Well, another project I've been working on. The basic idea of this fic came into my head in the summer of 2011 when I was strolling around the Spacebattles forums. Since the guys over at the Evangelion thread wasn't really receptive to it, I took this back to the metaphorical drawing board. Over time, I combined it with several other ideas until I've gotten to the point in August 2011 where I could discuss the idea with GeneralScrage who's writing a Halo/Battlezone/Mass Effect crossover titled 'The Opened Way'. He gave me some useful input (thanks, buddy) and resolved some disputed points in the canon. Warning: this story is going to be quite heavily AU.
Someone's inevitably going to go "wrong section, this belongs in the crossovers section!" on this fic. Well, here's my answer: the other main verse of this fic is obscure enough that there's ONE fanfic of it on this site. One. And that's the only one I found on the internet yet.
So as I said above, credit goes to Scrage for helping me put this verse together and the little-known but ridiculously awesome anime Hakaima Sadamitsu for inspiration. Anyway, on with the story.
CHAPTER 01
FIRST/BLOOD
NORTHERN PACIFIC OCEAN, 312 KM EAST OF TOKYO
2015 AD
It was a clear day. Despite the occasional cloud here and there, nothing impeded the sun's radiance. There was nothing to impede it from, anyway: as far as eye could see, there was nothing but ocean.
The slightly waving water was disturbed by a high-speed object shooting across it in a southeastern direction. That object turned out to be a vehicle about twenty meters of length, its surface smooth and aerodynamic as if it was an aircraft of some kind. Yet it was no aircraft but no ship either: if someone were to look under it, they would note the vehicle hovering about a meter above the surface, the blessings of civilian hovercraft technology from the new millenium.
Inside the vehicle, the interior was furnished like a downtown train. A row of seats sat under the windows on each side while handrails ran under the ceiling. The entire hovercraft was empty, save for one person sitting near one of the external doors, a heavily stuffed pack next to it signalling the figure was on a long-distance trip. Currently, the figure was listening to the automated announcer's droning.
"...Japan, western shore. Chance of earthquake today: 32%. Chance of tsunami today: 6%. Japan, eastern shore. Chance of earthquake today: 87%. Chance of tsunami today: 75%..."
The figure sighed. – "As usual..."
"Attention, all passengers. This vehicle is... inbound... from... Iwaki, Japan... to... Tokyo-3, outer dock facilities. Estimated time of arrival... five... minutes. Please prepare your possessions for departure." – the speakers announced, piecing the message together from pre-recorded phrases. Hearing this, the figure looked outside where several glistening spires could be seen on the horizon.
"Attention. The Tokyo-3 Board of Directors has declared a Level 2 civil defense alert. As per emergency protocols, all phone lines have been suspended." – came the payphone's refusal at the teenager who rolled her eyes.
"Wonderful..." – she groaned as she put the phone back to where it should be. – "What am I going to do now?"
It started off simple, really. She received a letter from the one person she didn't expect to hear from again. A letter of just one word. Naturally, she was heavily tempted to just ignore it and let the old bastard rot where he was but was convinced otherwise by her caretakers and oldest friend. After all, it might be important. She wasn't really keen on finding out but yielded anyway, piecing the letter back together after her first reaction was tearing it to shreds.
So here she was, in the middle of this city. She never saw it before but heard about it in school often enough. Tokyo-3. The Jewel of Mankind. Project Atlantis Installation No.1. There were many names for it, not that she cared. Once the novelty wore off, all she cared about was giving a piece of her mind to her target and going back home.
There was one problem, however: the city was completely deserted. Not a single soul was around. How was she going to find who she was searching for?
"This city's supposed to have a population over a million. Where the heck is everyone?" – she murmured as her eyes wandered across the street. From the corner of her eye, she thought she saw something moving but as she turned to check, her vision was suddenly obscured by something. It was there for only a split second but she recognized one thing: a pair of crimson red eyes accusingly staring into her face before disappearing almost instantly.
Then her head was overcome by a searing wave of pain like nothing she ever felt before. She collapsed onto the pavement with a pained moan, clutching her temples as if her life depended on it. It was as if someone bashed her skull from inside with a skyscraper. Through the haze of pain, she thought she heard a whisper. You do not belong here. Begone. Another wave came, just a tad weaker than the first one.
"Who the devil are you?" – whispered the girl but received no answer. As the pain faded, she stood up and dusted herself off. 'What the heck was that?'
Her thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a distant explosion. – "That... didn't sound so good." – she remarked to herself. The source of the sound came somewhere from the north where the buildings grew sparse. Concluding that since there was nothing to do without her guide, she might as well take a look, the girl hefted her heavy bag and walked across the street, her stept echoing on the walls. 'What's this, a ghost city or something?'
She got her answer as she arrived to a wide-open area that had no buildings and saw... it. A giant she had no idea exactly how tall, bone plates framing dark green skin. A skull-face with no discernible eyes turned slowly side to side, as if it's owner was looking for something.
The girl involuntarily took a step back as the skull looked straight at her for a moment... before it was distracted by explosions rippling across its back.
"Ittai nanda? [What the hell?]" – she swore in surprise as a trio of shadows swarmed out of the dust cloud behind the giant, firing blue projectiles at it. As they left the cloud, the newcomers turned out to be small tanks, their orange and black painting in sharp contrast with the gray buildings. 'Wait, tanks?' They didn't look like any tanks she ever saw before. While tanks were supposed to run on threads and generally make themselves a slow target, these ones were obviously equipped with hoverdrives as they nimbly danced left and right, one of them even launching itself five meters high to avoid colliding with an abandoned car. The giant just looked between them as if perplexed, making a half-hearted effort to step on one of the tanks which quickly strafed out from under the massive foot.
As she looked on, a sudden rumbling behind her grabbed her attention but before she could turn to look, a hovercraft whizzed past her at high speed. This looked more like a sci-fi fighter than a tank, sporting a plane-like fuselage and two short wings on either side of its tail which bore a turret-lookalike on the top. Two nozzles propelled the vehicle forward as it fired a pair of small yellow... somethings at the giant. Meanwhile, it weaved slightly to the sides, revealing those wings to actually be ailerons. As the giant noticed its arrival, the yellow tracers connected and the hovercraft's turret suddenly launched a salvo of missiles.
The giant didn't really react to the tanks' harassment but the missiles exploding against its skin seemed to trigger something as it reached out with its hand. Something glowed within the palm and a lance of light shot out, impaling one of the tanks. The giant simply tossed it aside as if it was a toy, straight at another tank. Barely a second before impact, the second tank's forward section seemingly exploded as the pilot ejected, shooting high into the sky. And not a moment too soon: the impact sent the mangled wrecks of both vehicles into the wall behind them where they exploded into a fireball on impact.
Then a terrible thought occurred to the girl: there were two tanks.
Only one ejection.
As she stared at the burning scrapheap, her legs buckled and she heaved. Luckily for her, she boarded the vehicle that ferried her into the city on an empty stomach, just to be safe. That came in quite useful at the moment as the shock-induced nausea couldn't take anything out of her.
Wiping her mouth, the white-faced girl took a moment to catch her breath before looking up...
...right as the giant's eyes flashed and the missile-armed hovercraft vanished in a powerful explosion whose shockwave pushed her off her footing. As she felt herself being stopped by a wall, she instinctively shielded her face with her arms. She half-expected the giant to finish her off but her expectations were derailed when she heard the low drone of a hoverdrive in front of her. Experimentally, she peeked out from between her arms.
It was a blue Renault Seiche A3, a post-Impact civilian hovercraft and one of the first of its kind; she saw an advertisement not too long ago showcasing it. Though truth to be told, it looked more like a racing vehicle: narrow body, a dart-shaped nose, a windshield more like a fighter plane's canopy, as well as the tail wings of that rocket-armed military hovercraft she just saw being vaporized (unlike that one's wings however, the Seiche's wings weren't ailerons but fixed-wing). Before she could react, the canopy opened up and the grinning visage of a purple-haired woman emerged. – "Sorry I'm late. Hop in!"
Deciding to ask questions later, the girl quickly hefted her bag and threw it into the rear seat before jumping in herself. As soon as she got seated, the canopy closed and the woman called over. – "Hang on!" – The Seiche's turbines roared as the craft launched into a rapid acceleration that pushed the girl into the seat. The giant saw the new prey and lashed out towards it but the woman responded with a quick twist of the controls that looked like it would send them into a wall... only for the Seiche to turn on its side and launch itself away from the building as the v-thrusters aimed at it fired at full throttle. This trick sent them right between the giant's legs who just looked down then all over, wondering where'd the shiny thing go.
Looking at the rapidly approaching concrete, the girl thought they would crash but the woman finished the flip, momentarily making them fly upside down before the stabilizers kicked in and the Seiche went back to hovering in the orientation it was supposed to be before quickly slipping into another street and out of sight.
As soon as they were safe, the woman called back to the rear seat. – "Sorry about that. I hope I didn't shook you up too much?"
The girl however was occupied with something else. – "W-w-w-w-w-what the hell was that thing?" – she stuttered as she pointed back to where they came from.
"Did it spook you?"
"'Spook me'? Oh no, it didn't spook me; I just come into this city in the ass end of nowhere and a giant monster is crawling around it? What the hell is this, a B-grade kaiju movie?"
Her savior just laughed at it. – "I can see why you would think that! Anyway..." – she narrowed her eyes underneath her shades as she looked into the rearview mirror. – "Are you, by any chance, Shinji Ikari?"
"Um... yes?" – the girl replied suspiciously.
"Good, then you're the person I was looking for. Though to tell you the truth... with that haircut of yours, I thought you were a boy."
"You mean this?" – Shinji replied as she pulled a somewhat lewd picture of the woman out of her pocket. Not only was the older woman in a somewhat revealing top, there was also a cleanly visible arrow pointing at her cleavage along with a message asking for attention. – "Sorry, I don't swing that way." – she added deadpan.
"No, really." – the woman insisted. – "And with the way you dress... you're kind of a tomboy, aren't you?"
"I get that everywhere. By the way, who might you be?"
"Oh, sorry... Captain Misato Katsuragi, ISDF Special Agency NERV." – the woman introduced herself.
Shinji shrugged. – "Never heard of it."
"But you've heard about the AAN, right?"
"Pretty much." – It was impossible not to. Officially, the AAN or Alliance of Advanced Nations was founded in the nineties from the G8 nations. After the Impact Wars rendering the UN only a shadow of its former glory, the AAN took the helm and brokered the Valentine's Day Treaty, becoming the de facto leaders of humanity. Many rogue nations like North Korea staunchly opposed the AAN's power, accusing them of conspiring at the establishment of the infamous 'New World Order'; these protests were nothing more than empty threats however, as the AAN controlled or had influence over 60% of the world's natural resources and over 80% of the planet's collective GDP. In short, there was no contest about who's the boss.
"Did you bring the security pass your father sent you?" – asked Misato.
Shinji dug into her pack and extracted a card wrapped in a crumpled and taped-together piece of paper. – "Here."
"Thanks." – Just one look at the letter's state was enough to confirm Misato's suspicions. – "You don't get along with your father, do you?"
"That's the understatement of the year." – came the deadpan reply.
"Same here." – Misato remarked cheerily but Shinji wasn't convinced.
"Oh? Did he threw you out right when you needed him the most, ignored you for years and then suddenly dragged you away into the middle of a warzone for who knows what? Did he?" – the girl shot back with venom and bitterness in her voice.
"Well...no." – the woman admitted, her cheeriness gone.
Shinji leaned back into the seat. – "There you go. I hate his guts, more than you would know. I'm not as naïve to think he called me back to apologize – which I wouldn't accept anyway –; he can go die in yomi [underworld] for all I care."
"That's harsh."
"I don't care, the old bastard deserves it." – Shinji seethed. – "I just want to know what the hell does he want then I'll be on my way." – A few minutes of silence went by, ultimately broken by Shinji's suspicious voice. – "You said you were supposed to pick me up, right?"
"Yeah." – Misato replied, not understanding what the girl was getting at.
"...you're working for him, aren't you?" – came the piercing question.
Before Misato could answer however, a nearby building was blown into smithereens as their pursuer crashed through it. The woman swore and instinctively tried to evade, only to fly straight into the path of a quite large chunk of debris.
Shinji had no idea how long was she out but when she came to, she found herself lying on the pavement. Apparently, the force of the impact launched her out of the Seiche and onto the road. She was a bit bruised from it and a small trickle of blood was coming from beneath her hairline (as if the sore spot wasn't a giveaway already) but other than that, she was fine.
As she focused her vision, she realized she was staring at the Seiche which was lying on its side. A purple blob behind the broken canopy signalled Misato was still inside, apparently out cold as well.
Shinji turned to her other side in preparation of standing up...
...and saw the giant staring at her from less than a hundred meters.
'Crap!' She immediately sat up in fright. The giant must've noticed her as it started walking in her direction, prompting Shinji to back away on all fours until she was backed up against the Seiche. She half-expected the giant to be motion-sensitive but when it kept going even as she kept still, that theory fell down the drain. 'Shitshitshitshit... what do I do now?' she thought frantically as she sent a look at Misato's clearly unconscious form.
When the giant pointed its palm at her, Shinji had to resist the urge to close her eyes.
Which came in quite handy a moment later as a smoking projectile streaked over her head and bounced off the giant's face before detonating. The giant shrieked and back down, leaving a bewildered Shinji wondering just what the hell happened.
It was then that she heard the noise: a quiet whirring sound followed by a resounding THUD. It repeated in a rhythmical pattern, slightly increasing in volume after every thud which she recognized now as footsteps.
The footsteps of something very heavy. And it was coming from behind her.
She decided it would be a better idea if she didn't stick her head above the Sieche to see what it was – curiosity killed the cat, after all. Her savior eventually passed her position, allowing her to see what it was.
It was an armored figure far taller than any human despite having the same general shape. Most of it was covered in bright orange painting except the backpack-like protusion which had diagonal yellow-black stripes, only broken by a large nuclear trefoil symbol in the middle. Beneath the trefoil was ISDF Pr.E-00 stenciled in large black letters, the meaning of which escaped her. Despite the suit's bulkiness, it moved with an elegant, almost feline grace that simply screamed dangerous.
The giant regarded its enemy silently as something inside the armor clicked, followed by the entire suit rising about half a meter above the pavement with the telltale hum of a hoverdrive. Shinji was, to say the least, amazed. 'How the heck did they squeeze hovertechnology into something that small?' Her line of thoughts was derailed as the armor sprang into action, firing three more shells from what Shinji realized was a large weapon mounted on the underside of its right forearm. Unlike the previous ones, these shells detonated on contact, making the giant roar and charge at their source.
Being too close to use its weapon now, the armor let loose with a dual-barreled machinegun on its right wrist. This didn't do squat to the giant who lashed out, only to be foiled as the armor suddenly leapt high into the air at one of the buildings, kicked off it and onto another building, kicking off that one too and going back and forth higher and higher as it soared above the giant's head. Once having aquired the height advantage, it gracefully backflipped and, once upside down, let loose a pair of missiles from the launcher mounted onto its left shoulder straight into the giant's left eye.
In response, the giant roared and started flailing as it tried hitting its opponent, finally succeeding when a lucky hit connected and sent the armor into a building. Shinji winced. 'That gotta hurt.' Then the giant turned back towards her. 'Uh-oh.'
"Don't worry." – came Misato's sudden answer to her unspoken concern. Shinji looked at the woman who started extracting herself from the Seiche's pilot seat. – "She'll come back."
"She?" – Shinji asked before she realized the rubble pile the armor was dug into was moving. When it collapsed, the armor emerged with lots of scratches but intact. Even as Shinji watched, the suit's surface rippled and the scratches molded themselves before her very eyes. – "What is that?"
"EDD armor." – replied Misato. – "It's capable of limited self-repair by ablating the damaged section and patching the hole with material taken from everywhere else. This makes concentrated attacks against a single point ineffective."
"Oookay... what does that mean?"
"Unless you have HEAT or APFSDS tank rounds, you can't kill it with a single shot." – summed up Misato as the suit slowly reached behind its back and pulled out a weapon Shinji saw on its back but doubted the usefulness of.
A gigantic hammer.
"Uh-oh..." – Misato breathed. – "She's pissed. You'd better take cover."
"What for?" – The answer came when the suit as a whole started humming and every single piece of debris was violently repelled away from it.
"That's the suit's active shield, made of a modified M-Curtain emitter." – Misato narrated as the suit leapt at the giant who extended its arm. Just as the two combatants were about to clash, an octagonal energy field sprang into existence between them. Misato swore. – "Oh, damn. That's an AT-field; she can't touch that Angel until its gone. Time to see if that thing works." – Shinji was about to ask what works and what Angel before the suit opened up multiple holes all across itself. Each hole released small, bulbous emitters that simultaneously erupted into violent electric discharges. These were somehow attracted to the field which started rippling and flickering. – "Come on, come on..." – The field finally tore itself apart in a resounding ripping sound, allowing the suit to shoot through the hole. – "YES! Way to go, Ritsie!" – Misato cheered.
This time, the giant's hand missed (just barely) the armor which flipped around and swung its hammer which was crackling with electricity. The instant the weapon connected, a deafening thunderous BANG sounded as the contact point erupted into a blue-white shockwave, catapulting the giant's arm into the building the armor just climbed out of with such a force that the creature lost its footing and did a pirouette before crashing onto its back. Not only the impact collapsed the building onto the affected arm, the armor leapt high above the creature, bringing its powerhammer into a brutal overhead strike aimed at the large red orb in the giant's chest. Once again the impact produced a deafening shockwave, instantly pulverizing the orb into a cloud of gore that splattered in every direction, showering Shinji and Misato with blood and pieces of flesh.
Shinji tried her best not to gag as Misato looked at herself with annoyance. – "Damn, I just bought this!" – she groaned before her gaze fell onto the Seiche and her face sagged. – "How am I going to get this up...?" – she murmured before her face brighted up and turned towards the giant's body. – "Rei, over here! Could you give me a hand with this?" – The suit nodded and walked over, laying a single palm on the Seiche's upward-pointing wing and flipping the entire vehicle over with a single push. – "Thanks!" – Misato said cheerily as she patted the armor. Its head slowly turned in Shinji's direction, staring the girl down for several seconds before it turned tail and walked off with a noticeable limp.
Shinji was about to comment on it but was interrupted by Misato. – "This too. It cost me a whole fortune and now look at that!" – the woman moaned as she pointed at the sizeable dent on the Seiche's hull. – "And I still have over two dozen payments to go! What am I going to do with it?" – The girl just shrugged.
So, what do you guys think? Should I continue this story? Kudos to anyone who can tell what I'm crossing Evangelion over with.