Hey there.....it's me again, yeah.... that guy. Anyway I heard your calls for a sequel to WWII Eva and, well.......here it is. It can't fairly be called a sequel, though. This takes place a few days before D-Day, but the characters have different roles. (And Toji's not dreaming this one up either! ^_^) I plan to make it several chapters long, so they're going to be short. Enjoy!
Steel Angels part one: Raining Shrapnel
So Toji turns to me and says, 'Hey! Where's Shinji going?' And I say back. 'Says he's going for some chow in town'..... Right, we all knew he had a date with a hottie.
Aida Kensuke, P-51 pilot of the Vermillion Team.
Shinji had found his way into another hairball, going one on one with a Fw-190. He grunted as he was pushed against the left wall of his cockpit, his blue trimmed P-51 doing an Immelman. He had no clue what he was going to do to get his ass outta the mess he'd gotten it into, but whatever it was it was going to have to be good, and quick...the jerry was trying to shoot it's 20mm cannons down his throat.
"Suzahara, Kensuke, form up on me. Bearing two-delta-three." Shinji spun his ship into a barrel roll that seemed like an amusement park ride. As he came out of the spin two other gleaming fighters aligned themselves on either wing, and the three of them managed to shake the throng of German planes that seemed to spew from the sky itself. Shinji frowned and dropped his targeting receptacle over the tail of a 190 and opened fire, holing it up good. He watched as it fell from the sky, colliding with another headed after the B-17 they were protecting.
"Lieutenant Ikari! I have a couple of bogies on my ass! Hey! Shinji! Can I get some love over here?" Kensuke's ship rolled towards the ground twenty thousand feet below him. If he'd calculated it right, the jerry should be following him exactly. Shinji saw the plane following Kensuke and dived after it. He thumbed the trigger for half a second as a 190 raced past his field of vision after Toji and then released a blast of sustained fire that chewed the German plane's cockpit canopy off and sent a flare of fire rolling over the rest of the ship. Before Shinji had a chance to pull out of the dive it exploded, and Shinji flew straight into the middle of the expanding blast.
"Damn, damn, damn...." Shinji grunted as the cockpit darkened while flying through the debris cloud. He burst from the other end unharmed, but his forward windshield was smeared with copper blood. Shinji's face paled and he almost forgot to right his plane.
"Yo! Shinji! You're losing altitude man!" Kensuke's mocking voice came in over the tac net.
As he yanked back on the stick Shinji looked behind him, the enemy squadron that had lost about sixty percent of its planes was high-tailing it.
"Yeeehaaaaw! They're buggin' out!" Toji's victory call rang out. Shinji pulled along side the bomber and saluted. The other pilot nodded and waved.
"Thanks little buddies!" He said as Shinji's team veered south and ascended.
The air around the Eighth Air Force base always seemed to crackle with electricity, with ships coming, going, making emergency landings...it was a wonder the traffic controllers didn't go mad. It scared Shinji every time he had to make a landing in the middle of the night- and this time was no different.
"Throttle down......flaps out.....nose up........." Shinji went through the landing procedure and felt the tires make contact with the runway below him. He immediately cut the thrust down to twenty-five percent and let the tail wheel tap the pavement. Shinji let out a breath he didn't know he was holding and taxied to the waiting hangar and tech crews.
"Nice flying out there, Shinji." Major Misato Katsuragi said from the wing of a B-24. She climbed down the service ladder to stand in front of the Lieutenant,
"Um...thanks...." Shinji said tiredly and threw a sloppy salute.
Misato laughed and shoved Shinji, sending him reeling into Toji and Kensuke who had joined their commanding officer.
"Hey, watch it!" Toji yelled. "Uh... I mean. Excuse us Major." He added after the look Misato gave him. Shinji stood up and motioned for his subordinates to follow him. They meandered through the mess hall looking for a place to sit. Chow time was never fun for any one in Vermillion squadron.
" Well! If it isn't Vermin Team and the Invincible Shinji!"
" Bomb any schools lately?"
" Wonder if he screwed the Major again."
These were the usual insults thrown at the fighter team. And those were just the tech crews. Later when the bomber teams or the P-40 squads got in it would be real hell.
"Geeze, mess up a couple times and you're tagged for life." Kensuke muttered as he sat down next to Shinji, who was holding Toji back from beating a maintenance officer's face in.
"I can't believe your going to let them get away with that!" Toji growled as he reluctantly let the technician live. "They keep saying you and the Major are an item."
Shinji shrugged. "Let them think what they want, they're not the enemy." He stuffed a forkful of some slop called stew into his mouth. Shinji dismissed the insults for many reason, namely because he didn't want to remember the past mistakes he made. But there was one thing that everyone in the Eighth battalion agreed with about Vermillion Team ...every pilot was a tiger in the air, and the bomber crews would be caught arguing over who would get Verm squad as their cover.
"You guys be sure to get some sleep tonight. Mission tomorrow." Shinji said and got up to leave. He could feel the eyes following him as he left the mess hall, but right now all he could concentrate on was getting past base security and into town.
Asuka Langley Soryou landed her Fw-190. It had been a complete failure of a day and she was in no mood to put up with her commanding officer's boorish blathering. She took a deep breath and entered his office.
"Captain Soryou! What was your mission objective?!" Colonel Fuyustuki bellowed.
Asuka gritted her teeth to keep from cussing the old fart out. "To destroy all bombers and bomber escorts."
Fuyustuki crossed his arms. "And what did your squadron accomplish?"
"We damaged two bombers and-" Asuka started.
"And lost three aircraft!" Kozo Fuyustuki was out of his leather commander's chair and standing over the redhead.
"Well if you'd give us something better than those crappy Focke-wulfs then maybe we'd stand a better chance against the enemy!"
"The Fw-190s are top of the line!" Asuka glared at the radar technician with glasses who'd just argued with her.
"You're kidding! The 190s stall out during a simple roll twist!"
"You must be throttling to low then! The fuel injectors can't function at such high altitude!"
Fuyustuki sighed and rubbed his temples. He was the only one who was supposed to be yelling.
"Enough. Captain, fail again and I'm demoting you, Lieutenant Mokota, I suggest you be manning your station." With that he turned his back to the two of them and stared out the window. Asuka grumbled and stormed out to her barracks, the only thing consoling her now was the promise of seeing the handsome man she'd been sneaking out of base to meet with in town for the past three weeks now. She opened her footlocker and pulled out the only civilian outfit she had- a yellow sundress- and pulled it on. Personally she hated it, but it was the only thing she could get her hands on, and her date never seemed to mind.
An American pilot took a seat by the window in the cafe. The waiters there all new his face and always gave him the window seat, where he'd meet her. He looked up as she pulled the chair out and sat across from him. His eyes lingered on the flowing dress, like they always did.
"Hey." He said, in awe of her beauty. She smiled back and said something in German. For the past three weeks both of them had talked of their problems and their fears, while the other listened, never understanding but enjoying the other's voice.
"I hate my commanding officer...he's such a bastard..." She said crossly.
The pilot laughed, he didn't know the details of what she'd said, but she sounded pissed.
"I wonder if this war in going to end anytime soon. Every time I climb into that plane I'm afraid I'll never come back." He frowned as he thought about the three planes that had gotten shot down that day. They were never coming back. "In case I don't make it out of my mission tomorrow, I want you to have this." He handed her a medal in the shape of a heart with words at the bottom. She took it and smiled.
"For me? It's beautiful. Hey....this is a purple heart medal. You were wounded?" She showed a look of concern on her face.
"I don't need it, I guess I never liked all that attention anyway." He looked at his aviator's watch. "Damn, I have to get back to base."
"Gotta go, huh? Well, until tomorrow." She slipped her new gift into a small green satchel and watched him leave. "Wonder who you are." She pulled the medal out and gave the words a long look. "For bravery under fire and courage while being wounded- Shinji Ikari."
Shinji Ikari throttled his ship to full and rose to cruising altitude. He looked to his left, Toji and Kensuke were flying below and slightly behind him. He sighed and resigned himself to shiver in the coldness of high-altitude flight and mind rotting boredom. At 06:00 a.m. the dark sky had nothing to offer the pilot. Below and behind him were eight B-29s, loaded to the brim and ready to bring the jerries pain.
//I wonder where that girl is.// Shinji thought. At times like this his mind often wandered to the girl in the yellow dress, the enigma of it all reminded Shinji of a romance novel all the girls read in school. // I bet she's just a regular civilian. Maybe she goes to a university near here. Or maybe-// Shinji's thoughts were interrupted by the familiar sound of 20mm bullets tearing the sky apart. He looked around, his wingmen already rolling their ships into evasive maneuvers. Shinji pitched his P-51 nose first at the ground and went into a power dive that would rip the wings off any other fighter.
Asuka opened fire at the shining blue trimmed plane in front of her, riddling it with holes. It banked hard right and pulled up abruptly and looped around again, putting it behind her.
"No you don't!" Asuka cut the throttle back to thirty percent and let readied herself for the enemy to fly over her.
"Rookie." Shinji said as he spun his ship onto it's back and matching speeds with the German plane.
He looked up (down, in terms of gravity) at the pilot of the jerry.
From behind her flight goggles and helmet Asuka stared right into the eyes of the enemy fighter pilot. "Show off....." Asuka grunted as she spiraled her plane around his. Shinji kept his plane's canopy above the German's at all times, he couldn't tear his eyes away from those blue eyes... //Those eyes! It's her! It can't be!//
"Idiot! Are you trying to kill us both?!" Asuka yelled at the American. He wouldn't let her level out, always keeping parallel with her cockpit, both of them spiraling around, dancing in between the flak bursts from the ground and the bomber cover fire.
Shinji heard his radio crackle to life. " Lieutenant! The bombers need your help!" Toji's unmistakably irritated voice cut through the betrayal and confusion Shinji was feeling. He pulled up sharply, letting loose a barrage that tore through the engine of a 190 and blew it to pieces.
He looked behind him as the Fw-190- her ship- came around and blazed away at the number four bomber. //I can't shoot her down, I can't!" Shinji though his head would explode. He couldn't let the bomber go down for a variety of reasons, but he couldn't shoot her down either.
"Grrr....All planes descend! Altitude 14,000!" Shinji yelled and poured fire into a 190 converging on Kensuke, the tracers lighting up the early morning sky.
"Shinji! Are you crazy? Those flak emplacements will Swiss cheese our bombers!" Toji yelled.
Shinji made a pass over the fuselage of the B-29, guns blaring away at the retreating 190. "Just do it!"
Kensuke, however understood. "The jerries won't follow or they'll be caught in the cross fire! So we can drive them upwards away from our bombers and blow the hell outta them, right?"
Shinji smiled, despite all the teasing they'd given him, Kensuke was a master tactician. "Yeah, now go!"
"Take this you bastards!" Toji strafed the cockpit of a Fw-190, blowing the pilot into flares of red against the windscreen. Asuka's squadron had taken enough, they were losing.
"Remaining units, converge on me, we're outta here!" She growled at the blue fighter diving through the clouds. //I can't believe that....that American out performed me!// She slammed her fist into the instrument console.
Later after Vermillion Team had landed and were being debriefed Shinji wondered why he couldn't bring himself to shoot down the German pilot. //Was it because she was a woman? Or was it because I've met her?//
Shinji didn't go into town that night, instead he retired to his bunk, listening to Toji tell one of the bomber gunners about how he had invented a reverse maneuver only the P-51 could do. Shinji smiled. Toji may be a good pilot but he was a better braggart. Turns out the gunner thought Toji was full of shit.
Asuka fingered the medal in her satchel. It was two hours past the usual time the pilot visited her. She wanted to tell him about that American in the shiny blue-trimmed plane that must've been an ace. She had so few people to relate her problems to these days.....especially since her mother committed suicide. //Don't think about that, that's the past. Leave it at that.// She clutched the medal for an hour more, before surrendering to the night and wandering back to her base.
Continued.......
*Author's notes. Well? You like? I know I suck at anything remotely romantic, but I wanted to portray that even opposing sides can come to a mutual agreement (even if they can't understand each other). Where's Rei and everyone else? At lunch. No, I'll include them the next chapter, fun stuff ahead!