New Century 2318 [NGE]

[Pineapple]

New Century 2318

Chapter 1:
Minute to live rule​

It wasn't my first time seeing it, of course. I'd been born down there, spent the first four years of my life down there. I didn't remember it. Time and distance had a way of taking those things from you. What I had was just foggy, faded images in my mind.

Father had sent me away for reasons that I could only call selfish. At least, that's what I told myself. Ganymede was about as far from him as I could have reasonably been sent so it wasn't really a surprise that that is where I ended up.

From this high up, the ball of red and blue and green seemed almost calm. From here, it was almost pretty. Almost. The huge red patches in the oceans had a way of looking like blood. It didn't used to look that way; I'd seen pictures.

I didn't have to think about it for long; the station's gravitational rotation took it out of view after a few minutes and I was looking back towards the outer planets. Ganymede didn't feel like home, not really. Earth didn't either.

But he'd asked me to come back, so I should, right?

I looked down to the picture in my right hand, a woman, not too much older than I was. Her hair was, well, heliotrope came to mind. It definitely came out of a bottle, but not one I'd ever seen. Looking at her didn't hurt, that was for sure. I was supposed to meet her here.

Of course I'd checked the the time; triple checked it, accounted for as many different time zones as I could think of. I could only come to the conclusion that she was late. I'd flown across half the system, changed ships no less than eight times, crossed so many time-zones I'd lost count...

And she was late.

If I had known that was going to happen, I would have boarded the shuttle without her. The shuttle that I could see pulling away from the station at that very moment. It would be hours before another one arrived, but after a week of traveling that didn't seem so bad.

The truth was, I wasn't really looking forward to seeing my father again. Any delay in seeing him wasn't so bad, really. Give me more time to prepare for.. whatever it was this visit was going to turn into. He hadn't spoken to me since I'd been sent away. He'd sent letters. Once or twice I'd even answered, but neither of our hearts were in it.

"Ikari?"

I turned sharply at the sound of the voice. In this large chamber it echoed, it didn't hurt that we were the only two people there after the shuttle had left.

It was the purple haired woman. She was on the far end of the concourse, up-spin from me. She was wearing a flight suit and a 'zeegee' pack. Had she not taken the shuttle to get here?

"You're Ikari right?" She asked me as she closed the half dozen meters of distance with a short jump and a burst from her pack. Most people considered it rude to do such a thing while a station is spun up for AG, but people who spend most of their time in a real gravity well tended not to notice such things.

At least we were relatively alone.

I didn't realize how dry my throat was when I opened my mouth to talk. It had probably been days since I'd spoken to anyone. "Y-yes, that's right."

She looked me up and down with a critical eye. "You don't look like your picture"

I felt my face twitch at the mention of that but I shook it off. "Well I think the only pictures he'd have to give you are ten years old. A lot can change."

"Yep, so... so..." her voice trailed off and her eyes unfocused from me and onto something behind me.

I raised an eyebrow at her and slowly turned around to look out of the window set into the side of the station. Out in space, the shuttle that had un-docked earlier was spinning on axis and leaking atmosphere through the hole that used to be the left wing.

The screech that pierced my soul came next, and my eyes locked onto the massive black-skinned monster descending past the station and towards the planet below. "What--"

"Get down!"

She grabbed me by the back of my jacket and dragged me down to the hull plates as a section of the concourse down-spin from us exploded out into space. The rushing air pulled my head down and I saw the debris from the damaged shuttle rolling away from the station. It looked like they might have tried to dock but crashed into the station instead.

It had been years since decompression training, and to be honest I was far too shocked by what had happened to do anything but hang on and try not to get sucked out into space. I tried to calm down, focus on the numbers.

Math was never my strong suit.

"Two minutes, tops!" the woman yelled. "Come on, we're getting out of here!"

The station shook under our feet and I felt myself getting... lighter? The spin was stopping. The station must have taken more damage than I thought. Stopping the spin to reduce the stress on the structure after a collision. There had been a freighter incident on Ganymede--

"We don't have time for this!" she yelled before throwing her arm around me and pulling me against her. I was starting to get light headed, from fear or decompression, I didn't know. A moment later I heard the hissing of her 'zeegee' pack and we were floating towards the hatch on the far end of the concourse.

It was getting cold and I could feel my ears popping, my head swimming as the oxygen and pressure levels dropped.

The leak might have been slow enough to give us two minutes like she said, but the concourse was big and the rushing air was pulling at us the entire time. It didn't help that I was used to a much higher oxygen content than someone from Earth. I'd probably pass out before she did.

The impact jarred me out of my thoughts, pessimistic as they were, and I looked up to see we'd hit the wall next to the emergency hatch. That would take us into the connecting shaft towards the center of the station.

Located at the inboard side of the gravity ring, it wasn't a place we could reach while the station was under spin, but with the spin stopped we were able to make it 'up' there on the woman's zeegee pack.

She hit the release and the hatch slid back, a soft puff of air hit us in the face as the pressure equalized with our compartment in a quick moment. She pushed me inside first and climbed up in a second later before sealing the hatch behind us.

Impulse. Everything was impulse. Mine was to freeze in confusion and fear, but her impulse was to act, to get us both out of there.

"I need a status report. I've got the package but the station was hit. What's going on out there? Is it attacking?" The woman said, but not to me. It looked like she might have an ear piece.

Of course, that cut me out of any reply she might get--

She turned to me and shook her head. "That hit was worse than I thought. Station is breaking up. We've only got a few minutes."

I felt the cold grip of fear around my insides and the pounding of my heart in my ears. Adrenaline, fight or flight response. Where would I go? "The escape pods are--"

"Not where we're going. You're not gonna like this part."

I was knocked against a bulkhead when the station shook around me, cutting off any reply or question I might have had. A moment later I felt a strong blow strike me in the stomach and I felt the wind knocked out of me.

She'd punched me and I'd spat out the entire lungful of air I'd had. My eyes were watering even as I doubled over. What the hell was she playing at?

"Aoba, we're doing it now!"

The alarm screeched in my ears and then they popped. The emergency hatch unsealed violently and we both launched out of the chamber like a cannon. My tears boiled off in an instant and it felt like my head was going to explode.

The concourse had fully decompressed in the time we'd been gone, and the damage had spread. The entire far bulkhead was missing now; what had been a floor was now a gaping hole that we were hurtling towards at maybe a dozen meters per second. If we clipped the edge we'd probably get splattered, at least lose a limb.

But she was wearing that pack.

I needed to breathe but nothing I could do would make air out of the nothing I was floating through. Each gasp solved nothing and... then we passed through the hole and out of the station. We'd be dead in minutes, at least I would be.

My vision started to blur; the panic wasn't helping me conserve what oxygen I had in my blood. The edges closed in and then we struck something hard and I bounced, a hand grabbed me and pulled on my arm, and then a hissing filled my ears as pressure returned.

The first lungful of air was greedy and burned. The second was better, but once the pain started to fade the distraction it provided left me and I was aware of how much the rest of me hurt.

I'd heard stories of people passing through hard vacuum without a suit, but I'd never been stupid or desperate enough to do it myself. Now I could check that one off on my list of Things I Would Never Do Again.

I blinked away the bright light inside the airlock and looked at the woman who'd dragged me through it. Of course she had an air pack. She was prepared for this, or just prepared in general.

"You know," I croaked out of my now sore-as-hell throat, "There's a reason people don't do that."

"Do you want to go back?"

I shook my head. What was done was done, repeating the experience wouldn't make it any more fun the second time.

Her hand wrapped around my wrist and she pulled me onto my feet, and then past them. No gravity, we weren't under power yet.

"Welcome to the Tengu. You can call me Misato, and you are.. Shi--"

I felt a lump rise in my throat and I cut her off by instinct, "Natsu Ikari."

She flinched like she'd been struck, I had probably been too harsh. "Alright, Natsu then. Strap in, we're not done yet."

xxx​

They hadn't told me much, but I wasn't surprised. That seemed to be my lot in life. What I'd managed to gather from consoles and the stacked-deck layout of the ship was that it wasn't meant to land. About forty meters long.

The drive looked oversized compared to what I'd seen on the ships that visited Ganymede, though the tapered cylinder layout of the hull was common enough. Under acceleration the deck layout would provide a semblance of gravity.

And with a drive that size it was probably fast as hell.

The command deck was at the front of the ship, or the top relative to the interior layout, and it was there that I was strapped in. I was seated at an auxiliary console, an empty seat for an additional crew member, maybe.

I'd only seen Misato and two other people. The ship looked like it could hold at least ten, based on the command deck's size and number of stations.

"So much for a milk run, eh Captain?" the man at the pilot's station asked. He looked a few years older than me, a few younger than Misato. Asian; Japanese? Dark haired, slim build.

Misato strapped herself into a seat next to mine, but her displays had a lot more information on them. Speed, position, tactical readouts. I could make out the station, the damaged shuttle, and further away the monster I'd seen through the window.

"This is probably going to be an expensive day. Lay in an intercept with that pattern blue. We were supposed to be on Earth before it showed up. We need to buy some time. Jettison the camouflage panels." She knew what she was doing, after what had just happened I shouldn't have been surprised.

"Camouflage? Wanna let me in on the secret?" I found myself asking. Maybe being left in the dark wasn't something I wanted to be my lot in life.

"We're about to let everyone in on the secret. Panels detonating in five, four, three--" The man at the pilot's station announced. I wondered if he was the 'Aoba' that Misato had been talking to on the radio.

There was a slight tremor through the seat and the console in front of my changed, though not to the same extent that Misato's panel had changed. Being nosy, I looked to see that targeting systems seemed to be overlaid over the sensor readouts.

"Guns are coming online. Drive is heated up. We're go for burn."

"Do it."

The ship lurched forward and I felt myself being pressed down into my seat. I didn't know how many Gs we were pulling but I knew it was more than I'd ever experienced before. That over-sized drive unit was burning with a purpose.

"Fifteen seconds to intercept. You know, we really don't have the crew for this," the pilot, Aoba, said to Misato. His voice was shaking a little. I was terrified, but that made me quieter than usual. Aoba was cool as a cucumber, comparatively.

But then, maybe that was just because he'd only seen the monster through a sensor screen and not through a window with his own eyes.

"We're working with what we've got. Buy the people on the ground some time to get in front of this. Arming torpedoes; firing!" Misato called back as her finger stabbed down on the console.

The ship clunked under me, I assumed that was a torpedo being fired. Curiosity was steadily becoming an impulse to rival my fear and, with that, I started poking at my console, looking for an external view.

It was beautiful. The angle that I'd found, for a moment, was filled with stars in the highest resolution imaginable; it was like looking through a window, without the reflection of your own face staring back at you.

For me, the wonder had never worn off. People blamed my origin on Earth, and maybe they were right, but something about the stars in the sky, the things so far beyond our reach and yet right in front of us...

To me, it had always felt like staring into the heart of creation.

The ship rolled through its intercept, angling for direct fire weapons if I had to imagine, and brought the monster that had damaged the station back into view. Long black-green spindly legs and a stretched, distorted body. Spindly, spider-like arms that sprouted from bone-plated shoulders.

And that face, like a crude bird with glowing red eyes.

The things that nightmares are made of, I was sure I would never forget. Was this monster our punishment for the arrogance in thinking we had the right to tread in the domain of gods?

"We're getting really close to the point of no return here!" Aoba yelled over the slowly growing roar of atmosphere rushing past the hull. We were still high enough to be considered space, but at the speeds we were pulling to intercept, even a little bit of air would be... noisy.

"We'll fight it to the ground if we have to! I'm bringing the device online now. I'm giving you fire control. We've got one shot, don't miss." Misato answered back. I chanced a glance at her console and saw a familiar trefoil symbol set against a yellow background.

Nuclear? How did she even--

"Target locked, coils charged. Firing!" Aoba yelled before the ship bucked so hard I slid upward in my harness, the recoil of whatever he'd fired being strong enough to temporarily negate all of the thrust being generated by the fusion drive.

My panel winked out and the ship twisted to the side around me. I strained against my harness for a moment before the force let up and I was weightless. Freefall.

"EMP forced a reboot. We're offline for the next thirty seconds," he said, then hesitated. There was something else, something I was certain I wasn't going to like. "May want to hang on, we were not in a stable orbital track when we lost navigation."

"What?!" Misato yelled. She was trying her console, it wasn't working. It was just as dark as mine. "What about the backups?!"

"Those would be fine if we were still in orbit. I can't run the main drive manually. I've got maneuvering thrusters but they're not going to get us back into orbit on their own."

"Which means..."

"Well, you did say 'Fight it to the ground' didn't you?"

The human inner ear is not as precise as the accelerometers that would universally be installed in any space-faring vessel, but that isn't to say it wasn't receptive to changes in velocity or orientation, even slight ones.

I knew we were slowing down a few moments before I felt it in the harness. Aerobraking probably; we were hitting the Earth's atmosphere. Our angle was pretty steep before we'd lost power, a necessity for aiming the gun at that monster, probably.

The pressure on my chest from being pressed upwards into the harness kept increasing. We were descending, rapidly, into thicker air, and obviously well above terminal velocity.

That would change, but probably not quickly enough to matter. We should have been on our way to the escape pod, ships that fell into an atmosphere didn't tend to leave much more than a crater.

"Power coming back online. Drive controls are back up!" Aoba yelled from above us. I could feel the ship rotating aggressively as he tried to correct our descent. He seemed like he knew what he was doing. At least, he was doing better than I could have.

The display in front of me finally finished rebooting and the external view came back online; grey and white and sunlight. My momentary confusion evaporated into gut-wrenching fear when the display cleared up and instead displayed a city. We'd punched through the cloud deck and the ground was approaching faster than it should, given how low we were already. Maybe forty, forty five seconds to impact.

It would be a painless death and there wouldn't be anything left to identify our bodies.

"Aoba!?" Misato yelled from beside me. She could see what I could see. We were about to die.

"Sometimes you just gotta ride the lightning... Hold on!" Aoba yelled from the upper deck.

From my screen, I could see the docking grapplers fire out from the side of the ship. They'd never hold, they weren't meant to arrest motion so much as reel a ship in. Anything more robust would be more of a military--

The ship lurched violently under us as the line went taut between the ship and the two-hundred floor high rise, the winch screamed as it let more line out. It wasn't a docking grappler, it was a boarding grappler. Illegal and yet, I might not die so I couldn't complain.

A second grappler launched out and latched onto another building and brought the ship about, we were following an arc around the buildings. A third, and then a fourth grappler launched and went taut, almost like the ship was walking along the side of the buildings on stilts.

Despite the side-load forcing me into the back of my seat I found myself almost relieved. Each new attachment jolted less than the last, we were noticeably slowing our descent to something survivable.

The scream from before pierced the cabin and I felt it in my chest, in my heart. I panned the camera angle and saw it descending towards us, on fire, and exuding a sense of being very pissed off. "Uh, guys?!"

"I can't align, bringing PDGs online! Misato?" Aoba yelled from above us, he couldn't look, too busy keeping us alive to divert too much attention.

"Got it!" She yelled up then turned to me, "Natsu, fire control is at your station. Make yourself useful and light it up!"

"Y-yes ma'am!" I found myself yelling in something that came out more like a terrified wail than the brave agreement I'd been trying for. Just like manual space debris interdiction, right? Target in the center...

And pull the switch. I squeezed the firing trigger and the point defense guns instantly hemorrhaged erratic streams of tracer fire towards the monster descending on top of us. The first few seconds of fire missed wildly while I tried to adjust my aim, the computers weren't calibrated for air resistance or gravity.

"Hyūga, interception was unsuccessful, target is on course for the city. Send out Rei!" Misato was yelling next to me, probably into a radio.

The shots that did connect were bouncing off, hitting some kind of energy shield. Technology like that didn't even exist, and yet, there it was in front of me.

"Stand by Tengu. Akagi had everything ready in advance. We're deploying Unit Zero in four seconds."

Unit Zero? Of what?

I pulled my hands away from the controls when the PDGs entered an emergency cooldown cycle. They weren't doing anything anyway, not much more than give me something to distract myself from the absolutely terrifying direction my life had turned in less than a day.

The ship shook hard and rolled to the side as an object easily the size of the space monster rocketed past us, upwards towards the creature. I caught a flash of blue and white armor plating zipping past the camera, but it was too close to make out features until it passed us.

Another giant, a robot of some kind. It was holding some kind of projectile weapon, like some kind of gigantic rifle scaled up to be held by something so huge. Was that 'Unit Zero' ?

The ship jolted hard under me and gravity felt like it was 'down' again. The sensation of movement was gone. No, actually, it wasn't gone. I felt slightly like I was moving down, but in a measured, slow way.

The camera feed was blocked off by a massive armor plat closing over top of the ship. An elevator?

"Well, landing wasn't really the original plan, but it looks like I did a good job, right?" Aoba laughed down at us. It was the kind of laugh that one laughs when they have just recently not died, and I could understand the impulse.

xxx​

The thing about hard vacuum is that it has certain effects on... well, everything. I was healthy even after my brief adventure without oxygen, my clothing was... far less healthy. Ripped seams from flash water trapped in the fabric. It hadn't been important on the Tengu, but on the ground, going to meet my father...

Misato had insisted that I change, and I didn't have any of my things, they'd been lost on the station. That left me with... borrowing. Borrowing things that weren't exactly my style, but that fit well enough. Anyone could wear black, after all.

The relative silence after our landing was welcome, but uncomfortable. The only sound I could pick out other than the background humming of the facility we were in was the clicking of our shoes. My own and Misato's stood out, Aoba's shoes were a little more subdued. I liked his a lot better, shame he wasn't my size.

After everything else that had happened, I could tolerate a quiet walk. It let my thoughts wander to whoever must have been piloting that machine they launched after the monster. I hadn't heard anything that might have indicated that they failed, and we were also still alive.

We stopped at a thick steel door that split in the middle, the kind that retracted into the wall and looked like it was rated to hold back the vacuum of space. I had to wonder what use such a thing would be on a planet.

"Your father is on the other side of this door. Our job was to get you this far, and we did. I just... Well, I'm going to be right there with you, ah, Natsu." Misato offered as she typed a code into the door panel. She seemed a little stiff.

Whatever I was in for, it was signaled by the thunking of lock bolts retracting a few moments before the door itself split and slid open with a low groan. Definitely heavy. Darkness and track lighting outlining the perimeter of the floor greeted us.

The thick smell of copper and cooling oil flooded my nose, not dissimilar from some of the new construction areas on Ganymede. I stepped through the door first, eager to get it over with if nothing else. Misato fast-stepped behind me, not eager to get left behind, or perhaps not eager to leave me to my own devices.

Which was a little amusing, given that she'd given me control of some really powerful weapons not even a half of an hour ago.

The lights clicked on all at once on us and the room, much more massive that I'd thought, came into view brightly enough o hurt my eyes. To my left was a gigantic purple horned head, and it might have terrified me or surprised me more if I hadn't seen a blue one like it shortly ago.

Or if my father hadn't been standing directly in front of me, demanding far more attention. He didn't look different from the last time I'd seen him, so many years ago. My legs felt weak, mouth dry, palms damp and cold.

"Who are you?" He asked, cold, flat. Time really could change so many things, could he really not tell?

"I'm your child, you've sent for me, and here I am. That is what you wanted, right?" I asked, just as flat as he did. I could play that game too. I'd had years to practice.

"You're not my son." His face was still expressionless, orange tinted lenses hid his eyes from me.

I felt my face twitch and felt that burst of hot anger fill me. He didn't even have the decency to know?

My flat expression broke and I sneered at him, "Was it the way I fill out this dress that gave it away?"

 

[Pineapple]

Chapter 2:

The Day You Find Out Why​

I didn't know what to do or to say. The outburst had come from a place I'd been trying to suppress. I'd had people on Ganymede, people who cared. They helped me to get to who I had become, all the treatments, surgeries, therapies, they'd helped. The outbursts were less there but…

I was alone, home, after a fashion, but alone. I'd thought that things would be different when the invitation had come. I thought that finally, after all those years...

Maybe I was too foolish and idealistic, thinking that after fourteen years he'd suddenly have a change of heart.

"You could have at least taken the effort… to know who I was." I whispered. My shoulders slumped, I felt so defeated. It was hard enough to hold myself up in a full G, but with his reaction, and after I ran out of steam… I just lacked the will.

"I sent for you because I need you." He said, finally. I couldn't detect hatred in his voice. That was what I was most used to. Hatred, disdain, confusion, 'why can't you just be happy with what you've got. Why can't you just get along. Why can't you just be like everyone else.

No, he said he needed me. That's like wanting me. He didn't change his mind when he saw me, send me back, send me away, no, he needed me.

"For what?" I asked, trying to keep the shakiness out of my voice. I was trying so very hard not to feel like I'd felt so many times before, so vulnerable, so--

"This." He said simply and raised his white gloved hand to point to his right, at the purple armored giant's head. "You are one of the chosen few who can pilot this machine, who can destroy the beings known as Angels. I called you back here because I need you to do this."

"Wait," Misato interjected suddenly from behind me. "You want her to pilot Unit One? She's only just gotten back to Earth, she's not ready!"

"I don't… I can't! I won't!" I yelled, I could feel the tears streaming down my face. He needed me, but he didn't want me. Never could be that easy. I could never be that whole.

He snapped his fingers loudly, it echoed through the chamber and a hologram popped into existence in front of us. That blue robot from before, fighting the monster we'd burned with nuclear fire. The Angel, that's what he'd called it.

A second projection popped up showing a girl my age wearing a body suit. Blue hair, beautiful red eyes. Whatever wasn't covered in her body suit was covered in bandages, she was bleeding. She looked like she was in a lot of pain, struggling.

"If you won't do it, she will have to do it alone. She is already wounded. Even if she wins, she won't survive, at this rate." He said to me. Still hiding himself behind those orange lenses. I could almost hear a hitch in his voice, betraying that he did feel emotions.

It wasn't that girl's fault. She was doing what she had to do, right? She'd been trained, she'd known what she was getting into. Maybe that didn't matter, it only mattered that she was doing something she could do, to save people, to protect them from that monster.

I felt my hand rolling up into a fist, a burst of adrenaline that I desperately needed to help me push myself up, to stand tall. "You think… I can fight?"

His hand rose to cover his face, and when he removed it again, I could finally look into his eyes for the first time since I was ten years old. "You will fight. That is why you are here. That is what I need you to do."

Muscles tightened up, shoulders back, chest out. It was everything I could do, but I needed to do it. Fight gravity, prove myself. "What is her name?"

My father's face softened, ever so slightly. I spend so much of my time watching people, looking for their reactions, their feelings when they looked at me, I could read people. He felt something for her. "Her name is Rei Ayanami."

Something about her name struck a chord in me, something nostalgic deep down, a memory I couldn't quite grasp onto. It didn't matter, I'd made my decision the moment I'd seen her face. I didn't have it in me, I wasn't the kind of person who could have made any other choice.

"I'll fight then, for Rei Ayanami."

xxx​

Seeing Rei in her flight suit prepared me for when I was presented with my own version. The colors were different, a bit more of blue and a bit more plating around the chest. It fit me perfectly, if a bit tight.

But it was, apparently, supposed to be tight.

"You're gonna do fine. Just sit in the seat and everything else gets a bit clearer. It all works on nerve linking, mind control. If you've got any questions we'll answer them." Aoba reassured me as we walked towards my destiny. He had his hand on my back, probably meant to keep my at ease, guide me along and make sure I didn't make a run for it.

For some reason, it made me blush. Most people on Ganymede knew me before, and could never really look past that. He didn't treat me like that, he treated me like, well, exactly what he saw. There wasn't an underlying discomfort, an unwillingness to even make contact with me.

I shook my head a little, and found myself walking a little closer to him. "So how much further? I got a little turned around after we left that hanger."

"We're not going back the way we came. You'll board the entry plug from behind the Evangelion, there's a whole procedure. You don't need to worry too much about it." He explained in a casual, disarming kind of way. Badass space ship pilot, chill guy, and he wasn't half bad to look at.

Oh. Let's not go down that path.

The hallway ended in a security door, another one of those big heavy ones, and he typed his key code into it. This one opened a bit faster than the last one, or many the anticipation wasn't killing me so much this time.

"This is where we part ways. I'll be on the command deck helping guide you through the activation and launch." He paused for a second and grabbed my hands, "Look, Natsu, You're doing something that I wish I could do."

"I wasn't going to do it, I was going to leave." I deflected, I couldn't accept his praise. Not at all--

"But you didn't leave. The two most important days in your life are the day you're born, and the day you find out why. Today is that second day. Good luck, but you won't need it." He let go of my hands and took a step back, and the door closed between us.

He just had to go and build me up like that, being all inspirational and making me feel like I could actually do it. But, I had to try.

More doors opened opposite from me, making this chamber into a sort of airlock. Beyond those doors, a larger room with what had to have been the control seat sitting in it. Long, almost like a vehicle in its own right, it reminded me of… I wasn't quite sure what.

Three technicians in surgical scrubs and face masks guided me, wordlessly to the seat. It was just as well, I didn't know what I'd say to them anyway. They helped me get settled into the surprisingly comfortable seat and then two of them set about securing panels and toggling controls around the lower, forward end of the seat.

The third--

I felt a sharp stabbing sensation and an almost like bone crunching sensation in two distinct places in my skull, for the first instant it was absolute agony and then the pain disappeared all at once. I pressed my hands against my head and stared down into my lap in shock.

"Sorry about that… It's better if you don't have any warning. Neuro-link implants. You'll need them." She apologized. I'd have to get her name later, to thank her for making it so quick and painless or, perhaps, revenge.

The floor on either side of the seat retracted away and I descended through the gap on a large hydraulic arm. Willing myself to look over the side and down, I saw that I didn't have far to go; there was a huge white cylinder with an opening in it that I was descending towards.

My teeth clicked together with the sudden stop at the bottom, when the seat finally interfaced with the bottom of the tube at a downhill angle. The seat felt more comfortable for me in that position, with my legs lower than my hips, sort of a half-standing half-laying down.

The lights inside of the tube, the 'entry plug' as Aoba had called it, clicked on as the hatch above me pivoted closed. More motion, this time down and forward, along the same axis that I was inclined at. A few seconds later, a clunk, the sound of servos, and then a splash.

Fluid was pouring in from below, orange in color. A comm holo illuminated to my left and in it, Aoba, and Misato stood. "Uh, guys, is this supposed to happen?" I asked with… more than a little fear in my voice.

"It's breathable fluid, It'll absorb shocks and oxygenate your blood directly. Just like going into cryo. You'll be fine." Aoba explained.

Sure, like going into cryo.

I hated going into cryo, and at least I didn't have to be awake for that.

"Uh… Roger that, I guess." I muttered right before the liquid passed my chin. It flooded past me in an instant and I tried to resist it, hold my breath.

My resistance didn't last long though, a few moments, I inhaled and the not-quite-cold liquid poured into my mouth, filled my lungs. It wasn't as unpleasant as cryo fluid, tasted a bit like copper and salt, a bit thicker too.

Just breathe, in and out.

The copper-steel colored walls seemed to energize around me, fizzling out and replacing themselves with a view of the large hanger bay I'd been in a few minutes before, when I'd confronted my father.

"Final stage nerve connections are online, sync is holding at… seventy percent. It'll move." I didn't recognize the voice, though it was female. Clinical, cold? Detached.

"So that's good, right?" I asked. I shouldn't have been able to talk with lungs full of cryo fluid, and yet my voice was only slightly off, this was definitely some different stuff.

"That's good, Natsu. We're moving you to the launch platform now." This time I did recognize the voice, Misato. She made me feel a little better, if only because I felt like her luck ought to be contagious. The number of times we both should have died, I'd lost count.

I felt heavier, like I had a heavy blanket draped over me. I felt myself sliding backwards, but it felt almost double. Was that the link? There wouldn't be much point in such a thing if it didn't go both ways, would there?

The movement stopped with a soft jolt, the area around me was a much more open space, with rails leading from at least a dozen different chambers that looked the same as the one I'd left. Along the wall I was back-against, were more rails, leading up. Launch mechanisms.

I caught, to my far left, the Tengu, sitting on a platform bolted to said rails. It looked… a lot smaller from up here. It was amazing how quickly my perspective adapted to being inside of such a huge machine.

"Natsu, we've got the catapult locked and charged. This is your last chance to turn back." Misato offered. A way out, but at this point I'd already gone too far. I'd survived too much that should have killed me. I wasn't religious, but there still had to be a reason for it.

Maybe I was born for this. "Natsu Ikari, Unit One. I'm ready, let's go."

She nodded at me from the other side of the holo comm and turned towards the command staff. "We're doing this. Unit One, launch!"

The G-forces pressed me down into the seat and into the catapult, it was like sitting through full hard burn in space, but with the added thrill of being fired through a metal tunnel cut into a planet. Lights passed by faster than I could count, and, in a moment--

My motion seemed to stop all at once, nearly lifting me out of my seat. In front of me, a few hundred yards, the blue robot lay against a broken building, trying to get up.

Across from her, the space monster, the Angel, was staring directly at me through that bony bird mask, two black voids for eyes and that rubbery, greenish skin.

"I've made a mistake."

 

[Pineapple]

Chapter 3:
Qu'est-ce que c'est?​

There was more to fear than pain, more to regret than failure. He said she'd die, but I hadn't considered myself. Some deep vestigial cave-man impulse demanded violent action, or, maybe that was a misattribution. I was trying to do the right thing or die trying.

Maybe, in deeper and darker places, I was driven by that other impulse, not the one that drives survival but might still make me someone's idea of a hero by the end of the day.

No, seeing Rei triggered something in me. Something deeper than insecurity and doubt. I could have done it for approval or… if there'd been more time, would I have said no? With training would I have tried to run?

Maybe, after time, Aoba's romantic notions of heroism and destiny would have gotten through to me anyway.

Maybe I was just trying to make up for--

"Natsu you have to move!"

A flash of movement caught my eyes at the last second. I'd gotten distracted by my thoughts, I'd missed the Angel's advance. Quick and alien steps that brought it right up to me, brought a sharp lethal bone-spike headed towards my face.

I raised my arms instinctively to shield myself, knowing they'd do nothing and being entirely unable to resist the impulse heedless of that fact. Fighting back tears that no-one could ever see while holding my pitiful arms up against something with that kind of power; I'd never imagined I'd die this way.

The crash rattled my teeth and my bones and despite every fear I'd had, I wasn't dead. Unit One's arms were crossed in front of its own face just like mine were crossed in front of mine. Neuro link. That's how it worked, or maybe it wasn't how it was supposed to work, but it did.

There were worse things to fear than the end; getting there without even trying topped the list. I'd faced worse things than this. This could kill me, but it couldn't make me want to die, and I'd already slain that demon.

I pushed the monster away and took a clumsy step back. It was like walking on stilts or… well therapy had a way of changing my balance, the way the hips work. I could get past the weird feedback, I had to. I had people counting on me, didn't I?

My stance was closer to drunken boxer than anything you'd see in a professional setting but it was the first thing that came to mind. The man I'd learned from wasn't the best fighter and he was far from the best teacher, but he knew the world would try to break me and he gave me what he could.

Elbows low, fists out in front. I snapped a sloppy right hook into that bone-beak and listened for the crack. The recoil made my hand hurt, so I switched to a quick jab from the left. Little hop to the left, to the right.

I felt a smirk creep onto my face. This was surprisingly smooth. There was a lag time, of course, and the replication of what I wanted to what I got was far from perfect but in a fist fight close was good enough. Everything was deceptively quiet, the footsteps, the punches were loud enough, but I couldn't hear the gears and servos that had to be powering this thing.

And into the rhythm, left, right. Hop to the left, right hook. I couldn't tell if I was actually doing anything to it, but fluid was coating Unit One's hands, so I was at least making it bleed. Another hard left and the faceplate cracked.

If I'd been looking anywhere, I might have missed the sudden bright star-flash in its eye. It certainly didn't miss me. I felt the flash of heat on my face and my vision turned into a void of white and gravity disappeared.

"Natsu! Natsu!" I heard the screaming through that holo link with the command center. It sounded like Misato.

It felt like my face was on fire, and for a second I could believe I was smelling it too. It was a few merciful seconds before I hit the ground and bounced in my seat. Vision returned from the edges, movement first.

"I'm not dead yet, Misato!" I yelled, knowing the open microphone would pick it up. "I can't see very good right now, but I'm not dead!"

I caught the dark flesh of the Angel, and then the pressure on my chest. Hands digging into the chest armor, trying to get to me. I reached out blindly with my left hand, grabbed onto something hard and squeezed down, pushed it away.

Still, the tearing sensation continued. Armor had to fail soon, it was too strong. We'd burned it with nuclear fire and it kept going. What was piss-poor boxing going to do?

I could make out the bony faceplate I was clutching in my left hand, and swung a hard punch with the right. One, two, three, four, five. Each hit harder than the last, as hard as I could. Pinned to the ground I couldn't do much else, and even less that it seemed to care about.

"Come on! Just die already!" I screamed at it, as if by pure force of will I could force it to obey me.

A loud explosion piped in through the audio system made me flinch; the hole that appeared in the Angel was more surprising. A second explosion rattled my eardrums and this time I saw the path that a white-hot tracer had carved through the air.

Not an explosion; cannon fire.

The Angel fell away from me and I pushed myself along the ground to open up some distance, still too shaken to try to stand. A third report sounded through the entry plug and I started to look around for the source.

I rolled my head back in the seat to look 'up' through the top of the plug and saw that blue unit from before, the one that they'd launched into the air after the Angel. It seemed damaged, with a few missing armor plates and a pretty substantial hydraulic leak on the left leg.

Even damaged it made shockingly little noise, only the impacts with the ground as it limped towards me seemed to make any real sound. The mean-looking rifle it was holding was definitely the louder of the pair.

Other than saving my life it ignored me completely and limped past me to the wounded Angel that lie bleeding on the ground. It would have almost seemed casual if not for the scale of it, Unit Zero pushed the muzzle of the rifle up against a red glassy sphere set into the monster's chest and pulled the trigger.

A flash was followed by the evaporation of the sphere, and the cessation of all activity from the creature that had only moments ago been trying kill me.

I'd come out to save Rei Ayanami, but it looked more like she'd saved me instead. I might have helped, but she still did more work than I had. She had the training, what was I compared to that?

She limped back over to me and the huge helmeted head with the single cycloptic eye looked down at me. It looked as banged up as the rest of the robot, leaking hydraulic fluid and missing sections of armor.

It was funny, though; the hydraulic fluid looked a lot like blood this close up. The way it dripped and pooled, the viscosity, seemed stickier than oil should be.

I pushed up off the ground and found my way back to my feet, or, back to Unit One's feet. The neuro link had a way of blending my perspective like that.

"Target has gone silent. We've confirmed the kill." That sounded like Aoba. I couldn't be sure because, at some point, the connection had gone 'sound only' which was probably for the best, reduction in distractions.

"Target is... silent. Roger." This was definitely a new voice, female, younger than Misato. Quieter. Her speech seemed strained, hitched. Like she was holding on by a thread. She was in pain.

Movement outside the Evangelion drew my attention, the blue robot dropped its rifle and took a step away from the Angel it had killed. The second step faltered and the damaged leg buckled. By the time I was able to think of doing anything it was already too late; Zero had fallen face down to the ground and had stopped moving.

"Misato, is she..?" I couldn't bring myself to finish the thought. I couldn't have failed that badly, could I?

"She's alive. We're starting the recovery process. Proceed to the recovery lift marked on your waypoint." She answered me back. It was a relief of a sort, but alive isn't the same as okay.

I wasn't going to leave her for someone else to come get, not while I was right there. You didn't leave people for someone else to help. That's not how we did it on Ganymede, and that's not how I was going to do it here.

I reached down and grabbed Rei's unit by the arms and hoisted it up into a fireman's carry. I might have been as weak as a child in this gravity, but Unit One wasn't. It was heavy, but it was an easier burden to bear than failure was. "I've got Unit Zero. Proceeding to waypoint."

xxx​

The shower had been mandatory, though a change of clothes would have taken too long. Clean hair was an acceptable enough compromise, with all of the breathing fluid washed out of my hair and rinsed off of the pilot suit.

The vacuum seal kept it from getting inside the suit, so I didn't have to worry about that, at least. I didn't smell funky at least, even if I was attracting glances from everyone that walked past.

I didn't like hospitals and I never had. Places full of the sick or dying, there was always such a negativity in the air. I'd spent enough heartache and physical pain in hospitals, and even if they'd finally taken me to the destination I'd been seeking, the road had been a long and rough one.

They probably wanted to debrief me, take me into a room off in the middle of no-where and sit me down and then agonize over every single detail of what had just happened. They'd nitpick and question-after-the-fact every move I'd made, why I didn't wait for instructions, why I blanked out at the beginning.

Why I didn't let them handle Rei's recovery; and for that I had more than enough to say.

It wasn't normally like me to force an issue, but I made it clear I wasn't going to leave my position next to the door until they finally let me see her, so I could see with my own eyes that she'd be okay. It was probably adrenaline from the fight, my blood was still hot from combat. Maybe it was whatever impulse risen in me when I'd first seen her in pain on that holo display.

And maybe, through all of this, I'd found a bond with Aoba. He'd helped me 'sneak out the back' so to speak, so that I could wait in the medical ward for Rei to wake up. She'd pushed herself too hard in that fight, and I'd made her push herself even harder when I'd failed to finish it.

I'd done my best, but that didn't make it okay. My best wasn't good enough and she'd still gotten hurt. At least, that's the self-flagellation that kept running through my mind.

So I stood, silent guardian, over her while she slept. Meter and a half of space-girl who could hardly hold herself up in full gravity. I wouldn't be able to do anything to anyone who tried to move me, but I'd probably earned the indulgence I was taking.

I had to know that I'd done enough, at least. I had to know it had been for something. I'd lost nothing, I had nothing to lose. My father was never going to love me and Ganymede would never really, really, be my home.

This place, these people, this would have to do. People who I'd never known before I'd killed Shinji Ikari.

And, maybe, I was putting too much weight on it, too much importance on one girl. I wasn't attracted to her, it wasn't lust, it was something I couldn't quite put my finger on. I was like a magnetic pull. She was important to me when she had no reason to be, when I'd never met her before.

A click behind me drew my attention and I whirled around on my heel, squeaked against the floor. A nurse a little taller than me, cute face, a little heavy set, was looking out of the room. "Natsu? She's awake. You can come in now."

 

[Pineapple]

Chapter 4:

in memoria​

The nurse stepped outside, privacy she said. She didn't want to be in the way. It wasn't a private room, of course. It was part of a larger ward that seemed to be empty, save for a curtained off corner. I wasn't sure that privacy, in this case, was necessarily better.

It came to the front of my mind that I was inferring familiarity based on my own reactions to seeing her. We'd never met, she didn't know me. I didn't know her either, except for the nagging feeling that something about her...

There were men's shoes under the edge of the curtain. Black slacks ending in black dress shoes. Didn't seem very much like a doctor would wear; the shoes looked like real cow leather. A visitor? Someone of importance.

After all, they'd been allowed in before anyone else, right?

Maybe her guardian, or someone else who cares about her? I pulled the corner of the curtain back, the nurse had sent me in after all.

The runners holding up the curtain made a sharp 'shiink' noise and the man turned quickly to look at me. Orange sunglasses, as before. Father. The air seemed to disappear from the room and my throat tightened up. There was a burning at the edge of my mind and the room--

My eyes fell on the girl in the hospital bed and for a moment the all of the colors desaturated into greyscale. She seemed... older. No, not even quite the same--

"So, have you picked out a name?"

The words forced themselves into my mind, the voice was familiar, but too young. Not... quite identifiable, too soft.

"If it's a boy, we'll name him Shinji. If it's a girl, Rei."

Knees buckled under me, I could smell, taste blood. Sort of an electric spike into my brain. I reached out for something, anything to stabilize me. My right hand found a glove and I grabbed on tight. The glove had a hand, was attached to an arm.

He was familiar. Hard yet caring eyes, a clean shaven face. He looked... confused. He grabbed onto my shoulder and helped me to a chair as the ground tried to come up to meet me.

We locked eyes and... another stabbing, burning sensation in my brain, he disappeared in static and all of the colors of the world came crashing back into me. His face changed, his eyes disappeared and were replaced by orange sunglasses, his clean shaven face replaced by a beard.

My eyes burned but not quite like crying. My face was wet, blood running down from my nose, I could taste it on my lips. Knees were still shaking.

He was still holding my hand.

Greyscale flashed in front of my eyes again, and he was younger. His mouth was moving, I couldn't make out the words. Couldn't read his lips.

The colored world and the greyscale world started to blend together, forced themselves on me at the same time, flashing back and forth between the young and the old. I felt my eyes rolling back, eyes closing. Couldn't breathe...

"Natsu!"

xxx​

"His guardian died during the blowout incident. His father is back on earth, but--"

"No, I understand. I'll take care of him. I'll keep him safe."

xxx​

My eyes opened effortlessly to the sight of a hospital room. A private room, rather than the shared intensive care unit that I'd visited Rei in. A white, unfamiliar ceiling. That had been happening a lot lately, at least in the places that I could even get sleep.

I'd had that dream again. Of all of my memories, that one was always as clear as the day it happened. That was the day that I started to find myself.

I shoved the sheet off of me. I had to look, I had to make sure that it hadn't all been a dream. It was... irrational, fearful, and yet...If I could so easily calm myself there was little reason not to do so.

Relief, everything was as I remembered. Anybody who didn't already know would never be able to tell. I tried, so hard, not to let doubts rule me. Still, once in a while, I had to make sure I really had woken up from the nightmare.

No longer trapped in a prison cell made of my own flesh, role playing at being normal. This was normal. I--

"Oh my! I'm sorry, I should have knocked!"

I jerked my head to the side at the same time that I pulled the sheet up over my chest. A surprisingly fluid movement, given the sudden and utter panic that drove it. There was a woman, short, but taller than me. "I uh... hello?"

She was blushing. "S-sorry! I ah, I was the one who gave you the implants? In the back of your head! Well, you were rejecting them so we had to give you an anti-rejection cocktail, you'll be fine now, of course!"

Her words came out at a mile a minute; fast, flustered, freaking out. She was definitely embarrassed. I could understand the sensation; I was feeling it myself. Questions about my own orientation aside, I was not promiscuous, nor exhibitionist… plugsuit notwithstanding. Modesty in all things.

I blinked slowly and pulled the sheets a little higher up, then waved with my free right hand. "Well, um, thank you for the medicine? I'm Natsu Ikari."

She stared blankly at me. I watched with some fascination as her eyes slowly blinked and her mouth worked up and down mutely, but only for a moment. She seemed like she might have been working trough any number of things she might say in response.

"I know." She finally decided on.

I swallowed and licked my bottom lip, "And you are…?"

"Imaybauki--" I could, if I had closed my eyes, have imagined her flailing about like some kind of moe anime character, from one of those slice of life shows.

"What?"

She shook her head and tried again. She was still… quite red. "Ibuki! Maya Ibuki, I'm one of the Evangelion systems technicians! I work under Doctor Akagi!" She was loud. Not so much yelling, but her voice kept rising in pitch and volume with each subsequent word.

If I pressed this too much further I wasn't sure if she'd burst or start whistling like a tea kettle. We needed a topic change. "So, what happens now?" I ventured. I couldn't help but feel like the fight hadn't been the hard part.

"Well, if you're feeling up to it, there are some people who'd like to see you, now that you're awake."

I perked up at that. People, for me? I guess the fame settled in pretty quickly after jumping into a giant robot.

"Who?"

She shook her head, "Sorry, for this it's probably better if you don't go into this with any expectations. We've got something for you to wear."

I dropped my head back down onto the pillow and I stared up at the ceiling. "Oh, okay."

xxx​

I could have believed that this was a move calculated to torture me. The clothing that I'd been provided was heavy and uncomfortable despite being perfectly tailored to my body; it almost had to be intentional. Lots of cotton, a dress uniform reminiscent of Mars Fleet, but in the beige that dominated the uniforms of Nerv staff.

A full Earth Gravity pulling down on me the entire time while I stood to be stared at by a panel of people was icing on the cake, so to speak.

At least it was a female uniform, leave no doubt in the minds of those who must surely have been confused as my father was.

Not that I'd been given a chance to speak. I'd spent the last fifteen minutes, and who even knew how many more, standing at attention while listening to men and women talk to each other about me as if I wasn't even there.

Not that they were there, just holographic projections, telepresence.

A man's voice finally broke over the din that everything had devolved into. The tone was a bit nasal, not quite shrill. Definitely an older gentleman. "Right, so, Natsu Ikari. I'm sure that this hasn't been the most pleasant experience for you, that is the unfortunate nature of proceedings like this. We've had understandable... misgivings about your appointment as a pilot in this program, given the... incomplete nature of your biographical records."

A woman's voice joined in, a bit deeper than the man but still distinctly feminine, perhaps smoker even. "With that being said, your performance, while not singularly effective, was nevertheless impressive when your lack of experience is taken into account. This ultimately fell in your favor. Despite your status, this panel has elected to approve your appointment to active duty Evangelion Pilot."

One by one, the telepresence projections faded away as the links were broken. First the deeper voiced woman, then the first man who'd spoken to me. Ten, six, two, then only a single projection remained,a this one with the face obscured.

"I trust," the unplaceable voice began, "That you will not let us down, Pilot Ikari. Your position represents significant investment, both tangible and intangible. You will succeed."

The spotlights that had been boiling me alive flickered out at the same moment the final projection ended. The room lights came up much more softly than the spots, and I was, for a moment, alone.

With my thoughts as my only company.

They didn't really seem to have needed me for the meeting, they didn't have me say a single word, only stared at me and dictated. They could have sent a letter, a message, even teleconference. There wasn't really a reason for the telepresence and the white hot spotlights.

At least, no reason other than proving to me that they could make me do it. Not that they needed to try. I'd flown across the solar system just because my father asked me to. Let my hope drive me into what was probably the stupidest thing I'd ever done.

Now I was bound to it. Even without the implants in my brain or the lack of money to get back to Ganymede, my own conscience wouldn't let me abandon people to their fate. Difficult, painful, terrifying experiences that I would have to go through because I was too stupid to fight for no.

"Career politicians have their own special place in hell... but at times like this we still have to play their games to get what we need. Sometimes it's unpleasant."

I spun around fast enough that my hair tangled up around my face for a moment. I'd recognized the voice in an instant; I'd heard it enough lately.

"Misato? You could have warned me!" I hissed out through a clenched jaw. Without the lights to keep me half-melted, the uniform was starting to stiffen.

She shook her head and stepped further into the room, "It wouldn't have done you any good, you'd just have had more time to worry about it. This was the best it could have gone."

"Going worse than that was an option? I almost melted!" Sure, maybe that wasn't the real risk but it was the most accessible one. Life off-world acclimated one to colder temperatures. Machinery worked better, less water was wasted through perspiration.

There were also hygiene implications and dear god I could feel everything starting to stick to my skin. No, calm down Natsu, there's a greater purpose, remember?

"They could have done this in the nude. That would most certainly have been worse," Misato sing-songed to me. Her shoulders lifted into a shrug and she tilted her head to the side. Helpless acceptance.

"You're messing with me. There's just no way." I shook my head almost violently, "You shouldn't tease like that!"

Her shoulders raised a little more, her lip curled down and her eyebrows raised, hands turned upright. Doubling down on it? Not even using her words with me? She was either committed to the tease or... No, it couldn't possibly be true.

Could it?

 

[Pineapple]

Chapter 5:

The New Normal​

"I would normally be surprised by something like this, but at this point it doesn't even really register." I said, mostly to break the silence, small talk was good, right? It wasn't like I knew that many people, and most of them were on Ganymede.

"Yeah I suppose that if you've spent your whole life in space a city like this would be pretty impressive, huh?" She answered with a soft smile and a shrug. The city was impressive. I'd seen most of it on the way down, and there rest after I'd come back up. More gravity than I liked but I could deal with it.

No, my concern was something else. "Misato, the car. Internal combustion? There isn't even automatic collision avoidance! Just seat-belts!" Natsu, calm it down girl. In, out, in, out; breathe. It's a stressful day, don't make it worse. Calm down...

"That may be true, but this car is a classic. Besides, you just fell from orbit, fought a monster, and had implant rejection. None of that killed you, so you should be fine," she explained before revving up the engine in the car and accelerating to even higher speeds.

But then, I'd gotten in voluntarily in the first place. It wasn't like I had anything else going on and she said she wanted me to see something. Something, how very descriptive, but then this was the woman who'd thrown me into hard vacuum so I felt like the safe choice was to just go with the flow and see what her end game was.

She needed me to pilot, that much was obvious, but in truth I couldn't have said no. An impossible choice to which the only possible answer is 'sure why not' because anything else gave you the kind of guilt that kept you up at night, right?

My father had been worse and better than I imagined he'd be. I could have put it up to the shock of me being different than he'd expected, or maybe he just needed me to act a certain way. Needed to push me into helping Rei.

But, now I'd do it again, and with that in mind the light posts and storefronts passing by the windows of a car that looked like it predated manned space flight weren't as much of a concern. Three hundred years ago everyone was driving these things and mankind still survived, right?

"You alright Natsu?"

I blinked and looked back to the driver. "What? Oh... Sorry, I was just thinking about things," I admitted. Lots of things, thinking about you, Misato. But then I would have done better to keep that to myself.

We all had our reasons, and I still had mine. I could let her have hers too.

And, I supposed that after a fashion I could understand some of the appeal of her car. Even as a passenger there was a certain engagement with something that had no computer assistance, no automation, something purely mechanical; iron, steel, and leather.

The smell of burning ethanol was familiar, even if the method in which it was burned was a new one. It had a certain realness to it, familiarity that grounded me into the moment. I was on Earth. I was in a car. I was with a woman who'd loaned me yet another skirt, yet another blouse, and yet another hair clip, yet another pair of heeled shoes.

If I hadn't lost everything on the station when it went up, I'd have had things more in line with my own style, though Misato's style had a way of ensuring there was no ambiguity in the perception strangers would have of me.

I was lucky enough that we were close enough to wear the same sizes, though her shirts were a little looser on me. That my bra hadn't been destroyed during my little space walk was a favor in this regard.

"Well, if you're done thinking about things, we're here, and we're just in time." She was smiling now, a true smile that seemed to radiate joy. Whatever this was, she was certainly excited about it.

The excitement was... infectious.

I heard her door open and I reached down to open my own. While I'd never ridden in a car before, the door controls were nothing if not entirely intuitive. The clicking 'thunk' of the lock bolt disengaging was perceptible through the door handle and then it popped open.

Pushing myself onto my feet was a little more awkward, as my own balance wasn't really well practiced on heels or a full Earth gravity. A few slight wobbles and what could very well have turned into a pulled muscle later, I was standing behind the open door, just like she was.

We were on the top of a hill, or maybe a mountain. My geology terminology wasn't exactly precise, we didn't have this kind of thing up there. In front of the car was a railing and then a sheer drop, but it gave us a complete view of the city below.

It was different seeing it here, from the ground and with my own two eyes instead of on a display screen inside of a falling spaceship. It was... beautiful, in a way. Not a natural beauty like you'd find in nature, but as a monument to what people could accomplish it was... something else.

"There aren't a whole lot of chances to see something like this, but today is special. On days like this, the city stays in low power so... you get a chance to see..." She paused and looked at her phone, "and now it's time."

The sun passed behind the mountains on the far side of the city and suddenly it was not the brightest object in the sky. Above us the orbital ring took over that role and the reflected light was prismatic. A full rainbow of color across the sky at the moment of sunset, reflected down at the dark city. Low power she'd said, so there was no light pollution to mess up the effect.

Something I could never have seen on Ganymede.

"I know this isn't what you were hoping for, Natsu. I'm sorry that it couldn't have been what you wanted it to be. I wanted you to see this because... I wanted you to see that it doesn't all have to be bad. Things can be beautiful and... and things like this are worth fighting for." She put her hand on my shoulder and squeezed.

"I was already going to stay and fight. I have to, right? If you can do something, you have to, don't you?" I asked her, I felt my throat tightening up, tears threatening to fall at the corners of my eyes. I was trapped in this, that's what it felt like. I'd trapped myself.

"I've felt that way before. Even if you'd told me before you'd already made up your mind, I would still have brought you here. Every day we fight, every bad day we have... well, those carry us on through to the good days, to good things like this." Her voice hitched, she had some human limits after all, it seemed. She just took a little longer for the facade to fall than I did.

I felt a smile pulling at the corner of my mouth. "Well, you're right, it wasn't what I wanted it to be. But it could have been worse. By my count you and Aoba saved my life twice. I suppose I'm lucky I met the two of you."

I heard a snicker and she squeezed my shoulder a little tighter before letting go. "I suppose this means you forgive me for the space walk?"

I turned to look at her as my grin split my face from ear to ear and shook my head, "Not for the rest of your life, Misato."

She sighed and stared down at the ground in faux-dejection, "Ah... I guess I'll have to carry that burden to my grave. I suppose I'll have to make it up to you. You're going to need a place to live while you're here, right?"

I narrowed my eyes, I sensed a scheme brewing under that purple hair. "I suppose so... I was going to try to rent close to the base I guess," I answered back.

She shook her head, "Nonsense! You can stay with me! After all, it's not like you know anyone else around here, right?"

Of course, there was my father, but somehow that felt like a non-starter. "I know Aoba and Ibuki."

She snickered, "Wow, you do work fast don't you, Natsu? I can't say either of them are a bad pick but don't you think you should go on a few dates before you try moving in with one of them?"

My cheeks turned red before I could come up with a retort, as she'd likely planned. "a-and you're any better, offering me to move in just like that, Misato!?"

She put her hand to her chest and pretended to be offended, because of course she would. "Who, me? I was just offering from the kindness deep in my heart. I thought we were close enough for that, Natsu. Just two good friends sharing an apartment! You wound me!"

I sighed, "Fine, you win. For now." Honestly, there were worse people to live with, and if she was offering... well, maybe it wouldn't cost me as much as I'd planned on spending?

"Great! We can go there now, it's not a long drive. And you don't have to worry, I'm not into girls. Well... There was that one time in college but that doesn't really count."

"I'm feeling better already."

xxx​

Just like that, I'd spoken too soon. The ride back was pleasant, I'd largely gotten over my hangups about the ancient mode of transportation, after all as she'd said, I'd survived worse.

I wasn't sure I would survive what lie before me. Take-out boxes and trash bags and clothing, endless clothing covered every possible surface, to such a degree that I couldn't be sure how much actual furniture was in the room and how much was just clothes draped over trash.

"This is just incredible, Misato."

She seemed embarrassed, if only slightly, by my statement. "Well, you see, I don't get to clean as much as I'd like, especially with having been in space recently and--"

I blinked. Slowly. This wasn't cleaning as much as she'd like? "The only way to clean something like this is explosive decompression. Just what kind of lifestyle are you inviting me into?"

"One where you're so grateful for my hospitality that you clean up this mess?" She asked in response. She took a step deeper into the mess and I heard a disposable cup crunch under her foot.

My right hand locked into a fist and I heard my wrist crack. I knew what she didn't know, that I wish I didn't know and wasn't bound by. I'd already accepted her offer of a place to live, and now that it was as much my home as hers I couldn't tolerate the messiness. I was not a compulsive cleaner but at this I felt like I might end up one.

Health and safety aside, I felt dirty even standing in the room, let alone living in it. No, she'd get a clean apartment, if only for my own peace of mind. I grit my teeth and relaxed my hand. This mess was going to take a lot of effort, and Earth gravity wasn't going to make it any easier.

"Alright, but you're helping. Recylers are going to get a work out tonight."

 

[Pineapple]

Chapter 6:

Chance Encounter​

"I really appreciate this. I... well I'm glad you're feeling better."

I felt awkward, of course. Rei was showing me Tokyo-3. Either Misato's idea, or else my father's. She carried herself well for someone who'd been in the hospital, but then I'd been there too. She wasn't as banged up as I would have feared, or at least she was hiding it well.

The moving walkways were at least somewhat similar to what I'd been used to on Ganymede, though the ones here were larger. They were a welcome respite from the gravity of walking on my own.

To look at the two of us on the street together, she was the pseudo-punky older sister; a few inches taller and hair that color of blue just had to come out of a bottle. What loudness her hair had was offset by the simple blue dress and black leggings. There was a certain style to it, or at least I thought so.

But then she'd probably been wearing dresses for a lot longer than I had been.

By comparison, I was wearing more borrowed clothing from Misato, though at least our figures were similar enough that I didn't look stupid in her denim skirt, and the jacket hid how poorly the top fit around my chest.

Rei turned towards me with the hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth, or maybe I was just seeing things. "Katsuragi believed that it would be good for you to see the city and for us to... 'bond'."

Her voice was definitely softer than mine, not devoid of feeling but instead using it only as absolutely necessary. There was a certain subtle elegance to it. Just like my--

"Bond? I guess that's one way of putting it. I... I... I..." I couldn't catch my stutter, it had been a problem growing up, when I was startled. The walkway had carried us past a row of perfectly round holes peppered in a wide arc through the cement of the road, and along the side of a building, before the trail ended on open sky.

I wasn't intimately familiar with the specs on the point defense guns on the Tengu, but those holes looked suspiciously like they were made by the guns I'd been firing during the descent. They'd not fixed them yet.

I felt Rei's hand touch my forearm. I looked up to see that she was holding her phone in her hand and looking at me. She looked concerned, though perhaps not sure how to help me. She shook her head "I've checked, there were no casualties in this section. The evacuation had completed before this area was damaged."

I felt like a weight was lifted. I closed my eyes for a moment to collect myself. "I didn't kill anyone?"

"You didn't kill anyone," she confirmed. That original touch didn't linger, but that didn't mean it wasn't appreciated. She didn't seem as adept at people as Misato was, but she'd been adept enough for me, at least.

She was the reason I had fought and her reassurances made me feel better about the decision I'd made to keep fighting. Every little bit would help.

I was eager for a topic change and the walkway had kept going, where to, only Rei might know, though the current answer to the question was 'uphill' which unfortunately meant I could only see about thirty meters ahead.

"You came here from Ganymede, correct?" She asked me as we neared the top of the rise. "Was there a topic of study that interested you before you came here?"

Before I came here. I'd already had plans before I came here, four months of study and if credits even could be transferred-- "I was studying exogeology. Asteroid mining seemed like the best way to see the solar system. Why?"

We both stepped off the end of the walkway, it seemed to terminate at the edge of a ring encircling a depression in which sat a small complex, three buildings and a courtyard. Actual physical stone stairs lead down into the bowl shaped depression within which the complex sat.

It looked like it was an old military complex from the martian independence war. Anything less than a direct hit wouldn't destroy the complex because it was being terrain masked with hundreds of meters of concrete on every side.

And being open air, there was nothing to collapse downward from the shock wave from an orbital kinetic strike; a 'rod from god' as they were called.

"The Old Hakone military complex, now re-purposed as University of Tokyo-3. I thought that taking classes may help you... bond, with the city." She explained in that soft, quiet tone I'd associated with her. So, that was where we were going.

"Does that help you?" I asked her as we started walking down the somewhat busy stairway. Gravity was helping me down, I imagined climbing back up was going to be much, much, worse.

"Yes."

I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes at her... brevity. I could tell this wasn't something she had to do very often and I knew that it wasn't something I did very often either. Humans were strange and difficult creatures.

The sharp hissing sound of metal against metal came from behind me and drew my attention immediately; memories of that bulkhead disappearing in front of me were still fresh in my mind from the station's destruction.

I whirled around with a sudden sense of urgency and panic in my movements, even though I knew it couldn't possibly be what my brain was telling me to be afraid of. A life spent inside of a pressurized habitat would do that.

Three people were wearing what looked like body armor; thick plates laid over what looked like artificial leather complete with helmets in the same shade of dark gray as the rest of the suit. The powered rollers in their boots were grinding down the handrails as they descended with the assistance of gravity and a lack of self preservation instinct.

Hyper-ballers. One of the few Earth sports that still translated well into low gravity. It wasn't something I really followed but I knew what it was, at least.

I took a step back as the first person slid past me and hurt my ears with the penetrating hissing sound given off by metal grinding against metal. When the second person passed I took another involuntary step and lost my footing.

The ground wasn't where I expected it and if I'd spent the last fourteen years on Earth I might have had the strength and balance to arrest my fall. Instead of saving myself, my arms pinwheeled as I toppled off of the step.

Too far gone to stop, I was going to bounce and slide across every step on the way down and break every bone in my body. A great way to paralyze myself and eat out of a tube for the rest of my hopefully short and miserable life.

The hissing increased in pitch and ended a moment before something hit me from the left side. My downward motion turned into lateral motion and I was carried sideways under the railing separating my path from the one next to it, and then I hit something a little softer than the ground and bounced.

Strong arms wrapped around me? The third person grinding the handrail had grabbed me before I hit the ground. He was under me as we slid down the stairs head first, his armor and body were taking every hit from the corners of each step until we finally hit the bottom.

I felt like my teeth had been rattled straight out of my head and I knew the guy who caught me couldn't feel better. I rolled off of him and got to my feet with a speed that only adrenaline could provide.

To my left, back up the stairs, Rei was a good twenty meters away and was staring at me. Scuff marks showed the path we'd taken at a diagonal from where Rei was standing, under the hand rail, and into and along the cement wall at the edge of the stairs, all the way down to the lower level.

I turned back to offer a hand up, for as much as I could really have helped, and instead was greeted with the sound of a grunt, and the man performing a kip-up maneuver to jump from his supine position back onto his feet. I guessed if he was athletic enough for everything else, that shouldn't have surprised me.

His helmet retracted and I could finally see his face and messy black hair. Probably about my own age, but a little darker in skin tone. "Hey sorry about that, you all right?"

"Oh... Yeah... I'm fine." I stammered out while I brushed some dirt off my skirt. I was shaking, adrenaline and no small measure of fear. Not of him but what his companions had nearly caused for me.

"Yeah... Sorry again. Didn't mean to scare you like that." He was rubbing the back of his head. Nervous? "A-anyway. Name's Touji Suzuhara," he finished, then extended his gloved hand.

So much bigger than mine.

I took the hand in as firm a handshake as I could really muster given the circumstances. "Natsu Ikari."

"Suzuhara." One word, the tone was, not exactly angry, but had a little more heat behind it than I was used to. The voice came from my left. How long did it take to cross twenty meters?

"Rei! I was just apologizing to your friend about--" Touji started with that same friendly tone he'd taken with me, completely oblivious to Rei's own tone or perhaps in spite of it.

"Being stupid and reckless and nearly causing injuries. It is appreciated. Are you here for Aida?" She drifted from chastisement to a maybe serious acceptance of the apology to her own question in the same level-toned breath. Efficient.

"Oh, yeah. Ken said to meet him here today, had some news for the team! We were supposed to be meeting up in the courtyard. The two of you could join us!"

Okay, definitely friendly. Eager, at least. Or maybe he was just as wired up from the incident as I was.

"I am certain Aida would approve of my presence. Regrettably, we have other plans. Ikari will be registering for classes." Rei droned at him with even less emotion and inflection than usual. There was something there, I was sure.

"Ah, another time I guess. Well, it's great to run into one of Rei's friends anyway. Here," he held up his phone and pointed it at me, and swiped. "If you need someone to show you around campus go ahead and get in touch!"

My pocket beeped. A contact request. How forward. Not that I was complaining exactly.

"I am capable of assisting Ikari in this regard, Suzuhara." Rei protested with a slight frown. Definitely something there.

"Yeah but I know all the fun places. Catch up with you later, Natsu!" he said with a laugh before his helmet deployed back around his head and he sped off along the walkway.

I stared after him, blinking for a few moments, before I turned to Rei. "Is that typical of people on Earth?"

"No."

"And for him?" I probed further.

"Yes."

 

[Pineapple]

Chapter 7:

Duet​

Even holding myself up was, at times, a challenge. I couldn't keep living that way, not with what was at stake and certainly not with what my life had become. I had to be more than a girl collapsing under her own weight and being saved by strapping young lads in athletic armor.

Even if they did put a flutter into my heart and a spring into my step.

The problem was my strength, not my durability. Years of hormone therapy and low gravity living would have fried my skeleton if not for the years I also spent receiving bone density therapy. I could have opted, as well, for strength therapy, if I'd ever actually planned on returning to the Earth.

I had not. Maybe Mars, but Earth was... not what it used to be.

Running shoes, elastic shorts, and a tank top that fit. I could do this, with dignity even. One foot in front of the other, push off, then switch and repeat. I'd been doing it my entire life, I just wasn't as heavy back then.

I could force myself to do it, through the pain, and so I would. One step, two steps, three, four, five. My muscles started to burn almost immediately but I forced myself to speed up. The track was soft, reclaimed rubber. Low impact.

Music, music helped, the earbuds were secured and blocked out everything except the upbeat guitar riffs of some rocker from the late nineteen hundreds. It was motivation and a distraction, something to point my mind at other than the not-quite-enough oxygen in my lungs and the too much weight on my thighs.

One, two, three, four, five. Repeat. Faster this time. Fewer seconds between the beats. I could feel the air against my face, my hair fluttering gently behind me. Lean forward, head down some, one, two, three, four, five.

Next song came on, more percussion, drums, fast tempo. I pushed off harder, added more speed. Lungs burning, legs burning, knees aching, body felt like it was going to fall apart but under it there was something pushing me along, keeping me going because I had to do this.

Get my legs under me, for real. Keep them there, get faster, get stronger. Maybe I couldn't run the whole track, but there was no reason I couldn't run ten meters, and then the ten after that. Just ten more. One, two, three, four, five.

To my left, I could catch a lock of blue hair drifting in and out of my peripheral vision. Rei Ayanami? It would make sense that she would use this track, given it's location at Nerv. I would have thought that she would be more interested in resting for recovery, but then maybe she had something to work for as well.

I pushed myself harder, through the cramp that was threatening to crop up in my right leg. I tried to, anyway. One, two, three-- my leg locked up and I tumbled down and to the side, rolled and ended up face down on the rubberized circuit around the gym.

I had enough time to feel the wind knocked from my lungs and then I was back on my feet, awkwardly hanging by the back of my shirt from someone's hand. A glance told me it was Rei's hand. Her grip relaxed as I found my footing. She was definitely stronger than she looked, but then I was lighter than I looked, too.

"Th-thanks for that." I stuttered out.

"It is not a problem. You will be more successful if you remain on your feet." She answered simply, directly, bluntly.

She wasn't wrong. "Well... thanks all the same."

I walked in a lazy circle, limping my way through the muscle cramp and the bruising from my fall onto the floor. I hadn't broken the skin, but that was only a small favor in light of the aches that started to make themselves known throughout my body.

But I'd get over it, eventually. I had to, right?

She nodded at me, though I still wasn't familiar enough with her to read the subtle expression on her face. At least, not at first. Soon enough her expression shifted to a slight frown.

And then the alarms started.

xxx​

It wasn't that it felt old-hat, more that even in this short time it had come to feel familiar, comforting if not quite comfortable. It was a difficult sentiment to wrap my head around but it biased towards pleasant more than to the alternative.

But, I had made the real decision a week before. Maybe not in the same words, but the same sentiment that I held as I sat once ahead in that entry plug, wearing that skin tight suit of rubberized something; I've lived my life as a coward. Now is the time to be brave.

And I might have even believed it. I might not have believed it if I'd been given enough time to actually get properly scared. As it was, being inside of the entry plug and linked with the Evangelion through implants inside of my brain made me feel a sort of calm mania.

Like I was in the warm, loving embrace of an armed nuclear warhead.

I'd need that if I was going out alone.

"Sync holding stable at seventy-five. Final crosschecks complete. Transferring Unit One to the linear accelerator."

The plug jostled around me, a brief backwards jolt followed by the subtle rumbling of the whole carriage I was standing on rolling back on geared rails. It was one of those thing I hadn't had time to think about before; The facility they built to house and deploy the Evangelion was even more impressive a feat than the robot had been.

All she'd said in the briefing was "There's an Angel, we need you to kill it." and some apology about wishing they'd had more time for training, they hadn't expected it to happen this quickly. A week, one that we'd spent cleaning out an apartment and not training in how to kill space monsters.

But it would be nothing I couldn't handle with piss-poor boxing and a machine gun. If it was then I was in a lot worse trouble than I'd been last time, because I didn't have Rei to save me.

Maybe I did have enough time to get myself scared, after all.

The carriage rumbled to a halt against the back wall of one of the launch tubes, the 'linear accelerator', or so I assumed. I gripped the controls tight because it wouldn't be long now.

"Natsu, we're firing the catapult, once you're on the surface a weapon will be provided. Get ready! Launch!"

I might have gotten something that started out with 'wait' out before the g-forces hit me, but even that was soon lost to the roaring of the Evangelion tearing upwards along the launch rails. And then, maybe the roaring was my own panicked scream.

Now was the time to be brave.

The platform locked in place at the top of the accelerator rails and for a moment I was weightless in my seat. The controls loosened up, I was free.

"Natsu, lock bolts are retracted. We're sending you an automatic rifle, look to your right."

I looked down and to the right, the butt stock of a machine gun was sticking out of the street at around hip level and I reached for it. "Roger that, Misato. I've got it."

"Good, the enemy is right in front of you, distance is two thousand meters, he'll be coming over the hill in just a minute."

"Got it!" I yelled over the sound of the blood rushing to my ears. I snapped the machine gun up to my shoulder and lined the sights up on the rise in the hill at the far end of the street. Two kilometers, but from my vantage it looked more like two hundred meters.

And the great slippery-looking tentacle monster that came over the rise looked the size of a man, but I knew better and that made me afraid. My finger slapped down on the trigger and the gun rocked against my shoulder, projectiles bigger than my entire body rocketed at supersonic velocity across the gap between us and threw up smoke and debris.

"You hid it with your smoke! Move!"

I twisted to my left and dropped the empty machine gun in the same movement. The electric-pink tentacle that cut through where I'd been standing took out the machine gun, but missed me. The section of building that came next struck true, however, and sent me reeling.

I took a knee to stop my backslide and tried to get up to charge in close, put some of that terrible boxing to use. I was half way up when another tentacle lashed out to grab my left ankle and threw me through the air at high speed.

I tried to right myself, but a cat I was not. I went shoulder first through a building and rolled through the air. A black speck dropped along with the grey concrete debris and I instinctively reached out to grab it from the air.

A moment later I was on my back and my head bounced off the headrest, I'd crashed against a mountainside and leveled half the forest in my crash. The alarms screaming through the plug were less concerning than what was in my right hand: a human being.

A human being wearing one of those hyperball suits like Touji had been wearing, though this one had a camera on the helmet. There was no safe place for him out here on this battlefield. He was lucky enough he'd been caught, but I couldn't even fathom what had possessed me to do that in the first place.

"Crap. Natsu, let him into the entry plug. There's no time to get him to safety." Misato's voice had the calm resignation of someone who knew they had just made a decision they'd have to pay for later.

Given the Angel's distance I guessed I had maybe fifteen seconds, it would have to be long enough. I tapped out the sequence into the left control stick, a command set that I'd learned before anything else. Not because I wanted to run away, or anything.

The emergency lighting came up and the holographic projection shut down, the clunk behind me told me that the hatch was open. The muffled yelling through the loudspeakers told me he was being given commands.

The splash told me he was behind me and inside the plug. A quick tap on the stick reversed the sequence and within moments the tickle in my brain was back and miss atomic bomb gave me her warm hug once again.

There was something else tickling at my brain too, but I pushed it out of my mind, for the time being.

"Thanks for grabbing me, would have really sucked to get splatted on the-- Natsu?" A male voice definitely. Younger, familiar. He knew my name.

I spared a glance and, with his helmet retracted, I could see his face. "Touji!?" I asked incredulously. Of all the people I could have possibly run into--

"You should probably do something about that."

I snapped my head back around and reached out to grab the tentacle headed towards my face. The thing burned like fire and electricity and I could feel the skin on my left hand blistering under the assault. My right fist reached back and then drew forward, colliding with the rubbery surface of the monster's main body with a thunderous 'tump' that sent the creature flying back down the mountain.

And that gave me the opportunity to roll forward and back onto my feet and charge down the mountain after it. Like he'd said, I should do something about that.

The right hook was sloppy and wide but it was going to hit like an orbital drop. I twisted around, threw my weight behind the swing--

Sky filled the front of the entry plug, then ground, then sky, then I hit the ground head first and flopped onto my back, slid, and rolled back onto my feet in a low crouch. The latter was more luck than any skill, but I'd take it.

I felt a hand on my shoulder. "You're not real good at this. Do you know how to fight?"

I shook my head. "I do not. I thought I could use piss-poor boxing and machine guns."

He made a humming sound and then took a few steps forward, past my seat on the control sled. He climbed up onto the end of the sled and his feet clacked down against it, magnetic locks in his hyperball gear probably.

"I can't drive this thing, but I do know how to win a fight. Get back into it and copy everything I do." His arms were loose at his sides, his feet shoulder width apart on the front of the sled. He'd been in a fight before, there wasn't a hyperballer who hadn't, but his stance was confident enough that I knew he'd won those fights.

I'd take any help I could get.

I slid the twin control sticks forward to the runner blocks and leaned forward; Unit One lurched into a sprint and Touji raised his fists. The 'something else' that had been tickling at my brain grew stronger and I embraced it on impulse.

Left, right, duck, right, left. I mirrored his movements almost before he made them and we pushed closer in on our foe. Block with the left forearm, thrust with the right. Grab the tentacles, knee to the chest.

It wasn't perfect, but it was more than I'd been doing on my own; I was holding my own ground. More than that, it felt easy. It felt like I'd been doing this for years.

"Natsu, you have to break the core. There's a knife in the right shoulder compartment, use it!" Misato again. She sounded happier, letting Touji into the plug was apparently not a bad idea after all. At least, one she could probably defend.

Touji's hand went up at the same time mine did and I drew across with my left hand and brought the blade up in front in a knife-fighter's stance. I had the feeling that it would be over very soon, one way or another.

We dove under a swipe from the left tentacle and blocked the right with an upward swipe with our right arm. Thrust forward with our left, the tip of the knife sparked against the red sphere set into the monster's chest--

Touji faltered an instant before I began to scream. My lungs were on fire, like I'd been stabbed through with a hot steel spike on both sides of my back. I couldn't push through, I felt the Evangelion slipping away from me, losing control--

I felt hands wrap around my own, a shoulder against me and a voice in my ear. "Come on Natsu, we're almost there. Game point, let's do it!"

Touji's voice started to bring me back, push that pain down. That wasn't me, that was Evangelion that had been wounded. The sensation of touch had to work even for the really nasty things. It still burned but it lost some of the reality.

The tip of the knife was still sparking against the glassy red sphere. Both of the tentacles had impaled me from behind, so they were trapped, it couldn't stop me. I pushed on the control stick and my right arm wrapped around the monster and pulled it close.

My left hand pushed the knife forward all the way to the hilt.

There was a sudden and intense heat in my chest, and then a moment later it was gone and the tentacles had winked out of existence. The monster itself slumped down against me, like I was holding up a drunk friend on the way back to his apartment.

But it was over, and nothing had exploded.

"So," Touji started. "I have questions."

"Imagine that, so do I." Misato's voice added from the link we had to the command center.

I leaned back against the control seat and let go of the controls, let my eyes slide closed. The pain had lessened from what it was, but it was still there. Nothing worth staying awake for, with how very exhausted piloting for even that short period of time had left me feeling.

Damn gravity.

 

[Pineapple]

Chapter 8:

Natsu Fried Rice​

The video was actually pretty high quality. I was able to watch Unit One, and by extension myself, fighting the Angel from the vantage point of the rooftops of some of the city's taller buildings. The frame of reference kept moving, bobbing and weaving and skipping from rooftop to rooftop.

The whip crack that took me from my feet was deafening, but somehow when it had been happening I'd not noticed. Too much else to worry about, I supposed.

Unit One flew through the air towards the point of view of the camera, and then the video went into slow motion, though I wasn't sure if that was something that had been part of the upload or just for effect now.

The building below the camera's point of view exploded upwards as I crashed through it and the camera went airborne. A purple hand reached through the dust and electrical sparks and wrapped around the camera and everything went dark.

I'd caught him, of course I had, but I hadn't really given much thought to the why. I couldn't have known it was a person, all I saw was a spec of black but I reached out for it and didn't crush it. Was it a simple whim or was it something else? In all of that confusion and debris I reached out for the one thing that was a human being.

And it was one I knew.

I realized I'd stopped paying attention and blinked in surprise at the image of my own face on the recording. It wasn't something I was used to seeing from the other side.

"We pulled this stream right after the fight. Five billion views, and it's made it into the off-world network. Suffice to say the secret's out. Everyone knows who Natsu is." Misato let out a sigh that spoke volumes more than her tone about how she felt.

"Woah five billion views? This is the best day of my life! Kensuke isn't goint to believe this." Touji was actually laughing to himself. Of course he was, he was that kind of guy, wasn't he?

But then there was definitely more to him. When we were fighting I could feel that much.

I looked down at the tablet in my hand. The video was there as well as on the projection, but I could see the comment feed. The usual banter dominated the feed but a few--

"Oh come on there's nothing uneducated about the Ganymedian accent!" I yelled at the screen as I tossed it hard against the tabletop in front of me. My appetite for gossip evaporated in an instant.

"I'm glad you both have such strong opinions on this massive breach in infosec, but we've got to fix this situation so as I see it we can kill two birds with one stone." Misato started with a hard edge to her voice. She clearly hadn't liked our reactions.

But then, how was I supposed to react to it? This was all pretty new to me, near deaths and all, so it wasn't like I had a real benchmark for what was 'okay' as it pertained to Nerv and Evangelion. She'd been at this for years but this was my first job.

As first jobs went, I felt like I could have done better.

"Are you killing both of us?" Touji asked with a blank look and flat tone that I couldn't quite figure out the authenticity of. Either he was playing dumb or, well, I wasn't quite sure.

The smirk that curled onto Misato's mouth was the thing of nightmares. The smug satisfaction that it bore was one that could never mean anything pleasant, at least nothing she thought would be pleasant. It was the smirk that someone put on right before they twisted the knife.

"Touji Suzuhara," She began in an almost sing-song voice, "You work for us now, which means we own you now. Which means if anything else like this happens again you will not enjoy yourself. Clear? Good!"

I found the courage to speak up when she stopped. "That's one bird, what's the second bird?"

Touji seemed a bit less chill after the revelation of his involuntary employment. "That... is something I would like to know as well."

Misato frowned and shrugged her shoulders. "You're going to have to teach Natsu how to throw a punch, because she's really bad at it."

"You know, you're being awfully unpleasant about this when you're the one who told me to let him inside the plug in the first place. He didn't really do anything wrong," I found myself saying despite my every instinct to shut the hell up before it was too late.

It wasn't the kind of thing that I did. It was the kind of thing that Touji would do.

She shrugged dismissively at me and pointed towards the door. "Then you can probably imagine how bad of a dressing down I got for it. We're done here, get out."

I shook my head in exasperation and pushed away from the desk and stood from my chair. The aggressive movement took a lot out of me but the fear, anger, and distrust was enough to keep me going.

I didn't turn back until I was in the hallway, and even then just to see that Touji had followed me, still dressed in his movement rig. They were air tight, he was still probably clean inside, just as I was inside my plugsuit.

A plugsuit I'd fortunately, at least, been able to take off. I would have liked to have had my own clothes, but borrowing that blue dress from Rei was the best I'd been able to do on absolutely zero notice at Nerv headquarters.

"What a bitch." He muttered under his breath as he pulled the door shut behind him. She probably heard him, he didn't seem to care. If he did care, he wasn't showing it.

"First time we met was on a transfer station in low orbit. Angel attacked it and Misato threw me into hard vacuum without a suit." I licked my lip then turned and smirked at him, "You got off easy, no?"

"You crashed through a building I was standing on and I almost died. That's actually pretty even isn't it?"

That was worth considering. On the one hand, he could still breath. On the other hand, he lacked the ability to fly.

"That's fair."

"Actually," he shrugged and cocked his head, "we could make it fair. You could make it up to me by letting me buy you a nice dinner. You might not have heard but I've got a job now."

I rubbed my chin in mock thought, "You know, I think I heard about that. Your boss is kind of a bitch, right?"

"Yeah! That's the one! So how about it? You don't even have to change your clothes."

The grin was infectious, but his proposal was one I'd been thinking about for a while, if not actively waiting for. I would have said yes without the ultimatum, but I didn't need to let him know that.

"You're going to have to change yours. Not going on a date with a guy in power armor."

He frowned, "It's not power armor, it's a mobility enhancing athletic--"

"Power tool." I narrowed my eyes at him in the kind of intimidating look that only someone ten and change centimeters shorter than him could accomplish.

"Yeah, I'll change. I'll send you the address, give me... an hour and a half?"

He didn't wait for a response, just turned and took off in the opposite direction at a half-run. He made it about twelve meters before he stopped and ran past me in the other direction.

"Exit's this way. Hour and a half, be there, be cute!"

***​

He'd just had to say it. 'Be cute.' A throwaway line, he probably thought he was being clever. What is insecurity? I think her name is Natsu.

Subtle makeup, a little perfume. Leggings. Deoderant? Another shower, do it all over again. By the time I'd gotten ready to go I had forty minutes to get to the restaurant and I was fifty minutes away by foot.

But that's what money was for, it was twenty minutes by auto-taxi and I could get one in fifteen minutes. Cutting it close, but I could make it. I did make it.

Why did I care about making a good impression at a date I was basically guilted into going on?

Right, I was actually looking forward to it. Maybe it was just the thrill of actually being asked.

In any case, the fifty minutes of effort put into making my hair and my face and my scent just-so-perfect that they looked like I hadn't put effort into them had paid off. I hoped that it paid off.

I'd been seated first, he hadn't arrived yet, but then he had five more minutes to go, right?

And so I sipped at a glass of reverse osmosis filtered spring water and stared into a menu of more combinations and variations of sushi and sashimi than I even knew existed. Tuna, scalmon, shrimp, a different kind of tuna, swordfish? My mind evoked an image of a big blue fish with a fencing foil sticking out of its face.

It wasn't that we didn't have restaurants on Ganymede, it was just that we didn't have fish on Ganymede. Actual real honest-to-goodness meat did happen, but it was dried or canned or salted or preserved in some way that didn't really convey a sense of freshness. Fish was right out, except for a can of tuna that I'd had as a child and that...

Well I hoped that wasn't indicative of what I was in for. But then Touji was paying, wasn't he? He could foot the bill for a bad experience. There was nothing worse than paying good money for bad food.

I heard the chime of the bells on the restaurant door and I fidgeted in my seat, clicked my shoes together nervously and agonized, briefly, over whether white had been the correct choice or if he would have preferred black leggings to go with my borrowed blue dress.

To look at, not that he'd be taking them off of me, unless--

"Natsu, you look... wow."

He was wearing dress slacks, an untucked white button down shirt and a jacket. No Tie. The look suited him. His words suited me. Not to completely alleviate my anxiety but to temper it a little.

I needed to say something. A smile and a blush was an answer but I could do better. "You look nice too."

He sat down and while I was definitely still blushing his own cheeks had a tinge of their own. A diversion was in order. Small talk, right?

"You know, I've never actually had sushi before. Not a lot of fish once you get past mars, you know?" It was a brilliant tactic; bore him with meaningless details.

"I hadn't actually had sushi either until Ken told me about this place. I try to make it at least once a week for the lunch special. Lean healthy proteins. It tastes pretty good too."

So maybe not that boring after all.

"Do you have any suggestions? I think about the only fish I've had was canned tuna..." And like that, I felt the eyes boring into me. Glances from the staff, other patrons. If the accent hadn't given me away by itself, my inexperience sealed the deal.

Outer system provincial space-hick.

Not that Touji seemed to mind, and so I just let myself lose myself in his eyes, his mouth. The way his messy hair framed his face and somehow made it look like it was all on purpose and planned. Like there'd been a rhyme or a reason to it and it wasn't just lucky laziness.

But it added to his charm.

"Natsu?"

I blinked and sat back in my chair a little. He was looking at me with concern, but I'd lost the interest of the other patrons. They'd probably found some other vapid indulgence--

Right. "Sorry, I kinda lost track of myself for a second there. Did you order?"

He nodded. "I thought that it was a special enough occasion, considering what we've gone through. Plus it's your first time having sushi so that's pretty special too. I thought that I'd spring for the chūtoro."

I felt another blush creeping up and I was sure he already noticed it. "Is it that special of an occasion though?"

Aside from him discovering that I piloted a giant robot, of course.

"Well, to tell the truth I've wanted to ask you to come here with me since we met... this just seemed like the best opportunity to get you to say yes." Now, it seemed it was his turn to redden in the cheeks.

"To tell you the truth I wish you'd asked me sooner."

He coughed, quietly, and tilted his head. He hadn't been expecting that answer. I was surprised I'd been brave enough to say it.

"I won't wait so long to ask you next time."

Smooth.

But then I couldn't say it didn't work.

"Thinking about next time already? We're not even through with tonight yet."

This time his lip curled into a smirk, because he knew he had me. Of course, I wanted him to have me, so it was easy for him.

"The night isn't really over until the sun comes up. There's a lot we can do between now and then."

 

[Pineapple]

Chapter 9:

Natsu Fast​

After dinner, I would have expected the night to end on a kiss. I was certainly enthusiastic about the idea and when it happened I couldn't have imagined it better than it was.

But I found that that was not the end of the night, just the end of the beginning. The restaurant took us only an hour, and as he'd told me, there was a lot of time before the sunrise and a lot for us to do, together.

Dinner, then arcade, then a walk through the park. The latter being a pretext for showing me 'where it all began.'

The night air was cooler than the daytime, but warmer than I was used to. I was thankful to be wearing such a light dress and thin leggings. It breathed, and so the humidity didn't kill me.

Given the chance, I'd have killed the humidity.

The skating equipment near the far end of the forested park was as I imagined such things to be, based on my own limited experience with the hobby. Completely unlike the fully enclosed and often completely spherical hyperballing arenas, this was more open-air and had ramps and what looked like empty concrete swimming pools.

Not that we'd had any of those on Ganymede, we still had pictures.

"What are we doing here? Are you going to show off for me?" I asked with a laugh. It was a good enough night that I could suffer through it, if that was his plan.

"I wanted to share something with you. This is where I first started out. Before I played the game, before I even thought about it, I learned how to use a skate rig here." He explained as he drew closer.

I nodded along with his story. I was happy for him that he had a place with good memories attached to it, but I wasn't entirely sure what all we could do with a skate park while we were in dress shoes.

He put his arm around me and pulled me in, I leaned up on tip-toe and his lips met mine for the second time. It was something I could get used to; romance and appreciation.

All too soon, he broke away. "Do you trust me? There's something I'd like to try, with you."

I didn't have the words, it was all so sudden, but then... well I'd come along, hadn't I? I wanted... whatever this was. I nodded and gave him a smile.

His right hand slipped past the hem of my dress, around my leg, and he reached all the way to the small of my back. I briefly considered the idea that I'd just given him permission to grope me in public and my face was bright enough to glow, were anyone watching.

Instead, I felt the gentlest pinching sensation against my skin and then the pressure of what felt like metal fingers creeping down my thighs, my calves, and finally my feet. The metal pressed against my skin, but not uncomfortably so. Other fingers of metal seemed to wrap around my legs and further secure themselves.

"What--"

"It's a training rig," He explained as his hand left my dress. "Normally we would use it as a stability assist skate-rig to get someone into the sport. People who come down from low-g sometimes use them to... well, it's not going to make you stronger, but you won't get tired as easily. And when you attach the magnetically coupled wheels..." He trailed off with a grin.

I cocked my head at him, but he kept grinning. His hand moved, I heard two distinctly metallic 'clunk' sounds at my feet and looked down in time to see two metal discs the size of dinner plates 'couple' themselves to my ankles.

My feet left the ground and my arms started wind-milling on instinct to try to re-balance so that I didn't fall down. I needn't have bothered, he reached out and grabbed me by the waist to steady me. "What the hell, Touji!"

"Oh come on, it'll be fun! You said you trusted me right? Just give yourself a minute to adjust. It's tied to the angle of your foot. Lean forward for forward, lean backwards to go backwards. Give yourself a chance to learn, the wheels will do their best to stay under you so you don't fall down, okay?"

His tone was soft, caring. Maybe understanding.

"Fine, fine..." I muttered as he relaxed his grip on me. My legs felt like they wanted to shoot apart and drop me straight to the ground but, it was as he said; the wheels wanted to stay under me. If I didn't fight them, they would stay there.

Didn't stop my legs from shaking.

"The rig will work under your clothes too, so nobody has to know it's there. If you don't attach the wheels it'll just keep you from getting tired out while you get used to gravity." He explained as he attached a set of wheels to his own shoes. Apparently he was wearing a similar rig even though I told him to leave the hyperballing stuff at home.

"Still being a power tool, eh Touji?" I joked as I experimented with rolling backwards and forwards without falling down.

Other than the fact that my body was screaming at me the entire time that I was going to fall down and die it was actually kind of enjoyable. I could feel the rig supporting some of my weight, it was almost like being back in space.

"The smile on your face tells me that you like it when I'm being a 'power tool', Miss Natsu." And there was that roguish grin again.

I could feel the smile on my face, so there was no denying his point. I switched the angles of my feet and spun around in place and my dress flared out a bit. Maybe it was fun. "Okay, that's fair. You may have a point Mister Suzuhara." I answered back in mock-formality.

He rolled close to me and put his hand on my waist again. "You know, I've never learned to dance. At least, not like people usually do. I feel like what I can do on wheels is the way I express myself, you know? Maybe that's my kind of dancing."

He lifted me and spun around in place before setting me back down and leaning in for another quick kiss. It was something I was definitely okay with more of. "What are you trying to say, exactly?" I asked with a decidedly satisfied smile.

"I'm asking, would you like to dance?"

"I would love to."

And so he took me in his arms again, and we danced, the way that he danced, through the park. We spun and twirled and glided through the deserted streets, through the street lights and then through the star lights.

In the end, as the sun came up and shone through the windows of his apartment, he finally did get to take my leggings off.

And we danced.

 

[Pineapple]

Chapter 10:

rwx​

It was past noon before I passed the threshold to his front door and even by then I was still on top of the world. A spring in my step to a skip, one, two, three, down the sidewalk. Better than I could have hoped for and more than I could have asked, it was in a word: amazing.

I needed some real sleep and a change of clothes and a long hot bath but messed up hair and dirty clothes could wait in the face of two earbuds, one playlist, and metal fingers wrapped around my legs powerful enough to let me dance.

Solo, vertical, down the sidewalk.

So I stood out, I didn't conform? I saved this city, that was enough to grant me whatever I wanted, if what I wanted was to press play and walk to the sound of my own drum, could they stop me?

They could not.

I felt weightless, the heady feeling of freedom that he'd given me, both of the soul and the body. I could walk and step and run and jump and dance and gravity couldn't pull me down. Obligation couldn't dampen my mood.

I'd have to apologize to Rei, but she wasn't getting her dress back. It had stayed on at first, and then it hadn't. Then it had, and then... she would be compensated, but I was going to keep it. It might have been a party-foul, but the night had gotten away from me in all of the right ways and she would just have to deal with the consequences of my actions.

It was selfish but I felt entitled to moments of selfishness, at least once in a while. On days like today.

Misato was sure to be angry with me. I hadn't told her I'd be out all night, but then I hadn't planned for it. Spending the whole night with some boy, until dawn? It was nothing I'd ever done before but as firsts went it definitely could have been worse.

I would see him again, and again, and again, for as long as he'd have me. And if he didn't ask me out? I'd have to ask him.

The music cut out abruptly and a call came in right after. I knew who it was, because there was no one else it could be, looking for me. She could rain on my parade today, just like she had yesterday. But that steam had been worked off, so she was dealing with a different--

"Ikari, this is Ayanami. Captain Katsuragi instructed me to inform you that there will be testing in one hour at headquarters."

It was not who I expected. Rei was the second most pleasant surprise the phone call could have been, right behind Touji asking me to come back over--

"Thanks for the message, Rei. How is the... temperature over there right now?" I ventured with the expectation that I'd get a bad answer. It helped to have realistic expectations.

"About yesterday? The captain is still pissed off. Not as much as before. I am confident you will survive the encounter."

Something about the way she delivered the news made the corner of my mouth pull up, just a little, despite the contents of said news. "Thank you, Rei."

"Ikari... Did the dress provide you with... what you were looking for?" Her voice was not as passive this time, though I couldn't really put my finger on what was different about it. Her intention was clear enough, however.

"It did. I'll tell you about it later, after the tests."

"That will be acceptable."

***​

Testing. It could have been, combat, compatibility, endurance, all of those possibilities crossed my mind. The reality that I faced ended up falling at some point along a straight line between 'patience' and 'sanity.' It was the fifth consecutive hour of synchronization that sealed the deal on that.

"Misato, how much longer?" I asked, though it felt like I was screaming into the void for all the good it did.

"As long as it takes," she answered, using the same words she'd used the last five times I'd asked.

That was fine. I was just bored out of my mind and developing a headache while sitting in the cockpit of the most destructive force in the city, if not on the planet. But as long as it takes was a fine answer. I'd had a great night, after all. I was sore, but it was the good kind and if I thought about that instead, it wasn't so bad.

Except when it was.

I looked to my left, the other comm window; Rei Ayanami.

"Hey Rei."

"Yes?"

"I spy something... blue."

"The wall."

"No."

"My hair."

"Yes."

That hadn't taken long. I drummed out a beat on the control sticks with my fingertips and... waited. Sat back in the seat and cycled through readouts that fed me telemetry I didn't care about and probably never would.

I sighed, again looked to the left. "Hey Rei."

Our eyes met, she said nothing. Her lips didn't move, her face didn't show any sign of reaction at all. I studied her for any sign at all that she'd heard me and... I found none. Just blue hair, red eyes, and white plugsuit.

She wasn't even blinking.

But then I did.

"I win."

I thought I might have detected a smile on her face, or at least what passed for a smile from Rei. I'd seen it before, or at least I thought I had. I'd satisfied her at my own expense, at least. I'd have smiled in her position.

I supposed that after five straight hours of it even her composure would break a little.

And it was boring again. I scrolled the view options using the trackball in the left control stick. The options were numerous; I could switch between normal, ultraviolet, infrared, sonar, radar, lidar. There were zoom levels and recording options.

I rolled the cursor over to 'magnification' and zoomed in on the control room.

Misato was there, looking as agitated as she had the previous day. Her purple hair was frizzy. She hadn't been keeping herself up. Was it really that bad?

The blonde, Akagi, was with her. To their left was Maya, the girl who'd stabbed me in the brain. Between the three of them I was certain they were getting useful data on whatever this test was meant for.

At least, I hoped so. If they weren't, what the hell was the point?

"Natsu? How are you feeling? It looks like your sync ratio is climbing over the normal baseline we're used to." It was Maya, her voice was calm, or at least it seemed that way.

"I feel bored. Is that alright?" I answered with a shrug.

"Yeah it's fine. It's good to see this improvement, I was just trying to see if there might be a reason."

I opened my mouth to answer and sound failed to come out. My right arm locked up, muscles fighting each other as I clenched involuntarily onto the control stick. Jaw locked, back spasming. Color drained out of the world into a fuzzy gray-scale as my eyes darted between the people in the control room.

The electric spike feeling in my brain came back. Misato disappeared, replaced by a much shorter, much younger girl. Akagi looked younger, with dark hair. I couldn't hear them, but they didn't seem to be talking anyway.

My body felt like fire, I couldn't relax my muscles, they all felt like they were firing off on their own, fighting me while everyone around me was replaced with some kind of impostor, someone similar but not quite the same, not quite right.

The Evangelion shook around me, then the viewers shut down, one by one. The lights dropped, then flashed back on, but the color was still gone from the world. A reflection looked back at me during the reboot, but it wasn't mine.

A slimmer face, different hair. I recognized her but I wasn't entirely sure how, or as who. She was wearing a plugsuit, but not one I'd ever seen before. It looked, somehow, more elaborate. More primitive.

No, it wasn't a plug suit. Something about calling it that felt wrong. It wasn't a plugsuit, because there wasn't a plug, was there? No, it was a dive suit.

The colors snapped back into my vision, Unit Zero's face occupied the entirety of my forward viewing field. A thick trail of red blended into the LCL in front of my face. Nosebleed?

"Pilot Ikari please respond!"

I jerked my head to the left, Rei was yelling at me. I hadn't heard that before, and it gave me a more full understanding of what her voice actually sounded like. It was... beautiful, familiar. Why?

"I'm... I'm here. Felt like... like the implant rejection?" I couldn't... not quite exactly find the words I needed. I had to hunt for them. Dive suit? Contact with what?

I twisted my head to the side and felt my neck pop. Thoughts were aligning themselves in front of me again, words planned out ready to speak and--

"Control restored, ejecting entry plug immediately, rescue crews stand by." Maya sounded panicked this time.

My stomach felt like it dropped into my feet and the plug went dark as I was hauled upwards and backwards. Like a light-switch flipped off I was myself, and only myself, all at once.

I heard the high speed pumps kick on behind me and the LCL drained faster than I thought possible, fast enough that my ears popped painfully. A moment later light poured into the plug as the whole top section lifted free. The crane arm dropped in, grabbed my chair, and pulled me up into the room above the cage.

A lungful of LCL heaved out of my mouth and onto the floor when I rolled to the side. Fresh clean stale air.

A flash of grey-scale when I looked at the floor, and suddenly it was gone, I was hanging over the core of an Angel, staring down into infinity. I felt my arms locking up again, and then everything had color again.

A pool of blood sat in the puddle of LCL I'd ejected and my hand came away from my face, white glove stained red.

"Natsu!" The voice was a kinder shade of Misato, concerned. Nothing like her father.

What?

The room seemed to spin backwards around me and I felt myself falling forward off the control seat. Slim but strong arms caught me and I looked up into a mess of purple hair. A shoulder was under my chin. She was holding me, but why?

"What... is Eva?" I heard myself ask. I didn't know exactly why, of all the things I could have said at that moment that those were the words I had chosen.

But there were a lot of things that I didn't know. There were some things I shouldn't know, couldn't know, and did.

I knew that her father died on the day of the second impact.

And I knew that mine had watched.