.The gaping crowds of students started to wear on him too, and Shinji felt something inside start to strain.

"Um... what did I do?" Toji stared at her dumbly, concern mixing with confusion across his face.

"Nothing!" Hikari cut off any further questions with a slash of one knife hand. Her eyes flashed red hot, and fresh tears started to roll down her cheeks. "Nothing with me! You go out of your way to hang out with everyone but me!"

Twice as confused but clearly underwhelmed by the explanation, Toji stood and found his tongue to stammer out a complete sentence. "But, I see you every day though, Hikari-chan. I'm... not sure what else-"

Planting her head roughly into his chest, Hiraki squeezed her eyes shut and folded her arms up between them defensively. "Suzuhara Toji, I want to be seen with you."

Toji's mouth worked up and down, until finally he got back into the right mental gear. "I... I didn't kn- I mean, I couldn't te-" He kept cutting himself off and shaking his head, letting his hands fall around her waist before she drew back with a lurch.

"Don't! Stop making excuses if you don't want me around!" Hikari stared him in the eye indignantly, tears flowing freely now. But by this time Toji had enough time to take stock of the situation, and clearly was not enjoying the attention being drawn to the pair.

He leaned in with a hushed whisper, irritation building. "What do you want me to do then?"

The reply came quickly and with a pronounced stomp. "Not force me do this, you insensitive moron!"

"That's enough."

He hadn't said it loudly. No real need for that. Him interrupting was sufficient. Easing Ayumi out of his lap, Shinji stood up and tugged the table out of his way. The whole cafeteria fell dead silent, and Hikari and Toji turned as one to stare at him. Up at him. It was so simple, and his friends were better than this. They had all the pieces right in front of them the whole time, and neither of them deserved all the hurt.

"Both of you, calm down. Toji," The quiet cafeteria followed his eyes as he looked down towards the boy. Somehow, he managed not to tower even at his full height. "She feels neglected and hurt when you don't think about your relationship as strongly as she does. Hikari needs proof you consider her feelings."

Turning, Shinji locked eyes with the girl, the room shifting as one as Hikari let out a tiny sniff. "Hikari, you need to tell Toji what you are feeling, because he can't guess. Not because he wants to hurt you, but because you know your needs better than he can."

Sneaking a glance at their opposite, Shinji watched as his fellow teenagers accepted the truth as self-evident. He smiled faintly and leaned down as not to be so imposing. "You're both good friends, to me and each other. This doesn't need to go on, does it?"

They shook their heads, agreeing with every move they made. Rising smoothly, Shinji nodded. "Take the rest of the day off- head to the park. I'll handle things here."

Nodding, Hikari and Toji picked up their things, shivering and sniffling. The cafeteria crowd parted silently before them as they made their way out. Drifting into Toji's arm, Hikari leaned against the boy, and he reflexively swung a hand up to the small of her back. He mumbled faintly, red-faced but earnest and openly apologetic, and as they walked through the door, Hikari murmured back.

Smiling wider, Shinji nodded to himself, and Ayumi wrapped her hand around his and gave it a tight, pleased squeeze. Rei and Kensuke crept up a few seconds later, somehow basking in the defused crisis. Glancing back up at the door his friends left through, Shinji couldn't help but think something was off. The crowds of students still lingered in the cafeteria, staring openly at him or the empty doorway.

Blinking, Shinji coughed into his hand. "Uh... Lunch is almost over, right?"

As one, the student body turned back to their food and ate. Hurriedly.

Rei sidled up next to him and cocked her head to the side, chewing on the last bite of her meal. She looked up at his eyes for a long moment, swallowing before speaking. "Is something wrong, Ikari-kun?"

Glancing between his girlfriend, fellow pilot, and thaumaturge, Shinji felt a shrug coming on. He gave them a helpless, increasingly uneasy grin. "I... have no idea how I managed that."

* * *

The next day, Shinji found himself sitting atop a machinist's stool with an automotive manual in hand. He'd understood it utterly on the first try, but he'd been leafing through it for most of the afternoon. Mostly so he didn't stare at the hundreds of posters all over the garage wall. Some of were pre-Impact vintage and most likely worth a fortune to some collector, others were outright sexy.

Misato was a terrible influence on everyone.

Meanwhile, only Rei's legs from the knees out were visible. The rest of her was underneath her car on a mechanic's creeper- the rolling bed used to crawl under cars. He'd built it himself and knew how comfortable it was. That was the reason they'd been at work for nearly three hours. It wasn't that he was bored really, but as it stood, his mind started to wander. Maybe he could make a cushion with weight-activated thaumaturgical pressure point massage...

He thought about it a bit longer and blushed. Misato was still a terrible influence on everyone. Especially him. Even a thousand miles away.

Focusing back on the manual, Shinji sighed and leafed through it again. "Who wrote this thing?"

He directed that down to Rei, still under the car. "Nissan. Wrench please."

After asking what size she wanted, Shinji pulled the the tool out and held it down for her waiting hand. "Well, I'm seeing like six dozen things they could have done better- I mean, if you want I coud-"

Shinji heard the wrench drop lightly on the concrete floor. Rei's empty hand eased out from under the car. "Brake line please."

Wincing, he moved to find the part. "I could really help though! I just need to..."

Rei shifted her legs and dragged herself wholly out from under her car, smeared with grease and grime. Leveling a completely flat, uncompromisingly serious face at him, she held out her hand. "Brake line. Please."

Shinji wilted and handed her the part. He realized just then that his stool was not out of range, and by extension, neither was he. Between the meals he'd made for her and how much time she'd spent in the pool.... Well, Shinji was pretty sure she couldn't hurt him.

His seat on the other hand was fair game. "Of course, Ayanami-sama. I'll be good."

Taking the cable in hand, Rei's lips quirked up as she rolled back under her car. Shinji let out the breath he had been holding and leafed through the manual again.

* * *

Working on half a dozen projects around the apartment complex, Shinji spent the following days going over the fight between Hikari and Toji in his mind. Laying a thousand bricks in the afternoon, he'd asked himself just what had happened. During dinner one night, he'd considered the how and why. Each time, the answers came just as easily as they had before; he knew what was going on.

It was a familiar certainty. One he'd felt for almost a year and a half now. Exalted. The word felt bigger and heavier in his mind the more he thought about it. Concerns started to hang around him, and the weight was tangible. The last time he'd felt as certain was two weeks ago in the Geofront. Shinji had cut that thought off when it happened, and if it hadn't been for Rei and Ayumi, he probably wouldn't have taken the time to really examine it.

Rei had made sure that home was home, that he had a place to go where he didn't have to think every second of the day. Ayumi meanwhile had kept things simple, being clear as to what she wanted or needed. They had given him the space he needed to find clarity- he was not the same person he'd been two weeks ago, and creating certainty of action or thought didn't doom him to repetition.

All of that looking inward lead to Shinji standing outside a dilapidated Shinto shrine, one train ride and longish walk away from the fortress city borders. Rei stood next to him, a bit dusty from the pre-impact road. They'd both agreed that taking a look wouldn't hurt, and it gave Shinji something to focus on while continued to look inward.

Walking up the uneven path to the shrine itself, Shinji took a moment to examine the structure. He ran a hand down a beam of stained and weathered wood and felt the grain tug at his fingertips. Turning to Rei, he shrugged and knocked on the pillar.

She just nodded once and reached into her school bag. "I will compose a list of materials."

Content to be silent, Shinji slowly made his way around the main building, taking in its foundation, down to the soil it had been set into. Eroded due to Impact tidal waves and later poor drainage, after they started reinforcing the Geofront. Trees, planted in a ring or square all around would probably help shore that up. Letting conscious thought drift to other things, Shinji again thought back to Hikari and Toji.

They were doing well, of course. Better than well. He'd hardly seen them apart for the past few days either, talking animatedly or sharing silence. There was still some awkwardness, but it was fading fast. Again Shinji wondered as to the how he knew it, understood what to say so simply as to achieve his end. Absently shifting into a mental stance, Shinji traced the weather-beaten temple walls. Something rang true in his mind as he considered the structure and his friends.

Shinji had simply taken a deep breath and understood. And in understanding he had willed to happen, just as easy as breathing.

The clarity was sudden, and he looked back further. He couldn't think of the last time he'd really struggled to wield his power, or to do anything really. He had to learn still, but even now, he could almost look off into the distance and see potential for growth. The martial arts had been the first of it, the most obvious to build any sort of cultural connection. But the more Shinji thought about it, the more it made sense. He had gained something, a truer understanding with everything he did.

Cooking, Medicine, even talking to or with his friends- Shinji realized he was learning with every action.

Exhaling, Shinji reached out and touched the temple once more. Now it was easy. He ran his hands over a structural pillar that had sagged under the weight of the roof and age. It jumped into rightness, snapping back whole and clean as if it had been freshly cut and stained. It even smelled new. Bit by bit he wandered around the structure, tugging and straightening. Clay roof tiles rippled and clicked back together, and gaping cracks sealed up without a trace.

Rei had pulled out a notebook and had been writing the whole time. She stopped, and the sudden silence, the lack of pencil scratching on paper, was jarring.

Letting his hand fall to the side, Shinji blinked and glanced at his friend. He was about to ask what was wrong when he looked over her shoulder. "...Oh."

Nanba Kasumi and her Shinto Culture club stood at the edge of the tall grass that surrounded the shrine grounds, staring openly.

* * *

In a familiar black space, five men appeared in holographic telepresence. SEELE council members 02 through 06 were cast false light, and it made their features look wan and sickly. Safe in his darkened study, SEELE 01; Kihl Lorenz was the only man physically present.

The chairmen of the committee looked out to his peers and frowned. "Where is France?"

SEELE 03: Britian coughed into a thin hand. "He has abstained from this meeting. He left me a message stating that he was 'pursuing a separate option.' France assured me that all funding conditions and procedures remained in place."

Kihl couldn't slump in his wheelchair. His spine had long since become a solid assemblage of artificial vertebrae. "Then this is an acceptable deviance. We cannot afford to show weakness however. Ikari remains a small thorn lodged in our hearts."

To one side, a tall blonde man appeared rendered as green, the very picture of North American ancestry in the minds of most people. Which was to say actually of British colonial descent. "We remain concerned. Ikari's movements are increasingly bold. The situation changes faster than even the Scrolls predict."

"The scrolls do not predict. They are conditions to be reached for and signs to be interpreted." SEELE 04 snapped. "As stated by Ikari Yui's research, that we follow to this day."

"Dogma is not science, or enlightenment."

Raising a withered hand, Kihl cut in. "Councilors. Enough please. If you will look to your terminals, I have forwarded the results from our latest infiltrators."

As one the most powerful men across ten countries turned aside, half-vanishing from their holograms as they moved out of camera view. kihl simply had his files interlaced with the vision granted by his visor. The old man waited while his compatriots scanned the reports. The dialogue shifted as they read, trading facts and observations with six voices and one shared goal. Lacking one of their number disrupted the harmony, but only slightly.

"Ikari has ceased Dawkins filtering?"

"More likely changed the parameters. Our agents have managed to place themselves. There have been extensive readiness drills and upgrades to various aspects of the fortress city." A sneering voice spoke out, it did not matter who, the blame was certain among them all equally. "Katsuragi's work, most likely."

It continued, and they all sat straighter for the naming of the trump card. "The progress on our hunter-killer?"

"Moderate," was the urbane reply, like the question answered itself in the asking, but was explained further for the slow of mind. "The loss of Unit 02 would be lamentable, but if our projections are correct, we could catch them in the Gulf of Mexico- salvaging the Evangelion in those conditions would be simple."

"NERV's commercial plans have taken root throughout the Asian and African continents. Ikari has turned our trap halfway against us." The last sentence was wry, laughing at no one and everyone present at once.

"Reports are inconsistent as to scientific and technological advancement." Frustration filled the space as a hand cut through the air, disappearing abruptly when it again crossed outside the lens's view. "NERV is promoting full cellular regeneration and offering it at significant markdown. Immigration is up."

A mirthless smile shined out in the darkness. "Hence our agents slipping past interdiction. Has Gendo moved the active scroll condition?"

"Negative. He approved the A-17, but our Inspector would not be as so foolish as to bring the sample and risk endangering either the Second or Katsuragi."

The discussion continued on for twenty minutes more, until Kihl let out a processed sigh. The other members fell silent and waited. "Our information comes to us too slow. I will make way to Tokyo-3 and see to matters myself. Objections?"

The question was less to find dissent, and more to discern who would contribute. Insight was valued at the table, as was unity. The blue-tinted Russian councilor cleared his throat. "None, but I suggest resolving the matter of the fleet. It would be a sufficiently public setback for NERV."

One by one the other councilors nodded, before all looking at Kihl for the final decision. "Very well."

"Release the Mass Production Evangelion."

* * *

Earlier that evening, Shinji had made his way down to the garage to tell Rei dinner was ready. He'd found the girl in her car, half leaning out of the driver side door and staring at the uncovered engine as she turned the key. The machine rumbled to life, loud enough to shake the dust in the air and even make him take a step back.

Rei had looked up at him then with wide shining eyes, and her voice was halting. "It purrs. Like a kitten."

That had been an hour ago, and Rei had convinced Deja with surprising efficiency to act as her teacher while taking the Skyline out for its first drive. "You don't need so much weight on the gas. Just a light touch."

The blue haired girl nodded, and Shinji could hear her easing up on the appropriate pedal. The engine quieted down in response. Rolling over the undulating roads outside the city, the car passed by swaying tall grasses as the sky turned orange. The taller teenager found himself squirming a bit in the seat. Rei had been eager to get out and driving- no time to install new interior or finish the bodywork. The car itself ran like a dream, however.

As for where they were going, Rei and Shinji had both convinced the Section 2 agent to accompany them to the shrine for another night staking the place out.The pilot security force was going to be following them anyway, after all, and there was no real pressing need for secrecy. At least not for protecting the Children.

That, and Deja by herself would also be much more approachable than an entire fleet of men and women in black suits, hawk-like eyes aside.

Which meant that Rei was getting more experience behind the wheel, and in her car. Sitting in the back passenger seat, Shinji could see the edge of Rei's blinding smile.

* * *

The shrine stood just as it had the previous day, and the day before that. Shinji and Rei had been coming by for a bit more than week now, and usually staying well past midnight. He'd circle the grounds and inspect the structure, making sure it hadn't been tampered with. Landscaping had been a great way to pass the rest of the time time. Rei would bring her homework, and Shinji always offered to help. Which was to say she shot him a look when he tried to answer the questions for her.

It had taken a few days for the culture club to thaw around him too. Especially after he'd wandered into the shrine interior and found the a particular addition to the altar. He recognized the dedications to Amaterasu of course... but a copy of his old school ID photo had been... embarrassing to say the least.

Rei had leaned in around his arm and hummed. "That is a terrible picture."

But after that, Kasumi and the rest of the club members had taken his presence with something other than skittish reverence. Deja, the picture of professional sloth, had pulled a lawn chair from the trunk of Rei's car and lazed about into the cooling evening, arms tucked behind her head. Same old Deja. Kensuke had mentioned that modelling gig went well for her, though.

Cutting grass with his bare hands was oddly relaxing, cleaving down the stalks and drying them in the same instant, and on the swing back weaving them into thin mats. Purely as a theoretical exercise, considering he didn't have the required materials for fully realized tatami. Rei joined him at the edge of the cut grasses, looking out towards the fortress city. She pressed a cold can of juice into his hand.

Shinji took it with a small smile. The sun was setting off in the distance, sinking past the low western hills. "You think anything's going to happen?"

"Something always happens, Ikari-kun."

"You could call me Shinji now, you know?" He glanced down at her, grinning a bit wider as he took a sip. Tart grape and a bit over processed, but it was still cold.

Rei's answering smile was smaller than the manic glee she'd shown behind the wheel. "Thank you, Shinji-kun." She looked up at the darkening sky. "What time is it?"

Not bothering with his watch, Shinji called on his power, humming. "About seven twenty or so. I'll go get the cooler and start on some sandwiches."

* * *

Lying on the front platform of the shrine with his legs dangling over the stairs, Shinji stared up at the night sky and counted the stars. Wind tugged at his hair and the cut grass all around, sending it all waving faintly. Deja and Rei had both curled up for the night on chair and in a sleeping bag, respectively. The cicada were out in force, calling for mates across the shrine grounds and out even into the city itself. Those who lived in Tokyo-3 had gotten used to it.

A new sound cut through the insect noise. Shinji sat up and waited, suddenly focused. Lit by stars and a half-moon, he had no trouble seeing for a hundred feet or more. It was a car- and there was little point driving at night on the shrine road. A mile after the shrine, the road ended. It had been destroyed during Second Impact. Hands draped across his knees, Shinji's feet started to bounce. The new car had stopped, and the boy heard a car door slam. Rustling grass to one side caught Shinji's eye, and then he realized Deja's chair was empty. Well, she probably had a better idea how to handle things that he did.

Didn't mean he wasn't going to try.

A man stomped through the newly cleared path over hand-crafted paving stones, swinging a jerry can of gasoline around while he snarled at the shrine grounds. Shinji watched him approach and narrowed his eyes, taking the man's measure. Evidence of poor nutrition, lack of personal hygiene. Signs of depression. Well, The man didn't look depressed right then. Wide-bodied and stocky, he was a real working figure, middle-aged and growing out instead of up. His eyes were clear though, and burning angry.

Finally approaching close enough, the disheveled man finally noticed Shinji and raised the hand holding the can, growling. "Who the hell are you?

Still sitting down, Shinji just shrugged and offered his open hands as an explanation. "I'm not sure that really matters right now. I'd like to know what you're doing here though, and planning with that."

Dropping the can at his feet, the man snarled. "None of your-"

The man's eyes went wide, standing out with realization. One hand reached over his shoulder for a dark shape strapped to his back, while the other pointed. "Y-You're that Ikari."

Shinji stood up easily, ducking out from under the shrine's slanted roof before he clipped it. Stepping forward he nodded once, frowning. "Yeah, I am."

"You hurt my daughter!"

He'd seen the baseball bat coming tens of seconds away, even just by getting a feel for the man's mental state. The swing was wild and over the shoulder, driven by adrenaline and enough rage to ruin just about anyone's day. Shinji stepped to the left and brought his arm up, palm out and waiting. The bat slammed into his waiting hand, and it hit hard enough to blow his hair aside. Purple with rage, the man wrenched down on the weapon, trying to jerk it free.

Shinji just squeezed his fist and shattered the bat down to the handle. On the other end of the strike, the vandal shivered, outstretched arms trembling as it held on to the remaining chunk of wood. The teenager looked the man in the eye and sighed.

Again the problem was simple, and he knew what he had to do. "I can't say I'm sorry, because that's not what you want and that's not what you're here for."

Shaking his hands free of splinters and dropping them to the side, Shinji sighed and stared the shorter man down. He was wide open. "Take your shot."

Fear gave way to disbelief, and then to more rage. The man tossed away the bat and settled on bare fists and boot-clad feet. Screaming, the father poured out months of frustration and pain out on the pilot's body. Shinji stood, barely wincing as fists mashed into his jaw and nose. Blows rained down on his chest and shoulders, and when the man saw he wasn't doing damage, he picked up loose rocks and used them instead.

Shinji's white shirt was stained with dirt and blood from shallow scrapes, scratches he could feel but hardly notice. With every swing the man screamed. His daughter had come out of Shinji's first episode back at the school. She had seen Shinji do things that terrified her, both for how much he could have done and how little she'd resisted. He was a father who'd sworn he'd protect his daughter, who'd gone out to slay a monster and found a bunch of kids fixing a shrine. The terror had propagated, up into the family, into an awful lingering wound that Shinji himself had already punished himself for, without even knowing.

But the man sobbing at his knees hadn't known either. Wiping the blood from his split lip and blowing his nose, Shinji sighed again. "If that's all you have, then this is where it stops."

Kneeling, the man looked up, his own hands were bloody and ragged from the improvised weapons. Shinji hunkered down himself and took the man's hands in his own. Surface level lacerations, an easy fix. He smoothed the cuts with his thumbs and willed the blood to clot. Drained as he was, any resistance was token at best.

"If you have to be angry at me, then do it. I can take it. But you won't come back here." Jerking his head over his shoulder at the restored shrine, Shinji tugged the man to his feet. "Because I'm watching the place now."

Staring at his hands, the man still bawled. He looked up at Shinji, then at the can of gasoline he'd planned on using. Back inside the shrine, a slash of blue and a glowing red eye appeared out from behind a pillar, and Rei blinked, wondering aloud what the noise was. Wild-eyed and panicking, the man twisted and scrambled away from the question and witnesses. He dashed into the grass and made for the road, skipping the cleared paths entirely. Shinji watched and listened as he heard the engine catch and rumble out into the night, far and away from the shrine. Rei crept out from the thickly shadowed shrine interior.

A few seconds later, Deja stalked out of the tall grass, pistol in hand and dreadlocks askew. She holstered the weapon and huffed. "The Vandal?"

Shinji nodded, looking off toward the city before turning back to the shrine. Rei wrapped a hand around his and squeezed. "What is the matter, Shinji-kun?"

It took a few minutes for him to really answer. Bits of it had been floating around for the past few days, weeks really, but now it looked clearer than ever. He'd done so much over the past months, over his entire time as a pilot, an Exalt. He thought back to Toji and his sister, or to Ritsuko and her arm. The terrorists and his nightmares. His episodes above and below ground, and dealing with Asuka and Rei or Misato. There was good and bad in all of that, he had been good and bad through all of that...

"I think," He began, staring at the shrine and what it represented, then glancing down at the forgotten can of gas. "That I need to think about what I do more."

* * *

A week passed since Shinji had defended the shrine. He'd been away from NERV and the Geofront for a little over three weeks. He sat in the passenger side of Rei's ever-improving project car, counting the amber lights as they blurred by overhead. Settling into the freshly installed racing leather seats, he glanced to the side and smiled. Rei had a deft touch behind the wheel, as sure as any martial arts master. Deja had signed off on Rei's learner's permit days before and waived the hour requirement. The blue-haired girl had passed her road test with a perfect score.

The Geofront access tunnel seemed shorter than he remembered.

Both teens were silent as they made their way through the cavernous parking lot and past the various security checkpoints. They swiped their cards at the main gate and strode in, equally sure of themselves. Shinji took a deep calming breath as he watched the gate rattle open. NERV had been a distant sore point for him the past few weeks. Shinji had teased at the problem in fits and starts, coming to a fair number of conclusions and discarding more than a few.

Glancing to the side, he was glad to know Rei was heading in with him. Oddly enough, she was dressed for the pool- sandals, a swimsuit and a pair of sweatpants. A necklace with a thick keycard dangled around her neck. The duffel bag slung over her shoulder probably held a change of clothes. Nothing wrong with that, he figured. Looking ahead, Shinji picked up the pace. The weeks away had been good for him. They'd given him some much needed clarity, alongside his own increasing certainty.

He had a good idea where to start now.

Rei waved as she took a right at one of the uncountable crossways that cut throughout Central Dogma. She headed for an express elevator down, and Shinji wondered why. Maybe an underground pool perhaps. Well, Rei could take care of herself, and she'd meet back up with him outside.

Heading deeper into the Geofront, Shinji started to come upon familiar ground. Walls and floors he had pulled up with his bare fingers, and doors he'd welded shut. They'd been cut or blown open with normal tools, leaving ragged edges and gaping holes leading into his quarantine zone. He stepped over the line and into the place he'd done so much, most of it horrifying. He didn't have to be that, to make those demands of people or himself. Rows of abandoned desks and ramshackle MAGI terminals filled one chamber, while tools and the remains of half-completed prototypes dominated the other.

Taking in the damage, Shinji realized he could have easily fixed it. He spun in place and nodded, absolutely certain he could restore every broken part and panel. At the same time, he had a plan and was going to stick to it. Just being there though, in that room, was helping. Rei had told him to confront the problem in small parts, and so he did. Shinji looked around one final time and considered himself done with this small chunk of his rampage.

At the far end of the quarantine zone was his office, and the hole he'd blown out to free himself and his team. The floor, desk and every loose paper had been bleached to near ruin. He stared at the bare walls, exposed down to the insulation and cabling, wondering where the actual wall panels had gone. The notes he'd scrawled all over had been insightful but.... No. Coming back to NERV and immediately wanting to pick that research up would not have been a good idea.

Stepping out of the zone, Shinji sighed and made his way further into the Geofront research complex. As he went, he started to see more NERV technicians and employees. Some gave him a wide berth, or up and about-faced down the nearest clear hallway. Shinji had expected that, and had done his best to prepare, but seeing it happen still made the guilt flare up. He beat the ill feeling back with certainty of purpose. Other encounters were neutral, or even nice. Overall NERV seemed to be split between those who feared him, and those who'd been worried.

Ritsuko had been one of the latter, but even he could see the fear. Shinji had run into the division leader, and they squared off on either end of the hall. Hands stuffed into her pockets, the blonde scientist took a long serious look at the pilot, the Exalt. Shinji met the stare as best he could. Ritsuko had only caught the edges of his rampage, and she deserved better than a shameful flinch. The moment stretched out while Ritsuko took her reading.

Finally, she gave him a sharp nod and waved for him to follow. Shinji wasn't overly concerned by her silence, he could understand the need for uncomplicated things. Leading him through the various corridors, Ritsuko pointed him towards one of the dozens of laboratories honeycombed throughout the Geofront. The 'safest' of his prototypes had been left there, most of them from before his episode. Good, what he wanted was probably nearby.

Instead of picking around the haphazard piles of crates and project results, Shinji started to push them around. Ritsuko watched from the doorway, silhouetted by the hallway lights as he worked. Paths and channels between shelves formed as he worked, and bit by bit Shinji pulled out his objective. Along the way he heard a faint squeaking. Off on one shelf with a fresh bottle of water, dish of food and changed lining were his lab rats. Five pairs of red eyes gleamed in the darkness.

Grinning faintly, Shinji nodded and scooped the cage up under one arm. Power flowed through his soul a bare thought. "Hey guys. How are you?"

The rats squealed happily, and Shinji smiled wider. He felt Ritsuko's eyes on him even as he continued to explore, pulling out familiar gloves and greaves along with a thick armored body suit. He'd have to make some adjustments though.

"I'm going to fix this, you know." The white-furred shapes hushed, listening intently. "I'm not ready to tackle this whole thing yet, but I'm not going to run away from it. I just needed that time away. Not unsurprising really."

He set the cage down and reached into a cabinet for an awkward, relentlessly military shape. Cradling the Specialist's helmet under one arm, he gave the rats a wry grin. Shinji was certain Ritsuko could hear him too. "I think I need a bit more time to figure things out, but I'm not going to ignore what went on here either. I think I can handle it better now. Not just say that I can."

A trickle of power called down the time from his internal clock, and he let out a bemused snort. He'd been wandering NERV for close to three hours. Pulling the rest of his marketing disguise into his arms, Shinji turned and made for the doorway, still occupied by one scientist.

Halfway through the first step though, he stopped, and turned back to the rats. "You know, there's someone you all might be happy to see again."

* * *

The sun was setting by the time Shinji made it out of the Geofront. Rei had paged him along the way, telling him to meet her outside by one of the train stations. He'd found her right where she said, leaning against the hood of her Skyline and still a bit damp, smelling slightly of chlorine. Shinji smiled at that, glad that she managed to go swimming after all.

To the east, the towers of the fortress city cast the setting sun back across the land, painting everything in shades of orange. Tossing the suit into the trunk, he kept the rats and their cage in hand. He offered them to Rei without a word. She held the cage up to eye level, and the rats inside met her gaze with five of their own. Raising an eyebrow quizzically towards Shinji, he could only meet her with a half-hearted shrug before ducking into the opened door. Apparently satisfied by that, Rei merely nodded once and set the cage down, a chorus of squeaks emerging as it was slid between the new seats.

She turned the engine over while Shinji eased in on the passenger side. Rei looked up while he sat down, head cocked to the side. "I will have to consider names for them."

* * *

End Chapter 35.

Shyft · Jun 10, 2014

The walls had started coming down faster than anyone anticipated. Chemical fires threw hot gasses up into the drop ceiling, softening metal and burning through wood and insulation. Smoke flooded the space, billowing out in thick oily plumes from every window and widening crack in the three story warehouse. Half a dozen workers coughed and screamed in the darkness, blocked in by fallen debris or dissolving floors.

Bloodied and wheezing, Tetsuo crawled on his hands and knees while he hacked out dust and toxic grit. He kept one shoulder against the wall to keep his bearings. The paint around him started to peel and crack from the heat- staying wasn't going to be a good idea. Smoke and tears wreaked havoc on his vision. Everything was a hazy black shape or a hot orange blur. Some small part of him wondered how he could have gotten lost in a place he'd worked for six years.

Above, the ceiling cracked. A widening tear sagged down, showing jagged wood and linoleum teeth. The smoke and heat shot up into the upper space, leaving the second floor hallway cool for a heavenly few seconds. Tetsuo stared at the impending collapse, suddenly too tired to do anything. Some sound outside drew Tetsuo's attention, a muted shout over the sirens. The actual glass in all the windows had shattered early on in the fire- had it been ten minutes, more? Tetsuo couldn't be sure. All he saw through the smoke was a black shape framed by the fortress city outside.

The window frame exploded inward, carpeting the work floor with bits metal. The smoke billowed around a new, hulking shape. Glowing orange and yellow lines traced up its limbs, crawling up the back of an almost faceless helmet. All of that had taken maybe ten heartbeats, and the collapsing ceiling above groaned once more. The man-shape moved, crossing the space and drawing the smoke into the wake of his passing. Sliding to a halt next to the fallen worker, he shoved both gloved hands into the wall.

Nearly a thousand pounds of debris gave way, falling down and crashing upon the armored man's arms and back. It piled up high across his shoulders.

The armored head tilted down to face the worker, and a blue crystal eye-slit seemed to look through his skin. A low computerized voice hissed reassuringly. "You're fine-"

Tetsuo was too shocked to answer. Shrugging against the pile, his savior pushed and flung it all away. Free and moving, the grey suit was streaked with grime and dust. Pulling his hands out of the wall, the hero grabbed Tetsuo by the collar and lifted. "Hang on and you'll live, sorry this is going to be somewhat bumpy!"

Hauled bodily through the smoke and fire, Tetsuo couldn't answer other than to scream. Together they charged across the burning building. The helmeted head swiveled left and right, and Tetsuo could hear digital mumbling through the mouthpiece. "Nothing load bearing around..."

Running straight at an office wall, the man lashed out with one hand and shattered it utterly. The whole office exploded into fragments. Kicking desk and filing cabinet away, the pair jumped through a fire, sailing twenty feet or more before coming to a ragged halt. Slamming bodily into still-forming bruises, a new wave of pain washed over Tetsuo's side. The ache shocked him back into full escape mode. Even that couldn't stop him from seeing one of his coworkers buried under the rubble though. Mai's little arm peeked out from under another collapsed ceiling.

Tetsuo tried to call out, but the masked man was already moving. Heaving aside chunks of building like they were garden stones, he dug past the ruin and pulled the coughing woman from the collapse. Tucking her under one arm and grabbing Tetsuo in the other, the hero twisted smartly on one heel. "Hold on- we're gonna jump!"

Jump?

Dashing back through the cleared space and the open second floor window, Tetsuo's eyes watered. The speed stung his face, but he was moving too fast to feel the heat from the growing fire. Outside he could see slashes of silver from the fortress building across the street, and the flickering light of sirens. Faster than he could think, the trio crossed the distance and were airborne.

For a long moment, Tetsuo wondered if he was flying.

Then gravity took hold. Falling in a smooth arc, the armored man reached for the street with both legs and landed. The impact shook every bone in Tetsuo's body, but the pain was welcome, the clean air was sweet and he coughed hard to get the smoke out of his lungs. Paramedics with blankets and masks were already there, pulling him away.

Another voice shouted out, one of authority. "Specialist! Three more-bottom floor!"

The Specialist offered a faceless salute and charged back into the fire. Tetsuo watched past the oxygen mask and rush of bodies; paramedics, firemen and police. The street across from the warehouse was a riot of hazard colors and waving arms. Radios crackled from every side, relaying orders all across the city block. On the other side of the street, the warehouse burned.

A groan of distressed metal and the hiss of burning chemicals lashed out from the top floor, loud enough to send everyone outside scrambling for cover. A paramedic hauled Tetsuo into the ambulance and pulled the door back like a shield. They could still see the building through that tiny square window, and both men watched the topmost floor give way. It smashed and collapsed into the floor below, sending a concussive burst of flame and noise flaring out in a blooming mushroom cloud. The fireball ignited the tower of smoke for a roaring split second, before burning way.

Debris pelted the crowd under the first burst, sending anyone without armor screaming away. Bits of building pelted the ambulance across one side, denting the metal walls. A spiderweb of cracks appeared across the window. Tetsuo reeled, and outside he heard someone shout.

"Second floor is going down!"

Shivering and well past actually feeling terror, Tetsuo leaned out around the door. The second floor was going down, sagging like the top floor had, only worse. What glass hadn't already been blown out by heat or their vanished rescuer shattered explosively. The rain of shards spread out in a fan ahead of the building facade, gleaming in the light of the fire and the noonday sun. Finally, Tetsuo saw the firemen armed with hoses trying to control the blaze, spraying down the neighboring buildings while hazmat trucks joined the fray.

The second floor finally collapsed with another echoing boom, a handful of heartbeats after the first. Charging through the door-less front entrance, one more lucky soul managed to escape the flame. The building itself was a lost cause and even Tetsuo could see it. Now they just waited. What remained of the building began to creak and groan. Tetsuo's hands clamped down tight on the ambulance door, squinting past the stinging chemical haze. He found himself slipping out of the ambulance and back into the crowd, pushing closer to the fire.

A dark shape in the rolling clouds of smoke charged forward toward the light. The Specialist skid to a halt right at the doorway, waving back into the building. The last two workers rushed through the heat and grit, running along the main entrance hall Tetsuo himself had walked for years. The flames built up behind them, hotter and hotter. A final round of explosions rang out, shredding one corner of the structure and throwing the Specialist into the opposite door frame. The crowd outside ducked for cover once more, dashing back behind cars and barricades.

The armored man slumped down for a moment, and the whole warehouse began to shift and scream. Twenty feet away from the entrance, the last two survivors dashed with everything they had, but the ceiling and all the debris piled on it fell too fast. Tetsuo couldn't look away, not at the last moments of men he'd known for years. Snapping upright, the Specialist charged out of the door frame and through the suddenly absent wall. Skidding to a halt beneath the ruined corner, he threw his hands up. Nearly half a building slammed into his open palms, and yet it held. With the way clear, the armored man turned and shouted for the survivors to run.

Behind them all, the back of the warehouse started to collapse completely, falling apart like a sandcastle set against waves. Tetsuo's coworkers picked themselves up and ran, limbs bloody and wild-eyed but alive. Vaulting debris and dodging the surging fires, they blew past the Specialist's sides. The armored man stepped forward right as they cleared, and the warehouse fell apart behind him.

The Specialist stood across the street from the crowd of civilians and rescuers, armor, abraded and streaked with grime. Tetsuo watched and listened, as the last sounds of that moment were the lingering fires and the muted wail of sirens.

Then, as if by some unspoken cue, camera flashes filled the air.

* * *

There was a new altar to the gods of telecommunications in Misato's apartment, and only the expansive renovations allowed it to stand without dwarfing the normally tiny living room space. A sudden burst of color and sound cut through the apartment. PenPen stared unblinkingly at the television screen while one extended claw pressed down on the channel button.

"-Unprecedented Aurorae continue to spread out across the skies of northern and Central Japan. Meteorologists say that it's yet another sign of our changed times after Second Impact, as the magnetic poles of the Earth continue to shift to this da-"

The image scattered for a split second, and resolved mid-stream into an opening monologue. "-Last time on Tokyo Love Story, Hideki and Anko reunite after a year of separation- lost to each other after the destruction of Old Toky-"

Rerun, PenPen noted. Another channel change showed stargazers all over the northern hemisphere looking to the sky as unprecedented meteor showers shot across Earth's atmosphere. Pretty enough, the penguin supposed. The talking heads were going on about losing satellite coverage though. Good thing Tokyo-3 was hard-wired as often as possible.

"And now in local news- continuing our top story from yesterday, the Specialist continues his one-man campaign against workplace hazards and the perils of the blue collar environment here in Tokyo-3. We have footage of his latest daring rescue, braving deadly chemical fires!"

The man of the hour himself appeared not moments later, idly munching on some hand-dipped caramel apples. Even PenPen enjoyed his roommate's supernal genius at the culinary arts.

Shinji stared at the screen for a moment, chewing fitfully. "... Why aren't they asking why the building even burned down, or looking for more buildings at risk? Ignoring that makes no sense whatsoever."

"Television's worthless. This is why I read the paper." Shutting off the television and PenPen just gave the boy a fowl shrug from his perfectly molded indentation in the couch.

Looking over his shoulder, the hot-springs penguin stared at Shinji's rising eyebrows. "What? You talk to the rats and I surprise you with my eloquence?"

* * *

Ritsuko sighed and shoved her hands into her labcoat pockets, fussing with her cigarettes and lighter but not taking them out. It had been close to a month since Shinji's episode. She and Fuyutsuki picked fitfully through the wreckage of the quarantined zone, wondering what each station and remnant had meant. The forensic reports had given them the clinical, objective details.

Nudging a smashed terminal with one toe, Ritsuko gave into the temptation and pulled out a cigarette. "Katsuragi's been gone for more than a month now."

The old man hummed softly. He looked better at least, having caught up on sleep since the most recent crisis. Teaching had done wonders for him too, and Ritsuko could hear the smile in his voice, no matter the topic. "Her A-17 combat order had a provision for extended deployment; the Commander and I are not particularly worried."

Lighting her cigarette, Ritsuko gave the commander a noncommittal shrug. She was worried, thank you very much. Misato was the one who ran herd on the absurd pilot personalities. Rei had become much easier to deal with over the past few weeks though. Stepping lightly, she meandered around the abandoned workstations and benches.

It had taken a lot of effort on her part to make sure everyone had remained calm. Weeks of meetings, one-on-ones and a whole host of favors being traded in the upper echelons of NERV research and development. Most of the scientists and engineers that Shinji had kidnapped were livid, and Ritsuko knew better than most how justified they felt. The scientist felt like she owed something though, and had to pay it back somehow.

She owed Rei, for maintaining her faith in Shinji despite his madness, and in Ritsuko herself. It had taken Ritsuko a few days, but she had realized after the fact that Rei had shamed her. Not even intentionally, either! The thought had boggled the scientist for hours afterwards. That night, she'd sat in the darkness of her apartment with only cats for company, thinking hard.

That was then however, and both her own sudden insight on herself and Shinji's manic episode were far enough behind her that Ritsuko had stopped counting days to the second since it ended. The other scientists hadn't yet, but Ritsuko was going to do her level best to give Shinji time to fix his mistakes.

Moving forward into the once-clean room Shinji had used as an office, the Sub-Commander and head of Project E took in the bare, stripped down walls. They'd removed the bleached but legible panels hours after Shinji had fled the Geofront and locked them up tight.

"Thaumaturgy aside, I can't tell where Shinji ends and his Exaltation begins." Ritsuko took a drag of her cigarette and gave Fuyutsuki a wry, fox-like grin. "Tell me, professor, does the blood run true? He is the child of two geniuses."

Fuyutsuki let out a short laugh, shuffling through some papers that hadn't been cleared off the desk. They were nearly black with scribbled notes. "Melodrama doesn't suit you, doctor."

Ritsuko smiled a bit wider and sent a meaningful look over the older man's shoulder, through of the hole Shinji had punched in the wall weeks previously. He followed her gaze outside and winced. The NERV logo stood out bright red on the silvery-grey wall.

GOD'S IN
HIS HEAVEN
ALL'S RIGHT
WITH THE WORLD

* * *

It was a sunny day in Tokyo-3. The city blocks were high and full, while the solar collection towers turned to catch light and pump it down into the Geofront. Students and citizens milled around the high school, content to stick to their routines.

Crossing the student parking lot, Shinji stopped and frowned at the pair of teens fussing over their car. It had been stuck halfway into the parking space with a flat rear tire. The broken car jack only complicated the problem. One of the teens caught his eye and waved him over.

Both of them seniors, they looked up at him and let out a short laugh. "Think you could help us, Ikari-kun?"

Shinji shrugged and gave them an honest grin. He was always probably going to be more than a little humble. "Sure."

The two older teens stepped back while Shinji hunkered down next to the rear bumper bumper. He could have fixed it all outright, but that would've been obvious. Reaching to grab the car's frame, Shinji eased up and lifted. People always told stories about mothers heaving cars off their children. Shinji could do that whenever he pleased. The driver fished out his keys and hopped in to steer while his friend laughed, tossing out thanks left and right. Rolling the car into place, the two teens sagged in relief, glad they wouldn't cause a further scene.

Watching the pair lock up the car and walk off, Shinji had realized that he still really did not fully get people.

Or, it was more that he vastly underestimated entirely benign human nature. Admiring eyes from every corner followed him as he wandered through the halls of Tokyo-3 Municipal High. Teenagers of all years grinned as he passed, waving lightly or calling out his name, and Shinji smiled back. It'd been going on for more than two weeks now, since his intervention at the shrine. That was the root of it all really, that shrine and the Shinto club.

He hadn't said not to tell anyone or say anything, so naturally, Nanba-san and her friends told everyone and everything. In the school, at least.

It wasn't bad attention though, if he were completely honest with himself. Just more than he'd ever dealt with. Tokyo-3 though was known for its loyalty- the people who lived and worked in the fortress-city were dedicated to each other. They all pulled together whenever possible, and that same esprit de corps trickled all the way down to the school and students within. No one spoke of it off-campus, and that secret was shared by the students and teachers. All of which lead to him being declared silently and unanimously 'Ikari Shinji: Campus Hero."

Ayumi told him it sounded like a tokusatsu character, and he agreed... on the condition that she never make that pose again.

Lazily making his way through the grounds, familiar faces jumped out in Shinji's memory as they passed by in the halls. Some he'd tutored- and the girls he'd started to recognize as having tried to flirt with him. Kensuke had to give him a little tutorial after the fact though. A while later he'd thought back to some of the things Misato had said and done around him. The blood rushed to his face and stayed there for hours.

Skipping the halls of student lockers, Shinji headed for faculty territory- the thin offices and relentlessly efficient office spaces and furniture. Errands, always errands. He'd helped others in different ways. Solving a small problem, lending his presence to one thing or another. Every so often a big thing came up, a school crisis, like last week someone had suffered a severe allergy attack, and his rescue inhaler had failed. Shinji had been there, and a bit of magic-assisted encouragement kept the teen breathing long enough for the nurse to arrive. That, thankfully, was the most exciting thing he'd been involved with.

A quick check found the papers Fuyutsuki-sensei had asked for, and with those tucked under his arm, Shinji leaned out of the office. His pager let out a harsh buzz. Shinji's heart sped up just a bit and grinned at the display. Ayumi wanted to meet for lunch. Walking a bit faster, he made his way to Classroom 2-A and dropped the files off, waving at Toji and Hikari while they laughed over their shared lunch.

Heading outside and stretching under the noonday sun, Shinji sighed and looked out over Tokyo-3. He'd helped out with the burning warehouse three days ago, and he could spare a few hours for his rooftop project. Kensuke and Toji had been big helps getting his half of the parking garage fit for thaumaturgical research, too.

As for his afternoon, Shinji scanned the skyline with a hum, content to listen to the bustle of distant traffic without a single siren to disturb his thoughts. That was getting rarer these days too, though mostly his own doing. Right after he started going out as the Specialist, he had patched in his suit's anemic, almost-an-afterthought helmet computer into the MAGI so he could listen in on the city's emergency service. Why bother patrolling when he could let the supercomputers could do it with several thousand traffic cameras?

Heading over to the trees and benches that he and Ayumi had claimed as 'theirs', Shinji mulled over the why of it all. A teetering stack of burdens had piled up on him, and it was Rei of all people who had put him on his path. Avoid stagnation, she had said, followed by give yourself time to assess the situation. It'd been good advice. The Geofront stretched out far beneath his feet, nearly a kilometer under rock, soil and armor, and Shinji knew he'd have to deal with it eventually. How was the tough part.

In the meantime, he refused to stand idle. Every day he felt like he learned something, got closer to some sort of answer. Maybe not the exact one he was looking for, but in some strange way, each separate bit of enlightenment seemed to make the weight of his problems that much lighter. Rounding a tree and spotting Ayumi in her summer uniform, Shinji grinned inwardly. She was doing a good job of making his problems feel lighter too.

Then two dozen students mobbed them both all at once.

Shinji blinked dumbly once and twice while his fellow teenagers competed for his attention. He should have been used to it by now, seeing as it'd been happening for weeks. Some called out just to say hello or for simple favors. The athletes in the cluster of bodies tossed out invitations to pick-up games or outright joining their respective clubs. The requests grew faster and more muddled the longer Shinji took to answer, as was the usual pattern. He looked to his girlfriend and shrugged helplessly, while she scowled petulantly.

He took the hint and brought a hand to his lips, whistling. When they all looked up at him, Shinji stepped forward and glowered. "Hey! You all should know the routine by now- form a line!"

Chagrined, the teens did as he said while Ayumi took her place. It'd happened often enough now that they'd worked out a system. The stories Nanba-san and her club told had included his miracle-working, so by now the whole school knew something. More than enough to make requests. Some got priorities, others got polite turn-downs. Ayumi was in the lead vetting each aspirant.

"A run in your stockings?" Ayumi scowled at the senior. "That's girlfriend privilege only, thank you very much!"

Repairs were the easiest to rebuff seeing as most of the time people wanted to merely save money instead of replacing it. Shinji made an exception for sentimental objects though. Tasks like that rarely ate up more than an hour of his time anyway.

Healing though was more serious. Shinji frowned while Ayumi wrote down the details of the latest request. In some roundabout way, the student body had found out about Shinji's involvement in NERV's medical advances, but thankfully no one knew his exact role. He was more than happy to play the studious intern and act like an 'in', getting people onto the waiting list for Geofront treatment. Ayumi met his eye and nodded solemnly, pocketing the note.

One by one the pair worked through the thinning crowd, rapidly eating up their time at lunch together. Shinji frowned as Ayumi sorted the notes into neat stacks and pressed them into his hands. He'd have to make it up to her somehow. At the back of the line someone jumped and waved, calling out Shinji's name. Ayumi scowled as the boy shoved to the front, until she recognized who it was.

"Aida-kun?" Her scowl stayed fixed in place, but it softened slightly. Shinji laughed lightly and wrapped his arm around his girlfriend's shoulders while Kensuke grinned, pushing up his glasses.

Turning to the crowd, Shinji coughed. "Sorry everyone, but you'll have to come back tomorrow."

With thirty minutes left to their lunch period, Shinji gave one of his first friends an apologetic look. "Kensuke, could you make this quick...?"

Ayumi followed that request up with a pouting glare of her own, and Kensuke laughed, raising his hands. "Easy! I'm not asking him to do my homework or anything." He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a half-rolled spiral notebook, handing it to Shinji. "This is everything Akagi-sensei wanted about the thaumaturgy going on throughout the city."

Shinji blinked as he flipped through the pages, one-handed. It was the first he'd heard of any investigation.... "In the city? We haven't taught anyone else outside of NERV."

"That's just it," Kensuke shrugged. "According to NERV's sensors, a bunch of thaumaturgical reactions are going on all kinds of places where people gather. She made me a handheld scanner for that part."

Pointing to a particular entry in the book, Kensuke continued. "I was looking at a restaurant that day and it took me two hours before I figured it out; the scanner pinged whenever the kitchen staff washed their hands."

Ayumi looked between the two boys, eyebrows rising high and meeting in the middle, obviously lost. Wincing, Shinji made another note to explain thaumaturgy to her at some point, along with making up the other mistakes he'd made. Each missed cue had become increasingly obvious over the past few weeks.

Stuffing the notebook into his own pocket, Shinji nodded. "Thanks, Kensuke. I'll make sure this gets to Akagi-sensei. In the meantime though, I'd like to spend the rest of lunch with my girlfriend, okay?"

Ayumi beamed.

* * *

As far as Shinji could tell, fear of heights was closely related to how good your balance was. The particular trick to it, the form he had shaped his soul into, was effortlessly simple. Like a refinement of all the effort that went into learning how to walk, the most basic understanding just sort of leapt from out of his mind and into being months ago.

Stepping lightly along the half-inch skyscraper ledge, Shinji happily ignored the vertigo that would have sent a veteran climber scrambling for solid ground. Fifteen stories up and wrapped in in twenty pounds of armor, holographic projectors and disguise kit, Shinji smiled behind his mask and walked along a surface no wider than his own palm without fear. He could balance on his hands at the top of the tallest tower in the city at high wind. Even if he did all that while standing on one finger, he'd never stumble.

Easing around the narrow ledges across the building facade as if it were a sidewalk, Shinji grinned wider still.

As for why he was on the building, there was no particular reason other than that he loved the view. The afternoon cityscape stretched out above and below, and he sucked in another deep breath through the helmet's filters. All was quiet so far in Tokyo-3, and he'd head back home before dinner. Superheroes according to Kensuke hung out for all hours of the night, no matter how safe their city was. Shinji snorted, painfully aware of how little time there was in a day to do anything. He'd already burnt himself out once trying.

Making a full circuit of the building exterior, Shinji rubbed the chin of his helmet, contemplative. If he were honest with himself, he was better able to recognize the problems he'd had last time, and had already hit on a few solutions. For the moment though he was more than happy to focus on his current problems, though. Leaning back against a modern, nearly featureless building cornice, Shinji synced with his helmet computer and queried the MAGI.

A rush of traffic camera images and automated reports scrolled through his helmet. He didn't have the same direct mental or visual feed compared to Sorhyu's patch, but the helmet screens were more than enough. Unfortunately he didn't have speed-reading magic- yet. Scrolling through the list of events, Shinji let out a contented sigh. No major disasters, it seemed. Standing, he stretched and smiled a bit wider still. He'd get home with enough time to make dinner and work on his rooftop project.

Something red flashed, and he focused in on the alert with a thin frown. Spoke too soon, apparently. "Evacuation shelter breach?"

Double-checking the address of the shelter, he nodded and banished the MAGI alert, giving him back vision of the outside world. Focusing his will again, Shinji settled into another internal stance and eyed the building across the street. Misato had once joked about him being found in a spaceship as a baby. He hadn't understood the reference then. Digging his toes into the building ledge, Shinji pushed.

He couldn't leap tall buildings yet, but he was more than able to leap between them.

* * *

Vans. Why did the bad guys always use vans?

Watching them load boxes full of canned food and foil-sealed medical supplies, Shinji let out a wry snort. That's why, of course. He didn't need to spend a lot of time wondering as to the rest of their motivations, per se. That was for the police to handle, such as they were. The shelter itself was a squat, rhomboid extrusion of concrete that claimed one corner of a fortress city block. They tended to share space with the extensive storm drains and ventilation that honeycombed the city foundations.

Standing tall, the Specialist leapt off the warehouse rooftop. The sky was shifting to orange, pink and dark blue as the sun sank toward the horizon. Landing in the shadows, Shinji reached inward for that stance of inevitable victory. The orange and yellow lines that traced his suit lit up alongside less easily explained sunfire whorls and the tangible promise of overwhelming impact.

Counting the two drivers, that'd be about six people. They all were wearing simple allergy masks and dark sunglasses- considering Shinji knew first hand how much camera coverage the MAGI had, it was pretty obvious precaution.

Hardly a problem if he could scare them into surrendering. "Hey!"

As one they all turned, some dropping their cargo at the sound of his modulated voice. Whirling on each other, they cursed and spat, kicking up dust at their feet. Shinji heard it all- plans to break for it, whispers about the Specialist- here? And so on. Fanning out, they abandoned the contraband while their apparent leader walked forward. Shinji found himself looking down at the smaller man.

He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a thick wad of cash, fanning it out and letting Shinji see the value. The... Shinji wasn't sure what to call him- head thief? The head thief bowed faintly, cash still in hand. "I'll gladly pay if you'll let everyone here walk."

"You're bribing me." Shinji blinked, unapologetically incredulous. "You're actually trying to bribe me. Who does that?"

. "Lots of people. I thought you were a publicity stunt anyway." Smiling behind his mask and glasses, the head thief just shrugged. The expression didn't reach his eyes. "Listen, the stuff in there is worth a lot to a lot of people- there hasn't been an Angel attack in what, a year? Nobody's gonna miss it."

Shinji stood his physical ground, but inwardly he was laughing. "You're monologuing. Better, you're trying to make this all sound moral." He let out a short, audible laugh at that, wondering why the man was even trying. "I don't believe it."

Waving at the shelter, Shinji laughed a little harder. "First, because you're trying to bribe me. You can throw that-" he pointed at the wad of cash- "and not notice it after two vans full of-"

The sudden impact of steel on composite ceramic made a strange sort of metallic, ring-bang noise. So that was why he tried monologuing. Shinji found himself bending forward at the shoulders slightly, pushed over only a little by the steel pipe that had been slammed into the back of his head. Slowly, Shinji turned into the weapon, letting it scrape along his helmet while focusing on the attacker with thin crystal eyes.

Ten long seconds passed while Shinji stared at the little man holding the pipe. The head thief shrugged, as if to say 'what can you do' and waved his crew forward, picking up weapons as they went. Whirling chains, brass knuckles. Firearms were rare in Tokyo-3. Small favors, Shinji supposed. Counting again, Shinji frowned- five guys this time. He'd gotten sloppy allowing the pipe to hit in the first place, but at least his helmet did its job. Where was the sixth man though....

Best to focus on the immediate problem- he wasn't leaving and they weren't going to let him stay standing if they wanted to finish their heist. The situation had already escalated. Shinji flexed his fingers and curled his hands into ready fists, checking each thug as they approached. There was a bit of apprehension in the back of his mind, knowing exactly how deadly he was... but at the same time he knew now better than ever how to control it. His promised victory meant they'd need hospitals, not life support.

One by one the five remaining thieves circled around, testing the air with their weapons. It was surprisingly easy to read their intentions- none of them were trained combatants. Each man all but shouted their plan of attack with every step, and their blatant fear.

The leader seemed to notice that though, even as he pulled out a taser. "He's a NERV showpiece-" An arc of electricity snapped between the two prongs. "We're only human. He can only do so much!"

Well, that may have been true.... A chain whipped out and threatened to catch him across the head. Arms up, Shinji did the sensible thing and ducked. The length of metal sailed around in a wide arc forcing the others to scramble aside as well. The hesitation was enough though. On some unspoken cue three of the thieves charged forward, slapping aside his arms with swinging pipes and wild punches. Two clamped around one of his arms each while the third barreled into his midsection. Shinji found himself airborne for a fleeting second as the three man tackle gained momentum and lost it just as quickly.

As one the pile of bodies slammed hard into the street, and Shinji's helmet cracked against the pavement, again. Sorhyu had tried something like this months ago... but Sorhyu was actually good. Getting his feet under his body, Shinji tensed and stood up, ignoring the weight of three men bearing down on him. With glasses and masks knocked askew, Shinji could see the fear surge back once more. Swinging his arms up then down, Shinji dropped two of them on the street, hard enough to stun and bruise. The man around his waist shoved back, scrambling away while the leader charged in with his taser.

Shinji let it discharge against his armor, utterly ignored.

Winding his arm around the leader's outstretched limb, Shinji twisted at the hips and pulled, forcing the man to slam hard into his chest and bounce back out. Bones cracked audibly and the man stumbled back, cluching his chest. Cracked ribs- Shinji noted with some small degree of relief, and nothing worse. Three down, two or so to go. Sensing something behind, Shinji shifted. The sound of moving air and rattling metal was enough to inform him of the incoming chain.

This time he caught it with one raised forearm, yanking the chain away and breaking the man's fingers with the same action. Striding forward Shinji whipped out with one back fist toward the man's thigh, hitting a nerve and bruising the man's leg down to the bone. No way for him to run. Four of six, fifteen seconds all told. He turned to take care of the last two when something bright overloaded his helmet's light intensification.

Ninety kilometers per hour netted out to about 25 meters per second, which was a bit less than triple his overland running speed. That an overloaded civilian van could go that fast was more surprising, which why he only had time to turn and face the impact. Shinji found himself bent at the waist and pinned against the protruding hood of the vehicle, heaving for breath. It's high beam headlights bracketed his legs, and Shinji felt his armored toes scrape against the pavement and clip the curb. Behind him, the light reflected back on the windshield and the approaching hardened shelter wall.

Together, van and Exalt punched through the reinforced structure, tearing a gaping hole in the structure. A sudden hardening of his internal arete protected him from the worst of it. Shrugging off the broken concrete and drywall, Shinji shook his head and wrenched his helmet back into place. The van's abused engine groaned and clicked behind the front grill and crumpled hood.
They hit me with a van. He looked up at the panicked driver, who was wrenching at the gear shift and mashing the pedals. The deployed airbag wasn't making it any easier on him.

Slamming his open palms onto the van hood, Shinji laughed. "You hit me with a van!"

Lifting his arms once more, he brought his fists down on the thin metal and the engine beneath it, utterly destroying both with a double-handed smash. The ruined van sagged forward, having completely lost its front axle. Bracing one leg against the firewall, Shinji shoved, and the van skid across the sidewalk for half a dozen meters. Stalking forward the pilot huffed, counting now five of six thieves handled.

The last man stood in the center of the street- the very first man who'd hit him with the pipe. Shinji just turned and stared. A second later, the thief dropped the weapon and lost control of his bladder. Six of six. Shinji sighed and clapped his hands, knocking free the concrete dust... Blinking behind his mask, he turned back to the shelter. Ambling over, he tapped one ragged edge of the hole with his gloved knuckles, and the hardened anti-Angel defensive bunker material cracked.

Shinji found himself frowning. "...That's just not right."

Car noises from down the street grew closer. The little fight had finally gotten the attention of Tokyo-3 law enforcement- and the news crews. Shinji ignored it for the moment, focusing on the shelter walls. He tapped into his reserve again, effortlessly understanding both the material and what went into its formulation. He stared at the concrete dust in his hands for a long, disbelieving moment.

Then a camera nearly knocked his head off. He jerked out of the way at the last second, only to find a microphone shoved in front of his face a second later. There was only one news station in Tokyo-3, but there were three cameras and reporters jockeying for position. Shinji found himself backing up against the shelter wall as they closed in.

A photogenic brunette had the lead, sidling up next to him and standing in frame. She barely came up to his bicep, and her arm was almost at full extension, holding the microphone. "Specialist-san! Can we get a comment on your recent good samaritan works?"

"Uh...." The voice masking still worked, processing until he sounded like nothing in particular. "There's not much to say..."

"I'm sure the viewers at home are happy to know you're on the case- was today's crisis another daring rescue, like last week's fire?" The smarm and compliments were coming faster now, and Shinji could tell her teeth were orthodontically perfect. Bleached to a pearly shine too.

He shook his head and sighed, waving at the six would-be thieves and the one ruined van. Shinji shrugged. "N-No. Some people broke into the shelter."

The newsies made a point of not turning to the sight. Instead they focused in closer on him, and Shinji could hear the whine of zoom lenses locking around his head. The lead reporter beamed prettily, blatantly ignoring what he'd just said. "Specialist-san, the inquiring minds of Tokyo-3 want to know, just who is under that mask? Our phones have been ringing off the hook about it for weeks now!"

Shinji shrugged. Not like he was ever going to say either way. The shrill wail of police sirens cut across the city block, and the first hints of flashing strobes played over the buildings. He turned back to the shelter and touched the wall again. It crumbled.

On a whim he glanced back over his shoulder. "Listen, this doesn't bother you? There's a giant hole in an Angel shelter...."

He trailed off when the pairs of cameramen and reporters all blanched, seemingly in sync. The 'live feed' lights dimmed a beat later. Shinji cocked his head to the side and broke off another chunk of concrete- there wasn't even any rebar reinforcement. "I'm not enhancing myself here. It's really that- are you- hey?"

The last word was plaintive and a bit incredulous. The news crews had already made it halfway back to their vans, arguing all the way as the police vehicles rolled to smooth stops. The reporters hissed at each other, bemoaning the fact that they wouldn't get a better take due to the noise, and would have to settle for post-production at the studio.

Shinji let his hand fall to the side and huffed. Looking up at the late afternoon sky, he cocked his head.

Well, at least he'd get home in time to work on his project like he wanted.

* * *

Jogging away from the shelter, Shinji rounded a building corner and leaned into an alleyway. His dust-streaked armor vanished in a brief flare of sunfire, leaving him in his normal slacks and shirt. Twisting around to get his bearings, he caught a flash of blue out the corner of his eye. Rei stood at the curb next to her still unpainted car. The girl herself was still in her school uniform, a bit at odds with the machine she'd put so much effort into.

Still, Shinji smiled broadly. "Rei-chan"

"Shinji-kun," keys in hand, she waved at her car. "Shall we go?"

Nodding, Shinji moved for the passenger door when he stopped mid-step. "Ah... How'd you know where I was?"

Rei just smiled as she twirled the keys on her finger. "I asked the MAGI, same as you do."

Shaking his head and laughing, Shinji slid into the car. He wasn't going to complain about a ride home.

* * *

The apartment door slid shut with a well-oiled whisper. Ayumi and Rei were on their way to the mall- something about a 'girls day to make Misato jealous'. Shinji smiled at the memory, and of the look on their faces when he hugged them both. It was finally his turn to make his girlfriend blush. Of course, their having gone out left him all by himself for the day. No school, no roommate, friends or girlfriend. And not one bit of going out and saving the day.

Spinning around in the living room, Shinji took in the space. It had been weeks since he'd taken stock of Misato's apartment.

Early afternoon sunlight spilled in through the angled floor-to-ceiling windows, bathing the main space and kitchen in warm golden tones. The pillow fortress from weeks ago had expanded, taking up half the living room with bedding and towers of cushions. There had been two smaller penthouse suites above their unit, but Shinji had removed those long ago, clearing the space for stairways and currently unused lofts.

The furniture throughout was hand-crafted hardwood sanded to flawless perfection, stained, sealed and finally thaumaturgically strengthened. Coordinating all the spaces had been a challenge, as had meshing the old with the new. The gleaming steel appliances filling his kitchen were no longer factory standard. He could afford to metaphorically splurge on good design.

All of which lead to Shinji realizing he had nothing to do.

Slumping down on the couch, he grinned wryly, comfortably alone. It was more he had a great many projects, but most of them were in various stages of stop and go. His rooftop project needed rocks delivered from various quarries, as well as the steel, concrete and assorted tons of raw material. He fortunately wouldn't need a crane to do any of it, but.... Well, as far as the apartment was concerned, as far as Tokyo-3 was concerned, circumstances had conspired to give Shinji a day off. Still on the couch, he thought back to his kitchen.

After about thirty seconds, he cocked his head to the side and stared at nothing in particular. "...Can I make something unhealthy so well as to make it healthy?"

Shinji mulled over the question for a while longer, and the gold disc flared out on his brow. "...No, deep fried anything is still deep fried anything."

His stomach rumbled, and Shinji stared down at his traitorous midsection, snorting. "Aaaannnd now I'm in the mood for tempura."

* * *

After his late lunch, Shinji whiled away the time with cleaning the kitchen and catching up on some lingering chores. One of which included repairing his Specialist-suit. He pulled it out from... wherever it stayed when he sent it away, falling in a heap next to him. He ran his hands over the seams and panels, cleaning away the soot and grime from several weeks worth of general heroics. All told, doing all of that had taken maybe an hour out of his day, leaving Shinji with even less to do until Rei and Ayumi got home.

But then PenPen waddled out of his fridge and offered to teach the boy how to play poker.

There was something very wrong with the world when a bird could beat a human at a card game.

After having fleeced him of all his cash on hand, PenPen headed into the bathroom, eager to try out Shinji's renovations. That left the teen to his own devices again, and the girls still weren't due back for hours. Wandering around the apartment, Shinji found himself back at square one with nothing to do. Leaning against the hallway wall, he wondered what the hell he did with his time the year before last? Eyes falling on the door to his room and what was inside, he nodded. Music, lots and lots of music. Easing in through the too-small doorway, Shinji took a moment to really look at his room.

Four bare white walls, a ceiling and a carpeted floor, with the only real architectural flourish being the patio doors that lead out onto the expanded deck. Those had been there when he moved in, too. Here Shinji felt like he filled the space more than anywhere else in the city. The walls seemed almost painfully sterile; the longer he stared at them the more his eyes stung.

There was a little desk and chair sized for a normal adult that he hadn't bothered replacing. Not that he'd ever needed to sit down and do homework, even for the correspondence courses. His closet door was open, and a long row of identical school uniforms hung inside. It was the exact thing he was wearing at that moment, down to the belt and slacks. The only bit of furniture in his room made to fit him was his bed, something Misato insisted on buying after he finally stopped growing. That was before he had spread out into all kinds of carpentry thought....

The only two bits of life in the whole room was a cello, and his SDAT player.

He hadn't touched the music player in over a year simply because he was busy. He used to need it to fall asleep, drowning out the noise of the city those first few nights he'd been in Tokyo-3. The cello though, that was tougher. He ran a finger over the top scroll just above the pegbox. He hadn't practiced in so long, and after he Exalted, Shinji realized he was afraid of breaking one of the last links to his mother. Aside from a hint of brown hair and Rei's jaw, he had no memory of the woman.

He sighed and looked at the room once more. Blank, empty and almost completely devoid of life. It was so blatant as to be ignored, simply because he spent almost no time there.

Scooping up his SDAT, Shinji found himself laughing. It welled up inside him, low and slow at first, before building into an almost hysterical fit. The sound echoed off the bare walls, and the glass patio doors seemed to shake in their seating. He stared at the music player and the mix tape he'd long since committed to memory. Every whole and sour note he knew by heart even before coming to Tokyo-3. In the little clear plastic screen, he saw a feral grin spread across his lips.

Raising that hand high, Shinji threw the gadget down and watched it shatter into a hundred pieces. The digital tape exploded in a fluttering spray of gleaming black ribbon. Feeling power flow into his limbs, Shinji laughed even harder. He picked his bed up and broke it over his knee, ripping the frame in half and knocking down the wall leading out into the hallway with the tossed remains. His fingers rent through the mattress like it wasn't even there.

Bare hands punched the patio glass and came away unscathed, but the doors themselves dissolved impressively, throwing a glittering wave of pulverized grains out onto the apartment deck itself. Cooling air flooded his room and tugged at the clothes still in his closet. He shredded those next, laughing as the white fabric turned gray in the growing clouds of dust.

Wild-eyed and laughing mad, Shinji tore down the ceiling and dug into the lofts he'd built before. Then the walls of his own room. When all was said and done he stood in the settling dust with nothing else upright and whole except for the cello. Powdered drywall caked the glossy wood finish. Snatching it up by the neck with one hand, the strings groaned painfully. He'd lost the bow around here somewhere, but no matter.

Bringing every bit of might he could to bear, in his legs and hips, all the way through his arms and into the instrument itself, Shinji manic grin stretched wider, and he laughed at the insanity of it all. So much effort for everyone... and none for him.

He brought the cello down on the floor and destroyed them both utterly.

* * *

Caked with dust, insulation and shattered drywall, Shinji slumped in the ruins of his room and the apartment below it. His mother's cello sat under his thigh, little more than a shattered wreck. What was left of his SDAT hung from a bit of ruined flooring. His two most favored possessions. Only possessions, really. He took it all in with an oddly calm expression, laughing lightly.

Lacing his fingers together, Shinji cracked his knuckles and willed more power into his hands. Today he'd fix it all.

Tomorrow, he'd make it better.

* * *

Shyft · Jun 10, 2014

To most of the world, even to most of NERV, the Geofront was little more than an engineering marvel. In truth, merely a fraction of the Geofront had been seen or claimed by human hands. Ages ago, an impossible sphere had been carved into the earth and filled with soil not indigenous to the Island of Japan. Thirteen point seven-five kilometers in diameter, it was a sign of Mankind's diminished place in the grand scheme of the universe.

Kozo Fuyutsuki found it oddly reassuring, the certainties involved.

Sitting at the bench built into the elevator, Fuyutsuki took as much weight off his tired bones as he could. The trip down into the under levels of NERV was long enough to read the morning paper, if he had thought to bring one. Meanwhile, Gendo slouched impressively, with his hands stuffed into his pockets. The elevator wheel ticked along and strobes flashed out every few seconds. Colors changed as they crossed further boundaries in the armor and structure beneath them.

Between the Evangelion Graveyard and the real Terminal Dogma was another level. If Akagi's Angel computer had proven inert- little more than a corpse, it would have gone in that interstitial space. As it stood though, it was much safer to keep the captured entity 'upstairs'.

The old man shed the burden of being second in command with an almost physical shiver. Staring at the back of Ikari's head for a long, deliberating moment, Fuyutsuki came to a decision. Straightening out his uniform cuffs, he pulled on the metaphorical mantle of academia and authority in his chosen field, as was right and proper.

"Ikari-kun."

Gendo's spine locked up. An irate professor's voice was not something a student forgot; Gendo knew it and the old man banked on that. "Fuyutsuki."

It was easy to hear the care that went into controlling one's voice after years of practice. The past few weeks had rattled the man, Fuyutsuki noted. Gendo had turned sidelong, just enough to look at the Professor out the corner of his eye. The honorific had been on the Commander's lips before he clamped down on the reflex. The beard obscured all.

Fuyutsuki scowled darkly and fixed his former student with a baleful look. "I did not like having to lie to Akagi about Katsuragi."

Whatever had knocked Gendo off balance was quickly boxed up and discarded. All the well-worn masks settled into place before Fuyutsuki's eyes with practiced ease. Hands still in his pockets, the younger man gave every impression of business as usual. "A necessary fiction."

Unperturbed by implied demand to drop the subject, Fuyutsuki pressed on. He needed more information, and Gendo's nearly absolute authority over the MAGI left him with only the normal means. "Have they continued communicating since the attacks?"

Gendo just completed his turn and faced Fuyutsuki completely before answering. "The reports have started coming in by the day- in addition to whatever filters through the various UN channels. Our Inspector helped and hindered us with his message in a bottle."

The old man conceded the point. "Most governments have an inkling of their connection to the Committee, so it stands to reason that some house cleaning is in order."

When a reply wasn't forthcoming, Fuyutsuki prodded. "Our response?"

"Measured." The statement was absolute, and Fuyutsuki knew it would would be done once they returned to the surface. "We will out a few of their men and leave them in the cold, while drawing others closer. By this point, the old men should expect any outgoing communications to be sanitized."

Fuyutsuki made a point of not allowing his expression to change, or his voice to waver. "What of Katsuragi and the fleet? Unit 02 is a significant investment, as is the Second Child."

Gendo let out a dismissive breath. "Sorhyu's girl is a crutch, ensuring we reach the critical stages. Irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, considering the girl has rendered herself invalid as well. She was never intended to be much of anything."

Frowning, the old man knew better than to suggest that was a dangerous assumption, believing she'd remain that way.

Settling back against the wall and wishing his legs weren't feeling like so much painful lead, Fuyutsuki took a moment to ponder the matter further. SEELE and by extension the Human Instrumentality Committee were... enduring, if nothing else. Plots and grand conspiracies rarely lasted longer than the lifetime of their leaders for a reason. Kaji's message had lit a fire under the United Nations, and suddenly NERV was no longer the budgetary whipping post. Over the past few weeks there had been vast infusions of cash via second and third parties, taking advantage of the looser restrictions on private industry.

Not to say they were back up to their previous levels, but long-deactivated sections of Central Dogma were gradually being brought back online. Akagi meanwhile had been splitting her time between the Pattern Green research and biotechnology, but NERV was actually on the road to deploying workable prototypes for refinement and sale. A six month turnaround was unheard of in the technology sector, military research or no.

The idea of technology and research brought Fuyutsuki out of his reverie and back focusing on Gendo. At the same time, the elevator jerked to a halt. There had not been any maintenance teams down this far in decades.

Easing upright, Fuyutsuki did his best to prevent the wince from showing outright. Looking Gendo right in the eye, the old professor scowled again. "Your communications blackout was ill-timed, Ikari."

Gendo waved it off even as he admitted as such. "An unfortunate coincidence. I had expected to observe the boy while he was isolated from his support network. Katsuragi's influence is tangible even now."

Fuyutsuki felt his own eyes light up at that, crinkling at the corners. Considering how laconic was he was normally, Gendo had been rattled by his son's episode, for a given value of rattled. "And again, I say the blackout was ill-timed."

"A setback," Gendo made another concession. Two in less than five minutes- Fuyutsuki was now more certain than ever that something was up. "But an enlightening one. The boy's strength of will can fail him. I know more now than I did before. Victory in all things professor, even defeat."

Raising a hand to push his glasses back into place, Gendo terminated the topic. "Assets were not in place to take action or tranquilize the boy- something we shall correct of course."

"Of course. Section Two has already been re-tasked and equipped." A bit of wan humor crept into Fuyutsuki's voice, and he smiled prickilishly. "You could have gassed the quarantine zone."

Making their way out of the elevator and through the intervening layers of Terminal Dogma, Gendo let out a contemptuous snort. "The boy was serving as a lightning rod. There was no reason to overplay my hand or sacrifice goodwill amongst NERV."

Fuyutsuki frowned at that declaration but said nothing- for the moment. He fell into step behind Gendo, forcing himself to keep a hand near the frost covered chain railing. Every footstep on the gantry railing echoed throughout the cavernous space. The sound bounced off the ceiling and back down, through the thin clouds of vapor that hung in the stale, rotten air. What little light there was in the space came from below, and the dim orange tanks that stretched out for hundreds of yards in every direction. Coughing, the old man pulled out handkerchief and held it to his nose.

Long-dead and dry blood reeked like little else.

Together they walked further toward a vault hanging from the ceiling itself. Somewhere relatively far above them was the Memory Transfer facility, but they were heading somewhere not even Akagi had been. Reaching the single nondescript door, Gendo pulled out a mundane key and cycled the lock. The hanging bunker had much more effective security installed elsewhere.

Inside, long-disused lights guttered to life, but they did little more than make the shadows seem even darker. The bunker itself was just one room, and in the center was a dust covered table. Gendo strode forward purposefully, already moving to wipe away the years of settled air. Fuyutsuki himself had only seen this room once before, and could recognize his own footprints in the floor.

Gendo's prints had crossed over his several more times over the years.

After a few more minutes dusting, the thin stacks of paper were brought out into the light. A handful of painstakingly etched handwritten notes, alongside photographs of alien symbols and their age-old translations. Gendo all but whipped one page at his second in command and demanded him to take it. Fuyutsuki sucked in air past his teeth and held in for a long moment.

They were Ikari Yui's notes, and her original translations of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Fuyutsuki let out the breath he'd been holding. Gendo ignored him, pouring over his own sheaf of papers. Yui's tight, efficient handwriting crowded every margin, shifting into normal Japanese, English, then various middle-eastern languages Fuyutsuki didn't recognize. Those notes were translated again in different colors, and the ink had not aged well over the years.

The text itself had not changed. The exacting parameters for Yui's scenario were laid out in scrupulous detail. Their memories however no longer matched. Holding the pages in his hand, Fuyutsuki could fight the cognitive dissonance of knowing his recollection was faulty. Inconsistent, and pervasive. Together the two commanders of NERV reconciled themselves with the reality.

They came to the same conclusion within seconds of each other, and Fuyutsuki voiced it. "ADAM was never transported as the original sequence intended. Could it still refer to the Second and Unit 02?"

Gendo let out a frustrated grunt. "Our memory of 'Red' remains. The event has not yet passed."

Fuyutsuki sighed, wishing there was a chair nearby. He waved his arm gently, careful not to crinkle the fragile pages in hand. "Then where is the sample? Does SEELE still have it?"

The Commander still juggled the changing circumstances like the grand schemer he'd proven himself to be. "Our Inspector did not arrive with it as expected, but in light of the Dawkins Protocol and NERV's shift towards corporate backing, the Committee's human response to the situation is understandable."

"But the Sixth Angel attacking as it did required ADAM to be in transit." Fuyutsuki raised the pages again, the very ones that described his point. "Yui sculpted the events as to close off certain paths to the rest of them."

Both men lapsed into a long silence, and one of the overhead lights flickered as it neared the end of its functional life. Gendo looked up, intent and speculative. "So we could assume that the many-fold agent could be lying. Not unexpected."

The implicit connection was obvious to the older man, and Fuyutsuki nodded slowly. "Assume that Kaji still has the sample then, and for some reason took it back with him on the Pacific Fleet?"

Gendo snorted contemptuously. "The man is foolish and his goals are blatant, but he is not actually a fool. Nor would the Committee send him without acknowledging his place in seeing the plan through."

"As per the original plan yes, which was about a year behind schedule, I should point out." Setting the papers down, Fuyutsuki sorted them into a neat stack while Gendo watched. He looked up at the younger when he continued. "ADAM must be in transit by this point and Sorhyu must be the one to kill it, if all the other pieces fell where they were intended."

Scowling, Gendo shook his head with a derisive grunt. "No, if she were actually "Red", then the girl would have performed acceptably and we would already be moving on to the next event in sequence. Instead her growth is unpredictable. Katsuragi's reports say as much, brief as they are."

Fuyutsuki was stone-faced and silent while Gendo continued. "Unscheduled activations, unforeseen adaptations- the girl will become an increasing complication moving forward."

Once more the silence stretched out between them, and Fuyutsuki felt the muscles in his neck lock down tight. Outwardly he refused to let his jaw tense or fold his hands up into fists. He'd been willing to make a great many compromises over the past fifteen years.... Letting the tension drain out, Fuyutsuki fixed his former student with a patient stare.

"Unfortunately," he began. "We're losing sight of a more pressing and immediate issue. Your son is already a complication moving forward, now and in the present, instead of two months from now."

Moving around the table Fuyutsuki turned to Gendo. He kept his voice was low and polite, but a thunderous weight crept in behind it. "The Second Child's psychological state makes her much easier to control, but Shinji remains a completely unpredicted variable in context of the scrolls. Say what you will about having learned something, but we know more about the First Ancestral Race than we do Shinji's Exaltation!"

Gendo was silent for several minutes, and Fuyutsuki felt his jaw tense. The younger man ran a hand along the table as he started to pace, unusually animated. His former student never mumbled, never let anything show on his face even at the most tense. The shadows in the bunker seemed to cling to Gendo's uniform jacket and pants as he rounded the table.

Passing under a guttering light fixture, Gendo's glasses reflected solid amber. "First time, happenstance. The second, coincidence. The third, by design."

The non sequitur threw him, but Fuyutsuki still recognized the reference. The context remained elusive. "I thought the phrase was ''enemy action'."

With a smirk tugging at Gendo's mouth, he shook his head. "The boy would have to be aware of the game before he could even declare himself a player, let alone as an enemy."

* * *

Memory of the shelter nagged at him, like the bit of concrete that had lodged in his shoe. Jogging down the street and into a nearby alley, Shinji resisted the urge to stomp and obliterate the offending shard- along with whatever else was under his foot at the time. Instead he clung to the shadows and pulled his street clothes out of wherever they had gone. The armor vanished in the same action, and Shinji wiped a thankfully clean arm over his brow.

Sometimes it seemed like every other day in Tokyo-3 lead to some kind of industrial disaster.

Looking left and right down the alleyway for potential witnesses and finding it clear, he released the tiny measure of power that held his gear apart from the world. It spilled out onto the ground alongside him, an empty pile of plugsuit memory material, mesh harness and armor plates. Shinji sighed and hunkered down, already channeling more power to his hands.

Scuffs, scrapes and frayed edges all made themselves whole under his touch. Broken through the sole of the military-issue boot soul was the ragged hunk of concrete- and the bit of rebar that'd made it even more awkward to run. Shinji ripped it out and tossed the chunk aside, repairing the hole with his other hand. Shaking the dust free, he held the Specialist suit up and saw that it was good as new.

He was glad he couldn't chafe either, breaking the suit in every few days would have been torture.

Storing it again, Shinji yawned and stretched, heading for a particular maintenance grate halfway into the alley. It'd take him into the fortress city substructure and access paths, meandering around buildings until he could pop out elsewhere, well away from his latest bit of heroism. Easing the grate back down overhead, he didn't even bother with turning on the lights, his night vision was still near perfect, and the thin bit of sunlight that spilled through the honeycomb of access points lit his way more than enough.

But being under the city reminded him of the shelter again. Shinji shuffled along the cramped gantry dodging hanging pipes and conduit, grumbling. It wasn't just that shelter either- almost all of the ones he checked were just as poorly made. Men with pickaxes could break down the walls, let alone Evangelion weapons or stranger Angel attacks. Realizing that had made him turn to the rest of the city. Huge chunks of the above ground infrastructure were... inadequate.

Ducking under another low-hanging, rust-covered support, Shinji found himself frowning harder. It hadn't taken him long to understand at least part of what was going on. Inadequate was inadequate. The news crew from the other day tied into it too, somehow, though Shinji wasn't exactly sure as to the connection. They didn't act anything like the news programs he'd seen back in up north.

Stepping out of the maintenance way and back out into the light, Shinji sighed. It all added up in a half-understood mess of data, and being honest with himself, he had no idea where to go from there.

Traffic was light on the surface streets, and sidewalks were thick with shoppers and people walking home or waiting for the trains. The sun was just about to cross over into afternoon proper, and school was just about to end for the day. Shinji's fingers drummed absently against his thighs as he looked over the crowds. There were other things to do for the rest of the day, after all. He caught sight of some payphones and strolled over, ducking into the canopy for privacy if nothing else.

Pulling his pager out and sliding the keypad out, he thumbed a quick message, feeling sweat prickle out all over his palms. Dinner tonight, at seven?

Ayumi's response came back a minute later. Sure! Somewhere downtown- The message cut off and a new one appeared right after it, and Shinji felt his mouth pull back in a grin. Shit sorry forgot you hate city food... uh...?

Still smiling he typed back, but the prickly-cold sweats were reinforced by a sudden addition of butterflies in his stomach. I was thinking my place... Is that OK?

The reply was near-instantaneous. Definitely! See you at seven!

Shinji glanced upwards and the butterflies ignited, heat rushing all the way up to his face. He was going to need a grocery stop, and quickly.

* * *

Shinji had learned the lesson of delegation, and wasn't planning on forgetting it any time soon.

A handful of phone calls later saw everything fall into place. Groceries in hand, he passed by pallets of raw materials stacked up outside the apartment door- everything else already inside he could reuse. Lists tumbled through his mind while he stowed the perishables, greeted PenPen and took stock of his assets.

With a bit more than three hours to kill, Shinji stood in the kitchen and looked out upon Misato's living room. He clapped his hands and sunfire flared out along his forearms. The apartment wouldn't know what hit it. His kitchen- remodeled again- now had a hardwood center island with it's own sink. The stoves, gas ranges and other appliances had been ripped apart and rebuilt to his specifications.

The clock ticked on as Shinji worked, tearing out whole sections of wall, ceiling and floor. He made way for new ideas- stairways down into what had been the apartment one floor below. The apartment above became a new hanging loft as he tore down and built back up according to his vision. Only the common wall between Misato's apartment and Sorhyu's remained untouched, and his plans accounted for it. He'd ask the girl what she wanted when she got back and no sooner.

Rei appeared midway through, examining the revised spaces with unblinking red eyes. She nodded once and claimed one of the loft rooms as her own, gradually moving her meager possessions from one space to the other. The last to go was her cage of five rescued lab rats, Un, Deux, Trios, Quatre, and Cinq. Shinji smiled at that, taking a short break from the mound of debris around his wrists. Even at this distance he could hear the rodents chattering amongst themselves at Rei's cooing rapport, bright and enthusiastic about the new titles.

Exhaling, Shinji looked out on his work and called it good. He and his clothes were covered in grime. With an hour to spare, Shinji made his way to the bathroom, remodeled that and subsequently showered. Careful rationing of his inner reserve left him glowing firmly by the end of his construction binge, but not so much as to bleach the world.

But even with all that, he was running just a bit late. The doorbell rang just as Shinji was spreading out the ingredients for dinner. He all but glided through his new spacious kitchen and tapped the door open. Shinji felt a dumb, liquid grin spread across his face when he looked down and saw his girlfriend. She'd dressed up.

Ayumi matched his smile with one of her own, but her eyes widened when she looked past his arm and into the apartment itself. Her mouth worked and she made a funny, strangled sound before finding an actual word. "...I was here a week ago and-"

She just looked up at him, bewildered. "What did you do?"

Grinning faintly, Shinji rubbed the back of his neck and tugged her inside. "I uh, had some time to myself before you showed up. I've realized that I like to keep busy."

The girl just nodded and took her seat at the new dining room table, in the equally new dining room. Rei sat next to her, dressed down in the customary tank-top and shorts like she always did after school. "Saneda-san."."

Something wasn't quite tracking. The boy blinked while juggling jars of hand-ground spices. Rei. At the table. Waiting for dinner. Shinji leaned back and rammed his head into the nearest cabinet.

Shinji watched his girlfriend glance to her right and mumble out a toneless. "Hello, Ayanami-chan."

Another surge of sunfire flowed down Shinji's arms, and the disc on his brow flared into warm view. "Ah... Rei I'm sorry- I forgot to tell you."

The blue-haired girl blinked once, flicking red eyes between Shinji and Ayumi before giving the pair a firm, understanding nod. "Right. I shall leave you two alone."

Red spread out across Ayumi's cheeks as she stared the other girl down, and Shinji's face was going beetroot just as fast. Rei eased away from the table with a lithe hop and jump, and the awkward moment stretched as she hummed along to some unheard tune. An almost tangible force of comedic timing made the couple lock eyes and start to sweat. Rei somehow dragged their embarrassment out like a cat with yarn, spreading it in tangles across the table.

She took in the tableau with a look that Shinji began to understand as deliberative intent, and only the tiniest quirk at the corners of her lips hinted at the smirk. She paused at the door to say something, but decided against it at the last minute. A few moments later, Shinji and Ayumi were alone in the apartment. Groping for a topic, Ayumi cast around the apartment, looking for anything to drag them both out of the awkwardness. Her eyes fell on the towering array food waiting to be prepared.

"So!" She chirped, clapping her hands and forcing her voice high and light- doing her level best to push the red-hot mortification out of her cheeks. "What's for dinner?"

* * *

The ingredients for the main course of ginger pork were spread out along the new kitchen island- freshly cleaned and sterilized with thaumaturgical warding. Shinji couldn't stop from grinning at the thought of a self-cleaning kitchen. Gold fire crawled down his arms as he reached for the uncut meat. Shinji's hands did not so much blur as flicker between knob, spice and tap. Pans were filled with precise amounts of oil and he diced ginger root under his fingers.

Ayumi sidled up next to him, heedless of her sky blue sundress tying an apron around her middle and smiling. "Don't mind me, I just wouldn't feel right not helping."

Shinji blinked, but nodded nonetheless. He carefully coaxed the gas range to the optimal temperature, directing the heat through the oil and meat in just the right ways as to cook them to his exacting standards.

Meanwhile Ayumi chopped the greens and unground spices, humming faintly. "So... how exactly does all this work? The magic stuff."

A half-dozen previously given explanations tumbled through his mind, called out of memory. His most recent one had been with Sorhyu over soul muscles. Shaking his head, Shinji just gave her a shy little smile. "It's... not easy to explain. I'm still working on it."

"That's alright, but I'm still curious." She grinned charmingly and moved the diced greens aside for him to add in.

"Well..." Shinji bit his lip and thought about it for a moment, reminded that his concentration was still focused on his primary technique of the moment. "Almost everything I do, they're all techniques. Stances I can take."

He picked up a clove of garlic and crushed it in hand. The outer husk burned away while the rest fell into a waiting skillet, perfectly separated. "The one I'm using now...." Shinji exhaled softly and urged the heat higher with a deft tap of the gas. "I could make all of this with my bare hands, my palms are pans. My breathing and the space between my arms is an oven..."

Shinji felt Ayumi's eyes lock on his hands as he moved through the technique. "I have another one that's simpler, but I'm not using it right now. I open a sort of floodgate inside myself and suddenly everything makes sense. Like I'm pouring raw genius out into whatever I'm doing."

Pulling one skillet off the range and moving a pot with the sauce into place, Shinji just shrugged. "Most of my techniques are all very transitory and focused. Lots of short bursts and stuff... Some I can use at the same time, but I have to take each stance separately."

Ayumi blinked, and her jaw worked up and down for a moment. She was about to say something when her nostrils flared and her face scrunched up adorably, suddenly hit by a wave of flavor. "Wh-wait a second, I thought you were behind schedule?"

Laughing, Shinji nudged her out of the way with one hip and pulled the pans and pots off the stove before heading to the dining room to serve. "I was! I wanted this all to be ready by the time you entered the parking lot!"

* * *

Swallowing a mouthful of expertly seared pork, Ayumi reached up and held a hand to her mouth, desperate to keep from losing a morsel that hung off her lips. She slurped it up with a laugh while Shinji dug into his own plate. "You mean they're all learned skills?"

Across the dinner table, Shinji did his level best not to laugh, watching his girlfriend try to sample everything and leave nothing to waste. He didn't blame her either. "So far yeah. I mean I have a few random things..." He waved his chopsticks at his head, and the gold disc burned out to full brightness once more. "I can make this thing show up whenever I want, and it's got three or so levels. Low, 'personal lantern', and 'visible for kilometers."

Reloading her plate with seconds, Ayumi cocked her head to the side."You mean the big towering mandala-thing we all saw at the end of the terrorist attack?"

"Yeah." Shinji nodded. A beat later his shoulders started shaking as he remembered. "Back during some of the first round testing in the Geofront, Ritsuko was pulling her hair out because they were seeing the top edges of my corona downtown. It was reaching up through a kilometer of rock and armor like it wasn't there."

The conversation shifted then, and Shinji recognized the look that spread across her face as Ayumi's curious expression, number three. "What's the Geofront like? My family just runs a little grocery store so we've never seen it."

It wasn't her fault, but Shinji suddenly felt the good mood drain out of him. His hands fell toward the table at the same rate, thumping softly against the edges while his chopsticks clinked faintly against the dishes. The Geofront... He'd been putting it off for way too long. Months. Ayumi shifted in her seat, forcing Shinji to realize he'd let his eyes fall down.

"Ahh..." He shook his head and put on a respectable smile, waving it off. "The Geofront is... really big."

He shot his girlfriend a warning look when her face pinched up, holding back the obvious burst of laughter. Ayumi's mirth was infectious though, and Shinji found the earlier reminder fading away in the face of an opportunity. A syrup-coated cherry for desert waited by his hand, and he glanced at it meaningfully. The dark-haired girl stopped for a moment, shaking her head while pulling out her defenses.

Shinji's hand drifted closer to the cherry while Ayumi shook her head harder. "No. No no no no- don't you dare, you worked so hard on all of these! You made more than we could eat tonight!"

He just grinned at her and nodded.

Flicking out with his finger, Shinji sent the sugar-coated bit of fruit sailing across the table before it landed on Ayumi's plate. She shrieked, laughing hard and holding holding her hands up as it skittered around her leftovers. Lighting-quick, she snatched up a bit of cooling pork and flung it back to slap wetly against Shinji's nose. The thin hunk of meat slid off his face and landed on his plate, and a long, tense silence stretched between them.

Five seconds later, the battle commenced.

Sticky rice was quickly improvised into poor ranged fodder, while the heavier chunks of left over meat were quickly divided before being hurled back and forth. Red smears drew jagged lines across their arms, cheeks and chests, or clung to fabric in wet, sugary blotches. The steamed vegetables were Ayumi's arsenal of choice, having eaten hardly any of them. Shinji hadn't minded the uneven distribution either- they bounced off his skin and he didn't even blink.

Eventually the war ended, having spread out of dining room and into nearby rooms. The kitchen walls were decorated with sauce-craters and the dripping scars of desert. A few errant throws made their way into the rest of the apartment. Shinji and Ayumi stood across from each other at armistice, all the dishes scraped clean between them. They'd taken to eating the ammunition as to win the war of attrition.

Ayumi, breathing heavily, flicked her tongue to lick a bit of cherry that clung to her lip. "I-I think... This is the part where we make out."

While not winded, Shinji's heart was beating just as hard, red faced. He stared across the long hardwood table and nodded slowly. "Y-yeah. I think so too."

They were quiet for another long moment, before Ayumi hiked herself forward on the table by her hands. Her toes hung half a foot the floor and she stretched, but even with Shinji leaning forward, they couldn't quite reach. She felt back to the ground with a bounce and pout. "Your table is too long!"

The tension that Shinji was able to recognize as resoundingly hormonal snapped with an audible twang, and he felt a prickling cold sensation crawl down his neck. Ayumi's own face cooled down as well, and a second later, they both burst out laughing. Even with her blue sundress smeared with the remains of dinner, Ayumi looked amazingly cute.

Once the awkward spell had been broken, the pair started pulling up dishes and whisking them off to the sink. They worked in silence, and Ayumi put herself close enough that Shinji could brush by her if he wanted. Tonight he did, catching her with his hand on some turns or when they reached over for a brush or faucet tap. Towels and wet washcloths were pressed into each others hands, and Ayumi made a point to help whip the mess from Shinji's arms and face herself. Red-faced, Shinji got the clear hint and returned the favor.

Even so, there was a lot of mess to clean up. Glancing at the clock, Shinji winced when he realized it was just after nine. "I... don't think I can jump you home in an hour. Especially looking like that."

Ayumi nodded and tugged at the front of her dress, blanching visibly. "Yeah... "

Picking at his own shirt, Shinji considered his options even as he willed a bit of power to his hands. The stains all along his shirtsleeves vanished under his fingertips, and the interlocking threads straightened out as if freshly spun and woven. He glanced up and realized Ayumi had been staring as he cleaned his clothes with his bare hands.

Saving time on the wash wasn't going to magically get her home any faster though... Shinji shrugged and waved at the apartment. "If you take off your clothes, maybe you could stay here? I'm sure Rei wouldn't mind you borrowing something and there's more than enough room and-"

Red flooded into Ayumi's cheeks, and Shinji immediately realized where her mind was going and what he had just said.

Backpedaling both around the table and in his mind, he frantically waved his glowing hands while Ayumi gave him an interesting, if visibly shy look. Swaying side to side, she drawled. "Thaaaaat's a bit forward, Shinji-kun."

Clarifications and apologies crowded up in his throat and made his eyes bulge, even as the skin of his face and neck prickled hotly. Ayumi laughed despite herself even as she twisted in place, only a little mortified compared to his very mortified. Her first giggle was all they both needed to punch a hole in the tension though, and it drained out in fits and starts.

Shinji sighed and ran a hand through his sticky hair, keeping his eyes down toward the floor. He still snuck glances up through, watching Ayumi's sandaled feet, or her hands tugging playfully down at the hem of her dress. "I uh... I didn't mean it like that. I mean, I said what I meant to but."

Giggling again, Ayumi waved it off. "I understand." She let out a gusty sigh and leaned against the edge of the table, biting her lip. "Iiiiiii- better call my folks, no matter what."

* * *

Tiny, poorly made phone speakers were murder on sensitive ears. Shinji winced as the voice on the other end of the line rose sharply. In the background of the call, another speaker laughed raucously- Ayumi's mother and grandmother respectively. Waiting outside the bathroom with a basket full of towels and one of Misato's spare robes- the longest one he could find. Leaning against the hallway wall, Shinji let out a sputtering sigh. Ayumi continued to wheedle and bargain with her parents.

Shifting awkwardly, he let out a muted, sputtering sigh. It wasn't like he wanted to listen. It was just har-difficult not to. Otherwise, Shinji found his thoughts wandering... and that was not good.

"M-Mom! It's not like that!" Shinji heard the rustle of cloth over skin and hair, and the click of the phone being juggled between hands. "It's too late for us to go home and I don't want to make dad come and pick me up- No! No don't you dare mother! I'm almost seventeen and we've talked abou- condoms have nothing to do with this!"

Shinji turned red, cringed and heard this girlfriend huff into the phone. Ayumi had lungs, it seemed. So did the rest of her family. A bare arm shot out of the halfway open door with a bunched-up wad of blue sundress. Shinji caught it without much effort and passed the basket back in the same motion, keeping his eyes firmly locked on the opposite wall. No more bad karma. None.

Of course, he didn't feel right just leaving Ayumi to fight that particular battle alone either. He knocked on the wall. "If it helps, you can tell them there's ten or so Section-2 Agents around me at all times. Is that enough of an escort?"

Ayumi was silent for a long moment, and Shinji couldn't see her, but he imagined her decisive nod as she relayed what he just said. Her mother and grandmother replied, and Ayumi's voice dropped into the low, piqued tones of teenager. "-I am going to spend the night in my boyfriends apartment in a separate room. I will see you tomorrow morning and then you will ground me, and I will sleep the sweet sleep of the just because we wereperfectly responsible."

With that, she hung up and stalked out of the bathroom. Shinji stood up in an instant with her blue dress still in hand. "I-Is everything alright?"

She waved it off, folding her arms over her chest. She was almost drowning in the robe. "Fine, fine. My folks worry. I never spent the night with my first boyfriend, but he and I lasted like, two months."

Running a hand through her hair, Ayumi winced as her fingers caught on some sticky clump of sugar. "Suddenly the robe makes sense- may I use the bath...?"

Shinji could tell she was trying to keep her voice light and casual, but they both turned a bit red at the implication. Still, he nodded. "Just keep all the settings low, I just put it in this afternoon and I haven't tested it all yet."

She just smiled at that and leaned in to press into his chest with her forehead. Twisting, she swept back into the bathroom and closed the door, mumbling. "'This afternoon, he says. The tub's bigger than my bed and he installed it an hour or something..."

* * *

As it turned out, no matter how hard he tried, Shinji couldn't 'repair' his hair to cleanliness, or get the sticky syrup out. Instead he took a shower right after Ayumi, but he'd already been experimenting with thaumaturgical insulation and the Japan-standard in-line water heater. They both enjoyed long, luxurious and separate showers. Shinji had to keep reminding himself of that fact.

Now they lounged in the living room, sprawled out a nest of cushions and blankets that paled in comparison to Rei's pillow fortress. Shinji considered it a fair attempt. Spread out perpendicular to each other, Ayumi's head used Shinji's side as a pillow, and she yawned into one hand. Her blue sundress wasn't well suited for sleeping, so Shinji had stepped in and whipped up a set of thin cotton shorts and a matching t-shirt.

And, in true Ayumi fashion, she was tackling their latest bit of awkwardness head on. "It's fucking unfair, you know?"

Coughing, Shinji laughed and stammered into his hand, trying not move. She also had to use that word too, of course. Regardless, he held still more out of concern where her head was than anything else. "W-what?"

Rolling over on her stomach, she crawled up and over his body on hands and knees so she could look him in the eye. Shinji blinked at her impish wink. "Us. Sex. Teenagers."
She flopped bodily across his midsection, and Shinji felt the familiar prickling-heat and pleasantly uncomfortable sense being close to someone. "I mean, everyone says we're all sexed up and stuff, but doesn't that just create an unrealistic expectation?"

Shinji blinked at that and nodded, and for once was actually able to think about the question instead of focus on finding a deep dark hole to dive into. "I... that does make a lot of sense actually. Hormones aren't imaginary, but it is overplayed.... Unless you're Toji."

"Suzuhara is known for being a bit coarse, but nobody at school ever thinks he's a bad guy." Ayumi's nose crinkled cutely. "Just, overly guy-ish."

"Yeah..." Shinji let out a short, low laugh while Ayumi shifted.

She moved around to curl up against his side and settled into the crook of his arm. They spent a few moments getting settled, finding the best, or least awkward, placement for hands and arms.

When she was finally in position, she pressed her forehead against his chest. "Is this alright? I mean...?" Ayumi found a free hand and gave it a squeeze, trying to emphasize the question.

Feeling the muscles in his throat bunch up for a moment, Shinji willed the gut reaction down and nodded. "This is fine... just, not use to closeness still. Not for anyone's lack of trying."

Ayumi burrowed into his side a bit more. Shinji could only see the top of her head and the damp brown hair spread out over his chest, but he felt her smile into his chest. "I'm still sorry for being too touchy-feely before you were ready."

"Thanks." Letting out a low laugh, Shinji squeezed her hand back and sighed. "These days I don't get why it's a big deal though. I've slept with girls often enough for it to not really be... a thing?"

A half-second after he finished his sentence, Ayumi went rigid, harder than structural steel.Her fingers dug into his shirt and scraped harmlessly against his skin, but he felt it all the same. Meanwhile his own heart jackhammered in his chest, painfully aware of what he just said and what it sounded like. Ayumi squirmed and pushed up so she could look him in the eye, and he was already dreading the incoming look of betrayal.

"I didn't mean it like that!"

The snarl and rant never came- or at least Shinji only caught the unspoken edges of it. Anger in her eyes gave way to indignation and the jealous glare he'd started to recognize more and more. Despite all that, Ayumi's lips quirked madly trying to fight off a smile. Instead Ayumi's brows slanted and she swung one leg over his midsection, framing his body with her knees and calves while her eyes gleamed with a playful, scolding scowl.

Looking down at him, she reached over and flicked chin with finger. "Yeah I know, but-"

Now Shinji blinked, having watched his girlfriend cut herself off mid-sentence. She bounced on her bent knees, eyes wide and fighting off laughter that still managed to sneak out past her lips.

"Oh my god." Now Ayumi's brown eyes gleamed, and she shot upright as far as she could go, p vibrating with mirth. "It's true. It really is true. You totally have a harem!"

Shinji felt his jaw unhinge, and blood rushed into his neck and cheeks. Now he was imagining it. "I-I do not!"

Ayumi wasn't buying it, giggling helplessly and bouncing up and down. Her stomach and shoulders shook hard enough to make her hair bob and wave. She half-pounded on his chest and pushed him down so he was stretched out flat long the floor. "You do! You totally do!"

The back of his head flattened a pillow on impact while he squirmed, and his hands reflexively snapped up to catch her wrists. "I have trouble sleeping. And nightmares! Misato helped me- and-and Rei! But Rei might be my half-sister?"

"Oh that's even worse." Locking her fingers with his, Ayumi laughed and fixed him with the smuggest smirk she could. "Your life is a dating sim!"

There was no coherent response to that. Shinji found himself sputtering, gaping like a fish while Ayumi cheerfully continued to tug at his arms. Sparks in the back of his mind ignited and guttered out a dozen times over, and for all that mental effort, all he could do was get out an eloquent 'buh'. Ayumi howled in response, still straddling him and all too happy to play with his hands and arms.

Something inside him came loose at that moment. It was the same sort of feeling when he started the food fight, that spontaneity, and the willingness to follow through. Laughing so hard that her eyes were closed, Ayumi had no idea what was coming. A quick jerk of his hips and a technique he'd used maybe twice outside of training was more than enough to toss the girl off to the side. Less than a second later, their positions were reversed.

He didn't even feel guilty about it.

Lying on her back with her hands pinned against the floor and hips flanked by his knees, Ayumi stopped laughing. She sucked in lungfuls of air, but kept her eyes locked on Shinji's. A fairly expansive part of Shinji's mind was more than pleased to note how red she was getting. Turnabout really was fair play, it seemed. They stayed like that for what felt like several minutes. Shinji watched Ayumi's throat move as she worked her jaw.

Finally, she licked her lips. "Shinji-kun, can I ask you a question?"

Shinji's thumbs traced around the insides of her wrists, driven by a hopelessly underdeveloped instinct. Her pulse was high. "Sure."

Shifting slightly, Ayumi gave him a solemn, serious look. The sleepy, flirtatious tone had fallen completely away. She worried at her lip before letting her thoughts out. "You ever think we should?"

His whole body froze. "W-what?"

"That we could just do it. Get it all over with. This... " She shrugged as best as she could, smiling faintly and giving a meaningful glance at their situation. "Stuff."

"... I'm not sure that's the best way to think about... it. " Leaning back, Shinji's fingers wrapped around Ayumi's hands and pulled her upright so they were both standing on their knees. Her legs were still trapped between his though, but not quite as much.

She didn't respond, so Shinji charged ahead. The words were coming easier, and his thoughts weren't quite so loud and awkward. "You were right earlier about expectations too. I don't like to think of this, or that, as an obligation we have to fill."

Looking away from him, Ayumi's cheeks puffed up before letting out a gusty sigh. "Right...."

A beat later, her somber look melted away and her more earnest, casual smile took its place. Unlacing her fingers from his, Ayumi pressed her hands flat on his chest and leaned in to look up at him, eyes gleaming. "Pretty hard to think otherwise sitting halfway under a Greek god, though."

Fresh redness surged up into his cheeks, but Shinji could at least quip back. "N-No! only half! I think, if that."

Still standing on their knees, they settled into a a more comfortable silence. Ayumi's fingertips moved up in short circles around his chest, leaving warm trails on his shirt. Signals were still a new concept, but he got that one loud and clear. Her hips were right there too, so his hands settled where the'd do the most good. Ayumi gave him a pleased grin and cuddled in a bit closer.

"As for the other stuff..." Shinji kept his face turned into her hair, mostly so he didn't have to think about his expression. "Things have been pretty heavy recently, I'm... not really sure I could handle it. It'd be a mess."

Smiling into his chest, Ayumi twisted around until he could see her face, radiating coyness. "Ain't that always the way with greek gods, destroyed by a beautiful woman~"

Prickling cold broke out across his forehead and the back of his neck, even as Shinji mustered up an actual honest grin. He squeezed her middle with both hands, lips quirking wider. "... I hope you're not volunteering."

"Why not? Is there a line somewhere?"

The cold vanished in the face of an incandescent blush that was almost bright enough to read by.

* * *

Rei coming back inside at nearly eleven at night was enough to break the spell. She had taken one look at the pair and simply cocked her head to the side, staring. The couple had shot away from each other like they'd been burnt, but found themselves breaking down laughing a half-second later. Rei offered her own tiny smile and headed toward her new room, leaving Shinji and Ayumi to the end of their night.

Shinji wasn't quite ready to sleep yet though, and pulling an all-nighter was looking like the best option for everyone. He waved off Ayumi's concern, pointing at his forehead along the way.

There was one thing that still nagged at him though. He leaned against the opposite wall from the de facto guest bedroom, sighing softly "So... the Geofront."

"I didn't forget," Shinji's face slackened noticeably in distant contemplation, like he'd done on the rooftop not weeks ago. "But I did have to think. About me, everyone involved with me." Ayumi quietly nodded, slowly seeing what he was getting at. "You remember the... episode I mentioned, though?"

Standing in the guest room doorway with her arms wrapped around her middle, Ayumi held still and stayed silent, letting him set the pace. Shinji ran a hand through his hair and sighed. "It's a people problem. I... don't know how to handle it. To fix it. Sorry isn't good enough"

Ayumi's expression shifted. Her eyebrows rose high in the middle and the curve of her lip was equal parts sorrow and sympathy. "Well... you're right. Saying you're sorry won't work... A few years ago I got in a fight with a friend and no matter how hard I shouted, 'sorry' wasn't what either of us needed."

The girl turned and played with the door. Shinji glanced between her hand on the frame and her face as she continued her story. "What I learned was that you can't force sorry. You can't show them your apology... but you can let them see it."

* * *

The Geofront. One of the high-speed railways flung a line of train cars down the track at a bit less than two hundred kilometers an hour. Gravity did most of the work on the hanging lines, drawing the cars down into the interior and towards Central Dogma.

Inside one car with a backpack slung over his shoulder, Shinji sighed and let his head fall against train window. There wasn't anyone else in the car, and glass was pleasantly cool against his forehead. Rei had dropped him off one of the main access points, mostly because August had been hot, and September was somehow hotter. He'd been spending more time outdoors too, working on the apartment roof. Glancing down at his bare arms, Shinji felt his lips quirk to the side. He'd gotten a tan.

Looking back out the window and onto the evergreen Geofront forest, he wondered if Misato and Sorhyu were enjoying the Pacific. Or the Atlantic, he wasn't entirely sure where either of them were, but everybody knew worldwide communications were iffy at best, even fifteen years after Impact. His own skin stubbornly refused to burn, but he knew for a fact Misato would have jumped at the chance to 'bake' on her floating private island.

He figured it was mixed blessing that Operations Director had total control over the fleet, otherwise Misato would have been the biggest risk to battle-readiness from casual distraction alone. Then again, knowing Misato as he did, Shinji could imagine her directing those maneuvers from a deck-side chair.

Thinking about it further, Shinji figured it wouldn't hurt to come up with some kind of sunburn cream. He knew enough about genetic disposition- Sorhyu would probably come home looking like a boiled lobster. Misato though... Shinji watched his reflection turn a bit red. Misato would jump at the chance to tease him, too.

Still, something to work on when he got home. For now he had an errand to run and a favor to ask.

* * *

Ritsuko's expression was a study in dryness. Shinji couldn't help but think that it suited her, like there was a rightness to her being so inherently deadpan. "You want me to what?"

"Design me a better suit. Materials, hardware." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded page that was nearly black with notes and suggestions."You're the only one I know of who could even attempt it."

She held the suit between her hands and gave him an odd look. "You could easily make a better version yourself, right?"

"That's true, but this might be a better use of our time?" Leaning against a nearby lab console, Shinji shrugged. "I want to put some hours in at the Geofront clinic, among other things."

The stare she gave him in response said to him in big bold letters that Ritsuko wanted more of an explanation. Neither of them were in a particular rush, though, so the silence stretched out almost comfortably. For once the lab Ritsuko had claimed that day was brightly lit and not littered with overflowing ashtrays and turgid cups of coffee. It wasn't her favorite lab though, Shinji recognized that one as having cat statues perched at her preferred station. Ritsuko wasn't acting as... icy as she had been the last time he'd really talked with her- around her.

Still, explanations. He gave her a wry grin and waved an arm. "My technique only goes so far. I could make breadboard circuitry by hand without a soldering iron, but not a microprocessor. My hands can't double as a chemical etching process."

Ritsuko just nodded at that, laying the suit on a nearby table without taking her eyes off his. "Hours at the clinic?"

A wan smile was her answer. Shinji spread his arms out, palms open. "Better than a lot of other things I could be doing."

Huffing, the blonde woman folded her arms over her chest and stalked toward him. Her lab coat flared out behind her like a proper cape, and her steps ate up the short distance. "You have no idea."

She stopped just short of him, chin jut out and tilted up like he wasn't towering over her. Shinji had to admit it made him happier than any amount of tact- Ritsuko wasn't afraid of him. Or at least she wasn't letting it show on her face.

"I." The word came out hard and even, not quite a snarl but halfway there. "-Have an extremely clear idea of other things you could be doing, or were planning to do."

Shinji didn't give ground, but the definitely felt the urge to. His breathing went shallow, mostly so he didn't make matters worse by snorting in her face. The absurdity of the thought helped the tension drain out of him too.

Ritsuko though still held that calmly intent tone. She plucked the page of notes from his hand, tight enough to crinkle it between her fingers but only just slightly. "Do you remember what you were planning during your episode?"

"More than I'd like to." Shinji stared past her shoulder. "Been trying to focus on positive projects."

Taking a step back, Ritsuko's scowl etched itself deeper into her face. It was a look he could only call bitter medicine. "Well you need to know. The baroque resonance imagers- powered by blood no less. Shared-brain interface. You were working off of poor foundational neurochemistry there, so anyone you would have tried to hook up..."

She didn't need to go further on that point. Ritsuko started ticking more projects off on her fingers Blatant human rights violations, abusive behavior, the list went on. Each point hit Shinji like a gunshot, and while he didn't flinch, he felt the impacts all the same. They dug in and almost seemed to make his heart heavy, but at the same time, he didn't bow. For once, Shinji felt strong enough to bear the guilt.

Ritsuko however saved the best for last. "Somehow you were both rational and irrational at the same time, because that is the only way I could accept you thinking that filtering an Angelic Intelligence through the MAGI was a good idea!"

She punctuated her statement with a hand slashing through the air, the same one that held his suit plans. The paper folded around her fingers and crinkled audibly under the sudden acceleration. Shinji let out a shaky sigh, but kept his eyes focused on her brown ones.

The thunder in her voice finally fell away, and Ritsuko stepped back in closer. Her tone shifted to something more like concerned peer, and her expression softened. "Ikari-kun, I need you to give me a reason for you to stay here, to use my labs and work in the Geofront."

Still keeping his eyes locked on hers, Shinji took a steadying breath and gave Ritsuko a firm nod. Outwardly decisive, his own thoughts couldn't help but marvel at the fact that he was being decisive. That the roar of maybe-might-be-shouldn't wasn't drowning him out from the inside. Moving over to a console, he stopped just before hitting the access MAGI command, and his hands hovered over the keys. Looking back at the woman, he waited for her permission.

Ritsuko studied him for a long moment, and she wasn't wearing her glasses, so Shinji couldn't see his own face reflected back. Finally, she stuffed her hands in her coat pockets and nodded.

Tapping in the sequence, Shinji turned back to the screen, pulling up designs and correcting a few lingering issues. "I went back to where I was before the episode, not so much starting over but..."
He pushed the diagrams and implementation plan onto a larger monitor. "We've got everything we need- the compression algorithms, manufacturing techniques-"

Waving at the screen, he pointed at a schematic. Mock blue-pencil lines laid out the tools needed to make the tools he'd set out to do months ago. Ritsuko stepped up closer, squinting at the screen. She bit the tip of her thumb, and her eyes flicked over every line and figure. Shinji started to sweat while she poured over the display. Her eyes tightened again, and almost by reflex, Shinji made a casual diagnosis.

High stress factors, ongoing conditions. Hormones regulated due to birth control, nicotine addiction. Myopia.

There wasn't a lot he could do about most of those, and Ritsuko's business was her business.... He willingly let that thought grind to a halt and focused on the one thing he had an idea about. Ritsuko meanwhile finished reading, and gave him a smile that reminded him she belonged on a magazine cover right next to Misato. The tight knots of guilt at his stomach and tension in his neck eased almost simultaneously, and it took everything Shinji had not to visibly sag in front of the woman like he had been holding his breath for hours.

"I think this will do, Ikari-kun." She reached for a nearby chair and settled in and kicking off into a light spin.

Ritsuko wasn't at all old, but watching her grin, seeing the tension drain out of her, Shinji couldn't help but think that the age dropped off her face. The subsequent thought came naturally. Note to self- give people positive tangible results.

Finding his own seat, Shinji took a moment to bask in the relief of a project done- his first project done. He looked at a calendar hanging off one wall- August was almost over, and he'd started on the MRI idea back in... April? He wasn't sure anymore, but the worst part of the project was over with. Manufacturing details, materials- all those things were easy. He'd supplied the necessary genius to create, and now other geniuses would implement. The knot of stress in his neck had been there for so long, he forgotten what it felt like not having it.

Ritsuko reached out with one foot against the floor, braking her spin and facing Shinji once more. "We're not fully out of the hole yet, Ikari-kun." She gave him a wan, understanding look. "You're a division-leader without a division again, and I had to spend almost every bit of my professional credibility to keep your former employees..."

She trailed off, unsure as how to continue. Sighing, she looked down at her knee. "There's no nice way to put it, a good third of NERV's brightest minds fear you, for good reason. I've also put my head on the metaphorical chopping block, if anything like this happens again."

Shinji's hands balled up to fists against his pant legs, but he forced them to relax and smoothed out the wrinkled fabric. There wasn't any grand declaration or foolproof plan, either. He'd learned that with Sorhyu and Rei, and Ayumi confirmed it. Fear and the results of his actions weren't problems he could solve, not directly at least.

Finally though, Shinji looked up and nodded. "I understand."

Ritsuko glanced at him sidelong for a moment before nodding herself. She turned to her console and got to work, finally pulling out the notes Shinji had made for his new suit. The quiet stretched out between them, and again Shinji felt a sort of comfort settle around him. There had been some kind of awkwardness whenever Ritsuko was around, like what was their role or relationship- what decorum applied. He'd lacked the words for it, to define or acknowledge whatever the problem was.

Shinji mulled it over a few moments, taking his own console and updating a few files while he was there. Along the way he came to the fairly simple conclusion that they were associates. Maybe not friends, but mentor and student at times, or esteemed coworkers with overlapping fields and insights. Shinji found that he liked the definition.

Checking his work and saving the file, Shinji still had one thing he wanted to ask before heading out. "Akagi-sensei?"

She blinked once and turned to look at him, waiting. Shinji let out an embarrassed little laugh before waving at his forehead, then tapping the side of his eyes. "I could fix your nearsightedness, if you want. You wouldn't need to wear glasses anymore."

Ritsuko's eyes shot wide open, and her pupils shrank to pinpricks while one hand reached for the glasses hanging from her breast pocket. Not a reaction he'd expected in the least. The scientist shook her head, snorting, but not unkindly.

"I could have gotten laser eye surgery years ago, Ikari-kun." The question he wanted to ask must have been plain on his face, because she answered it right away. "I haven't, because I don't want to look like my mother."

"You could always get cosmetic lenses." Shinji couldn't help the thin teasing note in his voice. Misato and Rei were rubbing off on him it seemed.

Leaning back in her chair, Ritsuko nodded. "That's true. I'll think on it Ikari-kun. Thanks for the offer."

Shinji could accept that, standing smoothly and powering down his borrowed console. He glanced around the quiet lab and smiled; for an errand, it was incredibly productive. He said his goodbyes and made for the door, ready to spend the rest of his day in the NERV infirmary. A final niggling question stopped him at the door with one hand on the frame.

He looked over his shoulder past the crook of his arm at Ritsuko, unabashedly curious. "I never asked before, but... why are you letting me try again? I already made a mess of things around here."

"Call it returning a favor." She turned away from the console and the bare-bones sketch she'd made of his new suit. Ritsuko reached into her pockets and pulled out her cigarettes and lighter, giving him a dry, amused look. Flicking the lighter open with her right arm, Ritsuko smirked past the first puff. "Figured I'd give you a hand."

* * *

Shyft · Jun 10, 2014

* * *

Four days passed since Shinji had dropped off the suit with Ritsuko, and he'd spent most of his daylight hours in the Geofront infirmary. It had been scaled up over the months, out of sight and out of mind. Now it was almost a fully realized hospital, with treatment wings and surgical theaters he'd designed almost a whole year previously. Shinji had spun up so many idle projects even before being given a division, and people around him were still implementing his half-formed ideas. Some of the senior staff had already developed new thaumaturgical techniques based on his initial pressure point massage.

Peeling off his latest set of sterilized gloves, Shinji sighed and leaned against a nearby wall, alone in the hallway. The only thing the hospital lacked were patients, which proved to be a mixed blessing. Most of the city made due with surface level hospitals and clinics that were just shy of the Geofront's cutting edge. The reason being that unsecured personnel couldn't be allowed past the armor layer or anywhere near Central Dogma. Obnoxious, as far as problems went, but not one he couldn't solve.

Time and distance had given him perspective, too. It had been difficult at first, getting back into a Geofront routine. He'd spent his first day wound up tight, dreading any contact with his former team. What he'd do, say. Throwing himself on the ground and begging forgiveness sounded like a good idea, but both Ayumi and Rei's advice had made it clear- beating himself up about it, even for their benefit, wasn't going to fix the problem.

So Shinji cracked his knuckles and got back to doing something productive- like healing people. Construction had only slowed during the budget cuts of the previous year, and a trickle of injuries made it in every week. Once the first corporate and government research grants came through, burns and breaks from the constant activity in the city and under it kept the medical professionals of Tokyo-3 busy. Even as he worked though, Shinji wondered; what were they doing, considering the state of things topside...

Stretching, Shinji hummed and let his post-shift break wash over him. It took week-long fugues of work without rest to even make him notice aches and pains, but none of his senses had ever dulled when it came to relief and relaxation. Lacking a clock in the hallway, he channeled a bit of power through his soul and marked the sun in the sky; four-thirty. Might be late starting dinner if he didn't catch the right train....

"Pilot Ikari, Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki would like to see you in Cafeteria Seven-B. Pilot Ikari..." Over base intercom, the bridge officer repeated her message two more times while Shinji stared up at the ceiling.

It was looking he wasn't going to be home in time to make dinner.

* * *

Central Dogma was to most people the interlocking positive and negative pyramids that were centered in the cavernous space. They weren't wrong, but appearances were misleading. There was a lot more to the Geofront interior. Outbuildings were hidden under thin tree cover, like the original Proving Grounds Ritsuko had created shortly after Shinji Exalted. Using the surface paths to Dogma, Shinji passed by those same structures- mothballed again after Sorhyu left along with Misato.

Cafeteria Seven-B was like a dozen other repeated 'chunks' of interior space throughout Central Dogma. The Prinbow box had been constructed as an outbuilding using the same interior templates as the rest of the research facility, and Shinji had claimed the kitchen in that building during the MAGI crisis. Memories of those days came rushing back, simply because he walked into the cafeteria and saw the same coffee machines he'd rebuilt for the technical staff. Or at least, they looked the same....

"Ah, Ikari-kun! Please, have a seat." Raising a steaming mug of the same cold-and-pressure filtered brew Shinji had pioneered, Fuyutsuki-sensei sat at an otherwise vacant table with a tray of food and a smile.

Shinji hesitated, caught between smelling the food on Fuyutsuki's tray and smelling the food.

The old teacher must have noticed his expression. "I'm sure the cooks wouldn't mind bringing a tray out for you, Ikari-kun."

"It's... not that sir." Shinji couldn't help but fidget. "I... well, regular food doesn't sit well with me anymore."

"I beg your pardon?"

Jaw working left and right, Shinji tried to think about how to explain what he felt. Shinji shrugged, not trusting the words available to him. "I haven't eaten anything better than my own work for almost a year."

Fuyutsuki set his coffee down, then his fork with a hunk of meat still on the end. He frowned, giving Shinji a strange, calculating look. Finally he spoke, humming softly. "I see... Well then Ikari-kun, I'm sure the cooks won't mind you joining them for a bit."

Letting out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding, Shinji sagged in place just a bit and grinned. "Would you like to join me in the kitchen then? I don't think you've seen this particular trick."

Standing up from his half-eaten dinner, the old man smoothed out his NERV uniform jacket and grinned. "I'd be delighted, Ikari-kun."

NERV staff were by definition locked by nondisclosure and confidentiality agreements, so Shinji didn't hesitate at all when he stepped into the kitchen with Fuyutsuki right on his heels. The older man was one of the few people even close to Shinji's own height, and he found himself nearly a head taller than the Sub-Commander. Sunfire wreathed his arms while he snatched ingredients out of the various cupboards and refrigerators, already turning the restaurant-style burners up. He had more than enough ingredients, and three meals weren't that much harder than two.

Fuyutsuki watched, utterly intent. His eyes tracked every move Shinji made, the flick of his fingers as they somehow flash-heated cuts of meat, or mixing dough with his bare glowing hands. The bread baked on its own, completely bypassing the oven and in a fraction of the time. The old man watched, and for once, Shinji saw someone who didn't gape, deny or otherwise disbelieve what they were seeing. Even Ritsuko suffered that moment of 'this does not belong in a rational world'. The Sub-Commander though, he just observed, and accepted it as self-evident.

He must have noticed Shinji's own curiosity, too. "When you have lived as long as I have, Ikari-kun, you grow to accept what most folk deem 'impossible' is merely an admission of ignorance. Sometimes we have not seen all there is yet to observe in this world."

Scooping up the tofu dish and soup into takeout containers, Shinji waved over one of the kitchen staff while scribbling out some reheating instructions. "Listen, could you get someone to take this to Major Katsuragi's apartment?"

The man blinked and glanced between Shinji and the Sub-Commander for a moment, before giving a faint nod. Rei's meal vanished into a heated caterer's bag and was on it's way, while Shinji finished up his own dinner and the replacement for Fuyutsuki-sensei's less-than-stellar supper.

When they were finally seated, Fuyutsuki breathed deep, and his eyes were wide. He shot a look the remains of his previous meal. "...I can understand your predicament now, Ikari-kun."

Shinji could only shrug, half a mouthful suspended by a fork as he spoke. "I suppose it can't be helped. I'm... only human, after all."

The older man merely nodded, thankfully not questioning further whether Shinji had intended to apologize himself, or towards the chefs he had upstaged. "Indeed."

* * *

After negotiating the sudden interruption that was dinner, Fuyutsuki finally laid out the reason for calling Shinji to Central Dogma. He pulled out a folded travel chess board- the same one he and Shinji had played on almost two years ago.

"I had enjoyed the few games we played," The old man gave Shinji a grandfatherly smile. "Considering all that's been going on above and below ground, I thought now was a good time to take a personal look."

Nobody liked being put on the spot, and Shinji knew he wasn't an exception. He couldn't help the cringe, even as his hands hovered over the nearest pawn. "I... yes sir."

Fuyutsuki waved down his concerns with a dismissive hand. "It's been weeks since your episode, Ikari-kun. You're stable now and not in trouble- you punished yourself more than enough."

"I should have been disciplined though, or something..."

"Perhaps," Fuyutsuki allowed. "But the time for that has passed, psychologically speaking. In any event, you are stable now, and of sound mind."

Before Shinji could argue that point, the old man moved a knight into position, taking a pawn that had wandered too far out. Shinji frowned and looked at his board state, picking another pawn and pushing it forward. Move and countermove, until Shinji had freed his power pieces and lost half his pawns charging into the center. As a strategy it was simple, straightforward, and reasonablly effective. Fuyutsuki's forces meanwhile danced away, almost always moving out of threat even before Shinji's pieces had gotten into position.

"Another thing to remember is that punishment is contextual...." Fuyutsuki swept aside the remaining pawns in a handful of moves. "Mania, violent or otherwise, leads to a medical response, not a disciplinary one. We don't punish the paranoid schizophrenic when he forgets his medicine. Further, when he maintains his medication, he is perfectly productive."

Shinji nodded slowly, sliding a bishop across to put pressure on the opposing king. "So.... You're saying that..." He let his hand slide back off the table and onto his lap. "I don't know what you're saying."

"I am saying that there are things we do not know, and for the time being, NERV as a whole is considering your situation akin to a man needing a treatment that doesn't yet exist." Fuyutsuki smiled again, paternal and understanding.

Losing his bishop on one turn to Fuyutsuki's rook, and then his queen to the old man's remaining knight, Shinji stared at his board and sighed. He tipped his king over and conceded defeat.

"Your tactics were unrelenting, Ikari-kun, but unsophisticated." The old man tapped the checkered surface with one gnarled finger. "In Chess, predictability is a weapon both sides must wield."

Shinji gave the man as slow, absent nod while he mulled that over. It wasn't like he had any idea how to hide his intentions. Shinji hadn't ever tried to pull one over on his aunt and uncle, or anyone else he knew. He hadn't ever tried to push boundaries when he was younger, to try and fail and adapt. Now he was playing catch up with all those toddler tricks and techniques....

Resetting the pieces with the ease of long practice, Fuyutsuki gave Shinji a new grandfather-grin. "Another game, Ikari-kun?"

Feeling one side of his mouth tug back into a half-frown, Shinji nodded and reached for a pawn and made his first move. He wasn't a child or an adult, but he was a Solar. There was a rightness to his strategy, even without an active investment on his part. It was understandable.

"Back to what were discussing before..." Fuyutsuki moved his knight across the board, smiling faintly. "We have the reports of course, but what do you think of your sync scores?"

"They're... synching." Shinji wasn't sure how else to put it. Most of his attention was on other matters while he mirrored Fuyutsuki's knight. "I can make the Eva move and that's about it."

"I mean, the scores and tests?" He just gave the older man a helpless shrug. "For almost a year, all we did were tests, and they took up eight hours of NERV's day- I don't see the need to dwell on them overmuch."

Fuyutsuki's eyes crinkled mirthfully, almost abashed. "Yes well... They were one of the few things that remained within our budget."

The game went on from that point, and the sound of wooden figurines sliding along stone was loud in the otherwise empty cafeteria. Shinji lost two more games before winning a third, after Fuyutsuki miscalculated on a risky gamble he'd wanted to use as an object lesson. The old man admitted with no shame that he'd always be a teacher, first and foremost.

With the pieces reset once more, Shinji stared at the board with his chin propped up against with his thumbs, and his fingers laced tightly together. "Fuyutsuki-sensei, can I ask you a question?"

Sipping his coffee, Fuyutsuki could only raise an eyebrow. "Of course Ikari-kun, feel free."

"Do you know that most of the above-ground shelters aren't much stronger than cardboard?"

Fuyutsuki's hand froze above his right-hand bishop. Slowly, he pulled back and let his hands fall into his lap, sagging down on the bench seat. "Distribution of NERV's budget is a closely guarded secret.... And sometimes the impetuousness of youth surprises everyone."

Shinji nodded, playing with a stainless steel fork. He'd mangled and bent it into a dozen shapes over the various matches with just his own strength. "I wasn't punished on grounds of a temporarily unsound mind... I still have my authority as a division leader."

There was a long, deliberative silence. "...That is correct, Ikari-kun. You still only answer to the Commander."

"Then I'll answer him when the time comes." Shinji stood up and gave the older man a polite bow, thanking him for the game. "In the meantime I'm going to take care of things above ground."

* * *

Instead of having anything resembling dinner, Ritsuko stared across the ten-yard span of empty glass floor between herself and the obsidian black desk. "Commander."

"Doctor Akagi." Gendo leaned forward with his elbows on his desk, as was his habit. "Is there a problem?"

The bottle-blonde felt her eyes narrow behind her glasses. There had been certain... questions. "Not a problem, per se. It's been nearly three months to the day since Major Katsuragi headed out to sea, and we've not heard any word from her or the fleet itself."

"NERV remains outside the good graces of the United Nations, despite any primacy the A-17 order gives us." Gendo barely moved while he spoke. "Until an Angel blood-pattern is detected, the Major and Second Child are passengers."

She frowned, chewing her lip. "And as passengers, they probably do not have the same communication privileges as officers and crew, officially or otherwise."

The reply was all the more effective for its brevity. "A reasonable assumption."

It made an ugly sort of sense, the kind that didn't make her feel better, but sank into the cracks of her rational mind and stopped it from complaining. Ritsuko felt her weight shift back on to her heels, and the self-analyzing part of her mind called it resignation. She didn't like the path her own brain was taking her. Caught in that moment of introspection, she was only dimly aware of Gendo's stare and mausoleum silence. The seconds passed slowly.

"As it stands, our forces are depleted." Gendo's expression was unreadable as always. "Expedite the transfer of Evangelion units 03 and 04."

Ritsuko bristled without thinking, and worked suppressed the wince when her heel clicked loudly against the glass beneath her feet. "Sir, I don't think that's at all feasible. Our corporate grants are not even a tenth of what we had beforehand."

"By the time you reach your lab, an updated statement on our budget will be on your desk." His voice was even without being flat. "You will see there is more than enough to support additional Evangelions."

Chewing on her lip, Ritsuko tried to process that statement. NERV had consumed the rough equivalent of three small nations worth of money and raw materials. Governments, Misato had once joked, would go bankrupt paying for an Evangelion. Doubly so if money at that level behaved intuitively, compared to the economies of civilizations. Three Evangelions even on standby were a constant drain with maintenance alone, to say nothing of testing or the all-to-necessary training deployments.

Throwing out estimates in her mind of what she'd find after heading back to Dogma, Ritsuko crunched the math and came to the same conclusion. Cost for new facilities, storage, upkeep and necessary expansion... There was no plausible way the Commander had enough money on the wire to pay for five Evangelions.

Gendo tore through her introspection and whatever polite mask she could have maintained. "If the costs are still too high to continue supporting Project E, perhaps we should begin making cuts elsewhere."

Her stomach flopped uneasily and churned against her diaphragm, while ice water flooded Ritsuko's skin. The cold gave way to a hot flush. The warning was unmistakable. "Y-Yes sir. Commander."

"Excellent. Dismissed, Doctor Akagi."

Spinning on one heel, Ritsuko made for the exit as fast as decorum would allow. Her legs started pumping hard the second the door closed behind her. Charging toward a waiting elevator, she thanked whatever vagaries of scheduling kept the hallways and cars clear so late at night. Inside the cool safety of the elevator, Ritsuko mashed the button and waited.

The numbers wouldn't stop tumbling through her head, like a puzzle she couldn't put down. Brainteasers and the like were very much catnip to her, and in some ways it proved to be a vital survival skill. However, no matter which way she tried to juggle it, she couldn't keep Project E in the black with five active Evangelions.

Four though.... We could handle four.

Unwanted implications mixed with the steady downward motion unpleasantly enough she found herself fumbling for a calming cigarette or antacid tablet, and came up with neither. When the elevator doors opened at last and emptied out onto one of the Geofront rail stations, Ritsuko simply found the nearest trash can and threw up. Wiping her arm with one sleeve, she tried to latch on to the hopeful alternative.

Maybe they'd finally mothball the test or prototype.

Her stomach rebelled again. Probably not.

* * *

Shinji stared at the phone and frowned. "That's... not right."

As for why it wasn't right, that took some review. He'd started the day refreshed, ready to tackle the problem of Tokyo-3's slipshod infrastructure. To do that he'd needed to get something of an overview. His initial approach had been simple, too. Climb the tallest tower in Tokyo-3 and look down. That and a map had been enough to establish a baseline, to figure out where the shelters and fortress structures spread. The edges of the city were flanked by the squat, non-retracting industrial blocks, the same ones he'd been stopping fires at every other week.

Looking out for landmarks, he'd placed the high school, both of the city's shopping centers, and the street where he and Ayumi had their late-night noodle date. Misato's apartment, his apartment too really, was past the hills to the west and well outside the defensible city structure, but was still 'over' the outermost curve of the Geofront. There weren't any shelters out that far though, so he'd been able to keep his 'work' separate from his personal projects. Small favors, he supposed. Shinji had taken notes, made the measurements and run whatever numbers he could think of, regarding the fortress structure. As far as the shelters were concerned, there were more than enough places for people to go, but none of them were worth the time it took to build them, let alone evacuate.

Armed with the map and the beginnings of a plan, Shinji had spent the rest of the weekend filling in the blanks as best he could. To do that, he had gone back down to the Geofront and Central Dogma. Walking the halls and checking in with the clinic, he split his time between the other handful of projects still on his plate. It was comfortable that way, letting his mind just work on something in the background. There was a lot he just didn't get, mostly in the human side of the 'how and why'. Fuyutsuki-sensei knew, and his father definitely knew. The physical side of the how though he could handle on his own, to a point. Tokyo-3 as a research facility belonged to Ritsuko and the rest of NERV, but as a fortress, it belonged to the Operations Director.

Which led Shinji to trying to make sense of Misato's offices back home and in the Geofront, backtracking across the whole city twice over. She had a year of backlogged paperwork from the government and the UN, and what he skimmed basically came down to 'fight cleaner battles!'.

Considering he was at least nominally a pilot, Shinji had scowled at the documents and muttered "Why don't you fight then?"

Having claimed a replacement Geofront office for himself, Shinji pulled in everything he'd learned and collected so far. But even with all that, the papers and files didn't shed much light on what Misato did with Tokyo-3. She had almost zero footprint in the MAGI, barely accessing it or dedicating mainframe time to her own projects. It took him a bit to realize that Misato usually asked Ritsuko to write out her ideas and requests in a way the computers could understand. He had left a message with the scientist, but she hadn't gotten back to him yet either.

Even asking Misato's direct subordinate didn't help that much. Lieutenant Hyuga had just shrugged and pointed out that he was more a communications officer, coordinating amongst several hundred distinct armory units and JSSDF support. He'd been able to fill in a few blanks regardless, but Shinji hadn't been able to see any grand unifying plan for the fortress city, short of stripping out all of the conventional arms in exchange for more proven positron weaponry.

While he worked, Shinji did wonder if Misato knew about the shelters, or about how the 'homey' parts of the city were a thin skin hiding its other role. He couldn't say either side was more important, though. The people who lived and worked needed to be protected, but at the same time NERV needed to be ready and able to fight the Angels and defend the Geofront. After digging through a damages-expense report, Shinji had found himself frowning. If Misato hadn't known about the shelters or anything, then it said a lot to him about how far ingrained it all went. Or, if she had known, then she was doing a good enough job that she apparently assumed it wouldn't have been an issue?

Misato went on a lot of faith sometimes, but she backed it up with a certainty of will.

In any event, Shinji didn't know what to do about the shelters or the city itself. He had ideas, good ones! But he needed confirmation. The fact that he missed Misato was more than enough reason for him to try and call her halfway across the world.

So he dialed the number Misato had given NERV before she and Asuka left. Military communications still relied on a hierarchy of people, so it should have connected him to some sort of central dispatch office across the planet. Instead of a soldier though, Shinji got what amounted to an error code. After he listened to the bleating series of tones, he frowned. Signal had been fine last he checked, but he tried again both inside the Geofront and out. Then he tried his pager, Ayumi's, and called Rei back at the apartment- all good. The other pilot had even volunteered to try calling Misato from the landline. A few minutes later, she'd sent word back that she got the same off-key error.

After promising to make it up to Rei with a late night dinner, Shinji headed back into Central Dogma and the office he'd claimed for the day. Once there, he hooked up the landline phone and punched in the number, waiting for the MAGI to handshake with the overburdened satellite network and who-knew how many communication relays and a dozen other switches between him and the United Nations Pacific Fleet.

Same tones, same error.

Again, staring at the receiver and having spent nearly two hours trying to figure out why, Shinji couldn't help but scowl. "That's... not right."

It wasn't his phone, or the landline. Digging into a phone book, he called the JSSDF liaison to the UN, skipping most of NERV's own communication network simply because that organization came before NERV in the directory.

The phone rang twice before a secretary picked it up. "General Kirishima's office-" Shinji opened his mouth, but the man on the other end kept talking. "I'm sorry, but the General is just about to leave, would you like to leave a message?"

Shinji glanced at the desk clock and winced, eight o'clock; no wonder he was leaving. Something inside him ticked over, a lever in his soul he'd rarely used or understood, but achingly similar to other techniques. He spoke quickly, earnest and efficiently. "This is Director Ikari of NERV, if the General has a moment I would like to speak to him."

The man on the other end was silent for a long, painful moment. Shinji felt his face fall and shoulders slump bit by bit as the seconds ticked away. Finally though, the secretary came back. "One moment please while I transfer you."

Tones and the brief crackle of a signal switching from one line to another was all the warning Shinji had before he heard a new voice. "General Kirishima speaking- I thought you were a Commander, Ikari."

Wincing into the receiver, Shinji let out a quiet cough. "General sir, This is Ikari Shinji. Director of the Special Projects division here in NERV." He fumbled for a moment, adding "I suppose I'm one of the Pilots too."

Kirishima was silent on the other for what felt like hours, and it took several beats for Shinji to realize what sounds he heard were muffled laughter. Decorum reasserted itself quickly though, and the general came back all business. "Very well then, Director Ikari, do you have identification by chance?"

Is this a prank call was left unsaid.

Dragging a hand down his face, Shinji let out a silent groan. He'd again forgotten that he still sounded like a fifteen year old, even on the phone. Clearing his throat, he made a fair attempt at adding years to his voice, trying to add some tenor to his alto. It worked out better than he expected... And by Kirishima's amused hum, not as well as he would have liked.

Prank or not, Shinji figured the joke was on him.

As for identification; he hadn't ever used it, but Shinji did have authority to requisition troops and material from the JSSDF, just like Misato had as Operations Director. He pulled out his card and read off the six-block code and waited for Kirishima to check it on his end. There was another long pause, until the older man came back, sounding a little more serious and much more interested.

"You have my attention now, Director, what can I do for you?"

Shinji slumped into the seat and let out a sigh, careful not to blow into the receiver. "Thank you General, for taking the time out for me. I've been trying to contact the Pacific Fleet for the past few hours, and I've gotten nothing but an error code for my troubles." He ran through what he'd already learned and laid out his request. "If you could try calling the fleet yourself, and give me the number of someone I could contact in the UN Navy?"

Kirishima made a sound that Shinji couldn't quite place, somewhere between thinly veiled disgust and suspicion. He was fairly sure it wasn't directed at himself though. The general punched in the direct like as Shinji read it off to him, and they both waited. He came back a second later. "Error code, just like you said."

Now it was Shinji's turn to scowl into the phone, brow furrowing. "Thank you again, General, you have no idea how much this has helped me."

"Not a problem, Director, as for the UN contact..." He rattled off a few names and numbers, forcing Shinji to scramble for pen and paper. "While you're working on that, I think I'll wake some people up on my end, and make some more calls."

After the general hung up, Shinji stood up and put the handset back down on its cradle. He'd have to hurry if he wanted to get back in time to make Rei that dinner. Flexing his soul once more, Shinji banished his fatigue.

Dinner aside, he was going to spend all night working on this if he had to.

* * *

After three days of work, Shinji was no closer to having gotten ahold Misato or anyone at sea in the Pacific Fleet. It was becoming increasingly clear that something was wrong, and he had exhausted all of the obvious paths to solving the problem, save one.

Akagi Ritsuko had been a ghost for those three days.

He had only found her by sheer luck one afternoon, blundering by a cafeteria stocked with his pressure-brewed thaumaturgy coffee. She was haggard- her lab coat rumpled and stained with more coffee and thin smears of cigarette ash. When she turned to face him in the doorway, he saw ten-pound bags under her eyes. It was obvious, but his mind repeated what his eyes were telling him. That is not right. He had seen her tired, overworked, and at wits end, but never that much. There was no hint of her normal razor-edged composure.

"Akagi-senei," Shinji blinked, moving in and past the tables without stopping. He found himself scowling, more out of his own medical compassion than anything. What he lacked in social grace, Shinji had grown in bedside manner

Tugging the coffee gently out of her fingers with one hand, he hit pressure points up her arm with the other. Ending with a firm pinch at the place where neck became shoulder, Shinji watched the physical signs of fatigue bled away under the thaumaturgical shorthand. Her body refreshed itself, but she was going to need something solid in her stomach before long.

Fortunately, they were in a cafeteria. He ducked into the kitchen and Rituko followed him with her eyes as he raided the fridge. He sat down with a plate full of sandwiches, enough to feed six people. "Akagi-sensei, you should know better..."

Ritsuko sucked on her teeth, and her nostrils flared- the sandwiches were toasted, and that made the scent all but omnipresent. She reached for one, and the tall glass of water Shinji had brought as well. "It's fine, Ikari-kun. I'm fine."

She chewed, and Shinji watched, picking a sandwich himself and waiting. Reaching into her coat pocket, Ritsuko dug out a pack of cigarettes. She gave it a fitful rattle and found it empty. The blonde glared at it, crumpling it in her fist and tossing it over her shoulder. Swallowing, the scientist licked her lips.

Her eyes were still slightly wide and wild, looking all the world like she'd been running from a monster for days. "Just fine. I am merely trying to reapportion two new Evangelion cages, following up on maintenance for the proto and test types. Nothing major."

The words all came out in a rush, and Shinji just stopped with his sandwich halfway to his open mouth. He was about to ask the obvious question when another voice broke in. "Why would we need new Evangelions. We have Asuka-chan."

Shinji and Ritsuko both turned them to finally see Rei. The girl stood next to their table, still damp from swimming and clad in a pair of sweatpants over her swimsuit. She shrugged one shoulder, resettling her infusion pump under her arm. She met Shinji's eyes, then Ritsuko's, blinking once. "I overheard you talking, after checking your recent labs. I didn't find either of you, so."

That was another sign something was up. The labs sprinkled throughout the Geofront were Ritsuko's domain and home away from home. Catching her outside of one... Shinji didn't say anything yet, and Ritsuko stared at her half-eaten sandwich.

Rei didn't take the silence though. "I say again, why do we need more Evangelions?"

"Sorhyu's worth three of us when she's sitting in the pilot seat." Shinji may not have liked her much a few months ago, but the redhead had beaten grudging respect into him with sheer force of personality. It was tough to ignore that.

Somehow being caught between the level stare of two teenagers was enough to make Ritsuko collapse in on herself. Shinji had always seen Ritsuko as this presence, someone who stood above him despite being a foot shorter and half his weight. Watching her across the table, she looked tiny- still Ritsuko, and Shinji knew better than to underestimate her. Everyone had bad days, or weeks... but something still nagged at him.

"That's... above our pay grade. This is a war." The scientist offered a helpless shrug. "We need them because we're NERV. Orders."

Standing up hard enough to break the bench away from the floor, Shinji pulled away, leaving Rei and Ritsuko blinking red and green eyes respectively. he turned on one heel and made for the door, muttering all the while. The solution was so obvious in hindsight- the past three days had been at best a learning experience, a useful one! But unnecessary nonetheless.

Rei blinked, and a bead of water dripped off her chin to splash loudly on the cafeteria floor. The answer didn't sit well with Shinji either. He felt his insides coil up and chill. Everything Ritsuko hadn't said set him on edge, and a piece of a puzzle tipped off the stack and landed just shy of being in place. Staring down at his empty plate, Shinji felt his jaw tense. It was a problem to solve, a trick or riddle, and he was good at solving problems.

He was also tired of solving problems.

Ritsuko and Rei scrambled after him on sandal and low-slung heels respectively. They cleared the door and followed him into the corridor, not quite jogging to keep up.

"Ikari-" The older woman reached out to grab his wrist, aiming to pull him to a halt. "What are you doing?!"

Passing by checkpoint and research facility, Shinji glanced left and right, mapping out the supercomputer network that wound through the walls of Dogma and the underground dome. He barely felt Ritsuko squirm, sitting on his forearm like a bench seat. She'd wrapped an arm around his head and neck, holding on for dear life.

Then, he finally heard her shouting over the spinning engine in his mind. Her fingers dug into his hair and pulled at his scalp. "Ikari Shinji- put me down!"

He did, right next to Rei. Ritsuko bounced on her heels and toes, and the other pilot threw an arm around her middle to steady the woman. Shinji had ended up carrying and leading them to one of the many thousands of elevators sprinkled throughout the complex. Glancing between Rei and Ritsuko, he nodded. "I need you two to be ready for when I get back. I'll need your help later."

Ritsuko leaned on Rei and pushed a hand through her windblown hair. "A-and where are you going, what do you need our help with?"

"Still thinking on that..." Shinji stared past the closed doors, humming. "...Of course the MAGI wouldn't work."

Rei cocked her head to the side, just a bit winded. "Why would the MAGI not work?"

Because," Shinji gave the girl a dark grin. "We need some better channels of communication."

* * *

The space gave him room to pace. It was nice to be somewhere he didn't feel misshapen or grotesquely huge. Ritsuko had given him the half-answers he'd needed to finally figure out where he'd been going wrong. Fighting the MAGI had been a futile effort, simply because there were parts that he could not access. Oh, if he'd dug down into the physical hardware he could have accomplished something, but that would have taken time he didn't have.

Shinji shook his head- it wasn't that he lacked the time, it was that he wanted to spend it on other things. On projects and people who mattered. "So, here is the situation as I see it; You almost certainly know about the fortress city and the shelters, the same as I do now."

The lack of response and ongoing silence didn't bother him. His shoes made hardly any noise when they hit the polished black floor, and the rest of the room was dark, like most of the labs in Dogma and the Geofront at large. What little light there was barely reached the walls, and the furthest spaces were nearly black save for thin bands of light; hidden consoles or decorations, Shinji couldn't say.

"Of course, I was missing a whole bunch of important stuff." He moved up closer to the black desk, almost looming over it. "Necessary background information, logistics. I mean it was all Operations, not Special Projects- and I couldn't just call Misato and ask."

Shinji let his fingers curl and uncurl, winding open to drum the air. His breath and blood felt hot in his lungs and skin, riding the fight half the survival imperative. A half-dozen flavors of anger simmered just under the surface, and for once Shinji found himself nursing it. A bit of indignation, some self-recrimination, and a healthy amount of pure frustration.

"The shelters- I could understand the need for it, the false reassurances. I don't like it, but I understand it."

Shinji felt his voice thicken, and the muscles in his neck were standing out tense like the rest of him. Perfectly tailored clothes couldn't hide the fact that he'd been trained into a soldier's shape, and this time he banked on it. It was all a matter of spectacle, presence. "I don't see anything wrong with NERV's stated purpose either; it's meant to develop, repair and deploy Evangelions against Angels, no more, no less."

He stepped on a glass panel, and the floor beneath him changed tint. The smoky black gave way to UV-filtered green and blue, like looking at a sunny park through a pair of dark sunglasses. "I didn't like what I was seeing. I was going out and doing things though, getting ready to fix it. Deep down though I was just going to do just enough, and ignore the rest. Not the work, but the implications- the how and why behind it all."

Big speeches weren't his thing, but they came easily at that moment, and Shinji felt his internal reserve sing, eager to be unleashed. "I would have let it lie, and pat myself on the back thinking I'd done a good thing."

"Instead though, thanks to you." He finally looked over at the man sitting behind the desk. "You gave me a wake up call."

Striding forward, the cavernous office seemed to squeeze and shift, and what space between Shinji and the desk vanished, compressed into non-existence. A list of a thousand motions unfurled in perfect clarity, and Shinji found his perception slowed to account for each one. A flare of sunlight filled the space, flooding the office and soaking into every polished surface while Shinji himself shined gold. Cloth, paint and enamel smoked and curled under the sudden onslaught.

His arm and leading leg came up, the former stopped high over the desk to harness potential energy, and the latter slammed into the floor for support. Shinji felt his clothes ripple and snap against air and acceleration, drawn tight against his limbs as he brought his open palm down.

And stopped, a half-inch away from the desktop itself.

Drawing back, Shinji opened his hand and grabbed the bleached desk, pulling it aside like it weighed nothing. He learned forward with his sunfire brand standing out on his forehead, staring at his own reflection in orange lenses. The glasses cracked under the pressure wave, and Shinji watched one visible pupil contract as he growled. "You got my family involved."

With the desk out of the way, Shinji stared down at the Commander of NERV and made his point. The only obstacles that stood between the commander and himself were the ones he permitted. The older man sat in his chair with a hand on each knee, apparently unperturbed. Gendo's silence was a weapon, and Shinji recognized it for what it was.

He stepped away from the sun-scorched desk and the cracked floor. He stared back at Gendo, looking for something. What exactly, Shinji couldn't say. The man just tilted his head in response, and his broken glasses turned opaque in the face of Shinji's fading corona. Impassive and inscrutable as always. Shinji let out a little snort, unimpressed. He turned for the exit and stopped at the door, wrenching it back into place as an afterthought. Restored, as if it had never been broken. That done, he looked over his shoulder.

"Things are going to start changing around here, father." He reached out to hit the door control, and his thin frown hardened. "Starting with me."

* * *

Gendo sat alone in his disrupted office. It was only then that Gendo allowed himself to relax. A bead of sweat dripped down his brow.

Shyft · Jun 10, 2014

And that night Leothric arose in the dark and took the sword, and went westwards to find Gaznak; and he went through the dark forest till the dawn, and all the morning and till the afternoon. But in the afternoon he came into the open and saw in the midst of The Land Where No Man Goeth the fortress of Gaznak, mountainous before him, little more than a mile away.

- Excerpt from The Fortress Unvanquishable Save for Sacnoth

* * *

Offshore observers had spotted them first, and by initial reports, it looked like a funeral procession. Ghost-ships coming to shore through the early morning mist. Ritsuko had called the pilots at two in the morning with the news. Rei grabbed her keys without bothering to dress, and Shinji promised the scientist the best goddamn chocolate cake he could make before dropping the phone. The cordless thing hit the floor and cracked, but the two teenagers were already out the door.

The Skyline rumbled down the land-route highway, and Shinji could hear Rei's expert timing, shifting gears like a seasoned pro. Bands of sunlight cut over the hilltops in thin rays, burning through the wetland mist that surrounded Tokyo-3. They were going to make landfall in Iwaki, and it was a three and a half hour drive. Pressed into the passenger seat like he was, Shinji figured they'd get there in about half the time.

Heading toward the Pacific Coast, the two pilots eventually merged with the NERV convoy that had charged out ahead of them. Ritsuko had mobilized her division, including the infirmary staff and critical care teams. Shinji recognized their vans and drivers as Rei wove between them, cutting to the head of the pack. Two hours since Shinji got the call, the two pilots broke out of the low coastal hills and into the open wild grasses that separated the interior regions from the post-Impact shores and beaches.

The second Onahama Port was a riot of activity. With the main road clogged, Rei pulled the wheel hand over hand until the Skyline angled toward a dirt road, running along the main artery. Shinji winced every time the front fender hit a rock or particularly sturdy bit of deadwood.

Rei stared ahead, muttering. "This will buff out- time lost in traffic cannot be regained."

Breaking out of the access road and through a half-rusted chain link gate, Shinji and Rei rolled onto crowded pavement once more. Men and women in yellow and orange hazard saw to a hundredfold tasks, while massive trucks hauled supplies and vital retrieval equipment into place. Not long after Shinji and Rei got out of the car, Ritsuko arrived via VTOL, just as red-eyed as they were. Coordinating from Dogma, she'd taken the earliest chance to break away.

Shinji turned, gritting his teeth as he watched the massive outpouring of effort. There were harbors closer to the Geofront, so coming here meant something bad. The communication block the Commander put into place kept the fleet from radioing ahead for support. More VTOLs roared off from the nearby parking lots for a visual inspection, charging out into the early morning Pacific.

On a clear day, he could see to the horizon. A tiny dot appeared on the edge of the world. His hands found their way into Rei's and Ritsuko's. "They're coming."

The wait was torture. Misato and Sorhyu had been gone for over two months. It was September 16th, 2016. His fifteenth birthday passed by without anyone noticing, including himself. Ahead, the flagship of the United Nations Pacific Fleet closer at a steady one and a half knots, just under two kilometers an hour. The flotilla of other ships that limped were just as slow and in some cases towed by their fellows. It made the snails pace understandable.

Men on the carrier's bow raised flags and sent signals to the shore, while more aircraft took off for priority rescue and recovery. A handful shapes from the carrier itself shot skyward, toward the coast, heading for whatever airfield and landing strip they could find. A red and white rescue vehicle raced ahead of the rest, and Shinji lost it when it crossed the sun. The rest would have to wait for the fleet to actually come into port. Shinji overheard the expletives and cries of disbelief- the fleet was down to a third of it's former size. Rei heard it too, and squeezed his hand.

Getting closer still, he could pick out more details, like a bloody tarp strapped down to the aircraft carrier deck, or how half the ships were still sending thin trails of oily smoke into the air. Something had picked up the fleet and chewed.

The hour passed, and Section Two had arrived with sweatpants and jackets. Rei had been shivering, even with the rising sun scouring away the clouds. The Over the Rainbow split off from the main body of the fleet, first into port with the most critical damage, special cargo and the fastest way of getting the injured disembarked. Massive vehicles Shinji couldn't name, but looked like giant staircases and rolling elevators moved over to the dockside, ready to meet up with the gaping hangar doorways.

On the deck itself, the beaten tarp fluttered under the wind, and thin streams of red-orange streaked the carrier's sides, along with broader patches of dried ichor, covered in almost cancerous looking barnacles, even above the waterline. Shinji's eyes flicked from damaged hull to nearly ruined superstructure. The one side of the ship he could see was crumpled, looking like someone had stomped on a soda can a thousand times over. No amount of repair could have kept the thing seaworthy for longer than a few hours.

Rei had come back and found his hand again, squeezing it so hard he felt his knuckles grind together.

They both had a pretty good idea of what the blood meant. "Asuka-chan."

Several thousand voices started shouting orders in half-a-dozen languages. Russian, German, Japanese and English all mingled together in call-and-response. Sailors threw out lines for the dockyard-bound to tie off or tug on. Cargo cranes moved into haul away wrecked aircraft or what ordnance they couldn't find a place for inside. Everything was a rush to empty the carrier, and there was no sign of Misato or Sorhyu. Shinji looked down at Ritsuko, but she'd put her glasses on and stood facing the sun, hiding her eyes behind the glare.

On the carrier deck, a particular voice started shouting in English. "Hey big guy! Big kid! Shinji Ikari! She said you could hear me!"

Turning, he saw a black-haired American woman waving frantically. She started pointing skyward, before cupping her hands around her mouth. "HEADS UP!"

Shinji scowled despite himself, but looked up into the blue sky. A dark figure crossed the wide blue expanse, and his pupils shrank down to pinpricks. That red and white helicopter wasn't a helicopter. Arcing through the sky, it was close enough that Shinji could see it, name it, even describe it. Twenty-ten eyesight aside, Shinji couldn't believe it.

Evangelion Unit 02 was in free fall, several thousand feet up and dropping.

Now more than ever, he saw it as obviously cybernetic, limbs with slashes of pale flesh exposed to open sky. The arms and legs snapped out and caught the air with a booming thunderclap, loud enough to shake dust from concrete walls. Contrails spun out from between fingertips and around ankles, growing thicker and blooming wider the closer it got. Wind buffeted the ground, ripping hats from heads and picking people up by their vests and jackets.

But the Evangelion wasn't slowing down. Shinji watched it skydive, angling its hands and feet toward the carrier. Palms carved through the air, forcing the Eva into a drilling spiral. Black streamers flared out from its hips in a whipping blur, unfurling with a crack. The spin stopped and the whole Evangelion jerked back, buoyed by wind in the black ribbon sails and the sudden thrum of an expressed AT field. The extra limbs- and a third trailing one from the Eva's spine down to its ankles shifted and bent, bat-like and billowing.

The wings beat the air, and the Evangelion lowered itself onto the mostly abandoned carrier deck, light as a feather with its arms crossed over its chest.

The docks were silent, save for the Pacific swells and the cawing of gulls. More disciplined heads amongst the recovery crews whistled and shouted, and the spell was broken. Shinji squeezed Rei's hand and let out the breath he'd been holding, and finally allowed himself to look at the Evangelion.

The red, black and orange machine had seen better days, covered in patches and wound bandages. Staples as long as a man's arm stitched its wounds, and one of it's four eyes was missing. Meanwhile, the wings rippled. They moved like fluid, warping down into frayed-tipped ends that hung from the Evangelion's hips. Frayed or fingertips, Shinji couldn't say.

The dock was silent for a long moment. Bit by bit the recovery crew picked itself up, milling around the Evangelion's ankles. Shinji found himself staring up at the Evangelion, along with Rei and Ritsuko. Out the corner of his eye, a flash of purple-black and achingly familiar red broke out onto the carrier deck. A vice that had been clamped around his heart just let go.

Katsuragi Misato stood there, one hand holding her beret down and the other on her cross.

Unit 02 shifted, and from its external speakers a familiar voice boomed out. "Sorhyu Asuka Langley and the Pacific Fleet have returned!"

* * *

A sprawling field hospital and ad-hoc machine shop had unfolded out onto the docks. While men and women swarmed across the Over the Rainbow. Covered by drab tents and under the care of NERV-trained nurses, sailors who had been on their feet for twenty hours or more found themselves recharged under a brief pressure-point massage. Re-energized, they charged back out into the recovery area, eager and willing to rescue their own ships.

Nearly every able-bodied soul in Onahama port threw themselves into the recovery effort, dragging out those who couldn't move themselves. Cranes had kept up a steady flow of crates and hastily lashed together palettes moving towards the dock warehouses and neighboring trainyard. In that same depot, a four-track Evangelion transport rumbled to a halt, loaded with supplies on the outgoing trip.

Sorhyu worked until the last minute after plugging in fresh batteries. She pulled armfuls of whatever was needed off the carrier while an active AT field thrummed, spread out through the region. Even dispersed, Shinji felt the resonant tingle in his fingers, toes, and throughout the thin cloud of awareness that made up his soul.

When Unit 02 was finally done, Sorhyu eased it over to the railway, followed by a thick knot of sailors and soldiers. Shinji for his part had been attached to Ritsuko and her medical team, running herd on what amounted to disaster relief. Several thousand people were injured, maimed or in otherwise critical condition, even after two months rest and surgery at sea. For those missing limbs, there was only so much Shinji could do that moment, but people much smarter than him had already started drafting emergency plans for a crisis like this one.

In the meantime though, Shinji saved lives with a touch.

When all was said and done, the non-critical, non-essential personnel were allowed ashore. Hoses snaked into the carrier from all angles, and thick streams of brackish ocean water were pumped out from shore-side pumps and internal bilges. In the rail depot, the internal hum of Sorhyu's AT field snapped off, and the Over the Rainbow sank four meters into the dockside water.

Shinji didn't really pay any of that much mind though, because the crowd had parted. Ritsuko and Rei had wound back around to his side, and the three of them stared across the thin gap between the crush of people.

Katsuragi Misato stood a few strides away next to that Kaji guy, beret in hand and wind tugging at her hair. Shinji took the first step, but Misato was faster and already running. She slammed into his chest hard enough force the air from their lungs, but Shinji didn't give a damn if he was out of breath. He let his arms wrap around her back and smiled into her hair. Some part of him wanted to cry.

The rest of him picked Misato up by her waist, twisting on his heels and laughing.

He kept her moving for half-a-dozen rotations, not at all caring that the people around him blurred into a mass of colors and impressions. His first friend was back. His best friend was back. Misato laughed and slapped at his arms until he slowed, pulling her in for another hug. This time she wedged her cheek into the crook of his neck, still laughing. Shinji grinned into her hair and didn't care who saw him or whatever they thought. He just luxuriated in the rightness, holding on to her until the ugly knot of worry in his heart let go.

The snap-click of one lighter after another tugged them out of the happy rush. Misato dropped down to the ground, but bounced back on her toes, planting a quick and impish kiss at the corner of Shinji's mouth. They both turned to look at Ritsuko and Kaji. The scientist had shoved a fresh pack of cigarettes into the man's grateful hands, lighting up in unison.

"So," Ritsuko smirked around her own cigarette, while Kaji grinned outright. "You two seem happy to see each other."

Shinji caught Misato's smirk out the corner of his eye and watched the joke as it formed. He beat her to it though, throwing an arm around her waist and grinning at the blonde. "You have no idea."

And then Rei was there, standing between the three adults and huge teenager. "Shinji-kun, I would like to hug Misato-san now."

There was a collective blink at that before Misato flung her arms around the girl with a laugh, pulling her into a three-sided hug with alongside the tallest pilot. It didn't take long for a red-clad arm to reach out and yank Ritsuko into the mix, then Kaji. Shinji found himself sandwiched between Rei and Ritsuko at one turn, then Kaji throwing a hand out to be shaken. The three college alumni split off for their own hugs, while the two teenagers took a moment to just bask in the fact that the closest thing they'd ever had to families were back and together.

Another wave of rescue and recovery swept up around them, forcing the five of them together once more- not that anyone minded. When the sudden press of bodies bled away, a shrill whistle rang out. The NERV contingent turned to see a cluster of sailors in frayed and soiled gear hoisting a wheelchair between them like a sedan chair.

Breaking rank, a husky redheaded man stomped forward and bellowed in a thick, unplaceable accent. "Presenting the space-monster scrapper, the creature-crunching crown princess, our fair lady Asuka Sorhyu Langley!"

Those sailors and marines not busy with holding her up parted, and even empty handed, they mimed the motion of presenting arms while trying not to laugh. Between them, the pilot of Evangelion Unit 02 grumbled without heat in her wheelchair. "And yet again I have more reason to kill you all."

Behind her, the dark-haired american woman who had shouted about the incoming flying Evangelion ruffled her hair. "Aww, you know you love us, and we love you too."

Shinji blinked at that, and watched the easy camaraderie that seemed to surround the girl like a cloud. Sorhyu had won their loyalty, unequivocally, and he could see it plain as day. Glancing back at the carrier, the heavily damaged Evangelion, and the pilot herself, he couldn't help but wonder what had happened in the past two months. Once he really did look at her though, Shinji felt his brain skip a medical track.

Still-healing injuries was the first thing that came to mind. Sorhyu's plugsuit had been cut away from the arms, making room for splints and casts. One arm was bandaged up to the forearm, while her other hand was just wrapped tightly to keep her wrist from moving. If she'd had to pilot like that... Caught up in just going over her injuries, he forgot to even flex his own powers. There wasn't a real need- he could see the wrapping around her broken ribs or the set compound fractures in her right shin.

Sandwiched between Misato and himself, Rei took a hesitant step forward. She stopped, seemingly unsure of something, before deciding to wedge herself back in between his own bulk and the side of Misato's jacket. Asuka was the first to break the silence.

"So yeah," He watched Sorhyu's one good eye flick from face to face, and giving the blue-haired girl an unreadable look."What am I, other than being ignored?"

The husky man smirked, now placed as unmistakably Irish. "I'm sure they're meaning no disrespect, m'lady."

"Carter, you're just lucky I can't get up and bop you one." From the girl's retinue, a marine reached out to cuff the aforementioned Carter upside the head. Asuka's mood brightened considerably. "Thank you, corporal!"

Shinji frowned, more out of confusion than anything else. He glanced sidelong at Misato and Kaji before asking the question at the front of his mind. "She piloted like that? You let her pilot like that? And had her hauling cargo instead of getting her to a hospital?"

He waved at the Evangelion, then the girl. Circumstances might have demanded it, but every medical instinct he had was screaming at him for some kind of explanation. Misato and Kaji gave him nearly identical expressions, something along the lines of schadenfreude. He rambled ahead anyway. "I mean, it makes sense given how she landed, and wings? Where'd you get wings, some other NERV base?"

Considering Sorhyu was behind him, that was probably expected. She coughed pointedly. "Well, I wasn't exactly in the Eva for most of that."

Shinji blinked, glancing at the girl once more. She wasn't covered in LCL. Sorhyu huffed and gingerly crossed her better arm over chest, smirking faintly. She let the silence speak for her, and Shinji looked back at Unit 02, and only now saw that it's plug was missing. Not just missing- ripped out, like some great hand had pried off the armor and ripped out three of the Evangelion's vertabrae. Not claws, blades or acid, but hands.

How was that thing still functional?

He must have asked out loud, because Misato answered from his side. "You might be the one to answer that, but hey-" She pulled a hand-radio from her jacket pocket and gave it a click.

Shouts on the carrier deck rang out, and the thick tarp stretched across the flight deck was pulled away. Shinji, Ritsuko and Rei could only see the edges of it, looking up from the docks, but that was enough. On the deck was a corpse, white, black and achingly familiar... and unmistakably alien.

Misato grinned, proud and feral. "At least we brought back plenty of spare parts!"

* * *

Misato had been on her feet for almost twenty hours. That wouldn't have been worth mentioning, if not for the fact that she'd been doing so every day for the past three weeks. She turned to look at the ravaged aircraft carrier. Every slash, rip, crack and crumpled plate was a reminder of the past two months at sea. Misato was pretty sure the ship felt and looked worse than she did.

The joyful reunion wound down not long after Asuka arrived, though Misato was glad to note the girl wasn't being a killjoy. The pilots had drifted into an awkward cluster amidst Asuka's retinue of sailors and soldiers. The Major watched her kids, humming thoughtfully. Asuka and Rei were oddly standoffish- not surprising considering the redhead was stuck in a wheelchair. Coming back beat to hell didn't make for a very good homecoming, after all. Every so often, Rei stuttered and shuffled toward Asuka, then stopped before cuddling back in toward Shinji. That was something of a new development....

She sighed and let out a tired smile. It was worth all the pain to be so close to home. Misato glanced back at Shinji and smiled a bit wider. He'd changed too, like he'd grown into some of the physical presence he'd gotten early on. Misato had lived with the idea of a war beyond comprehension for more than fifteen years, and being first in line to fight that war. Shinji meanwhile had been put on the fast track to who-knew where by his father's letter, and then the Exaltation. That he seemed to be finding his stride made the struggle worth it.

As for her situation, Misato glanced between Ritsuko and Kaji. They'd drifted into their own little cluster, the three college friends back together at last. Kaji had been in prison for something, when she'd dragged him out for the fleet expedition. Ritsuko had been burning the candle at both ends with tech demonstrations and marketing. The UN inspector looked as rough as Misato herself, and Ritsuko...

Ritsuko was hugging them both. That was new.

The bottle-blonde had thrown her arms around their shoulders and drawn them in close, so much that Misato found her chin wedged over Ritsuko's shoulder. She glanced sidelong at Kaji, stuck in the same situation while Ritsuko half-dangled between them.

"Missed you guys. So much." And with barely a hesitant pause in her voice, the scientist pulled back to hold the pair at arms-length, calling down the longest explanation Misato would have to make that morning. "Now tell me why is a hand sticking out from that cargo tarp."

Kaji coughed. "That would be one of the Committee's contingencies."

Ritsuko blinked once and turned to face the man completely. "You mean they- with the surviving....?"

A grim nod was her answer, and Misato watched the unspoken words fly right over her head. "Hey-hey! Don't leave me out! Who did what now?"

The blonde shook her head and gave Misato's bicep a squeeze. "Not here, not now. A lot has changed in NERV the past couple months." She sucked on her teeth, suddenly wide-eyed. "Shinji had another episode."

"Wha-" Misato felt her jaw drop, mind flicking to a new Caligula sequence.

Ritsuko cut her off before she could ask for confirmation. "Like I said- not here, but I'm glad you two are back." She sighed and slumped into Kaji, falling back into old college habits. "I'm not trained to handle wild pilot personalities and..."

Seeing Ritsuko of all people caught so off-guard was enough to staple ice cubes to Misato's spine, and not in the fun way. She glanced at Kaji, who'd been steadying the scientist while she shivered. The fleet definitely had it bad, but NERV had definitely had its share of problems. Just like them to all go to hell and back without her to steer.

She gave her friends a steady, calculating look, before Misato fought off the tiredness and put on one of her best gutsy-plan grins. "This is one of those crunchtime moments, Rits?"

It took Ritsuko a moment to get the reference, and her eyes narrowed. "I don't see how me cramming for finals and you skipping class with Kaji applies here."

Misato just grinned wider. "Well this time we're all a bit older and wiser, and I'm not gonna let this bum touch me unless the world's ending." She slugged Kaji in the arm, eyes crinkling. "Plus, we're more than just a brain, bod, and balls."

Kaji and Ritsuko blinked at that, and Misato watched as their expressions shuffled through resignation to all-consuming-crazy-plan terror. Cigarette falling off his lips, Kaji gaped openly. "K-Katsuragi what are you thinking?"

The dark-haired woman smiled even wider and thrust a red-sleeved arm into the air, spinning on one heel and cutting through the crowds. Her friends followed, pelting her back with questions even as Misato straightened her jacket and cuffs. The plan was already formed, but the particulars had to be just right or it wouldn't work.

"I am thinking-" she tossed over her shoulder, scanning the roiling sea of heads and shoulders. "That we have a genius mechanic and natural soldier. Then we've got a girl who can pilot her Eva by remote. I'm not even counting what Shinji can do."

Her eyes snapped onto a familiar salt-and-pepper moustache, and the stoop-shouldered old man it belonged to. Misato lead the way as she wove around the rescue efforts, clearing a path for Kaji and Ritsuko along the way. "I'm thinking, that we've gotten the biggest shot in the arm to Unnatural Warfare since I came to Tokyo-3."

She broke through the last ring of people, coming upon a particular group of men- the surviving captains of the UN Pacific Fleet. Stolocker among them. She snapped off a quick salute, and meant it in earnest. "Admiral," She grinned.

"Katsuragi." The grunt was surprisingly affectionate, and Stolocker's eyes flicked over her shoulders to the familiar Kaji to the unfamiliar Ritsuko. "It looks like we're your guests for the time being."

"Yeah, about that..." Misato hummed, while Ritsuko paled. Which was the right thing to do; many a hijink happened when Misato had ideas. Pulling out her Operations Director voice, Misato nodded firmly. Charisma and authority were her weapons, but she needed soldiers. "My A-17 combat order can be extended if circumstances permit."

She waved at the white arm rising above the carrier deck, locked in rigor. "I have the authority to deploy or station the UN Pacific Fleet wherever I want."

The captains and Admiral were silent, staring down the woman with blatant expressions of stupefaction, incredulity. Ritsuko and Kaij shared the same looks for slightly different reasons. All Misato could do in the face of the attention was drink it in like a sun-starved flower.

"As of today, the number of people who know Unnatural Warfare jumped from those three-" She pointed through the crowds at the bit of plugsuit red, blue hair and Shinji's own tall frame. "To the thousands who make up your fine crews. I need your experience now more than ever, Admiral, and I hope you'll take my comment regarding the A-17 as a polite fiction. Pretense for doing what needs to be done and where."

Meanwhile, Ritsuko licked her lips and coughed, muttering. "It'd also be a damn sight cheaper fixing your fleet than fielding four Evangelions."

Stolocker looked past the brim of his cap, staring up at Misato for a long moment. He was a man beaten into shape by the ocean and Navy, and the past two months had been as hard on them as Second Impact. Worse in some ways. Misato kept her face firmly fixed on her most charming smile, the kind that belonged on recruitment posters. She scanned the other captains, stony expressions all. They looked like stern shrine guardians, and aside from Stolocker, they were all taller than her.

Finally, the moustache twitched. "You'll have the fleet as long as your order holds, Major. Don't make us wait too long to go hunting though."

* * *

A city's worth of people had mobilized to recover and repair the Pacific Fleet. More dock space was cleared to accept new incoming ships, while crews hauled tools and material into position. The moment Over the Rainbow was seaworthy, the carrier was tugged back out into open water, making room for the next damaged vessel. People boiled around like ants on a mission. But even then, two hours after they'd made landfall a handful of the surviving ships in the fleet had given up. Their captains had committed them to graves in the waters far out from the harbor, waiting for the time and talent to cut the wrecks back into useful steel.

Sorhyu Asuka Langley sat on her wheelchair and watched it all, kept well out of the way.

Not that she blamed anyone for that- Not enough battery power left for her to run the Evangelion, and well, she was just as exhausted as most of the fleet. More so in some ways or others. She'd known ahead of time that her homecoming wasn't going to be champagne and confetti, no parades or accolades, just more work. She let out a thin smile at that, not minding at all.

Of course, not everything was sunshine and roses. She looked down at her plugsuited legs and frowned. Her right knee was basically a wreck, braced up and sore from not being able to stretch it. Her toes wiggled sluggishly inside her thin integrated boots. Underneath the red and black plastic were more than a dozen battle scars, most of them fresh, hot and angry.

Looking back over at the ocean and remnants of the fleet, Carter and Bolton had made it their mission to keep Asuka's mind off all her troubles, and she had to admit, it felt good. Victory had felt good. She'd wrapped the proof of her greatness around her shoulders like a blanket. Or a new pair of wings, she wasn't feeling picky about it right then.

She wouldn't have minded a parade though.

A sharp whistle made her turn painfully, facing the dockyard and crowds once more. Even all of NERV's resources, there was only so much they could do. Asuka watched the first massive trucks shudder and rumble to life. Gradually the dense press of soldiers, engineers and technicians thinned out, while ambulances and rescue VTOL took off, carrying those who needed critical care. Asuka felt a twinge in her arms and sides, reminding her yet again she still needed the 'care' part. Kaji-san and the Professor had already left with her Evangelion and a good third of the people working on the docks.

Misato had been nice about it though. A near solid month of being mothered actually turned out kind of awesome, once the older woman had gotten it through her head that Asuka wasn't made of glass. She'd gotten more hugs in those weeks than she probably had in the past six years. Now though she wondered where Misato had gone. And Rei.

Maneuvering with a wheelchair was tough with one good hand, but Asuka grit her teeth and managed, huffing. All told it wasn't hard either- just spot the tallest pilot and Misato was probably nearby, and Rei. Asuka watched them interact for a moment, paling around. There didn't seem to be a limit as to how touchy feely Misato could get, apparently, because Asuka was sure Rei's hair was going to stick in that mushed up pile for weeks.

She gave the trio one more look and sighed. She really had no reason to feel that left out, but just feeling it was enough to draw chalkboard nails down her spine. If everyone was leaving though, she was going to do something constructive before they all packed up. What though was the question... Slouched in her chair, she scanned the crowds one last time, hoping for a bit of inspiration.

A familiar smear of color caught her eye, and Asuka grinned.

It took her a bit of waving and shouting before someone would push her closer to her target, but it didn't take long to reach a familiar sailor. He still had the same artfully chaotic mass of tattoos crawling up both arms, starting with his fingertips and vanishing up past his sleeves. They still looked almost three dimensional too.

She would have clapped if she had two working hands, so Asuka settled for another shout. "Hey! Tattoo guy!"

He turned and gave an owlish look before finally registering her. Asuka couldn't exactly blame him, being below his line of sight. She also finally got a good look at his nametape, and found herself oddly disappointed. Wright? Seriously? It made some of the jokes she'd heard around the guy make more sense at least- the other crewmen had said something about meeting any swabbies in the recruiter's office...

When Wright finally answered, he pulled off his hat and held it at his side. "Miss, what can I do for you?"

That would have been a time Asuka folded her arms over her chest, but as it stood she couldn't really pull it off, bound up in a sling. Still, she grinned into the late morning light. "You're still working on your GED?"

"Yeeaaaah..." He drawled, glancing left to right, obviously wondering where she was going.

Asuka smirked even more. "Good, I'm your new tutor."

The look on Wright's face was pure art.

* * *

Eight super-massive train engines hauled a truly fantastic amount of weight from Iwaki and the Pacific Coast of Japan into Hakone, and finally the Geofront itself. The two Evangelion transport rails had been dispatched hours apart, but they returned together, one after the other. Seen directing from above, Akagi Ritsuko swept along catwalks and gantries over the Evangelion cages with one hand in her pocket and the other instructing. She was in her element, one half of her lab coat billowing out from one side as she ordered the cages below to open and expand.

High above in secure observatory, Ikari Gendo watched NERV go to work.

Blaring sirens wound up and screamed, while warning lights threw wide strobing bands of light across every cage surface. Walls mounted on tracks moved under the force of house-sized gears and counterweights, drawn back with thick roller chains hidden in those same walls. The bulkheads all shifted aside, allowing the Eva to be raised upright and settled into its secure blocks. Gaps and opens spaces in the superstructures would have clamped around the Evangelion's arms, sealing tight and letting the technicians pump in refrigerant. If the Evas weren't held in cold storage, they'd rot.

Putting Unit 02 on ice would have to wait, though. Down below, Akagi leaned over the railing and gaped at the damage. Both shoulder pylons were missing, and seventy-percent of its armor had been peeled away in thick winding sheets. The extra ceramic plates they'd fashioned before deploying it had all been destroyed- abraded or broken off in about twenty minutes of combat.

That was to say nothing about the blood-smeared white and black panels that hung from the Evangelion's hips.

Relevant data was already being funneled in and collated by the MAGI, appearing on the solid screens spread across thick consoles. Fuyutsuki loomed behind him, humming thoughtfully. "Anything to say about those?"

Gendo let out a short grunt. He looked down through the glass and saw Akagi looking up at him. Her eyes narrowed to razor slits before she turned away on one heel. "An inconsequential variable. Easily accounted for."

The old man nodded amiably, sipping a mug of the now almost omnipresent cold-brewed coffee. Silence stretched out between them while the information continued to pour in. Budget estimates based on previous encounters, compared to test data from NERV-Berlin. MAGI make-work, perhaps, but useful nonetheless. Gendo was about to wash his hands of the matter when another cage-access alarm sounded.

Glancing back down through the observatory glass, Gendo blinked once.

Fuyutsuki took another sip, moving to stand by Gendo's side. "And the Committee's move here? I'm surprised they managed a functional one out of the first two remnants we sent back."

"A potentially useful asset." Gendo stared at the ruined white machine, considering the gaping hole in its chest, all but spilling out sun-dried offal. "Harvest it"

"Beg pardon?" Fuyutsuki glanced over at the younger man, mug stopping just short of his lips.

The Commander of NERV did not meet it, instead choosing to stare intently from behind a new set of orange-tinted lenses at the corpse being strung up in the second cage. Bloated pustules had welled up beneath what armor and skin survived. Its mashed, once conical head hung on thin bits of sinew and spinal cord. Seagulls had picked at the ragged, exposed flesh for weeks.

Gendo nodded at the mutilated remains down below. Akagi had already called in her best tools, material and personnel. "Strip it down, every layer if need be. I wish to know how it was so easily... compatible with Unit 02."

* * *

Shyft · Jun 10, 2014

* * *

Ten minutes into the drive home, Misato found herself yawning. Once she had stopped moving, it felt like every mile and hour of exhaustion hit her in one massive wave of tired. Fortunately, she and Asuka were in the backseat, while Rei had the wheel. In less than an hour, Asuka had already dozed off. Settling back into the tooled leather, Misato held a hand over her mouth and felt her jaw stretch involuntarily. A sharp pop sent a wave of pain through her face when the joint clicked. She winced and rubbed at the sore spot, feeling every bit her age- all th-twenty nine years of it. Shivering, Misato wrapped her arms around herself and hummed. The tiredness was giving her the chills...

Hours later, Misato opened her eyes and wondered why it was so warm, and where Rei's car had gone. Her perspective had gone all screwy too. The outer walkway leading to her apartment door was familiar, but her eyes weren't at the right height, so everything looked wrong. Half-drunk by sleep, she considered squirming back into whatever warm thing was carrying her, or breaking its nose.

Then her mind seized on the very important point; carried.

Oh god, where's the car, did I crash? Is everyone okay? I had a mostly-perfect driving reco-waitasecond Rei was driving...

Misato felt her eyes snap open and into focus, and she found herself looking down her own chest and past her knees, over the railing that showed her apartment neighborhood and the hills that separated it from downtown Tokyo-3. To her left was a huge expanse of white cotton, and she could see one familiar arm hooked under her knees. She kicked by reflex and nearly caught Shinji in the chin with a flying knee, but he just shifted his grip let slide down feet first.

Her calves and thighs almost turned to jelly when her boot heels hit the floor, and she grabbed onto Shinji's waiting arm without thinking. "I uh, guess I still have sea legs, huh?"

Right as she looked up at him, Shinji pointedly rubbed his chin with his free hand. "Maybe..." His voice had gone soft. "I don't know many mermaids who'd kick that hard"

The hesitance was familiar, but the glint was new. Misato huffed, but not unkindly, and felt a real smile of relief break out across her face. "When did you start being such a smart ass..."

"Oh, just from keeping myself company." Shinji stared past her watery grin with a worried little look." I see you taught someone the sleeping-massage trick..."

They'd reached the door to her apartment as he frowned. "I should have told you it doesn't actually replace sleep..."

"Considering Shinji-kun's problems with finding rest, you should have more respect for it, Misato-san." Rei whispered, finally joining. She stood behind Asuka's wheel chair, having pushed the sleeping girl to the elevator and then up to their floor.

Surrounded in two sides by doting teenagers, Misato wept inwardly for the painfully responsible youth. Wincing outwardly, she also felt more than a little guilty at how close they hit to the mark. Shinji seemed to have gotten over his night terrors, or had figured out how to go without sleep indefinitely. Misato hoped it was the former but would have accepted the latter, even if it felt like some kind of loss.

"I think I'll be fine Rei-chan, Shinji-kun..." She reached for the door control and smiled, eager to be home. Hot food, hot showers, her friends and family.

The door swished open, and her legs gave out again. "Shinji. What the fuck."

Her apartment was gone, and someone, namely Shinji, had shoved a mansion in its place. Half-walking, half-carried, Misato found herself stumbling into an actual foyer. She struggled out of her boots almost as an afterthought,while Rei woke Asuka and hesitantly helped her chair over the riser that separated the entrance from the rest of the apartment. The redhead blinked an uncovered eye and let out her own muted expletive, wondering aloud which hotel this was, and why hadn't they stayed here sooner. Shinji hunkered down to pick up her cordless phone- broken somehow. He waved his hands over it and it unbroke itself as he put it back in place, good as new.

Nearly every surface was some blend of stained dark cherry wood, or almost golden-amber paint. Misato turned, blinking owlishly at every new thing. The kitchen had been redone, again, and a marble covered center island had taken the place of her dining room table. The common wall she shared with Asuka's apartment was still there, too.

"My bedroom's gone." Misato turned to Shinji, wide-eyed. "Why is my bedroom gone?"

Shinji just smiled and nudged the woman further into the apartment, toward the familiar handmade couch. At least some things hadn't changed. "Because I built into the apartments above us- we have four bedroom lofts now."

"Lofts, huh?" Misato let out a weak laugh and slumped into the couch. That was it. She wasn't going to walk anywhere else forever. Almost without thinking, she found her eyes rolling upward toward the ceiling.

"I haven't slept in a loft bed since I got out of colleg- Oh." That ceiling hadn't been so high before.

And the stairs were new too. She couldn't see it completely from that angle, but it was pretty clear he actually meant loft, not just 'upstairs'. The upper floor inside her expanded apartment was open-walled... whoever was up there could look down here and...

Asuka finally found her voice, even as Misato tried to remember how big the two units above hers were. "Ikari do you even have any hob-" Misato heard the girl's self-concious cringe. "Wait no, this is your hobby."

Shinij just rubbed the back of his head. "It really kind of is... Anyway for now, I don't think anyone will mind if you stay here?"

He glanced at Misato and then back at the redhead. Asuka bristled faintly, but Misato knew the girl well enough that all she could do was put on a paper tiger show. Still, there was a certain methodology that had to be maintained....

Leaning forward, Misato clapped. "Asuka- I think as long as you're still laid up in that chair you should stay here- can we get a bed or something in the... living room?" She directed the question at Shinji, and then took another look around, wondering if that was the right word.

Shinji just shrugged. "All of the lofts have their own ensuite bathrooms and kitchenettes. Once Sorhyu's upstairs, she won't have to leave til she's better." He waved at the nearest spiral staircase. "I can probably replace one of these with an elevator too. I took over the apartment beneath us as well, so we have four floors of space."

"Ff-Four floors?" Misato blinked, and sure enough she spied the stairway leading down, just to the right of the entrance. She missed it on the first turn through the new space. Shaking her head, she focused back on Asuka- who had an actual problem. "I guess either I'd move in with you til you're better, or you stay here, Asuka-chan... What do you think?"

Still in her plugsuit, Asuka set her jaw and frowned. Her hair was limp and frizzy, windblown by salty air. Misato needed a shower too. And food.
Finally the girl opened her mouth to speak, but Rei cut her off. "Asuka-chan and I can share a loft- they are nearly small apartments in and of themselves after all."

Blinking, Misato willed her brain back into gear and worked at the suggestion, pulling at the almost non-existent cons and nearly overwhemed by the abundant pros. She looked over at Asuka. The girl's one visible eye shot Rei an unreadable look, but it faded to something close to an almost pleased acceptance. Misato could tell the girl was still more than a little frustrated thuough- not sad, but being an invalid for nearly a month hadn't done Asuka any favors either.

From her place next to the couch, Asuka cocked her head and narrowed her eye. "You did the space saving stuff here too, yeah?"

Shinji nodded, pointing out the conceal-everything cabients and acknowledging the same upstairs. "I haven't touched your actual apartment yet." He waved at the common wall. "I was hoping to talk to you about it later."

With the potential crisis averted, Misato felt another yawn coming on. She stretched again, and unlike her jaw, she relished the long line of pops along her spine. Shower, food, sleep. If she didn't get up off of the couch she might never leave... Of course, Shinji apparently had a different idea, glancing between Misato and Asuka. He nodded once, before darting off past a dividing wall toward what Misato hoped was her bathroom. The boy came back a bit later with a box of over-the-counter medicine, pain-killers.

"You two both need to sleep- Don't worry about eating or anything, just sleep." He pushed three caplets into Misato hand and fixed her with a look that told her arguing wasn't going to get anywhere, nor any of her normal tricks and charms. "You and Sorhyu'll want those. I can't perscribe anything so that's the best we've got."

He took a deep breath and smiled, tired but bright enough to light up the room regardless. "Past that, I'll take care of... well, breakfast, for all of us. What do you want? Anything. Sky's the limit."

Misato blinked, and found her mouth watering. Shinji had thrown down the gustatorial gauntlet. "Ah.. uhm... Beer-battered shrimp, those rib-things you did once..." She found herself rattling off dishes as they came to her.

A cool blue eye meanwhile gave the boy a calculating look, while Asuka shook the pills in her palm. Misato knew that glint in the girl's eye, the stuck out lower lip and that tone. Even in the wheelchair, Asuka broadcast her mood at the ten-thousand watt range. Challenge accepted.

"Deep dish Chicago-style meat lover's pizza. French fires, Bacon-cheese burger. Double-Chocolate milkshake- and a black forest cake..."

Shinji let the order wash over him, even as Misato lost track of exactly what Asuka had been asking for. He just gave the pair an oddly decisive nod and headed for the kitchen, grabbing the phone along the way. "Got it. I'll need to make some calls."

For a long moment the two girls and one woman watched the Third Child pull increasingly elaborate appliances out of the kitchen, phone wedged against his ear and shoulder while he worked.
Eventually Misato shook her head, and with an effort bordering on herculean, heaved herself out of the couch and toward Asuka. "Let's get you upstairs."

Rei meanwhile fidgeted, caught deliberating something. She took a step toward Asuka then back, until she finally settled on holding the wheelchair steady while Misato eased Asuka's bare arm over her shoulders.

Still, Rei smiled faintly, enough that Misato could hear it in her voice. "I should warn you Asuka-chan, that I will not be your only roommate."

The redhead downed the pills dry and rolled her eyes, hobbling alongside Misato toward the stairs. "Ugh, more Ikari girlfriends..."

"No, they are not." Rei let the rebuttal hang for a long second. "The cage is too small."

"Hah!"

* * *

It had taken a bit of doing, but between Rei, Asuka's good leg and Misato herself, the three of them had made it upstairs and into Rei's room. The redhead was going to have to suffer wearing her plugsuit a few hours longer, but she was more than tough enough, now that they all were in the home stretch. Misato had shuffled into one of the two unclaimed lofts, peeling clothes off before the powered door had even finished closing.

The last thing she heard before collapsing on the bed herself was Asuka's faint moan. "It's like a cloud!"

* * *

Thirty minutes later, Shinji stood in his kitchen and checked his internal clock. Section Two had already jumped at his request, and the first wave of black-suited agents moved into the kitchen like ghosts, leaving paper and plastic grocery bags by the twos and threes. The orders from specialty grocers and choice cuts of meat from the butchers would take longer to arrive.

Before, every appliance and surface had surpassed even what money could buy, seeing past the simple hurdles like marketing unnecessary features. He'd made a restaurant-grade space and had enjoyed it thoroughly. Now, every tool had been turned and tuned to function along his ideals. It was a fancy way of saying he had rebuilt the common stove or mixer into sublime tools of the trade, understanding them down to their core concepts. They were the best and brandless.

Still cradling the phone, Shinji thumbed in a new number, calling Kensuke. The boy's job as a research assistant to NERV earned a salary, and by extension, a cellular phone. Shinji was speaking before Kensuke even took a breath. "Kensuke, I need a favor- head to the garage lab and find my second book of alchemy notes. I need you to make a few doses of that stomach-soothing formula I figured out."

"Shin-what?" The boy on the other end cut out, and Shinji remembered he was probably somewhere at school. "Now?"

"Yes now, skip last period if you have to- Sorhyu and Misato got home earlier this morning. They need that medicine and I'm too busy cooking." Switching grips while he kneaded dough, Shinji didn't so much sigh as exhale. "I'll be calling everyone with the news, just help me take care of this okay?"

Kensuke hung up with a note of confirmation, and Shinji made up a plan to call the others. Toji and Hikari, then Ayumi. Stopping himself, he mentally reversed that order. He'd have never heard the end of it if he called her last for such a homecoming. Thinking about it, he probably should have kept that Kaji guy on hand too. He was probably feeling the same hunger and exhaustion. It didn't take long to call Ritsuko, telling her to dig the man out of whatever hole he fell into. Even better, Shinji had everything he needed to make all the chocolate cakes.

A familiar black-suited and dark-skinned shape dropped a bag of premium import sausage on the kitchen island. Shinji turned and blinked down at Deja. He smiled at his primary defender and pulled the meat into the growing whorl of food and sunfire corona.

* * *

When Misato woke up, the sun had turned the sky brilliant red and orange, and the thin clouds over Hakone cast faint shadows across the hills. Her loft-bedroom had a wall-to-wall window that levered itself open by some unseen signal, becoming a glass awning for her own private patio. The breeze hit her bare skin and she shivered, trying to dig deeper under the sheets and hide from the light. She didn't want to get out of bed, get dressed, or do anything but sleep for years. The western style bed made that a really attractive option too. When she'd hit the cushions, it felt like a thousand hands were holding her aloft in all the right ways.

Ten minutes of trying resulted in her just getting tangled up in the silk sheets. She kicked them away and groaned, feeling every ache and sore spot. The painkillers from earlier took the edge off, but there was no better cure than rest... and she still had a debt to catch up on.

Knuckling at her eyes and yawning, Misato took another look around. It seemed like the kids had meant for her to take the room, because a dozen or so carefully packed boxes were piled up along the walls, with the rest of her worldly possessions. She eyed the skateboard and let out a wry grin. That had ended pretty well for Kaji, she remembered.

It took a bit to find a box full of her clothes, leading to her grabbing a towel, shorts and a thin tanktop before stumbling out into the upper hallway. Asuka probably needed a shower as much as she did. Wrapping a towel around her middle and checking the rooms one by one, Misato found Shinji's still-spartan place, an empty guest bedroom, and finally Rei's. All together, they were basically four studio apartments wedged into a bit less room than her old apartment beneath them.

Meandering around the living space and into the bedroom, Misato found Asuka sitting up on the bed. The girl was a mass of winces and cringing, trying to work a pair of scissors through her released plugsuit. Her eye-patch and neural headset hadn't budged a bit, though.

She looked up when Misato stepped closer, jerking her head at a futon across the floor. "Rei woke up before I did, guess she's downstairs."

"Right..." Misato nodded, holding the towel up with one arm and her knock-around clothes in the other. She sat down next to her pilot and smiled softly. "Want some help with that?"

Asuka just handed her the scissors and sighed. "Please, thank you and all that is good in this world- I need to get out of this thing."

Tugging at the loose smart material, Misato smiled a bit wider and started cutting through the circuits and supports. "Red-hot, skin tight and sexy not working for you anymore?"

The redhead did an impressive show of crossing her arms, despite one being bound up against her side. "I'll die and be buried in a plugsuit- I don't want to live inone for two weeks ever again."

Misato's hesitant snip made the girl shiver, and the look Asuka gave her was something akin to panicked reassurance, short of a frantic waving of hands. "I'm in no hurry to die for my dimension either, I'd rather make the Angels die for theirs."

Making a few final cuts, Misato pulled the ragged strips of suit away and nodded. "And that Asuka, is why you and I get along so well. You up for a shower, before we head down? I think we can both fit."

"God yes."

* * *

Hot water washed away soreness like little else. The only thing Misato had against little the en-suite showers was that they weren't actual baths- no way to really get a good long soak going. As far as convenience went though, they were hard to beat. The three weeks heading home aboard Over the Rainbow had beaten out a lot of the awkwardness with harsh realities and concessions. Before the fleet, Asuka would have been too proud and prudish to bathe with anyone else, but the showering conditions on the fleet didn't leave much room for beggars or choosers. Misato she at least knew, which is why it had formed out of convenient habit. Sudden luxuries like hot water on demand or soap that lathered... in a lot of ways, it felt like a dream.

Asuka for her part hadn't complained- in fact she'd gone well past that into being outright helpful and understanding, consdering how injured she was. Misato had to admit she was a little worried about her girl having lost some of her fire, but at the same time, an off week or two wasn't unexpected. Tugging her wet hair back over her shoulder, Misato tried not to frown as she looked over her pilot, and the hash of angry red lines along her thighs, disappearing past the bottom edge of Asuka's red towel. There were other marks all along her arms and back too, some still stitched up.

The fleet surgeons were good, but well, battlefield conditions. "Don't pick at your scars."

"M'not." Asuka's hands hadn't been moving, but Misato felt the need to say so anyway.

Looking up, Misato spied a familiar home-bottled miracle and smirked. "Didn't you call this vomit, when you first saw it?"

Asuka glanced in the mirror and at the tube of home-brewed shampoo. "Puke, actually. I admit I was wrong about that... the fleet knows puke better than anyone." She scrubbed her face with a twice-repeated handful of water, as if washing away the thought. "Inescapable."

Smiling, Misato spread some of the thaumaturgical soap into her hands and nodded. Hard to believe she'd even think the word thaumaturgy, or spend a good chunk of her time using the sleeping massage trick on Asuka or herself. She re-wet Asuka's hair with her free hand and the extendable showerhead, and just knew Shinji must've made it by hand from scratch.

Asuka groaned when Misato started working in the lather, and like that weeks of salt air, unwashed LCL and general stress seemed to melt out of the girl's hair and spirit. "Gonna have you do this for me when your hands are better, you know that right?"

"Fair's fair..." Asuka's head lolled forward, and Misato switched gears from shampoo to proper massage. The redhead let out an unintelligible grunt while her shoulders dropped.

Unfortunately, it couldn't be all good news. "I might have to cut some of your hair."

The girl stiffened, but didn't turn or lift her head. Misato heard her indignant, dismayed squeak all the same."W-what?"

"Just a bit at the ends! An inch maybe." Misato took a moment to smooth away some of the foam and pull a lock of hair forward, to show Asuka her ragged split-ends. "See? Just a little, might make it easier for you to take care of."

Bit by bit the tension drained out of Asuka's neck and shoulders, and she let out a faint sigh. "I guess..."

Misato smiled and wrapped her arms around Asuka's shoulders, hugging her close and not caring that she got a chin and chest full of suds for her trouble. "It'll be good for both of us, I promise it won't be like that shorts-trimming incident, I swear!

The girl barely justified that with a snort. "It's like the only thing you know is a swimsuit cut! But I sure noticed you didn't have any problems wearing them."

Misato smiled at the memory, nudging the indignant pilot in the jaw with her forearm. "All the best chefs eat their failures, Asuka."

Having said that, Misato reached for the showerhead and set to rinsing.

* * *

At sea, being dry was a luxury. With heel-toe shifts and hot-bunking for most of the crew, when people got to take a shower, they squirmed into their uniforms while dripping wet and charged back to duty. Back home, Misato and Asuka had the chance to towel off. When the older woman had gotten done with Asuka, the girl's hair had poofed into the most amazingly adorable frizzy mane, magic shampoo or no. It was quickly tamed by hand and brush though.

Finding clothes for Asuka wasn't difficult either- a pair of soft cotton drawstring shorts wouldn't catch on the wounds and casts, and keep everything nice and breathable. The same went for an impressivly airy, oversized T-shirt. With Asuka sitting on the bed once more, now clean and dressed, Misato stood proud with her hands on hips, declaring her mission accomplished. "Feeling any better?"

Asuka's tone was flat as glass and absolutely parched. "Like I've been washed out of dogshit cavern on a tidal wave of headaches."

Misato swung around and landed hip first on the bed next to the girl, throwing an arm around her shoulder. "Asuka, lording over all those poor sailors has had a terrible influence on your vocabulary."

Despite being wedged against Misato's side, the girl didn't struggle as much as she might have. "You spent more time around them than I did!"

The lilt Misato put in her voice was calculated to devastating effect, and Asuka groaned into the crook of her shoulder at the reminder. "Window-shopping~"

But spending more than six weeks at sea with Misato and an at-sea navy was more than enough to teach Asuka all kinds of comebacks.
"At the pawn shop." She huffed, hair bouncing slightly. "Who was the one with the terrible influences again?"

Misato just hugged the girl a little harder before standing up. Coming to a halt, Misato held an arm out for the girl and smiled again, earnest and reassuring. "You ready to head downstairs?"

Asuka strapped her eyepatch back on with one hand and blinked. "You're going to go out in that?"

Misato glanced down at her shorts and blank tank top, before giving the girl a teasing grin. "Coverage equivalent to a candy wrapper is the privilege the home and hearth, much like eating ice cream out of the carton or simply going nude outright!"

The redhead rolled her eye and smirked. "Naked would be better- at least people wouldn't try to look."

"That might be true, but still, we're home!" Misato grinned, hugging herself and rocking back and forth on one heel while Asuka gave her a wan smile.

"Home." Asuka nodded faintly, testing her good hand. "Downstairs, one arm on the railing, you on my bad side?" The older woman felt her heart swell up with relief at that, nodding with a sly smile. "I thought every side was your good side?"

The older woman felt her heart swell up with relief at that, nodding with a sly smile. "I thought every side was your good side?"

That earned a scoff, but Misato had become accustomed to that as Asuka's way. Never one to show flagging morale, though the girl certainly appreciated the levity. Together they eased out of the studio-loft and into the hallway, but stopped.

Misato blinked, then glanced down at the stairwell. "Do you smell that?"

Taking an experimental sniff, Asuka nodded. "...Not sure what." Her good eye went distant, and Misato recognized it as her eyepatch taking full attention. She focused back on Misato and shrugged. "This thing doesn't have gas spectrometry- go figure."

Making their way downstairs was easier than heading up, considering gravity's ever-present helping hand, and Asuka only slipped once. She caught herself on the rail and bit off a snarl, even as her eyes screwed shut and tears threatened to spill out. Misato didn't make a big deal out of it, something she'd learned over the past month. That wasn't the same as ignoring it though, and she just waited for Asuka to take her arm once again.

The smells were getting sharper, and now Misato heard voices. Shinji's increasingly dominant sound, or Rei's own light speech. It didn't take long for her to note Ritsuko, or some less familiar voices- Shinji's friends? She wasn't sure either way. The remodeled layout of the apartment erased the old echoes and threw off her sense of the space, so it took her a second to turn away from one wall or hall. Twisting the other way, Misato rounded on the kitchen, and could only blink at the sight.

It was damn near a party, and the only thing missing were decorations. There was a brief moment where Misato remembered she was wearing even less than her usual sleepwear, but then the smell hit her nose like a sledgehammer. She absently pulled the tank top back up around her shoulders with a free hand, but it slid back down when her fingers went slack.

Is that an apple pie? An actual apple pie?

Any further thought she had to going back upstairs to change died messily in the face of those aromas.

Shinji stuck to the kitchen counters, glowing softly and only breaking away long enough to deliver another finished plate to the dining room table. The table itself could have seated sixteen people, but Shinji had made enough food to cover every free inch of space.

Past that, she saw the guests- Ritsuko and Kaji, both nibbling on a plate of appetizers around the marble-top kitchen island. Shinji's friends had turned and bowed at her and Asuka's arrival, forcing Misato to blink rapidly. Her mind took it all in with snapshots, little snatches of the movement and conversation. She'd celebrated an American style Christmas with Asuka once, and this 'morning' blew those out of the water.

Then her mind caught up and siezed on a series of very important facts. No more galley food. No more baloney sandwiches. No more powdered eggs and milk, or instant mashed potatoes. Misato found her legs giving out for the second time in twenty four hours, and Asuka was slumping down right along side her. Everything they had asked for was on the table, visibly delicious and waiting.

Shinij, Rei and Kaji were suddenly there, at their sides at the bottom stairway. They kept a hand on their arms and shoulders, even as Misato and Asuka found a seat on the nearest step. Shinji was the first to speak, but Misato reached out to put a hand over his lips.

Asuka pulled off her eyepatch and let the tears flow free out of both eyes. "Third... Just let us have this moment."

The silence stretched out across the apartment for a handful of seconds, with only the sizzle of meat in a pan to punctuate it. Then, Misato couldn't help it, and neither could Asuka.

They burst out laughing.

* * *

Misato, Kaji and Asuka had been given places of honor at the head and sides of the table. The fourth was left over for the guests, while the returning heroes had their choices of comfort food spread out before them. Heated pans, containers and other warmers kept everything piping hot and ready to serve. Asuka hadn't stopped crying since descending the stairs, and for once she didn't care.

Before they started loading a plate, Ikari pressed a white tablet into their hands, nodding once. "Thaumaturgy pharmecutical- It'll help keep your stomachs settled with all the rich food."

Asuka watched as Misato popped the pill without even asking a question, and Kaji took that as enough reason to follow suit. She stared at the little thing between her fingers... Then glanced at the... She couldn't even pick something to name from the table- she wanted it all. Her stomach growled, and that clinched it for her. Asuka tossed the tablet back and swallowed. It went down easier than she expected, but another churning growl from her middle was more than enough reason to put it out of her mind.

Instead Asuka turned to the food and started dishing up. Ikari had been good on his word- better than she hoped or imagined. The German cuisine she missed or the American food she had come to love back in college- it was all there. The bacon cheeseburger he had crafted was three times as big as her fist, top bun off to one side and the whole thing waiting to be stacked with whatever trimmings she wanted. Crisp lettuce, savory tomato- she could go for the works. The bacon was still steaming as she watched.

Golden crispy fries joined the burger, then some bratwurst and Sauerkraut- stereotypical she knew but it was comfort food dammit. Eventually the plate got too heavy for her to lift with just the one arm, but Kaji was there without even being asked, helping her pull the tower of food back into eating distance. Even cut in half, the main-course burger was a glorious mess to eat, and Asuka felt her eyes roll back into her head with the first bite. Asuka smiled into the mouthful, lips and cheeks smeared with gourmet sauces and her own happy tears.

It tasted like bloody victory.

* * *

Hours passed, and Misato wondered if Heaven had moved into her stomach and summered on top of her tastebuds. It was an agonizingly strained metaphor, but she honestly did not care. She stretched languidly, braced against the chair back and again relishing how her spine popped. An attentive male audience hadn't hurt either, and after Rei had let out a window-shaking belch, no one there had any more illusions about the female half of the species. The pedestal was well and truly broken.

She traced a finger over her bare stomach and sighed. Everyone here had seen her at her worst already, so no need for much in the way of pretenses. Everyone in the apartment had been pulled into the crazy NERV life. Breakfast had felt more like meals with old friends, or old soldiers. It was nice to just let herself relax....

Something cold appeared in her open hand- a premium import lager. Misato blinked and looked up to see Ritsuko smiling down at her. She had faint bags around her eyes, but the blonde's smile was full and honest. "Ikari-kun packed a cooler," She raised a crystal goblet. "And I broke into your wine cabinet."

Misato cocked her head to the side even as she worked the can open with one hand. She took a savory sip and hummed. "I have a wine cabinet?"

Ritsuko just jerked her chin at a particularly handsome bit of furniture set into the kitchen wall. "I think the First and Third emptied their disposable income for this little get-together."

The dark-haired woman felt the sympathetic ache in her own mental wallet, eying the table full of gourmet leftovers, most of them still delightfully hot and savory. "I'll pay them back. I'll even pay them back before the war's over and then I'll win the war."

"I think you will too, on both counts, Katsuragi." Ritsuko toasted her friend with a thin, sparking smile.

With beer in hand and good company, Misato was content to let the evening wear on. The sun had set and the stars were coming out in force, and the lights of downtown Tokyo-3 were shooting up into the sky over the Hakone region hillsides. She sipped her lager and hummed. Looking out across her kitchen, the living room... The kids had bought a new TV, a giant one at that, and Aida-kun was fussing with something near the bottom console. The rest of them settled into their pairs and trios, mingling some ways and not in others.

Asuka was a bit like oil in water, it seemed. There wasn't any anger there though, just a distance between the redhead and the other kids. Asuka was tough, sitting firm on her couch and attentive. She wasn't going to break over something so stupid as not being the center of attention, not after the last month. Kaji hovered outside in the meantime, wreathed in cigarette smoke and standing like a guardian in shadow. Misato had to admit it fit him a lot better than the spy or charming rogue.

Still glancing around, Misato tried to match her old apartment with the new expanded space. Her room was gone, the hallway and the old spare bedroom and storage were replaced, by what she hadn't found out. The kitchen was miraculous, with everything hidden behind a panel or clever folding cabinet. Something nagged at her though, like it was missing. Double-oven, gas range, check. Sink, refrigerator behind some hidden panel, wine cabinet, more counter...

"Where's PenPen's fridge?"

Misato hadn't meant for her voice to carry so far, but the whole party stopped, nearly a dozen pairs of eyes locked on her. Still, she sat up and cocked her head, glancing at Shinji, master of renovations. He just pointed at what had been the hallway toward his old room.

Summoned as if by magic, the hot-springs penguin waddled out into the party proper, with a newspaper folded under one flipper. The penguin looked up at Shinji and blinked a tiny, dry eye at the boy. "Wark."

Misato blinked when Shinji let out out a short laugh. "Sorry, I should have woken you- I did set aside some top shelf for you though."

Everyone watched as the penguin gave Shinji a one-wing salute, hobbling off to a corner of the kitchen that Misato couldn't see past. He came back a moment later with a plate full of handsome looking fish. PenPen stared down the crowd, as if daring them to try and take his meal. Now Misato knew better than most that PenPen was damn smart, smart enough to beat her at poker, enough to work a TV or his powered refrigerator door...

"Shinji..." Misato cocked her head to the side, blinking. "You don't drink enough to talk to penguins without it looking bad, what gives?"

"Oh, I can understand him just fine these days." He waved his hand at his head and for once, willed the gold brand to appear on his brow. It didn't outshine or scour the apartment, but it made his point all the same.

Rei jumped in from her place a top a bean bag chair before Misato or anyone else could ask the next question. "He translates for my rats as well, and has taught them basic arithmetic."

Misato just mouthed the word 'rats', but shook her head. Priorities. "You can understand PenPen?"

Her favorite boy just nodded. Misato glanced between him and PenPen, thinking. The penguin was happily downing one fish after another, blithely ignoring the conversation happening quite literally over his feathered head. Well, time for one mystery to get solved.

"Shinji~" Misato slid out of her chair and stood up to her full impressive height of five foot three and bounced, smiling broadly. "Does PenPen have anything he wants to say to me?"

The boy scratched the back of his head and nodded, mumbling. "He can understand you all just fine, how else can he watch the news or read the paper..." He looked down at PenPen, who was now suddenly very much paying attention.

One by one the various party goers started to gather around Shinji and her penguin-roommate. They all watched, enraptured, as a bit of winged pantomime carried into a one-sided conversation, punctuated by a 'waaaugh' or 'wark' here and there, Misato found her eyes flicking between PenPen and Shinji, and noting the boy turning an increasingly incandescent red.

PenPen concluded his declaration with a firm nod, giving Shinji a pointed stare before jerking his head at Misato. His eyes locked on hers, and if he had been red before, he skipped scarlet and crimson and went straight into beetroot. His jaw worked once, twice, until finally he just rapidly shook his head and clamped his mouth shut.

Misato just whistled, grinning impishly. "I think I get it, say no more."

There was a long moment of silence then, when everyone else caught up with the idea of Shinji being able to understand a penguin.

Through all of this, Asuka had twisted around to look over the back of the couch. She smirked faintly up at Shinji. "I admit, with all this and the penguin being apparently missing, I was thinking you might've cooked him up by mistake."

The tallest teenager sighed explosively and made a visible show of getting the color and mortification out of his cheeks. Misato blinked at that. She knew better than most how easy it was to short his brain out. Glancing at Ayumi on the other bean bag cushion, Misato wondered just what had happened while they were gone...

Huffing faintly and still a bit red in the face, Shinji shot Asuka a sly, knowing look. "No, my diet's mainly Rambo movies, after all."

* * *

Shyft · Jun 10, 2014

* * *

The thing that made Misato return to consciousness was the painkillers wearing off. Four weeks of stress and aches didn't go away with two nights rest.

The thing that woke her up was the sound and smell of a western breakfast in her apartment.

Wriggling deeper into the couch cushions, Misato opened her eyes a crack and smiled at the uncovered windows. The sun played over the hills and roofs of her neighborhood, leading to a gradually brightening dawn. She glanced at the warm weight wrapped up against her side and grinned a bit wider. Asuka was a pretty good blanket, it seemed.

A quiet background sizzle injected new life into the apartment, and bit by bit, people picked themselves up from where they'd fallen. Most of the teenagers had begged off on curfew, taken home by Ritsuko and Deja. Misato and the pilots meanwhile had found something comfortable enough to settle in and sleep off the party. Asuka shifted, stretching hesitantly and blinking with one uncovered eye. She gave Misato a sleepy stare, unfocused and uncomprehending. Something under that mop of red hair finally clicked over hard enough to make Asuka cringe. Muttering, she untangled her arms from around Misato and winced, pulling at her eye patch.

With both eyes bare, the pilot looked up at Misato again and sighed. The older woman just nodded, all too aware of the same pains. Ignoring the inevitable bluster, Misato smirked and leaned in to smooth down Asuka's bangs and press her lips against the girl's head. It was good to be home.

Sliding off the couch and to her feet, Misato nodded and helped the girl get situated, helping her lay down. This led to her grabbing the TV remote for Asuka and a spare, apparently hand-woven blanket to throw over her legs. While the sun climbed higher in the sky, Misato nodded to herself and spun about, wondering where to go. She and Asuka needed more of those painkillers, for one, but where had Shinji gotten them...

Wandering past the kitchen, she glanced at Shinji, still hard at work at the stove. The first thought that came to mind, Misato cut off with a wry smirk- teasing could wait for later. Pills, now. Passing by a dividing wall, Misato almost ran chest first into Rei. Instead they stopped just shy of each other, and Misato barely had to look down to see bleary red eyes and long blue hair piled up on one side. The girl ran a hand over her head and tried to tug the bedhead back under control.

Peering around Misato's side and into the kitchen, Rei gave the tiniest indication of a frown, and her voice dropped down to a whisper. "I enjoy Shinji-kun's cooking, but.... Perhaps Ikari is taking your return home as an excuse to 'handle everything', even if it is just at home."

Medicine all but forgotten, Misato nodded and tugged Rei further into hallway for the apparently somewhat-private conversation. Turning the girl around until Misato could help with Rei's hair, she hummed. "He enjoys it though. I'd never want to take it away, but he does... overdo things, sometimes?"

"Time management has been a frustration of his these past months.... I believe he's already started preparing our lunches and dinners, as we speak."

Finished having worked out the snags, Misato nodded and wrapped her arms around Rei's middle, hugging her from behind. "So you're thinking maybe he needs a little more balance in his life?"

Hesitating at first, Rei just laid her hands on Misato's and squeezed, before speaking. "More or less. Perhaps a male influence? He has been surrounded by a... credulity-straining number of women for the past year."

She says that sort of thing on purpose... Misato shook her head and let out a quiet little laugh. "There's nothing wrong with being domestic..."

The blue-haired girl leaned into the hug even more, humming. "But there is more to life than being such, Misato-san."

And perhaps Rei was right. Misato tucked the girl's head under her chin as she mulled it over. Shinji really did do right by all the women in his life, and he tried to in a way that would make a girl smile in all the right ways. A positive male role model would probably do wonders for the boy too. Maybe help him be a bit more assertive.... Of course, the question would be who.

The universe was in the mood to provide, it seemed. A new shadow poured into the hallway, and it resolved as Kaji Ryoji, complete with a steaming mug of coffee in hand. Misato blinked once and stared at the man, then down at Rei, who looked up at her and blinked right back. The man just stared at the pair, lost and confused.

Finally, Misato looked back up at Kaji and sighed. "Rei, this might just be a case where the cure is worse than the disease."

* * *

The 'main floor'' apartment space had roughly four areas after Shinji had gotten through with it, one of which was the hallway leading to some still empty spaces and the main bathroom that Misato still hadn't had a chance to look at. The kitchen hadn't moved much, only expanding slightly into what had been Misato's bedroom, and the rest of what he called an 'open concept' design.

In the actual living room, Asuka had turned on the TV and filled the space with the sounds of early-morning programming. Cartoons, infomercials and the early-bird news reports were enough of a cover that Misato felt it safe to discuss... matters with the UN Inspector. She'd sent Rei off to join Asuka, before tugging Kaji to the table by his grimy lapel. He hadn't had a chance to change since the fleet returned.

Shinji kept bustling along in the kitchen, insulated from everything else in the apartment.

The last section was the dining room, and it wasn't so much a room as a rectangle of hardwood floor and handsome handmade table, surrounded by chairs. Feeling the cool wood of the chair seat against her bare thighs, Misato winced. She hadn't changed since yesterday either. Crossing her arms over her chest, she huffed. "Eyes up, Kaji. We're not in college and there are children present."

"Children, maybe." Kaji just toasted her, smiling over the rim of his mug. She didn't mistake the English word he used for what it was. "You and I were late for that kind of thing anyway."

Misato just let out a snort and resisted the urge to cross her legs, to do anything that'd give him more ammunition. "We came home in the middle of something, didn't we?"

The dark-haired man nodded, taking another sip of coffee before he answered. "More than a few somethings."

Well that was cryptic, as usual. Misato scowled a bit harder before shifting, quietly putting her hands flat on the table and rising up. If he wanted to play at his coy little spy game, fine. Time to flip the board. Looming over the man, Misato dared him to ogle her lazy-day tank top and shorts. Doing it slowly hadn't made it any less effective. Kaji blinked, but his eyes for once did not wander.

"I don't know what you're into, Inspector, but I know that the Sub-Commander locked you up for your own good." She leaned in close, keeping her voice low and eyes locked on his. "And I do know I can very much make anything you do a living hell if it endangers my pilots or my mission."

Kaji stared right back, a little wide-eyed, but steady. "I suppose I can understand that. I'd rather not step on anyone's toes either, so..."

He trailed off, shrugging with one arm. Misato settled back in her chair, absently pulling a loose strap back into place and sweeping her hair back over her shoulders. The rest of the apartment hadn't even noticed the little demonstration. Kaji had made a fairly open proposal with that hanging statement, and now Misato had to make the call. Leaning against the chair back, Misato chewed her thumb, wondering.

Not that Kaji had anything approaching good timing. He looked down at his coffee and hummed thoughtfully. "The brew Shinji made back during that MAGI crisis was better."

Misato knew better than to indulge the man in his tangents, but found herself curiosity overcoming her general wariness. Cocking her head to the side, and more than a bit bemused at the sudden change in topic, she asked the obvious question. "Did you make it or did he?"

"I did, with his machine." He pointed with his mug at the rebuilt espresso contraption, holding pride of place on the counter next to the fridge. Turning back to Misato, he gave her a grin that brought up all kinds of memories. "So Katsuragi, what are the terms of my imprisonment- chained to your wall, or your bed? I should warn you though, I'm still a snuggler."

There was an awful, extended period of absolutely horrible silence. The sheer audacity- that incorrigible man-pig. Hot blood rushed up to her cheeks and started to spread down her neck and past her collarbone, leaving the rest of her chilled and goosefleshed. A thousand and one comebacks all tumbled through Misato's mind in the span of a heartbeat, even though some part of her knew he expected it, wanted the old spars to start again. She took a quiet breath and started to count to ten, declaring her skin unto iron.

But somehow, Shinji saved the day. "Do adults actually talk like that, or is it just you?"

The teenager had snuck up on them like a breeze, standing on the opposite side of the table and yet still towering over Misato and Kaji both. He'd set down a fresh mug of coffee with one hand and pushed a cold, unopened can of import lager over to Misato with the other. Instead of retreating to the kitchen, he sat down, even as Misato found herself cracking the tab on autopilot. Normally he gave her the stink-eye about drinking in the morning, but it seemed like he was still happy they were home.

Kaji meanwhile gaped slightly, and Misato relished the look. It was so hard to catch Kaji off guard. He took the new mug and blew away the steam, taking a careful sip. He shot bolt upright, licking his lips and whistling. "Now this is what I remember, Ikari-kun."

Shinji just gave the man a polite nod before turning back to Misato, giving her an apologetic look. "This probably isn't the best time to talk about it, but it's been months and you're finally back but..."

More things changed, the more they stayed the same, it seemed. Misato laughed softly into her beer, waving. "Shinji, easy! As serious as you are, the only serious thing I want to hear about is how serious you and Ayumi-chan are."

The man and boy sitting at the table just gave her a near identical flat look, then Kaji shook his head, grinning. Shinji just sighed. "Misato, that was terrible. And I think we're fairly not-serious?"

Misato sighed, overblown and dramatic. It felt good to be home, to be doing the familiar things, Kaji excluded. Shinji though had changed, even if he'd gone a little red there at end. Instead, Misato couldn't help but notice things, like how he sat up straighter, and looked a little bit more attentive. His clothes were different too, handmade like nearly everything else in the apartment and expertly tailored. He looked... professional, almost. Like he wasn't just thinking about today, but the next day and the one after that.

It was an almost guarded look, and the Shinji she'd known two months ago had to hide in the Geofront to avoid her reading him.

Something was bothering him though, and Misato could hear the worry in his voice. "You helped design the fortress-city, right?"

Blinking twice, Misato nodded and wondered where he was going. "Indirectly. When I was in Officer Candidate School, Tokyo-2 and 3 were the big theoretical exercises, and all the classes did simulations and theoretical papers on it. We didn't know about the Evangelions back then, or the Angels directly, but almost all my plans were outside the box or something."

Taking another sip of her beer, Misato hummed thoughtfully. "I was known for stuff like Operation Yashima, against the positron Angel? Back in twenty-oh-eight, everybody was locked into the idea of mobile armies charging out to meet the enemy, or asymmetrical warfare. When Tokyo-3 was proposed, most commanders had to fall back on old castle strategies."

Winking, she toasted Shinji with her half-empty beer. "I was one of the few who remembered the fortress-city sat in a country with good roads and railways"

Shinji was quiet then, staring at his hands. He glanced up at Kaji, then back at her. "So they built the city based on your papers?"

"Some, I was brought in around twenty-ten for more on-sight planning, but I was living out of UN housing or hotels most of the time. I moved in here-" Misato waved lazily at the apartment, smiling. "The day before I went to pick you up from the first Angel."

That got a weak laugh out of the boy. "I remember, and I remember the mess...."

After he trailed off, Shinji looked down at his hands and sighed. To Misato, it sounded like some aching pain had just let go. Tilting his head back up, he fixed blue eyes on her brown ones and nodded. "So... they never told you."

Misato just cocked her head to the side, absently tugging an errant strap back up over her shoulder where it belonged. "Tell me what?"

Shinji took another short breath, and his eyes cut towards Kaji, who'd been watching the discussion with what Misato knew was his patented lack of interest. Meanwhile, Shinji's hands drummed on the table, and he exhaled. "Tokyo-3's a sham. If it's not helping the Evangelions, it's not worth using..." He waved his hand at the walls, past them and towards the city itself. "The anti-angel bunkers, the civilian shelters? You could take them apart with hand tools... "

A lot of thoughts ran through Misato's mind, most of them unimportant. They weren't in the place to discuss that kind of thing, but as far as timing went, sooner was better, when it came to her city. Home for less than two days and they were already dealing with a crisis. Another cheerfully insistent part of her reminded Misato that she wasn't dressed for that kind of discussion either, and her tank top slipped off her shoulders again to prove it.

The cotton was mocking her, she was sure of it.

The last and most pressing thought was the question hidden in all of that. Had she known about the shelters. At her open and honest look of confusion, Shinji laid it all out for her. Misato felt the slow roil of betrayal and revulsion build up in her gut with every word. He'd stumbled across it all thanks to a black-market scam, war profiteering in the middle of Tokyo-3. Politics and budget cuts made it possible, and that lead to his dealings with the established, entrenched journalist regime in the fortress-city. A true corporate organ.

Misato opened her mouth to answer, but Kaji beat her to it. "Katsuragi never knew about it, but I saw it on one or two inspection tours. NERV is kind of like hot water in a pot- the lightest stuff rises and evaporates, forgotten."

Misato blinked at that, and found herself staring at the man like he'd grown a second head. She could enjoy his presence when he was being a father to Asuka, but now he brought out his mission. She looked over at Shinji to see his reaction. Bewilderment, apparently. Misato regarded all the looks and expressions that swept over Shinji's face, even as his eyes cut from her to Kaji and back. It was almost understandable though- Shinji barely even knew Kaji, aside from what she'd already told him.

That lack of knowledge, and then realizing that Kaji knew more than even Misato herself.... The dark-haired woman shot the boy an encouraging look, reminding him she was there, that she had his back. Finally, the boy gave Kaji a decisive, if distant nod. Misato touched her fingers to her lip and smirked, knowing that was his problem-solving look.

Still, it wasn't all sunshine and roses. The ticking clock out in the living room reminded her that the sham-city was still out there, and they still needed to do something about it. Her dipping mood must have been obvious, because Kaji took it upon himself to assist. In the least helpful way.

"Well, about your previous offer, Katsuragi..." He smiled and spread his hands wide, almost sprawling in the dining room chair. You make it sound so appealing, how could I say no?"

He didn't even have the decency to wait for her reply. Instead, Kaji smirked, reaching up to tug his collar and first shirt button open. The red tie was already lost to the Pacific some weeks ago. "Is the part where I ask how the rent is due?"

Misato just gave him the most parched, level stare she could muster. Flatter than a mirror and dry as a bone, she drawled. "I don't take advance payments."

She shook her empty beer and turned to Shinji, still lost in his planning. A small part of her grinned inwardly at his almost protective scowl, hidden beneath a faint blush. "Shinji-kun, could you maybe get me another beer, and reheat those steaks from last night, with some eggs? I think we both could use a pick-me-up after all this."

The teenager nodded once and pulled away from the table, but not before his little glare heated up a bit more. Kaji just seemed to let it roll like water off a duck's back, patently unconcerned.

Propping himself up on one arm, face cradled in hand, he gave Misato an oddly wistful look. "Well, if I don't win your heart back after all this, I'm happy to know someone's going to take good care of it."

* * *

A good breakfast was not good enough. Even an excellent breakfast wouldn't have covered it. The sheer sense of recognition he felt they deserved, it felt bigger than the whole world- even the planet itself. In his mind, he felt his arms stretch to encompass that whole impossible weight. Ikari Shinji started to believe, not just in that it was possible, but that he really could hold the world, for himself or those who deserved it. The thought didn't scare him anywhere near as much as it might have, even three months ago.

Sorhyu and Misato deserved it, or at least the small sliver he could give and bend to their needs.

So he'd coaxed his fellow pilots and commanding officer out of the apartment, once mid morning rolled around. Sorhyu had eased into her wheelchair and Misato pushed, while Shinji was more than a little glad neither of them had a chance to look up at the building roof. Yesterday, they'd almost slept through even seeing the front door. Rei had seen a glimpse from the ground, but she was more than patient. Together, the four of them made their way to the elevator, and Shinji found himself talking. Laying out what he'd done over the months, leaving out some important details like his after-school activities... He didn't need to weigh everyone down with that more than he already had.

Hands and arms moved, he gestured and smiled, and there was a curious thought in the back of his mind that told him you don't give speeches. The rest of him came back and said the first and only time he'd given one, Misato had been standing behind him. The talent and verve was coming out more naturally, and drawing on even a minor trickle of his power didn't feel so... awkward. Shinji watched the anticipation building up in red, blue and brown eyes, leaving three of the most important women in his life hanging on his every word.

That kind of scared him, a little, but it also made him feel like the tallest person in the room.

Wait.

The elevator was a bit crowded, considering Sorhyu's chair, but nobody seemed to mind. Misato was in the center, wedged with Rei and Shinji to either side, hip to hip to hip.

While the old pulleys and cables lifted the cab up the two floors, Shinji scratched the back of his head. "So like I was saying, I moved the thaumaturgy lab down into the garage, so I could work near Rei and just, not be so alone."

"But then I had all this space on the rooftop and well, we're one of the tallest buildings here so..." He timed the line just as the doors slid open, and he knew their jaws had dropped.

A hand on Misato's back nudged her and Sorhyu forward, rolling out of the elevator and onto flat, irregular stone pavers. Awe rolled the girls like steam, even Rei was lost, looking up and around at the bamboo walls that surrounded the expanded rooftop. The rooftop tar paper was gone, as were the massive steel-enclosed fans on almost every building.

In their place and half-obscured by thin mist was an almost mountain retreat. Misato kept pushing Sorhyu ahead, moving smoothly along the path and over the wooden footbridge. Fast flowing water burbled over rocks beneath them, and the older woman twisted, whipping her head around left and right. Shinji could almost hear her list the features in her mind. Heated, steaming pools. Waterfall showers, bath-house and attached bar. Private places to sit, soak and stay for hours. There was even a raised deck just about ideal for sunbathing.

Finally Misato turned, but not before twisting Sorhyu's chair and locking the brake. She fixed him with a wide-eyed, gaping stare. "Shinji, why is my rooftop a hot spring?"

Shinji smiled broadly, matching her classic, sunshine grin with one of his own. He opened his mouth to answer, but then Rei was there, throwing her arms around his midsection. She clung like a magnet and squeezed, hard.

She looked up while he looked down, and Rei gave him a tiny, earnest grin. "This was not for me, but I am enthused regardless."

"It's for all of you." Shinji laughed and ran a free hand through his hair, waving at the sprawling resort with his other. "Two of you are active pilots, and Misato- you've been managing everyone at home and at NERV for almost two years now. I've had two months to think about how to pay you back for that."

Looking back up, he locked eyes with Misato and nodded, more than ready to drive his point home. "You have a job that demands superhuman effort out of you, so as your superhuman friend I felt it necessary to build you a superhumanly great means to cope with it. Because I care."

Sorhyu cocked her head to the side and smirked, while her uncovered blue eye seemed to shine with something other than fury. "I think it's a bit more than care, Ikari."

To that all Shinji could do was shrug. "Well, I can't care any less than this, so..."

Anything else he wanted to say died in his throat, because Misato had launched herself off the footbridge and slammed into his chest. The sudden impact of fifty-some kilograms of Tactical Operations Director and his sheepish stance was enough to force him backwards, reeling on one heel and whirling dangerously. Shrieking, Misato laughed into his chest as they twisted around together while Shinji unconsciously flexed his soul and body to buoy the two of them on preternatural grace. After that, finding sure footing was an absolute certainty.

Moving like he'd practiced his entire life, Shinji dropped low and hooked his arms behind Misato's knees and back, all but tossing her airborne as he straightened. Rei was just off to the side and clasped her hands, gently swaying with shining red eyes. For the blue-haired girl, that was positively ecstatic. Even Sorhyu smiled, looking like an entirely different girl. Misato meanwhile landed with a ringing peal of laughter, throwing her arms around his neck, holding tight and curling up to plant a firm wet kiss on his cheek.

Reeling, Shinji felt the band of red stretch across his cheeks, but he still held her close, smiling and laughing.

With his brain high on affection and euphoria, he almost missed Rei's endearing little smile, or Sorhyu's knowing look. He definitely missed Misato sliding out of his arms and hot-stepping deeper into the pool complex. When he finally did start paying attention to what he was seeing, Misato had already cheerfully peeled off her faded grey T-shirt and knock-around tank top.

As Misato tossed her shirts aside and asked Rei to help look for towels, Shinji let out a weak laugh and took a step back. Misato may not have been a mystery but she was still a novelty. However, lacking a suitable alibi for the occasion, a hasty retreat while her back was turned was beginning to look like an excellent idea.

He glanced down at Sorhyu, still on the bridge and in her chair. She smiled thinly and shook her head. Shinji sucked in a quick breath and clapped, rubbing his hands while giving her a respectful nod, "Right- everything should be straightforward. If you need anything, I'll be downstairs, getting the mail or something."

"What I need-" Misato half-turned to look over her shoulder, catching Shinji's eye and tossing a wink his way. "-is to make sure you to enjoy this too."

* * *

When it came to his hobbies, Asuka could unabashedly admit that Ikari knew what he was doing. The hot spring complex was expansive, taking up the entire roof and extending out over the parking lot and surrounding property. Everywhere she looked, Asuka saw more than enough of... everything to make their day. Part of it was bath house, kitchen and mini-bar. Another part was a deck for sunbathing and handling a grill. And every thing she examined showed her a new way to use stone, wood and water. The high bamboo walls blocked off the outlying urban slice of Hakone, save for the side that faced the hills to the north-west, toward Downtown Tokyo-3 and Mount Fuji.

She couldn't even get in the water, but just being there was relaxing.

In the pool just to Asuka's side, the nominal adult spread her arms out wide and leaned against the pool edge, letting out a long, satisfied sigh. "This is the life, isn't it Asuka?"

Of course, Misato would have already hit 'relaxed'. Asuka cocked her head to the side and smirked, eyeing the floating tray laden with gold label alcohol. Relaxed and on her way to outright inebriated. The older woman sank deeper into the water with a husky breath, practically glowing. Back with the fleet, Misato had proven more than once that good times were best shared, making a vicarious example of herself. She was a strange friend, but a good one.

"Get back to me about that in a week." Asuka smirked, sitting spring-side in her wheelchair with a pile of envelopes and magazines in her lap. "After I get the casts off and can actually join you."

Holding a saucer to her lips and tipping it back, Misato toasted her, smiling broadly ."I'll hold you to that, Asuka."

The pilot could only smirk a bit wider at that and nodded, before turning back to the half-sorted piles in her lap. Junk and bills, as inevitable as death and taxes. Ikari actually had gone down and gotten the mail like he said, though Asuka knew an excuse when she heard one. Point in his favor at least, not taking advantage of Misato's... Misato-ness. Rei hadn't stayed long either, only helping Misato explore the rooftop complex for a bit before saying she had to leave. Awkwardly and a bit hesitant, her friend had made a point to hug the half-dressed Misato and then wrapped her arms around Ikari when he came back to drop the mail off.

Finally, she'd given Asuka a look the redhead couldn't quite place, not pity or contempt, but some kind of downcast thing. Rei had glanced at Ikari's retreating back and Misato's distracted smile, before letting out a morose sigh and leaving.

It wasn't the homecoming Asuka had been expecting, to say the least. She ripped through the next letter a bit faster than strictly necessary, spilling some paper shreds into the water just beneath her feet. Misato didn't seem to notice at least. Asuka sucked in a low breath and willed her hands to relax. It was probably nothing. Rei had the whole raised-by-nobody thing. Some missing social cue, nothing to worry about.

Asuka wasn't happy about needing reassure herself in the first place.

Suppressing a sigh, she consigned the last envelope to the 'junk' pile and set aside. Licking her lips, Asuka hefted the stack of glossy, glue-bound goodness and settled in for a great morning of brain-rotting fluff. She'd saved the best for last. First in line was a high-class fashion mag with a decidedly late-eighties bent, the wraparound glasses and out-there styles were very much a product of Misato's era. Asuka let out a low laugh, paging past more than a few disastrous looks and spying some diamonds in the rough- Misato had to have gotten her black mini somewhere after all.

One rag gave way to another, and Asuka giggled at the gossip and sickeningly saccharine pulp reporting. A guilty pleasure to be sure, but an immensely enjoyable one regardless. Down time was a very important aspect of a healthy lifestyle. Glancing out the corner of her good eye, Asuka watched Misato bask in the steaming waters without shame. Asuka let out a teasing little snort. Hard to get more 'down time' than that.

Tossing aside the last two magazines, Asuka blinked and stared at an iconic, red-bordered cover. TIME Magazine had survived Second Impact largely intact, and she'd seen the cover often enough back in Massachusetts. Asuka had to wonder how or why Misato got a subscription. A white envelope had been taped to the front, addressed to Misato and stamped with Section Two's simple numerical identifier.

Well, that explained how, but not the why. Sneaking another look at Misato, Asuka weighed her options. Sneak a look now, or hand it off...

That wasn't even a choice. She pulled off the envelope and screamed a second later.

Asuka saw herself on the cover of TIME Magazine.

It only took a few seconds for her to mark the time and place, and a memory of an everyman with thin brown hair surged into her mind. The photo was of her, standing plugsuit-clad on the carrier deck during the long run toward Panama and the Caribbean. Wide-eyed and slack-jawed, she stared down at her image. Caught in the middle of turning at the hip to face the camera, it was a soul-searing three-quarters shot of her from head to toe.

The blue Pacific ocean and skyline stretched out behind her, and she was a black and red slash against the horizon. The wind had pulled her hair back away from her neck and face, while her leather coat hung down almost to her knees, leaving her sleeves to bunch up around her wrists. She should have looked heroic, or imperious, or defiant, or any number of other things that such a dramatic shot should have entailed. Instead she was anything but.

The Asuka in the picture looked dull, like she'd been drained of color and life until she was gaunt, skin and bones.

Asuka willed herself to keep her jaw from clenching. Looking down at her own uncovered legs, scars or not, she was built like a gymnast. The photo made her look a full foot shorter and fifty pounds lighter- like a delicate little glass bird. She knew without seeing that the light had gone out of her eyes, just like the blue uncovered eye in the photo.

A warm, wet weight settled across her shoulders, and Asuka blinked. She finally noticed Misato that had shot out of the bath and to her side, asking what was wrong. Along the way, the woman's dripping arm had wrapped around her in some directionless gesture of support. Misato locked her eyes on Asuka's good one, and she followed the stare down to the glossy cover.

Seeing Misato's mouth turn down into a thin scowl was enough for Asuka to grab onto, shoving the shock and dismay aside for much more productive fury. She flipped the magazine open and found the cover article, eye flickering over the words and spread photographic spread.

"What the fuck is this shit." Asuka let out a rough, shaky hiss. Flipping through the twelve pages of text and photos. "None of these are my good side- and they didn't even have the decency to find one where I was smiling."

The pattern held true, too. There were a few shots of Misato looking model-gorgeous out on the carrier deck, interspersed with the apparently declassified pictures of the battle itself. Blurry frames of the Angel arcing through the air over the carrier, or the ships exploding when it attacked from below. There wasn't any sign of the white Evangelion, and only a single shot of her machine, mauled and unpowered after the battle had ended.

"Fuck you- I won!" She growled, flipping the pages faster and faster. "We fucking won that, screw you!"

Every turn was even more damning. "Goddamn camera-jockey asshole! We kicked it's ass and you do this to me?!"

They had immortalized Asuka at her lowest, and played her for a 'heartbreaking story of a child-soldier'. Frozen instants of her sobbing into Misato's chest and swaddled in blankets, before being hauled off to medics. The actual article went on a sensationalist tangent, declaring and decrying NERV as some hellish military-industrial regime. A 'technocratic pseudo-nation backed by its unnatural war machines, piloted by unwanted or unwilling orphans'. The pictures and text missed the triumphs, like how the crowds around her Eva had been cheering. None of the times she smiled through the tears, or the crew lifting her stretcher over their heads like she was an incarnate goddess.

Instead it was just a long attention-demanding screed, tearing at NERV's reputation for a sellout printing.

Then Asuka saw one of the call outs, and read the caption, pointing at a shot of her being carried belowdecks for treatment. She spoke it out loud, toneless and disbelieving. "Tragic Doll-Soldier taken in for repair. Is the cost too great?"

Asuka flung the magazine into the water, swinging hard enough to rise halfway out of her wheelchair. "Maybe it should have eaten you instead, shithead!"

Misato shifted around, and Asuka distantly noted the woman's hair had fallen out of its messy bun. She took a moment to pull Asuka's chair around and set it against some low-lying rocks, cut at just the right height to serve as a pool-side bench seat. Then she waded back into the pool and plucked the magazine from its watery grave before coming back alongside. Shaking out the sodden pages, Misato stretched the pages out between them, and Asuka heard the woman hum thoughtfully. Then, something warm and wet touched Asuka's leg, and her head shot up to fix Misato with a look. The older woman didn't turn away from the article, but one bare calf brushed against Asuka's uncovered shin.

"I didn't approve this. I'll have to make some calls about this...." Misato turned the page and bit her lip, before finally looking up. "Still. Asuka."

All Asuka could do right then was huff, crossing her one good arm over her chest and whipping her head to the side. "This sucks. I can't even do anything about it!"

Throwing her hand out, she tried to direct all her rage into her hand for paper-incineration purposes. When that didn't work, she again wished her eyepatch had a built-in laser. Denied both, she settled for running a hand through her hair and letting out a harsh, rasping breath.

"I can't write in for a retraction, because even if I were emancipated, I'm still fourteen, and that'd just make me look even more childish." Asuka growled, just shy of seething. "I can't ask NERV to do anything either, because that'd make everyone look bad, needing the big bad NGO to wipe my nose. Anyone digging too deeply would probably use it as an excuse to question the validity of my degree, so that is useless too!"

Asuka sighed and growled again, wishing they'd never let that photographer fly off at Panama. The older woman couldn't help but point out that it was probably the editiors's call.

Misato didn't say anything further, but managed to be a supportive presence regardless. Asuka watched as the woman paged through the soaked article, humming thoughtfully.Even with Asuka herself in the wheelchair and Misato on the bench seat, they had maybe an inch of space between them, sitting perpendicular and almost knee to knee. The closeness was nice.

"Well." Whipping the magazine closed with a flick of her wrist, Misato leaned around and gave Asuka soft look. "I think you covered the bad stuff. As far as the good, I've got your back."

Asuka blinked once at that statement, feeling the light come back into her eyes. The anger had drained out with her last bit of snarling, leaving her to look down at her lap, and the arm still held in a cast. Meanwhile, Misato stretched languidly, letting her eyes drift closed and throwing her arms skyward. To Asuka, it looked like nothing could bother the woman. Granted, that fit with what Asuka already knew.

Still, Misato approached problems in such weird ways, sometimes. Like by not doing anything. Or at least not doing anything immediately. Realizing that, Asuka found herself growing increasingly grouchy, building into a proper swell of anger.

She crossed her good arm over her chest and stewed. "Do you not get it, that the new face of Project E is a sob-story?" Shifting her hand to press it flat against her collarbone, she turned to Misato, wide-eyed and expectant. "That I'm one?"

After that Asuka fell silent for a moment, breathing fast and deep, but even. Misato's easygoing attitude had faded halfway through the rant, and even just thinking about it made the anger surge. They had the unmitigated gall to steal her thunder and replace it with blatant emotional manipulation. She wasn't the conquering hero they would have preferred, so Asuka was sacrificed to some other altar.

"So," Asuka huffed. "This means my social and professional lives are effectively over."

Opening one eye by a crack, Misato smiled despite Asuka's rising ire and flicked her head toward the girl's body. The answering snarl made Misato raise her hands, palms out and placating. Shifting in her seat, and turning half away, Misato looked out over the the open wall toward the hills limited skyline. The late-morning breeze picked up and teased through Asuka's hair, but had a lot more trouble with Misato's wet head. The silence gave Asuka a chance to calm down too, and she let the frustration drop along with her shoulders.

Glancing sidelong, Misato offered Asuka a sly little wink. "You know, I was scouted once? For a racing magazine of all things."

"Huh?" Asuka's elbow slipped, and she almost pitched out of her seat.

"As a model? Covers and photo shoots, the works. I'd signed up with the UN the day before, but I had the chance." Smiling, Misato struck a quick pinup-pose. She slid out of it with a laugh, before tapping at her lower lip and looking up through her bangs. "Granted, if I'd taken it, I wouldn't have settled for just sitting pretty on a car hood- I'm a driver."

Asuka felt her eyes turn upward while she thought that over. A sudden and all-too-clear image formed in her mind; a glamour shot of Misato, done up in the trendiest clothes and behind the wheel of the year's hottest electric car.

The mental image seemed to smile at her, and Asuka let out a bemused little snort. "Yeah, I could see that. What's your point though?"

"No point really, I was just reminded of it." The breeze picked up again, and had a better time playing through Misato's hair. "But you could say that I made my own image, regardless of what everyone else saw in me, just another pretty face with a parasol and go-go boots."

"So as far as this-" She waved at the discarded magazine that sat between them. "You can fight that bad information with good, and sometimes you can't rush it."

Twisting halfway to better face her again, Misato stared into Asuka's eyes, level, intent and dead serious. "It sucks, but here's the strategic situation. You're a minor, and technically employed as a special human asset by NERV. We do pay you, but it's locked up behind so many bureaucratic dead ends that you can't actually be considered on payroll."

Misato's voice and eyes had claimed every bit of Asuka's attention, and she continued uninterrupted. "So what this means is that the normal ways you'd fight this kind of thing don't work- you already know that, and I don't need to repeat it."

"The other factor is that I'm the Tactical Operations Director. My responsibility is to keep you pilots in fighting shape." She nodded at the magazine again. "I don't see you as some pitiable kid being tortured for gain. You're one of my soldiers, and you've acted like one for so long, I don't want to see you slip because you lost your temper over some bad snapshots."

A hollow feeling caved out inside Asuka's chest, as she was yet again reminded of Misato's actual genius.

"But because you're a soldier, I could order you to take the best treatment available to you. The best being the other pilot three floors down. I won't give that order, though. You've made some mistakes in the past, but you've proven yourself more than capable of making educated decisions from available information. " She held up a hand when Asuka opened her mouth to reply. "Even if I don't fully agree with them sometimes."

Asuka stared at Misato for a long moment, and the hollow feeling from earlier filled in with some kind of flushed redness and the thin fingers of honest pride. The warmth uncurled in her chest, and something warm and wet tracked down her cheek, welling up beneath her eyepatch. Misato didn't say anything when Asuka ducked her head, letting her hair fall on either side of her face. Standing, Misato moved around and gathered the girl up in her arms. After a few seconds, the girl realized she could count the woman's heartbeats.

The late-morning sun tracked across the sky as they sat there, and Asuka gave up on staying dry. "I'm healing, not crippled. How hard to I have to squeeze to make people see the obvious?"

"Okay. Make my own image?" She half-growled into Misato's chest before pulling away. She sat up straighter in her chair, ignoring the tear tracks on her cheek. "I am Sorhyu Asuka Langley. I'm the Evangelion pilot, and one of three people on the planet who understands the Absolute Terror Field."

It was slow, and painful, but Asuka stood and pushed the wheelchair aside, even while Misato rose with her and kept a steadying arm handy. "I'm not weak. I'm not broken, and I'm not some little soldier dress up doll!"

Misato beamed at that and tugged Asuka in for another hug, standing upright this time. Easing over to the rock bench, Asuka settled down and sighed while Misato joined her.

They sat thigh to thigh, and Misato kept an arm around the girl's shoulders, warm and ever-presently reassuring. "I think that's the Asuka we both want to see... and I really don't want you to ignore that some of the best treatment in the world is downstairs."

"It's your choice still!" Misato added, before Asuka could open her mouth. "I just want what's best for you, is all."

Absently pushing one foot into the steaming water, Asuka was too concerned with washing off the mental weight to make any further complaint.

"So..." Misato reached out with one leg, catching the forgotten floating tray edge with her big toe and sending it spinning in the water. "I have to ask- what is the deal with you and Shinji- I never got the full story from either of you."

Asuka groaned, kicking a wave toward Misato as she huffed. "Gott, you make it sound like some gossip-rag scandal. It's his attitude- he keeps pissing me off."

"Well, obviously." Misato's reply was painfully dry, before warming with friendlier tones. "But why exactly."

"Because he doesn't do anything! I keep seeing him spin his wheels and just sort of take things as they go, rolling over for everyone." Asuka had thrown her good arm out with fingers splayed, trying to articulate the sheer absurdity of it all, staring at Misato and hoping maybe she had an answer. "I didn't think it was possible to have outright super powers and still lack a spine! I'm a competitive bitch I know, but I can't stand to see people waste their potential either. I was angry with Rei for the same thing back when I tried to punch the Commander!"

She slumped in her seat, letting her hands fall into her lap."I don't get how either of them could have just stood there and taken that bullshit."

"Oh my God." Misato blinked once, before holding a hand to her mouth and snickering. "This is adorable. You've been pissed off on his behalf this whole time!"

Asuka recoiled, voice going shrill while Misato leaned in, sly and teasing. "Wh-What?! No I haven't!"

The dark-haired woman closed the distance, blatantly violating personal space and smiling unrepentantly. "You totally have! You just said so like two seconds ago. It's nothing to be ashamed of, Asuka. It's just... cute!"

Leaning back and almost off balance, Asuka blanched for a moment before scowling. Misato held onto Asuka's gaze for another few seconds before grinning, eyes closed and looking like the cat who swallowed the canary.

Finally, she pulled all the way back and cocked her head to the side, openly curious. "Well.. Is he bothering you now?"

"Not really.... He's not pulling stupid stuff like getting his hands all over my apartment or clothes without permission." Asuka looked out over the hot springs and drew in a lungful of steamy air. "And this is really nice, that we all can use this."

"Right... So the obvious question is why aren't you interested in asking him for help?" Misato slid in a bit closer, and Asuka watched as Misato's hand wandered to a bare patch of skin just below her own breasts. "I mean, he fixed me... What's stopping you?"

Asuka snarled. "BecauseIdon't understand it!"

Misato shot back with a little yelp, moving as if Asuka's voice had burned and blinking owlishly. Asuka herself wasn't anywhere near finished venting.

"I mean if you want to just take it on faith that's fine, it works for you. Your past," She reached out to poke Misato in that same patch of unbroken skin. "- Is gone along with that scar. But I see all this stuff he does for you and everyone else, and I go what the fuck just happened."

"I mean it works, it totally works!" She waved at the hot springs, proof positive of such. "But I can't make heads or tails of it, and he can't tell me how it works because then he goes on about soul muscles and I just want to pull my hair out!"

At Misato's uncomprehending look, Asuka launched into what she hoped was a sensible explanation. "The Soul doesn't have muscles- we haven't ever been able to map it until recently thanks to Akagi, but I know for a fact that humans cannot do what he does with their souls. We don't have the structures for it...."

She trailed off then, thinking. ".... And if he does, I have to wonder if he's even human anymore."

Misato frowned at that last comment, but Asuka waved it off, saying that a person was a person, and that was more important. Even if he was still a wimp.

"Don't hold anything back now, Asuka, just let it all out." Misato recovered quickly, laughing while she threw a warm arm around Asuka's shoulders once more. "Now, I have to ask, did you tell him this?"

Asuka just gave the woman a helpless shrug, at an honest loss."I tried! It didn't work!"

The smile Misato gave her promised rueful things. "Okay. Did you tell him in a civil and calm manner."

"I'm always civi-! " Asuka stopped mid-word, inflection dropping out until her tone went flat and body fell slack. "...Oh. No. No I never quite managed that."

Misato just smirked, leaning back against the warm rocks and sighing. "You could probably start there then."

* * *

Shyft · Jun 10, 2014

Okay! That's all the 'recent' story posts up to now. Feel free to reply.

mothematics · Jun 10, 2014

That FAQ is going to be very useful. Glad that you made it over to SV, Shyft.

Shyft · Jun 10, 2014

A lot of those questions got asked so often too...

Shyft · Jun 11, 2014

Also since I forgot:

South · Jun 12, 2014

Shyft said:
A lot of those questions got asked so often too...

Shyft, I'm fairly certain some of those questions are only there because you and I debated about them for upwards of two hours. ...Repeatedly.

Now, that said, on the AT-field and Charm possibilities- Integrity. The AT-field and it's bold declaration of 'this is me, and not anyone else' reminds me of Integrity Protecting Prana. As for the EVAs themselves and using charms through them- I'd class those more as behemoths (living things stuffed full of mutations) that humans are using to bootstrap themselves up to 'fight Angel' level. ...But if it were a Charm avenue, I'd say Integrity again, because AT-field and soul synchronization.

(Ha ha, mechanics discussion instead of story discussion. ...Oops.)

Shyft · Jun 12, 2014

South said:
Shyft, I'm fairly certain some of those questions are only there because you and I debated about them for upwards of two hours. ...Repeatedly.

Now, that said, on the AT-field and Charm possibilities- Integrity. The AT-field and it's bold declaration of 'this is me, and not anyone else' reminds me of Integrity Protecting Prana. As for the EVAs themselves and using charms through them- I'd class those more as behemoths (living things stuffed full of mutations) that humans are using to bootstrap themselves up to 'fight Angel' level. ...But if it were a Charm avenue, I'd say Integrity again, because AT-field and soul synchronization.

Heh.

Integrity is where I'd put AT field magic, yes. It's still a question of "Can you wield the AT field like a skill, even a transcendent one?"

And yeah, Evangelions are definitely more like Behemoths than X-Circles or what have you.

Shyft · Jun 14, 2014

A small teaser:

"Ikari Shinji," She sounded his name out in low, even tones. "You took an apparently divine vision at face value, experimented for a while and then just persisted as a semi-spiritual carpenter-chef. How can a thing like you exist?"

Cast in Gold - Evangelion/Exalted

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How wide is the concept of "you"?

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