Chapter 1: The Boston

(Port Hueneme, California)

The port was a bustling center of activity as navy personnel in white uniforms hustled and bustled around each other. Gray was the predominate color scheme; the gunmetal gray of battleships, the weathered gray of moist rope and old wooden planks, the speckled gray of concrete, the frothy gray of the sea. It was enough to make Shinji feel like the world had lost its color and had been replaced with a mono-chromatic parody. Even the navy-blue of his pants seemed to turn into black. His vision was becoming strained for the lack of color, and his eyes wandered for some rest in some sort of tint that was out of the ordinary. If the Marduk man, Kisuke, had been there; Shinji felt that he could have drank in all the red parts of his uniform all day long, as it was, he had to content himself with the rare differences in skin tone. But eventually, even those with black or brown skin became straining to the eyes.

Later, when he looked back to the moment that night, Shinji would realize that it should have come to no surprise that he would meet the other American Child this way. Kisuke did say that he would meet with the other one at the fleet. Nevertheless, he was surprised in one of his sweeping glances to find some color, that he found some color.

It was what appeared to be a small, gray, old man dressed in the yellow-brown of buckskin clothes; he was reading a book while rocking back and forth on his feet impatiently (Shinji notice that the clothing had fringe that swayed in motion with the man's movement as well). The old man looked up suddenly, as if he could sense that he was being watched, and then he turned his head towards Shinji. The man gave a slight wave, picked up a couple of bags, and walked over to him, when he came close enough, Shinji spotted his mistake. There was no man-there was a boy, about as old as he was; but he had gray hair, red eyes, and pale skin.

He was an albino.

"Hello, I'm Kurt Norris… though Kurt will be just fine," he said as he stuck out his hand to shake.

Shinji took it and gave his name, and then he inquired, "Why are you dressed in that outfit?"

Kurt smirked and laughed a little under his breath, "The Marduk guy that got me had an odd sense of humor, bought me this then said, 'Being from Colorado, people are expecting you to be some sort of hard character like you read about in those pulp westerns, like Wayne D. Overholster blowing into Blackfork Montana and cleaning up the place.'"

Shinji uttered about a grunt of disapproval. Both at the unknown Institute man and at Kurt- both seemed like they enjoyed the sound of their own voice too much.

A navy officer came up to them and asked of them, "Do you boys mind movin' to de side dere? I got a large load o' shells comin' through here in a moment."

Both boys looked up at surprise. They stated, "Yessir!" almost in unison and scurried to a wall.

"So, uh, Shinji?" Kurt asked a little sheepishly as he held up an English-to-Japanese book, "Do you understand Japanese?"

Shinji looked around to see if anyone was nearby who could judge him, no one was, "I told the Marduk man who picked me up that I don't, but I speak it somewhat fluently," he whispered, "but I'd rather you not spread it around."

Kurt blinked in surprise, then nodded in understanding, "Oh… sure." Then he asked, "Do you know what we're piloting?"

Shinji shook his head lightly. He didn't know… no one did; no one knew who they were going to fight as well, or how or even why they initiated Second Impact, or why they called themselves Angel's, or why GEHRIN was collecting children to fight… There were just too many unknowns, and the world was growing uneasy in its ignorance.

A black-haired woman in an enlisted navy uniform came up to both of them, "Shinji Ikari and Kurt 'Thomas' Norris?" she asked in a no-nonsense sort of way, like a stern librarian.

"Yes ma'am?" both of the boys said; again, almost in unison.

"You're quarters are ready on the Boston, follow me please."

She led them to a cruiser, where a sailor was hanging from the stern trying to paint over a design that had been burnt into the original coat of paint.

It was a caricature of a man with half his face and fingers leering over a line; the caption underneath was Killroy was here.

Below that some prankster had painted with whitewash Strangelove was here also, but you don't see HIM putting up HIS mark everywhere do ya?

Shinji saw it and shook his head.

The navy lady guided them into the ship; the grayness continued even here, along with queer objects that seemed to be like perversions of the outside world: chains as handrails for stairs, having to turn a wheel to open a door and even then having to step over a giant plate, claustrophobia inducing hallways and rooms, the heat from the engines radiating from the darkness instead of from the light, the rolling and pitching of solid ground as the ship moved for the ocean waves that lapped up against it.

The last one didn't bother Shinji very much, but Kurt seemed a little green around the gills already. Shinji inwardly sighed in relief at that bit of news, which meant that he would be alone for at least some of the voyage while Kurt was topside… as he preferred to be. It wasn't that he hated Kurt or even people in general; he just disliked being in others presence, they hurt him.

The "room" (as it was truly too small to be called such) consisted of a bunk bed crammed to the side of a closet-sized area walled with sheet metal and rivets, the remaining space was a minuscule walkspace that a person's shoulders would brush the edges of. At the foot of the beds was another miniature space that could hold both boys' suitcases. A door in the back of the enclosure led to a one-person shower room that appeared to be the same size as the room that it branched from.

"Your battle stations in case we are attacked are in compartment twenty," the naval lady instructed, "Meals are served at 0700, 1200 and 1800 hours directly above us. Is there anything else you need?"

"Yes," Kurt said after quickly setting down his bag, "How do I get topside?"

Nodding, the naval lady pointed down the hall, "That way, to the right, and up the ladder." Kurt followed her instruction and started to run to the ladder, "And NO running!" the naval lady shouted. Kurt complied with the letter of that order, if not the spirit as he started to speed-walk instead.

"I hate escort duty," she mumbled under her breath, then she turned back to Shinji, "We'll be stopping in Hawaii to pick up the cargo ship Tiamat, and then it's no stopping for us until several weeks from now when we enter Gehrin's waters off the coast of Japan."

"Alright, thank you," Shinji said as he lay down his bag.

"One more thing before I go."

"Yes ma'am?"

"Both of your baggage will be transferred over to the Tiamat when we get to Hawaii, be sure to tell the other one that when he fin… comes back."

"Yes ma'am, I will."

(from one of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's fireside radio chats)

"… In the other war that is going on, not the one that threatens democracy, but instead the entire world. The First Child has been named. Rei Ayanami from Japan has been selected for this honor as she has been the first of the Children Candidates to climb into the cockpit for the defense of the entire human race… She was involved in the first ever training drill with one of the war machines that the children will pilot; GEHRIN reported that it was a success this afternoon to the Human Salvation Committee. So this evening, as you pray for your sons, brothers, and fathers in distant lands, also take a moment to pray for these children as well. For there will come a time when the crisis with the Nazis and the Japanese Empire will end, for good or for ill though I hope for the best, and we will fully rely on the Children's competence, livelihood, and good will.

Good night, and may your dreams reunite you with lost and distant loved ones…"

It had been a week since they had left Hawaii; at that time, Shinji had gotten used to the surroundings of creaking metal and loud snores from the sailors. The monotony of sailing with the navy had tired him to the point to where he now slept up to sixteen hours a day. When he was awake, he stared out over the usually flat ocean for hours on end when the weather was calm, thinking; when Mother Nature was not cooperative, he lay on his bunk and stared at the unfamiliar ceiling since Kurt had crashed on the bottom bunk the first night after he had a brief reintroduction with his dinner. Sleep was the only form of entertainment that Shinji could reliably use; he had no paper or pencil for either writing or drawing and did not have any ideas even if he did. The movies that were shown in the break room were varied in nature and mostly had bad actors in them that played out terrible plots. Another reason that he slept so much were the vivid dreams that he had, in them were wondrous forms of fantasy that could only come from the omnivorous reader of epic fiction that boys sometimes are… His dreams were filled with dark, evil wizards that knew more than they told, of Gunslingers questing through mountains, deserts, and the ruined, war-torn remains of futuristic cities, of trains that are pains and great slobbering beasts that had to be vanquished. In every dream, which might begin as a nightmare even though it always ended on a good note if he saw this, there was a dark tower that spiraled from a field of roses. The roses sang to him, comforting and cradling him while the tower gave off the aroma of confidence… of rightness…

However, tonight is different, and Shinji is scared because he knows that he won't be able to see the tower in this dream. It started out simple enough, he had started out in the apartment that he and his guardian shared before they were forced out by the US government, his bare feet pattered on the wooden floor as he made his way down the hallway to the door. When he touched the polished brass of the doorknob, a vile thought

(The red eye approaches swiftly. Hail Discordia! Hail Todash! Los the Red is he. Killroy was here and the dark man follows.)

brushed against the upper recesses of his mind but they would not take root, and so, withered away. The doorknob seemed to turn on its own volition and as the door opened the nauseating sounds of chimes filled his head, making his eyes water, a rolling stench of onions and burnt metal washes over him as well- chocking him with their odor and making his nose sting and water.

Then as suddenly as it starts, it stops. Dazed, he picks himself off of some soft, plowed dirt and looks around. A diseased cornfield surrounds him, overgrown with mold and rot and weeds that appeared to be worse off than the corn was.

A flock of crows fly into the sky behind him, cawing in fear and scattering feathers in their haste. Shinji turns around, wondering what could have scared the birds. Rocks ground on his feet, which meant that he was still bare foot.

He could see nothing at first except the corn and the fleeing flock of birds. Then the flock, which was of prodigious size turned around and flew at Shinji. He held up his arms to shield his face as wings buffeted him and claws raked at him as the flock flew around him. Their cawing was a constant cacophony that seemed to form human speech in a garbled tongue. Their foray suddenly stopped as they flew upwards, and in one mass, flew straight down to the ground in front of Shinji.

But they never impacted the ground, instead their forms twisted and writhed and discolored as they were attracted to each other into a vague human shape. Then Shinji saw them meld their flesh into one and actually become a human. A grinning man with glowing, red eyes under a mop of messy black hair that was pulled back to form a ponytail. He was dressed in faded denim jeans and jacket with well-broken in cowboy boots. He looked like a normal guy, apart from the glowing eyes and the wild hair, but his smile could make men's prostrates go bad and birds fall dead in flight. Shinji saw the apparition reach into his jacket pocket, then he turn and ran away from the grinning figure.

(The child fled through the cornfield, and the dark man followed.)

Corn leaves with saw-tooth edges slapped at Shinji as he fled, cutting into him. The row that he ran through appeared to be getting smaller, or were the dead plants reaching out for him with fingers of corn and knives of leaves? Yes, that had to be it, the cornstalks had to be the man's servants and they were going to slow him down or trip him and tie him up as a sacrifice for an evil god.

Shinji tripped suddenly over a rock, sending pain shooting up his leg as it shattered like glass. His momentum carried him forward into the earth that was warm as clotted ox blood. Coughing and groaning, he rolled over. Saliva flew out of his mouth in an undignified way as his coughing projected it out into the air.

A heavy boot stomped into his chest, forcing the air out of Shinji's lungs. The Dark Man was leering and laughing over him, "I'll teach you for making a fool out of me! Now that I've finally found you again!" he tittered with grim ecstasy.

Shinji wanted to say that he must have gotten the wrong person because he had never even seen the dark man before, but the boot stayed on his chest robbing him of air with which to speak with.

A whirling, whistling sound came from behind the man, who turned around and looked up in puzzlement. Then his head parted company with his shoulders as a spinning sickle sliced through the air and through his neck. His warm blood sprayed onto Shinji as his body and head fell, mercifully, into the next row of the field. Shinji looked up to see who his savior was.

It was a white horse and its rider, the rider was a black-haired girl with sad, blue eyes. The hand that threw the sickle was still outstretched, while the other held a hammer up high. She rode up to him and grabbed his arm hard enough to bruise, "Come on," she said hastily, "he won't stay dead." She tried to pick him up, but she couldn't. She opened her mouth to say something else but-

"ALL HANDS TO BATTLE STATIONS UNKNOWN AIRCRAFT SIGHTED!" came through the air like the voice of God.

"Wake up Shinji," the girl said in Kurt's voice, "Something intresting is...

… going on outside," Kurt said to Shinji shaking him in an effort to wake him up.

"Wha?" Shinji asked, still half asleep and reeling from his dream, which would be forgotten, like all dreams, in a few moments.

"There's a Foo Fighter right outside! Hurry or we're going to miss it!"

Shinji got out of the bunk slowly, Foo Fighters weren't all that specia… Then something that Kurt had just said had caught up to his awakening brain and slapped it into overdrive.

Kurt said that a Foo Fighter was right outside the ship, they usually never got that close, and they usually stayed way up high in the sky- never going near anything.

What was it doing here?

"Go on ahead," he told Kurt, "I'll catch up."

Kurt nodded and ran out the room, Shinji watched him go, wondering why he didn't go immediately with him.

His arm ached for one thing.

Shinji looked down at his arm, it was bruised. The shape of the bruise was a perfect handprint…

He went as quickly as he could to the deck, many sailors were gathered at the right of the hatch (Shinji didn't know or care about which side it was, but it was the starboard) staring at a green sphere of opulent florescence.

It sat there, hovering, and occasionally jumping to the front or to the rear of the cruiser with frightening speed

A flat, bass humming sound thrummed from the Foo Fighter. A sound that could be felt more than heard. The Boston vibrated with its weighty presence.

Then, with no warning except an increase of the hum, the Foo Fighter sped towards the horizon at a speed that would kill a person.

Shinji was one of the first ones to recover, "Aren't they usually blue?" a sailor in front of them asked- and he was right, this one had been different from all the others that he had seen in his short life. Maybe that's why this one came so close.

"Why do you think it left?" Kurt asked of Shinji… like he was an expert or something; Shinji just shrugged. Then a low growl of thunder pealed out from across the waves. "Aw, shit, I'm not going to sleep tonight."

Nothing else of interest happened during their voyage, even though the crew began to get jittery as they entered Japanese waters. Every so often, a Japanese warship would approach them and, seeing the GEHRIN flag over the American one, leave. Shinji slept contently, if logs were content. The Dark Man did not return to his dreams, and neither did the girl. However, they both stayed upon the fringes of his dreams, their silent war being waged between them.
(Off the coast of Hakone, Japan… Gehrin-1)

The two boys and the sailors transporting them peered, like the picture of Killroy, over the railing and through a mist that seemed unnatural. The Tiamat stayed close beside them, also wary of the fog and what it could hide. GEHRIN could say until it was blue in the face that they were protected, but any trigger-happy Jap submarine captain could fire at them without realizing that they were firing at a ship that held a vital interest in the whole of humanity.

Wait. Was that a shape moving in the water? Or was it just the mind being naughty?

It was a shape that started out small and light and grew larger and darker as it came closer, a ship! That's what it was, a battleship!

And it was bringing its guns to bear.

One of the sailors on board lifted up a flare gun and fired a blue light into the sky- the international symbol of a craft working for GEHRIN. The other ship did nothing in many tense moments, and then it sent up a blue flare of its own, another GEHRIN ship. The mystery ship pulled alongside the Boston, and one of their sailors put his hands to his mouth and yelled, "Buon giorno! Come state?"

The sailors of the Boston pausedin shock for a moment, "Italians," one of them said at last with a little distaste, "Does anyone know their lingo?"

Another sailor gave that, yes, he knew a little Italian, little being the key word. "No italiano!" he shouted back, "We're American!"

The Italian sailors gave little starts or withering glares, bunches of heads shook as they chittered. Then an alarm sounded on the Boston, then on the Italian ship as well. UNIDENTIFIED SUBMERSIBLE the alarms shouted in a strange harmony of two languages. Men prepared for the worst as they grabbed life jackets and dashed to their ordered areas. A large, fast bulge surged through the water, going between the two warships and rocking them. The swell had six spots that glowed red.

The Italian ship, with its huge guns, fired at the bulge. Three heavy shells arced their way towards the unseen enemy and crashed into it, sending up violent geysers of salty brine.

The source of the swell remained though.

A collective gasp of awe and fear sounded across the waves as a giant, green, manlike creature stood up out of the water, it turned to them- seeming to regard them- and then turned away headed for land. They were just a little mosquito bite in the mind of the lithe titan. Hopefully…

The coast of Hakone was close by; the monster was heading for that. The wail of a city's bombing sirens cut through the still air and mist like a sharp knife through a melon.

"Oh dear God!" Kurt screamed, "What the hell was that!"

"That's… That's what we're supposed to fight," guessed Shinji.

And he knew that he was right...

Macavity the Mystery Cat: Thank You for being interested. I'll try to keep the pacing at an acceptable level to try and avoid problems.

CplShepard: Thank You!

Blaze 1: Thank you and I'll try to keep that in mind as I'm writing this.

Ranchoth: Thank you! And I promise that I will deliver (unless a beer truck hits me). And yes, we'll see the very limits of WW2 tech used in crazy ways.

Omega87: Thank you! And, while the premise wasn't original (it was an orphan plotbunny in the Evamade forums put up for adoption by Zeroasalimit) the story is of my own devising, it had been mulling around in my head for a good long while, fermenting, until this story came out like a hearty ale… tasted just as good too.

DarklightZERO: Thank you! The conflicts between the characters is one of the main reasons I decided to write this. The technology levels will certainly change things, I just don't know how much yet since I haven't fully written that detail out yet. (That and it's hard to figure out which technologies of WW2 that I really need to study in more detail.)

Rose1948: And a big THANK YOU in your direction as well.

Crystalline Virtues: Thank you! Description is the thing that makes stories come to life, without it, imagination would only go as far as the writer. And by problems, do you mean in the writing style, or do you mean the plot points that I'm forcing the characters to jump through (Through the hoop Shinji! Through the hoop!)

That is all for this time. In the words of General McArthur: I shall return.