NGE: A Century Apart

by Archangel38

Different times make different heroes. What is the the impact of 100 years of human history? An Alternate Universe, created under the premise that the Angels attacked in 1915 instead of 2015.

2. Chapter 2

First Home Defense Fleet, Tokyo Base, Hospital Wing
Tokyo
June 15, 1915, evening

When Shinji came to his senses, he was slightly confused. The last thing he remembered was turning the Evangelion around, and then...nothing. But apparently he had survived, or the Afterworld felt suspiciously like a bed. Which may well be possible. But then he felt a sharp pain as someone dug around in his leg with a pincer and ripped something out of his flesh. The sound of a small object made out of metal being dropped into a steel dish told him what it was. Shrapnel. He had been wounded during the fight in the Evangelion. Wounded, but not killed.

The pincer went back into his leg to fish out another piece of metal. When it slipped, the person operating on him gave a small sound of annoyance. Perhaps unaware that Shinji had regained consciousness, or perhaps just not caring about it, he shoved the pincer back in while holding the leg securely in his other hand, grabbed onto the piece of shrapnel and extracted it, by what had to be the most painful way he could have taken.

It appeared to have been the last one, because no further assaults were made on his legs or back. Instead, the strong smell of alcohol reached his nose, and a moment later he gave a hiss of suppressed pain when a small sponge was pressed on one of his wounds to disinfect it.

"I dig out half the Evangelion and you don't give a sound, but the moment I start with the disinfection you start screaming...some soldier you are!" said his tormentor in a good natured voice, and Shinji was forced to acknowledge that he had been mistaken. He had assumed he was operated on by a man - note entirely unreasonable, he tried to console himself - but the voice was definitely female. And even worse, he knew that voice.

"I wasn't screaming." he said to the wall in front of his face, forced by the wounds on his back to remain on his stomach.

"That's what your father said, when I had to bandage him up after that accident a few days ago."

Shinji did not know what she was referring to, but did not really care at that moment anyway. Mainly because the doctor was very thorough with disinfection (something Shinji was not all together unhappy with, not wanting to die of gangrene), and the sting made it difficult to focus. And besides, he was not to keen on striking up a conversation, particularly with this doctor.

Once all his many small injuries had been cleaned, she called for a nurse to bandage them and rose from the chair she had been sitting on.

"Well done, Shinji. I am sure your father is just as proud of you as I am." she said.

Shinji simply grunted in response, something he would have considered terribly rude under other circumstances (and in different company) and watched Dr. Ritsuko Ikari leave the hospital wing.

First Home Defense Fleet, Tokyo Base
Tokyo
June 15, 1915, late evening

"...and therefore, unlike the Evangelion, the pilot will be ready for light duty within two weeks and should be back to full health next month. The Evangelion has suffered heavy damage during the battle. Its left arm was completely ripped out of the should joint, the front armor and the frame of the upper body were pierced and suffered heavy damage. The control system is shot and I have some doubts about the right arm, its frame seems to have buckled under the stress. If we have to replace it, the Evangelion will be out of service for at least a month."

Gendo remained as passive as ever, while his leading technical officer rattled down the damage the Evangelion had suffered. Shinji had really done a number on it, no doubt, but things broke in war. Many admirals never grasped this, and would therefore be completely shocked when one of the precious ships under their command was damaged, or worse, sunk. Gendo never had any illusions about what happened when one sent an untrained pilot against an unknown but formidable enemy. It had been a success that he had killed the Angel. That he had brought back the Evangelion in a recognizable shape was an added bonus.

"And the Lance?" he asked.

His wife did not have to look at her reports to answer that question.

"The Lance is perfectly fine. Not even a scratch on it."

As could be expected, Gendo thought. Trusting the weapon known as the Lance of Longinus to be able to kill the Angel had been a gamble of truly epic proportions. But then again, it wasn't like they had anything else in their inventory that could hurt an Angel. And now that it had worked, people would assume that he had known and consider him even more of a strategic genius. Not that Gendo minded that very much, in fact he tried to encourage the idea whenever he could. It was just that people assumed that he knew everything (especially things he had no business knowing about), and would therefore always expect him to be familiar with every minuscule detail of an issue. It did take considerable effort to keep up the reputation of omniscience when he was very limited in what he knew.

On the other hand, since people assumed he knew everything already, they usually ignored such minor things like security clearances, meaning the Gendo knew a great deal about things he really shouldn't know about. Which always came in handy. And thankfully, Ritsuko and Fuyutsuki, one a doctor and the other a philosopher by trade, always assumed they were talking to an absolute layman (if not to say idiot) when they were speaking to him. It was somewhat grating, because they would explain everything, including things they had already explained several times, but it was better than having to try and make sense of people talking about stuff he had never heard about.

A knock on the door interrupted his musings. He shot a glance at his wife, who dutifully stepped out of the way, leaving him to deal with Captain Ryouji (who had, true to form, not waited for Gendo to call him in). Gendo motioned him to step up to his desk.

"Sir, we have found Rei. Apparently, she was in the hospital the whole time." he said quietly, but loud enough for Ritsuko to hear.

"Then, Captain, I think you saw something entirely different from what you think you saw."

Ryouji looked like he would protest, but then reconsidered, nodded and left. A common occurrence with people (a term which usually did not include SNLF officers) who thought about questioning his orders, and even more common with people who wondered if they should investigate Rei a bit closer. Where Rei was concerned, ignorance was bliss. Not for Gendo, obviously. Therefore, Rei's possible escape was something he had to investigate thoroughly. He couldn't allow one of his pilots to wander the streets of Tokyo during a battle, especially not when she was as heavily injured as Rei was at the moment. Especially when she was Rei, period.

The girl had a few most disturbing habits, first among them the ability to escape whatever guards he assigned to her. If Rei wanted to leave a military base on full alert, then Rei most definitely had the ability to do so, as she had shown in the past. One never knew what rei was thinking, and one could never be sure that Rei was where one thought she was.

"Will you come home tonight?" Ritsuko asked from the door. Gendo considered this for a short moment before he answered.

"I still have a lot to do. It will take a while. Don't wait for me."

His wife nodded and left.

After he had waited a moment to make sure she had actually left, he opened one of the drawers in his desk and removed a metal bowl and a piece of paper. He placed the paper in the bowl, took a match from that same drawer and lit the paper on fire. Then he watched impassively over steepled hands, as the fire ate through the words 'The Third Approaches.'.

The little letter, sent by courier not 3 days ago, represented a great dilemma for him. Sun Tzu might have said that all warfare was based on deception (Sun Tzu had said a great many things), but Gendo knew better. All warfare was based on an objective, deception was just a means to hide one's own. Because once one knew the objective of one's opponent, his strategy usually became painfully obvious. If one had knowledge of the enemy's resources, it was almost too easy to predict, provided that one had studied the enemy's strategic and operational doctrine. The really great generals, Gendo knew, were very much aware of this and could easily predict an opponents moves, while finding a new solution to an old problem and thus surprise the enemy. And this was Gendo's main problem. He did not know his own objective. Neither did he know his enemy's objective. In fact, he was not even sure who his enemy was, and consequently did not know who his allies were. In the current situation, his enemies may well be his allies and vice versa.

All this represented by a small piece of paper, which was now only smoke and ash.

It wasn't that Gendo did not know who had sent this letter. He did. Gendo Ikari was perhaps the only man in Tokyo (after the Imperial Government had beat a hasty retreat when the Angel had shown up) who knew what they were dealing with. It wasn't the Angels he was worried about, it was the humans who had woken them. These people obviously had done so for a rational reason, that reason pointing towards their objective, and it was the objective that all warfare was based on. So why had they woken up something as destructive as the Angels? And what was his role in all of this? He had a role to play in the big game, no doubt. It was certainly not a coincidence that he had been at this particular post, just like it had not been a coincidence that he had been made aware of Captain Ryouji's talent for thinking outside the box. Not that it was his creativity (or, for that matter, his courage) that they were after. It was all part of some plan, and Gendo had the disturbing feeling that he did not fully understood his role in it yet.

Lesser men would have accepted that and would have gone about their business, and it wasn't like Gendo wouldn't have his hands full in the coming months. But then again, lesser men commanded Divisions of the Imperial Guard in the attempt to stop an enemy they could not hurt.

First Home Defense Fleet, Tokyo Base, Hospital Wing
Tokyo
June 16, 1915, just after midnight

It was not the pain that woke Shinji this time. He was still on his stomach, as the nurse had ordered him to. Considering the blinding pain he had felt when he had tried to turn on his side without thinking, Shinji had no inclination to disobey. But it wasn't his favored sleeping position, and that meant his was a fitful sleep that night. Nightmares of giant monsters shooting beams of light at him did not help with that either.

Then he realized that what had woken him was another weight on the bed with him. Worse, it had him pinned to the bed by the bed sheet. The bed creaked quietly as the weight shifted. Next to his ear, something took a deep breath, as if to sample his scent. Like a predator that pondered if it should strike. Then came a single word, whispered right into his ear.

"Murderer."

The bed creaked again as the person left, and Shinji could hear footsteps leave the room. In the dark, he could not make out any details, just a slightly darker shadow in the night. It looked like someone about his size and hair slightly longer than military precision demanded.

Needless to say, he found it rather difficult to go back to sleep.

Imperial Navy Headquarters,
Tokyo
June 17, 1915, morning

The moment the enemy had made landfall and had annihilated the first coastal battery that opened fire on him, Gendo had known that there would be an inquiry, and that it would involve him first and foremost. He wasn't the highest ranking admiral in the First Home Defense Fleet, just the highest ranking one at the time of the attack. Technically, Admiral Kataoka was in command of the First Home Defense Fleet, but it was a very open secret that Gendo was the one actually running things. Kataoka had been given the post for several reasons, the most important one being that he was close to retirement and had requested a nice and quiet post for his last few months of service. A post which, incidentally, put him close to the court and the cabinet, since there was talk that he would join the government as minister for war after he retired from active service. Finally, there were good reasons why Gendo (especially Gendo) was not considered for that post just yet.

But all this mattered very little in daily life. Gendo commanded the Fleet, Admiral Kataoka mingled with high ranking government officials, and signed whatever Gendo needed signed. As long as nothing went wrong, everything was perfectly fine. It was just that some people in the Admiralty thought a giant green sea-monster rampaging through Tokyo and destroying the palace (including the Emperor's favorite Kois; His Majesty was deeply saddened by their untimely and rather violent death) was a problem. But Gendo had expected this and had had ample time to prepare his defenses. So it did not faze him in the slightest when a rather angry Admiral Kataoka had told him that the two of them had been summoned by a board of inquiry regarding the attack on Tokyo.

It was Gendo the board wanted to speak, Kataoka was just an innocent bystander. He was just 6 months away from his retirement, and should the board find them at fault, they would probably just admonish him for not keeping a closer eye on his subordinates. Since Kataoka had been away on a legitimate inspection during the attack, he could hardly be blamed for the destruction and would likely keep his post. But his hopes of becoming a minister in the imperial government would be dashed. Which was probably the reason why he had spent the last half hour detailing the ways he would end Gendo's career if he was punished. Gendo privately wondered if the Admiral honestly believed that. Gendo had been made (de facto, if not de jure) commanding officer of the First Home Defense Fleet for a reason, and more importantly by people quite a bit above Kataoka's level. As long as he pleased those people, his position was as solid as a rock.

Which meant that this whole business of inquiry was one huge waste of time. But Gendo wasn't too sorry to have gotten out of the base. The wind had turned, and the smell of the Angel rotting in the summer sun was almost unbearable inside the base. Work details were cutting apart the carcass as fast as they could (though there had been several desperate pleas of museums all over the world to allow them to preserve it for science), but work was slow going because of the damaged infrastructure. They simply couldn't transport the Angel's flesh away fast enough, never mind that no one had any idea what to do with it. The current plan was to just dump it back into the ocean and let nature sort it out.

Therefore, Gendo found the little trip to Navy Headquarters, which was situated downwind from the Palace Grounds, a very welcome relief, even if the reason for it should have made him anything but relieved.

His face as impassive as ever, he stood by his chair while he waited for the head of the board calling the meeting - or interrogation - to order.

"Be seated."

Gendo took his seat and suppressed the urge to steeple his hands in front of his face, like he usually did. It was bad form to do so in public. Yui had taught him this. Folding his hands on the table in front of him like a good boy, he waited for the rest of the people in the room to take their seats and the shuffling of chairs to end. A moment later, the chairman spoke up again.

"Admirals Ikari and Kataoka, this is an inquiry into your actions during the attack two days ago. Presiding is Admiral Nakano," he added, quite unnecessarily in Gendo's opinion, because the admirals of the Imperial Navy obviously knew each other. But apparently procedure still had to be followed. He half-listened as Nakano introduced the other members of the board, then suddenly perked up when he heard something most unusual.

"...and representing the Imperial Army is Guards Major Sugiyama. Given that this was a joint operation, it was decided that the Army had a right to participate and...ask...a few...questions."

The way he pressed out the last few words told Gendo that Nakano was not at all happy with the decision. That was understandable, because it was very unusual. It was one of the unwritten laws of the Japanese military that the armed services controlled themselves with no outside interference. The rivalry between the Imperial Navy and the Army was legendary. To allow the Army to listen in on what could be a lot of dirty Navy laundry being aired was unprecedented, and a major defeat in the internal turf war going on between the services. Gendo assumed that the decision to break with tradition had been made on a very high level, quite possibly in the office of the Emperor. Though His Majesty rarely interfered directly with politics, it was not unheard of, if He decided that it needed a personal touch. Probably those damn Kois, Gendo thought, He had really liked those. And now he was blaming the Navy for the whole thing.

Behind Sugiyama sat a young brown-haired girl in an Army Intelligence Service uniform. Perhaps she was Sugiyama's assistant, perhaps his plaything. Perhaps both. But considering that she was holding a clipboard with a thick stack of papers, and was talking rapidly to Sugiyama, who was looking none too pleased with that, it was perhaps not the Major who the Army really wanted to have in this room and in this particular sitting. Gendo started to get the feeling that this inquiry might not go just as smooth as he had expected it would, if only for the reason that it was no longer about the things he had thought it would be.

Nakano coughed once and glared in Sugiyama's direction, causing him to stop talking to his mistress (in whatever meaning of the word) and turn around to face Gendo and Kataoka, who had looked ready to burst at the revelation that an Army officer was going to sit in on HIS hearing, and was by now probably convinced that it was a plot by the Army to keep him out of the minister's office.

"After reading the preliminary report, I understand that Admiral Kataoka was away during the time of the attack. Is that correct?" he asked, looking at Kataoka, who nodded.

"Yes, I was inspecting the new Zeppelin base at Tateyama. I returned as soon as I got word of the attack, but the enemy was dead by the time I returned."

Sugiyama and the girl were both furiously taking notes, but said nothing.

"That leaves Admiral Ikari in command of the First Home Defense Fleet. Did you take command during the attack, Admiral?" It was clear that Kataoka was pretty much of the hook with this question. Just as Gendo had predicted. If Sugiyama had wanted to shoot down his superior, they would have tried to indicate that he should have known or should have taken measures to expedite his return, which would have forced Kataoka to explain why that wasn't possible, leaving him finally in a position where doubts of his competence weren't quite resolved. But they had not asked those questions. Perhaps they wanted to shoot him down, Gendo figured, and hope the Kataoka burned alongside with him.

Gendo nodded in answer.

"Please give the board your version of the events. Everyone present" - a significant glance at Sugiyama - "has read your preliminary report and is cleared for the same security level you are." Sugiyama's shadow handed him another stack of papers, no doubt the very report he should have read already. And no doubt the report she had read.

Gendo cleared his throat.

"At about 0830 hours on the 15th of June, we received word from the destroyers Sakaki and Umikaze, reporting an unknown object underwater that was moving towards the Yokohama naval base. As per standard protocol, both it and the Tokyo base were put on invasion warning alert. The Zeppelin Unryu was in the area and confirmed a shadow underwater. It bypassed the Yokohama naval base and continued to head towards Tokyo. The commander of the First Scouting Squadron, Admiral Yamamoto, ordered it to make steam and be ready to move in pursuit on his own authority. The Unryu continued to track the object until it surfaced in Tokyo bay at around 0945 hours. By 1000 hours the enemy had made landfall and actively engaged the shore batteries. At about 1030, all shore batteries were combat ineffective. By then the Imperial Guard had moved into a blocking position and managed to hold off the enemy until about 1330 to 1340 hours, despite taking heavy casualties." Gendo nodded towards Sugiyama, who nodded back but kept up his rapid pace of note taking.

"First Scouting Squadron began shelling the enemy around 1400 hours, but was forced to withdraw about 20 minutes later, after the Kongo had been sunk and the Haruna crippled. The attack by the First Naval Aviation Squadron was ineffective. First Home Defense Fleet sortied its single Type 70 Evangelion at about 1430 hours. It engaged the enemy around 1500 hours, and defeated it within 15 minutes."

Sugiyama coughed, then raised his hand, before any of the other assembled Navy officers could respond. With a look that tried very hard not to be disgusted, Nakano gestured for the Major of the Guards to go ahead.

"So, did I understand you correctly, the Evangelion was not used until almost 5 hours after the attack started, and about 6 hours after the enemy had been spotted for the first time?"

"That is what I said."

"Why, if I may ask?"

Gendo almost replied that he may not, because this was something that should really only concern him as the commander on the spot. Not some random Army Major. But the look on Admiral Nakano told him that such behavior would not be tolerated. Officially, at least, his actions were under strict scrutiny, and that meant that the Navy members of the board had every bit as much interest in the answer to that question as Sugiyama did, though it should have been one of them who asked the question.

"Because we lacked a pilot."

"Now, Admiral, I am sure there were quite a few suitable soldiers on hand." The girl sitting behind him handed him another file.

"Captain Ryouji, for example."

The Army Intelligence Service had done it's homework, there was no doubt about that. But then again, so had Gendo.

"Ryouji was unsuitable due to weight reasons."

"His file says that he has passed every mandatory fitness test. With distinction."

Naturally, Gendo thought, but that would be because the good Captain, like every SNLF officer, was a little bit crazy when it came to fitness. The joke went that every SNLF officer was told that they had to be able to swim to shore in full gear from the ship, just in case there were no landing craft to be found, and every SNLF officer was always training to be able to do so. Gendo could only assume that it was a prank someone pulled on a new recruit which then perpetuated onwards until it became tradition. That people actually believed that said a lot about the SNLF. And about people, as well.

"You misunderstood, an adult is too heavy to pilot an Evangelion. As you should know if you had read the briefing on the Type 70."

He noticed with some degree of satisfaction that Sugiyama's assistant/girlfriend/controller blushed bright red and handed him yet another file, which the Major took with a look of clear frustration. Obviously, this whole setup had been a last minute affair, and Gendo could not help but feel a bit sorry for the Major, who was just a pawn in the ongoing battle between Army and Navy. A willing pawn, no doubt, but still a pawn.

"I will spare you the work. Evangelions are bipedal, which means that their entire weight rests on their two feet. Their ground pressure is high, since the area of their feet is relatively small, compared to their weight. In order to keep the Evangelion from sinking into the ground, any and all weight saving measures had to be taken. The frame of its upper body is made out of aluminium, only the frame of the legs is full steel. It is lightly armored, except for the left shoulder. It carries no radio or other communication equipment, despite having the space for it. We actually contemplated to remove the aluminium from the back of the Mechanoid and to replace it with simple canvas, to have more weight available for armament and frontal armor. In fact, Tokyo is one of the few places in Japan where the Evangelion can walk without snowshoes to reduce the ground pressure. To put it simple, we can not afford to have a full grown adult pilot an Evangelion. Teenagers are much better. Girls in particular, because most of them are even lighter than boys of the same size. The Evangelion's control system also negates any differences in body strength between male and female pilots, making them even better suited to the task. As far as I know, the Germans have a female pilot for their first combat ready Evangelion, and I hear the Americans have one in their pilot corps as well."

The girl sitting behind Sugiyama was by now taking notes at a pace that seemed to defy physics. Gendo knew that this information seemed to be the holy grail for anyone trying to learn about Evangelions - after all the Imperial Army had none of their own, and they had probably sent her here to learn whatever she could on them. They had, after all, to prepare to engage them in battle, either against a foreign foe, or - given the situation between the two services - a domestic one. The speed with which Sugiyama had pounced on it seemed to indicate that as well. Unfortunately for her, it was also pretty much completely wrong. Certainly, there were problems with the ground pressure, but much smaller than he had let on. In fact, Ryouji could probably have piloted Unit 1 just fine (50 kg more or less did not make that much of a difference on good streets, like Tokyo had), but Gendo had very strict orders (or, since they came from people outside his chain of command, perhaps suggestions would be the better word) to keep him out of danger. Which, given that the man was an SNLF officer, was a lesson in frustration.

Sugiyama, for his part, was not to impressed with the information. Then again, the Guards were perhaps the most conservative faction in the entire army. He probably thought Evangelions a waste of perfectly good metal to forge swords with. But that did not mean that he was done asking questions.

"Next question, if I may...Admiral, according to the report I read the pilot - new pilot, I would assume - is named Ikari as well. Are you related to him?"

Gendo knew where this was going. Still, it would not do to lie here.

"He is my son." Set up.

"And you see nothing wrong with handing that machine to a close relative? I have to admit that I am very surprised at the way the Navy assigns people to their posts!"

Gendo felt the corners of his mouth twitch a little.

"Major, last I heard your son was a Lieutenant in the Guards as well." Riposte.

He could see Sugiyama's face get red, either from embarrassment or anger, perhaps from both.

"In fact, I believe he is in your battalion." Knock Out.

Being assigned to the capital had its advantages. Being around Kataoka had its advantages as well. And finally, being able to remember trivial details dropped in a conversation weeks ago turned those two things into a weapon. And for some unexplained reason, Gendo's revelation that the kettle that called him black wasn't exactly white himself meant that no further questions about why he had made his own son pilot of the only Evangelion in Japan were asked. But by now, the entire board was glaring at the Major, and no one would even consider asking anything that would make him look even remotely correct. This was now an issue of honor, and that meant that such trivial details were ignored.

Perhaps he should have gone with the idea that it took a certain type of skill to operate an Evangelion effectively, and then to claim that his son was one of the few people in Japan - indeed, the world - possessing this vital skill. But considering that similar machines were already mass produced - not the Type 70, which was unique - that would probably not hold up too well. Then again, by the time those mass production models became commonplace, no one would remember this episode.

But Sugiyama was not done yet, though Kataoka looked like he was about to do things that would be entirely improper for an officer of the Imperial Navy. Not that he looked like he cared very much about that at the moment. The Army Major changed topics again, obviously in an attempt to catch Gendo off guard and reveal his grave errors in judgment (which, by now, would have to be very grave indeed to make the board care about them), or at least get a few more pieces of information for the spy sitting behind him.

"Admiral, considering that the Evangelion wasn't combat ready at the time, and considering that you could not be sure a pilot would show up in time, why did you oppose the use of the special ammunition against the target, given the situation?"

'Special Ammunition' referred, of course, to the poison gas canisters that the General of the Guard had wanted to use against the Angel.

"Chemical weapons are area denial weapons. Deploying gas against the enemy, if it would have even worked would make any deployment of the Evangelion impossible. If the Evangelion failed to stop the enemy, on the other hand, there was still time to deploy it. The correct escalation sequence should be obvious."

When Sugiyama opened his mouth to reply, Kataoka had had enough and cut him off.

"That will be enough from the Army. You asked your questions. Now, Admiral Ikari, about the attack made by the First Scouting Squadron..."

The rest of the hearing passed without notable events, and Gendo was not surprised when the board found no major neglect of duty. He briefly considered thanking the good Major for his aid in his defense, but decided against it. After all, Yui had taught him that one could be magnificent without being a bastard. It was, sadly, one of the few lessons that he still had some trouble with.

First Home Defense Fleet, Tokyo Base
Tokyo
June 17, 1915, late evening

It had been a long day for Gendo Ikari. The hearing had finished up soon enough, but the work of the commanding Admiral of the First Home Defense Fleet was never ending. And the workload of the man tasked with defending Tokyo from the Angels was added on top of that. He was one of perhaps 2 or 3 people in Tokyo that knew what hardships this city would have to face in the coming months. It was his job to ensure it was still standing when the attacks ceased. If the attacks ceased. The warning that the third Angel was coming had told him that his other masters knew a lot more than he did about the Angels, and that made him somewhat uncomfortable.

Leaning back in his chair, he felt something in the pocket of his uniform. He extracted the object and found a small note that someone had slipped him sometime during the day. He frowned. He kept his distance from people - part of maintaining the facade of the lone warrior in command - making this rather hard. And for most of the day, he had been at the Palace Grounds and well away from people.

Opening it, he read

"Admiral Ikari,

If the Evangelion is only capable of being piloted by a single adolescent person...why are there two seats in every Evangelion?

- Kirishima"

Gendo could not help but smile at this. It was not a very nice smile - that kind he reserved for his wife - but the smile of a man looking forward to something. Kirishima was apparently the name of the Army Intelligence officer that had sat in on his hearing. And apparently, she had managed to deduct that his explanation for selecting a boy as the pilot had been, to borrow a vulgar term for it, bullshit. Which put her above 90% of the army officers Gendo had met in his life.

It would certainly have been a lot harder for him if she had actually been the one sitting in for the Army and asking questions, but the fact that she was only a woman had prevented this. The devastation of Second Impact had made it necessary to admit women into the armed forces (over the stubborn resistance of some high ranking officers), but they still were limited to rear area and support duties. With a new generation of boys growing up, there were even some people who wanted to see them removed from the army (and, presumably, back to the task of raising the next generation of soldiers), citing that there was no longer a need for them. Gendo, for his part, thought that a very stupid idea. He did not think very high of Clausewitz, but the Prussian had been right on one thing: The side that was willing to wage a more total war would usually win against the side that restricted its warfare for whatever reasons. In short, Japan would not win in a war in which her opponents continued to mobilize the potential of their female population if she did not do the same. As with every development in the field of warfare, the wheel of time could not be turned back on this one. This particular djin was out of the bottle.

Gendo put the letter into a desk drawer and made a mental note to ask the Naval Counterintelligence Unit about Ms. Kirishima. He had no doubt that they would be able to tell him some very useful things.

First Home Defense Fleet, Tokyo Base
Tokyo
June 22, 1915, morning

A week after his battle with the monster that had attacked Tokyo, Shinji had been released from the hospital to a waiting Captain Ryouji. It could have been a beautiful day, the sun was shining (as it did pretty much every day since Second Impact), the birds were singing, and the city reeked of decaying flesh.

As it had turned out, Tokyo Bay was not deep enough to be able to deal with several dozen tons of meat being dumped into it.

Though he had been released from the hospital, Shinji was still bandaged and Ritsuko (he refused to call her Dr. Ikari) had made it clear that he better not try and sleep on his back for at least another week. Given the pain he had felt the last time he had tried to roll over half asleep, Shinji wasn't likely to disobey.

Captain Ryouji had handed him his official transfer papers - the letter he had received back at the Academy was just a marching order - making him an officially approved Evangelion pilot, currently the only one in Japan. This wasn't such a big problem, since there was only a single Evangelion in Japan anyway.

He had also handed Shinji an official briefing paper on the Evangelion - which Shinji would have greatly appreciated about a week ago. Or at least in time for him to read it while he spent his days on his stomach in the hospital.

At least his night time visitor hadn't returned, and Shinji was just about ready to write the whole episode off as a trick of his exhausted mind.

Ryouji took them over to the Evangelion hangar, driving the staff car at what must have seemed to him like a glacial pace to account for Shinji's injuries. Meanwhile, Shinji was leafing through the Evangelion's manual as best he could with all the bumping and the pain it brought with it.

Half of the stuff he knew already - the energy supply, the emergency engine, the control system. Other things were new to him, like the fact that the Evangelion supposedly had 4 Maxim machine guns installed that would fire from the its shoulders. That would have been nice to know before going into hand to hand combat against an enemy his own size, whether protected by an invisible shield or not.

Resulting from the revelation and the not very pleasant ride, Shinji was not in the best of moods when the arrived at the giant hangar doors. Captain Ryouji, on the other hand, seemed to be back to his old, cheerful self.

Inside the hangar, chaos reigned. Or so it seemed to Shinji, who could make out no system in the piles of twisted metal lying around the hangar floor. In the middle of it, the Evangelion sat like he had first seen it, kneeling on the hangar floor, like a warrior in deep thought before his next battle. A currently one armed warrior, to be exact.

A scaffold nearby held some piece of machinery, and it was this scaffold that Captain Ryouji led him to. Several workers were welding bits and pieces to it, and as he approached, Shinji became aware that it was, in fact, the Evangelion's left arm.

They stopped next to a man in the uniform of a Lieutenant of the Imperial Navy, who was regarding the whole affair with a look of quiet satisfaction. He seemed completely engrossed in watching the work crews, and so it took him a short while to realize that there were people standing next him. It took him a moment longer, and a quiet cough from Captain Ryouji, before he saluted in response to Shinji, who had held his for the entire time. Ryouji, as always, did not salute when he did not feel like it.

"This is Lieutenant Hyuga. He is responsible for maintaining the Evangelion. Lieutenant, this is Ensign Ikari. He wrecked your Evangelion."

Shinji thought that this was a very unfair introduction, all things considered, but Hyuga did not seem too troubled with it. Perhaps he knew about Ryouji's sense of humor. Still, Shinji gave a short apology and a small bow, before his back acted up again, and he resolved to be a little bit more rude in such cases for the next few weeks.

"Did you give him his papers?", Hyuga asked, and Shinji wordlessly held up the folder in his hands.

"Good. Sorry we couldn't get them to you sooner, but it is highly classified. And, well, we don't actually have a proper manual for it. Evangelions are still under development, so what we do here is pretty much just improvisation, you know, getting rid of the teething problems before we start mass production. Not of this one, obviously, I mean just look at it, it was designed ten years ago, it is just the test type after all, practically no military value to speak off..."

He rambled on, oblivious to the fact the Shinji had long since lost track of what he meant. Ryouji shot Shinji a glance that told volumes of the Captain's opinion of the other man. Hyuga was obviously one of the many young men in post Second Impact Japan that had signed up to have the military pay for university, and was now here to serve his 18 months, until he became a reservist and could go on with his civilian life. Engineering students were much sought after, with all the new machines that had to be operated and maintained in a Navy that was getting more and more complex weapons - Zeppelins, submarines, and, of course, Evangelions.

"...no option for mounting bigger caliber guns on it either, I really don't know what they were thinking with this one, I mean sure, it was the first one we build over here, and it was bound to be rather primitive, but there is really no rhyme or reason to its equipment, unless you think it was build specifically to fight with a giant lance or something, I mean that is just not the way we fight wars nowadays..."

Hyuga's manners made Shinji wonder why he had been placed in charge of maintaining Japan's first (and right now only) Evangelion. But the more he learned about the First Home Defense Fleet, the more he came to the conclusion that it was perhaps not the most elite of outfits. That was not to say it was ineffective, but after the strict and sometimes harsh discipline at the Naval Academy, the real world seemed pretty lax to Shinji, who had always thought the well disciplined soldiers were the mark of a good unit. After all, discipline was one of the most basic components of soldierly life, meaning that well disciplined soldiers (as opposed to merely disciplined soldiers) probably liked to be soldiers, and were therefore good soldiers.

"...it is really too bad you had to drive it so hard, the entire left side is busted, and we couldn't salvage the left arm, that was just scrap metal, I mean I understand that it was a battle and all that and stuff gets broken in combat, sure, but still I wouldn't mind at all if you could just try and get it back in one piece next time..."

But then again, Hyuga obviously enjoyed talking about the Evangelion, and while he apparently did not get on well with the whole soldier and discipline business, he seemed a competent enough technician. It was just that he talked so damn much.

"...and when i saw that attack, I was inspired! I still have to talk about this with the Doctor and the Admiral, but I'm pretty sure they will approve it. So don't worry Ensign, you will have the Evangelion back as good as new. Better than new, in fact."

It took Shinji a moment to notice that the torrent of words had stopped, and silence, blessed silence reigned. Apart from the various sounds a maintenance crew makes when it works with heavy machinery on other heavy machinery. Captain Ryouji was slightly quicker on the uptake.

"So when do you think he can start training with it?" he asked Hyuga's back, since the other man had already turned back to watch the work crew.

"Oh. Well. The way he moved the Evangelion means he has the basics down, so it wouldn't make sense to get him into it before we are done anyway. A week, minimum, I guess. Besides, the Doctor told me that he won't be cleared for it before next week anyway."

And with that, he left to supervise another work crew in another part of the hangar. Ryouji seemed to be satisfied with this answer and motioned Shinji to leave with him.

"Now Shinji, I hope you memorized everything the Lieutenant told you. Everything he said is vital for operating the Evangelion. You did listen carefully, right?" he said, in what Shinji thought (and hoped) was a sarcastic tone.

"I, err, well...you see..."

"Ensign Ikari?"

Unable to come up with anything resembling an excuse, Shinji decided that it was best to acknowledge his failure before stalling further.

"No, I did not Sir. No excuse. Sir."

Ryouji gave a sigh of obvious and deep disappointment. Perhaps he feared that he would have to hear the entire thing again. Standing next to the staff car, he shook his head and looked sideways at Shinji.

"'No, I did not, Sir.' No witty comeback. You know Ensign, you have to get yourself a proper sense of humor. It's the most important thing for a modern soldier. Those who retain the humor, even in the darkest of times, can persevere. Those who don't, go crazy."

Shinji spent the ride to their next stop pondering if he really wanted to fit a SNLF officer's definition of sane.

First Home Defense Fleet, Tokyo Base, Junior Officer Housing Area
Tokyo
June 22, 1915, midday

After yet another bumpy ride, spent mostly in silence, they arrived at Shinji's new home. Shinji had feared he would be put with his father and his new wife, but thankfully, his father had apparently decided otherwise. It would have been awkward to say the least, both the offer and the following refusal.

But now they stood before the long brick building, and despite Shinji's insistence, Captain Ryouji had shouldered the bag of his belongings (which had been sent over from Kobe after only a week). With an extravagant gesture, the captain held open the door for a Shinji who was getting more and more embarrassed, though by now there was a healthy amount of frustration mixed into it. Perhaps the Captain thought this a good way to stimulate Shinji's sense of humor. If so, it clearly wasn't working very well.

Once inside, they set out to find the officer that was supposed to be in charge of the housing area. In what Shinji had come to expect of the First Home Defense Fleet, he was not to be found at his post. After 10 minutes of waiting, Captain Ryouji told Shinji that he had other places to be, dropped the bag and left Shinji to wait next to the empty table.

Another 10 minutes passed without any sign of a ranking officer, before finally a young man appeared. He took one look at Shinji, his eyes widening when he noticed the sword hanging from Shinji's belt, and then hurried to his table.

To Shinji's continued embarrassment, the older (and therefore probably senior) ensign saluted him first. Remembering his promise to be slightly more rude (and wanting to go somewhere where he could sit down), he did not bother to correct him, saluting practices between officers with swords and officers without swords being a hotly debated topic anyway - with the opinions neatly split between those that had swords and those that did not.

"Sir!" the Ensign shouted, "I apologize for not being here sooner, but it is rare we get new officers of your grade, and it is about lunchtime, and..." he took a look at Shinji's face, which was in a state between severe annoyance at so much unprofessionalism and severe annoyance that the ensign was treating him like he was a Rear Admiral. The other officer, of course, interpreted his expression entirely the wrong way.

"I...no excuses, sir."

Shinji could almost hear the mental 'please don't kill me' following the apology. After all, he had added it many a time when uttering the same line. He waved him off.

"Can you show me to my room?"

"Sir!", the Ensign shouted, having apparently fallen back into a mode of behavior more appropriate to someone new at the Naval Academy, who had just learned that the only way for junior and senior officers to communicate with each other was to shout.

Shinji tried very hard not to roll his eyes at that, but made no motion to stop the Ensign when he went to carry Shinij's bag. It was clear by now that the Ensign was of the type that was - privately - considered best suited to lead assault waves in the SNLF, because running over a beach in a more or less straight line made a good example for the men and did not try those officer's mental capabilities too hard. As opposed to, say, commanding a garbage chute in Tokyo Harbour.

They went up a flight of stairs and down a long corridor, with doors going off to one side in regular intervals. The other side of the corridor was made up by windows that allowed the midday sun to light it up. In short, it was exactly the same building that may be found on any of the dozens of new naval bases that sprung up after Second impact redrew Japan's coast lines, and which always - always - housed the the junior officers.

"I'm very sorry, but we just got a bunch of other officers from one of the other naval bases. Apparently the building for junior officers over there got hit by artillery fire during the attack, so they had to send them here for housing. I'm afraid you'll have to share your room with two ensigns."

Shinji, being used to share the room with 50 cadets, was not too depressed by this turn of events. He did wonder, however, where he would have ended up if there had been free capacity. Probably with his own room, something he had not had since he entered the Naval Academy more than 5 years ago. For a moment, he did feel a pang of regret at it, but it vanished quickly.

His guide stopped at a door that looked remarkably unremarkable.

"Your room, sir. Your roommates are probably still out eating lunch."

He remained where he stood, looking at Shinji somewhat expectantly. It took Shinji a moment to realize what he was waiting for, and after a formal dismissal the Ensign left him alone, his relief over handling such a tricky situation so well very visible on his face. After all, Shinji had not killed him (there was the stubborn rumor that officers with swords were allowed to behead swordless officers on sight), demoted him, or worse, sent him to clean the toilets.

Shinji opened the door to his new home and stepped inside. Looking around the room, Shinji was positively surprised. After his experiences with the personnel of the First Home Defense Fleet, he had expected to find this place a dump. Instead, it was reasonably well kept, with the belongings of his two roommates stashed under their beds - not that they had much, being very junior officers.

The beds stood in three of the corners of the room, and the others had left a bit of a personal note around theirs. That was not at all uncommon, cadets being allowed the same around their beds (after the first 6 months, that is). After he had dumped his bag at the sole unmade, and therefore his, bed in the room, Shinji sat down on one of the two chairs in the room (typical Imperial Navy policy, to have two chairs in a room for three people) and waited for for the Ensign to come back with his bedclothes, which he had apparently and unsurprisingly forgotten to bring with him.

His eyes wandered through the empty room, and without really wanting to, he started to study the beds of his roommates. Or more specifically, what was around them. Since they would probably share the room for quite some time - Imperial Navy repair crews being what they were - it would be inevitable that they would get to know each other very, very well. There was no real privacy until one made Captain (or found a particularly dumb Ensign in charge of housing arrangements), even Lieutenants being usually billeted in pairs.

Throwing another look at the door, he walked over to one of the tables in the room, standing next to one of the occupied beds. While the other table was almost spartan in terms of personal belongings, only holding two photographs of girls of various ages, this one was positively overflowing. There were no photographs that Shinji could see, but that did not mean much, as the table was completely covered in books, magazines and newspapers of one kind or another. Crouching down to get his head level with the table and able to read the titles - his back painfully protesting against his curiosity - he quickly found that there were only a few novels, but seemed to be technical in nature. There were magazines on radio technology; Jane's All the World's Fighting Ships, which Shinji already knew from the library back at the Naval Academy; a book by a man named Holland about submarines and another by a man named Wells about a war of the worlds that Shinji had never heard about. Maybe it was a misprint of a book called Wars of the World, which would make a great deal more sense to have as reading material.

When the door opened, and it was not the Ensign he expected standing in the doorway, Shinji realized one thing: he had severely overestimated the intelligence of people that held low level officer positions in the Imperial Navy. The two people in the doorway and Shinji regarded each other warily. They were an odd couple, a tall one with unruly black hair and a figure that suggested that he took the fitness requirements very seriously, and a shorter one with glasses and freckles, and a figure that suggested that he dreaded morning PA a lot. Since neither of them was carrying any sort of sheets, they were probably his roommates.

A heartbeat later, the shorter of the duo broke the ice and took two steps towards Shinji. Holding out his hand, he said "Hey. My name is Kensuke Aida. The other guy-" he made a gesture towards his companion, still standing in the door, "- is Toji Suzuhara. I guess you are our new roommate?"

Shinji nodded and shook the hand he was offered.

"Shinji Ikari. Say, you wouldn't know where to get some sheets for my bed, would you?"

The Suzuhara boy had by now moved into the room. He sent a glare in the direction of Shinji and Aida before he crashed on his bed and continued to glare at the ceiling. Shinji and the other Ensign exchanged a look and left the room to begin their quest for linen. Before they had even made it to the end of the hallway, Aida's curiosity got the better of him.

"So, Ikari...are you related to The Admiral?"

"The Admiral?", Shinji asked, puzzled over the particular way the other Ensign had pronounced the title.

"Admiral Ikari, obviously. We call him The Admiral to keep him apart from The Doctor. Guess that makes you The Ensign."

Shinji gave a short sigh. This was perhaps the worst possible conversation topic, and they had reached less than one minute after meeting each other. Face twisting into a sardonic smile, Shinji figured that this had to be a new personal record.

"He is my father."

"Must be great to have someone like The Admiral and The Doctor for parents."

Shinji shook his head and made a desperate attempt at changing topics.

"Not nearly as much as you'd think. Say, your roommate..."

Leading him down a flight of stairs, Aida gave a short apologetic shrug.

"Well, you have to forgive him. He had a pretty bad week, with the attack and all."

Shinji frowned. The other boy hadn't seemed injured at all, and hardship was a fact of life for soldiers. But then again, so was whining about it.

"How bad?"

"The house his family was in was destroyed during the attack. And so was the house of the girl he likes. So he figured she would be probably moving away. So he he dressed up and went to her and, well, proposed, so she could live on base as a spouse. About an hour ago, as a matter of fact."

Shinji could see where this was going.

"She turned him down?"

The other boy shook his head.

"Turns out her father isn't too happy with the idea of his daughter marrying, let alone someone who wants to become an SNLF officer."

Shinji silently agreed that this explained a lot. The words SNLF officer candidate told you everything you needed to know about a person. Fit. Stubborn. Slightly crazy. Not exactly the hands one would want to give one's daughter into.

"To be fair to him, it would have been a good way for her to end up as a widow of twenty-five."

Aida snickered.

"You haven't met Hikari-chan. If Touji dies without her express permission, she would travel to the Afterworld to drag him back. No, it is not her father he is worried about...Here we are."

They had stopped before a door. Shinji pressed down the handle to open it, but found it locked. He gave a sigh and turned to look for someone with a key - probably that damnable Ensign - when Aida held him back.

"If you don't mind, I'd like to try something.", he said, fishing around in his uniform until he found the small leather pouch he was looking for. Shinji stepped back from the door and motioned him forward, curious what he had in mind.

"Now, if you would be so kind and keep an eye out..."

He dropped to a crouch before the door and produced a small set of tools from the pouch. Taking a close look at the lock, he started to mutter to himself. With a shock Shinji realized that the other Ensign was going to pick the lock. He considered stopping him and getting the key, since being caught picking a lock on an Imperial Navy base would mean serious trouble, even more so compared to the trouble of going to find that damnable Ensign, but as he finished the thought, Aida stood up, pushed the handle down and the door swung open. Giving Shinji a rather arrogant smile, the other Ensign pocketed his tools and made an extravagant gesture towards the open door. Shinji did not know whether he should thank him or yell at him for being so stupid, and therefore settled for remaining silent. After all, yelling would only draw attention. And, really, he should have expected something like this. It was the First Home Defense Fleet, after all. Shinji gave a mental sigh and cursed whoever decided that the last line of defense should consist of the worst the country had to offer. After all, if everyone else had failed, it wouldn't do to have the First Home Defense Fleet ruin the enemy's day, right?

First Home Defense Fleet, Tokyo Base
Junior Officer Housing Area
June 22, early afternoon

A pack of fresh linen under one arm, and trying to look completely at ease, Shinji made his way back to their room. His companion did not have to carry anything, and somehow that made him look perfectly at ease. Perhaps it was the lack of physical contact with proof of their wrongdoing. Perhaps he was just unaware of the position they were in. If anyone asked where they had gotten this...
On the other hand, this was the First Home Defense Fleet. Shinji started to get the feeling no one would care about one set of sheets missing from the inventory, and chances were that no one would wonder why a locked door was suddenly unlocked.

But that still didn't mean that Shinji appreciated the whistling of his companion as they walked. The last thing he wanted was for someone to decide that they were far too underemployed and conscript them for some work detail.

To Shinji's eternal surprise and gratitude, they made the way back to their room without incident. That was not to say that his ordeal was over when he stepped into his new home. When he dumped his load of linen on his bed he noticed that something was missing. His sword, which he had left with the rest of his belongings, was no longer there.

"Looking for this?" asked the voice of Ensign Suzuhara from the other bed. Shinji turned around and, sure enough, he was holding Shinji's sword.

"As a matter of fact, I do.", Shinji answered as calmly as possible.

"Did your daddy get you this, Ikari?", came the reply in the same, rather angry voice. "Did he pull some strings so his little boy can get a sword? Did he get you a ticket to some piracy patrol, so you can claim you were in combat?" The other boy sat up. "Because if you ask me, you don't look like much of a warrior."

Shinji knew how this went. If you put 50 adolescent boys into a room, as the Naval Academy had done, such occurrences happened daily - for about a month, then it died down. Unless new people moved in. As with all confrontations, there were two ways to deal with this. One was to yield. One was to attack. Both in wargames and in real life, Shinji was not someone who fought hopeless battles - the officers that did usually ended up in rear area postings or in the SNLF, the later having a bit of a reputation to maintain - but his training had also taught him to fight when a fight was inevitable, and Suzuhara looked like he wanted to make it a fight. If Shinji would yield, he would probably look for something else to escalate the situation.

Resolved that battle was inevitable, Shinji went about to make stratagems.

"I got it for coming here. And do you want to know why?"

He took a step closer to the bed, forcing the other boy to look up at him, little though the difference in height was. They were staring at each other, each trying to force the opponent to look away and admit defeat. Not every fight had to become physical. Sometimes, things could be solved by proving that one had the stronger nerves.

"Because they called me to kill that thing that attacked the city."

Shinji heard Aida suck in his breath. Szuhara's face darkened considerably, and Shinji couldn't help but feel like he had overlooked something when he had made that statement.

Oh right. Suzuhara's not-quite-fiancé was moving away because he may or may not have stepped on her house. And on the house of Suzuhara's family, which, true to form, probably contained his favorite dog as well. In retrospect, insulting his mother would probably have been the better idea.

Suzuhara stood up from the bed, his face now only inches away from Shinji's.

"So you're that idiot who couldn't walk in a straight line. Well, I guess this does belong to you after all."

He thrust the sword - hilt first, thankfully - into Shinji's guts, forcing him to take a step back. Confused, Shinji looked down and grabbed the weapon. While he was fastening it to his belt, where it belonged, he congratulated himself on successfully defusing the situation while still achieving his objective.

"And so does THIS!"

Shinji looked up in confusion. Just in time to see the fist that hit him, sending him sprawling onto his bed. Before he could gather himself, Suzuhara was on top of him.

"Just so we are clear. I don't hate you. But if you screw up again, I will make sure the next time someone is piloting who doesn't."

Shinji, not being in any position to argue - since Szuhara was too close for him to draw his sword - simply nodded. With a glare in his direction, Suzuhara left the room, presumably to find someone - or something - else to beat up. Presumably, someone who would put up a better fight than Shinji.

"Admirably handled, Ikari", said Aida dryly. "He really wanted to get into a fist fight there."

Shinji rubbed his aching chin and gingerly felt around in his mouth to see if any teeth had been knocked loose. "Well, he isn't out of the building yet. I can still change my mind."

Aida gave a snort. "Right. Now, you mentioned you were piloting the Evangelion, yes?" His eyes, it seemed to Shinji, took on an almost demonic glow. "Tell me, tell me everything."

Imperial Army Artillery Range
near Tokyo
June 30, 1915, (very early) morning

Shinji tried to stifle a yawn as he stood next to his Evangelion. Overlooking the large and open area, he failed. In his defense, it was an ungodly hour, and he had had to walk the Evangelion here, meaning he had to get up even earlier. And an officer of his rank was not allowed such luxuries as coffee to make the morning bearable.

"Still tired, Shinji? Thoughts of someone keeping you up at night?"

Captain Ryouji, on the other hand, while technically not allowed either, did not care for such restrictions and was therefor a great deal more awake than his subordinate. He was also a great deal more talkative, but that had nothing to do with the coffee.

"I'm afraid not."

"Was that a snarky comeback, Ensign? Because it almost sounded like one from here. Good to know you are finally adapting to the way we do things."

Shinji, for his part, was not nearly as glad as Ryouji. Maybe he was right, and the First Home Defense Fleet had started to rub off on him. He certainly wouldn't have dared to give such lip back at the academy. Then again, maybe it was just the early hour. Sleep deprivation always did strange things to his manners.

A siren sounded over the area, signaling that the range was clear and firing could begin.

"Now, Shinji, did you read the manual?"

It had taken him some effort to hide it from Aida, and from the smug grin the bespectacled boy wore for most of the week, Shinji wasn't quite sure if he had succeeded.

"Yes."

"And the book on spear fighting I got you?"

That had been a lot more interesting than the rather dry manual. It had been a reprint of a very old manuscript, written back in the days when the Shoguns of Japan had fought amongst themselves. It dealt with the multitude of ways to wield the Yari, a heavy lance. While the spear he had used in combat was shorter - relative to the size of the Evangelion, of course - it was not directly applicable, but the moves described in it would certainly be helpful. Being completely devoid of any mention of electricity or internal combustion engines, it was also completely uninteresting for Aida, making it a lot more relaxing to read in his presence.

"That, too."

"Good. Get in the Evangelion. We will start with basic gunnery."

Trying to stifle yet another yaw - and failing again - he walked back towards the repaired machine. There had been some mention of a hand held machine gun working on the Gatling principle - whatever that was - bought from Germany, but that hadn't arrived yet. So the only gunnery was the training with the Evangelions internal machine guns, two on - or rather, in - each shoulder. According to Lieutenant Hyuga, that was very little in terms of firepower, compared to what the other Evangelions could bring. But then again, the Lieutenant had rambled on, the true capabilities of other nation's constructions were all a closely guarded secret.

The lack of formal training meant that Shinji had been told to make up tactics and procedures as he went. In fact, as the Lieutenant had told him, making them up was pretty much of the reason he was here. They needed a test pilot, and he was it. And in the very unlikely event of yet another sea monster attacking Tokyo, he was there to take it on.

Shinji still wasn't sure if he had been joking with that last part.

One of the first things he had learned was how to leave an Evangelion in the field, without proper equipment to get in and out of it easily, like they had back at the home base. Curiously, there were no ladders anywhere on the machine, so getting up to the cockpit from the ground was not that simple. The reverse was even more problematic, since the pilot needed help to get out of the harness - the switch to release it was in the rear cockpit. Which made it somewhat uncomfortable for Shinji to ride alone, knowing that he wouldn't be able to get out in a catastrophic event. Battlefields also tended to create catastrophic events in complex machines deployed on them, but that was something he tried not to think too hard about.

He approached the giant machine. He had knelt it down, as was standard procedure when switched off. He had also made very sure to leave its arm in a position to allow him to get up to the head and into the cockpit. While he had taken the same way down as he had intended to take back up, he was under no illusions that gravity had helped him down, but probably won't help him up. Standing before the enormous war machine, he wondered if he shouldn't have insisted on a proper ladder, either by taking it along from home base or by forcing them to have one here. It would be very embarrassing if they found out now that he couldn't get back up. Perhaps it had been a bad idea to use the Evangelions hands to ferry Captain Ryouji up towards the rear cockpit instead of making him try to climb up.

But then again, the saying in the Imperial Navy went "If the SNLF can't get to it, we probably don't want to own it anyway." The fact that Ryouji could reach the cockpit didn't mean a mere mortal could.

Either way, he decided, standing on the ground admiring the problem did not get him any closer to solving it, and so resolved to begin the climb. Stepping on the metal of the lower arm, he was glad that it was a sunny day. Fog or rain would have made the steel slick, and going up would have become completely impossible. Still, the upper arm was a lot steeper on the way up than he remembered it from the way down, and it took a hearty lunge to get him up on the shoulder. Looking down, he decided two things. One was to bring a ladder whenever it was possible that he would have to leave the Evangelions cockpit in the field. The other was not to look down when he was standing unsupported on the shoulder of a giant. It wasn't that he was afraid of heights - that would have killed his career as an Evangelion pilot right quick - but it did get him thinking on the terrible death he would have died, falling from the arm to the concrete below, if he hadn't managed to grab a handhold on the shoulder, and now was not the best time to ponder the fragility of the human body.

He scrambled up towards the cockpit hatch, and then into the cockpit. Despite being only his third time, he found the stirrups a lot quicker, and finished getting into harness in what had to be a new personal record. Since the rear cockpit was empty, he had to use the emergency system to tighten up the harness. It was supposed to ensure that the pilot could operate the Evangelion in a situation when his co-pilot wasn't available. Why it only worked to tighten the harness, but did not allow to release it was anyone's guess. Perhaps the engineers who had built it wanted the pilot to be properly motivated to bring the - hideously expensive - Evangelion back home instead of abandoning it in the field. Which meant that the rear seat, being without harness and with control over the harness itself, was the one that decided whether the pilot lived or died. Shinji resolved to make sure he was good friends with whoever was going to be riding behind him into combat. And, should he die in the control harness, that he would find the guy who designed that system and haunted him for all eternity.

Standing well in front of the Evangelion, Ryouji gave him a thumbs up and nodded to an unseen technician. The Evangelion powered up, the dials in front of him turning into the positions they were supposed to be in, and Shinji commanded his metal giant to rise. With steps that shook the very ground - making very sure he didn't step on anyone - he maneuvered towards the first firing position. His thumb rested lightly on the trigger built into the right hand hold, ready to send a stream of bullets onto whatever target he wished.

The Evangelion did not, as such, have a real aiming system. Presumably, the production model would. The more he heard about it, the more Shinji thought the production model would also feature gold plated armor and aerial torpedoes. The work around for Unit 1 was - and it had taken Shinji several attempts to understand, as he kept thinking he had misread it - to fire, see where the impacts were going and then walk the fire to the target in salvos. How that was supposed to work in combat, he had no idea. If the enemy was kind enough to let him make the adjustments, he deserved whatever was coming to him.

Still, orders were orders, and Shinji was calmly waiting in a firing position usually reserved for machine gunners in the Imperial Army. A target flipped up about half a kilometer downrange. Turning slightly to the left, he gently pressed down on the trigger. Flames shot out of the Evangelions shoulder as the 4 machine guns spat their bullets downrange. He let up on the trigger after a short moment, just as he had been told, in order to judge the impacts. However, with the target obscured by dust, that proved almost impossible.

He waited for the dust to settle, only to find the target completely untouched. Feeling slightly silly, he squeezed the trigger again. He noticed that the sound of the guns, muffled though it was through the Evangelion's armor, was weaker on the right than on the left. Looking over, he could only see one gout of flame shoot out, when there should have been two. Shinji gave a groan and tried to settle deeper into the harness, which caused the Evangelion to shudder a bit, spraying bullets all over the range. One of the guns had already jammed. He gave a deep sigh. Apparently, this would be one of those days.

First Home Defense Fleet, Tokyo Base, Commanders Office
Tokyo
July 3, 1915, late evening

"...repairs on the left arm are completed, and Lieutenant Hyuga has also installed an upgrade that should somewhat enhance close combat capabilities. Damage to the frame was a lot less severe than we - I - had initially anticipated. I have declared Unit 1 fit for all operations again and the test program has already begun again. There is a preliminary report on the pilot's findings and suggestions, it is at the back of my written report."

Gendo nodded.

"That will be all."

"Will you read it?"

"Yes."

The true answer would be 'Yes, if I find the time, which I won't', but she didn't need to know that. It was, in a way, very noble of her to speak out for Shinji. It was almost like she was his mother, not that Shinji would ever acknowledge that. Unfortunately, his son had never understood his decision to marry again, and had been downright hostile every time he had met Gendo's new wife. Considering that he was usually a very polite boy - a bit too much gentleman and too little officer, in Gendo's opinion - this stood out even more. But that was a battle long since lost.

"Are you coming?"

"I still have work to do. Don't wait for me."

He always told himself that she knew what she was getting into when she married a navy officer. That she had to have known. If he got a ship, he would be away months at a time, deployed to the most dangerous places a human could be in. If he got a shore command - as, indeed, he had - he would work long hours. Ritsuko did not complain about it, but he could see the flash of annoyance about falling sleeping alone, again, and probably waking up alone, again.

It was a sad fact that the best laid plans came to him when he was almost alone in the base, alone except for the guard at the entrance desk. It also made security a great deal easier.

When Gendo looked up, his wife was gone, and in her stead stood a courier. He handed Gendo an unmarked envelope, bowed, and left.

With a feeling of dread - there was only one organization he knew that was sending unmarked letters by courier - he ripped it open, and found a single sheet of paper inside. He took it out, unfolded it and read the three words on it:

"The fourth approaches."

And for a moment, he wondered if it would not be better if he spent the night with his wife after all. It might be the last.

First Home Defense Fleet, Tokyo Base, Hangar
Tokyo
July 5, 1915, morning

Concrete floor made for bad sleeping. This should be obvious, but 24 hours into the invasion alert exercise, Shinji was just about ready to take a radical new approach to testing this theory. After an exhausting day at the firing range, he had been dragged out of bed almost as soon as he had fallen into it. Apparently, The Admiral had decided hold a maneuver and war game right in that moment, to test the Fleet's ability to withstand a sudden and prolonged attack.

And so half asleep soldiers had rushed to their battle stations, manned their posts, and prepared to die before sunrise, if necessary. That night, Shinji learned one of the most basic fundaments of military thinking: Get ready early, you can always wait. Nothing had happened that night. Nothing had happened the following day. Again, nothing had happened during the night. Still, they were at full alert, the soldiers manning the stations by now a good deal more than half asleep. At least he had been allowed to get out of the Evangelion, after 4 hours of waiting in harness but powered down. It had taken half an hour longer before he had felt his legs again. But he wasn't allowed out of the hangar. Nor was he allowed to sleep, because apparently, the minute it would take to wake him would prove very crucial in the battle. Shinji wondered if anyone had thought that him falling asleep in mid-battle might prove crucial, too. Much like the hangar crew, he stood around, bored out of his skull, waiting for either the enemy - real, simulated or hallucinated, given his state of mind - to show up or the exercise to be called off.

It was with mixed feelings that he saw Lieutenant Hyuga walk through the hangar towards him. On the one hand, he would be lectured again, one the other hand, it would probably keep him from falling asleep. Then again, it would keep him from falling asleep. And the broad smile the Lieutenant wore did nothing to improve Shinji's mood or opinion of him. Still, he snapped a salute.

"Morning, Ensign. How are you holding up so far?"

"As well as anyone, I would say.", Shinji replied, still holding his salute. As usual, the Lieutenant did not bother to return it.

"Coffee?", he asked, holding out a cup to Shinji.

Shinji dropped his salute. Of course the Lieutenant could not return it when he was holding two cups of coffee. Shinji shook his head and blamed the sleep deprivation for not noticing it.

"I'm not sure if I'm allowed..."

The lieutenant thrust the cup in his direction again.

"They gave out combat rations, and that means coffee. Wouldn't want our only pilot falling asleep in combat, now would we? No, we wouldn't."

Shinji recognized a hidden order when he heard one, but still accepted the cup with a certain amount of gratitude. Not that he ever had coffee before. It was reserved to higher officers and, apparently, prolonged combat operations. A country like Japan, which had lost a good 20% of its agricultural area during Second Impact, had other priorities when it came to importing goods. He slowly raised the cup to his lips and took his first sip. Frowning at the bitter taste, he found the experience a bit of a disappointment. Hyuga broke the silence once again.

"So, what do you say?"

Shinji frowned at his coffee, unsure of the best way to respond without wasting any chance of ever getting along with the Lieutenant again. The man did, after all, maintain the machine he would have to trust his life on, so angering him was not in his best interest. Not in his best interest at all.

"It is...unusual.", he ventured, casting a questioning glance at the other officer.

Judging by the broad smile on Hyuga's face, that was exactly the right thing to say.

"Exactly. It's something no other Evangelion has - to my knowledge, obviously, but the direction weapon development, as far as Evangelions are concerned, has been towards ranged weaponry. And that makes them vulnerable in close quarters. When both sides have only ranged weapons, that is not a problem, because the enemy gains nothing from closing the range, but with this -", his glasses shone brightly as if to emphasize the point " - Unit 1 has the edge in hand to hand combat. Literally."

He chuckled at his own joke. Shinji, on the other hand, had the distinct feeling that they were talking about entirely different subjects. Even in his sleep deprived state - or perhaps because of it - using a coffee mug as a melee weapon in an Evangelion made no sense at all. He took another sip to avoid answering, which suited the engineer next to him just fine. Once started on one of his favorite subjects - the Evangelion, in general and in particular - he would not stop until the circumstances forced him to.

"And it adds only about 200 kilograms of weight. It's always a trade-off with Evangelions, weight versus fighting strength, but I think it's worth it, really. At least now you won't feel naked when the machine guns run out of ammunition."

Shinji wanted to reply that he had gone into combat the first time not even knowing about the machine guns, and hadn't felt naked at all - nervous, maybe, but certainly not naked. But since the Lieutenant had brought the topic up, now was just as good a time as any.

"Or if they jam."

Hyuga gave a sigh.

"Well, thats what happens when you use a gun designed for use by infantry. A soldier could fix the jam pretty quickly, but if its built into an Evangelion...I guess you will just have to make do. It is fixed in the production model. Probably."

Gold-plated armor and aerial torpedoes, Shinji thought with a certain amount of bitterness. Perhaps he would live long enough to actually see the production model, if this one didn't kill him well before that. A thought formed in the back of his head, a connection between what he had read in the manual and what the Lieutenant had just told him.

"Erm, Sir, maybe I'm just misunderstanding, but I thought I read that the limit of functions accessible to the pilot has already been reached. So how do I use this new weapon?" he asked, in a what he hoped was the voice of someone who asked a minor technical detail, instead of someone who had never read the maintenance logs.

"Oh, we reassigned something to the copilots seat. Nothing major. Left thumb button extends the blade in the left arm."

Shinji frowned again at his half empty cup of coffee.

"That was the emergency fuel dump, right?"

The Lieutenant waved him off.

"Yes, but it was only supposed to allow you to dump excess weight if you got into an area with soft ground. Nothing critical for battle. After all, you wouldn't want to be standing in a puddle of easily inflammable gasoline when you are in combat, right?"

Shinji guessed not. He also guessed that it would be fixed in the production model. But still, the original engineer had apparently thought it important enough to give control directly to the pilot, instead of handing it over to the copilot in the rear. He finished his coffee and pushed that concern to the back of his mind. Sometimes, one just had to trust the judgment of people who were trained to make those decisions, and besides, he was just the pilot. All he really could do was file a complaint with Captain Ryouji, who would probably think he was just making up preliminary excuses.

Giving a mental sigh, he handed the empty cup back to the Lieutenant and went back to his Evangelion. Just in time for the sirens.

First Home Defense Fleet, Temporary Combat Headquarters
Overlooking Tokyo Bay
July 5, 1915, morning

He had begun to question the wisdom of his decisions. Soldiers could only stay alert for so long, and by now they had to have reached their limits. One could tell by the hourly reports getting more and more sluggish, and by the number of questions that had to be repeated. But standing them down would have been foolish as well. Gendo had been enough battles to know that such a decision would invariably mean that the Angel attacked within an hour of the order to stand down. So he had kept them on alert, even as night turned into day, and day into night again.

At first, the appearance at the horizon had been nothing special. It looked like a Zeppelin at the distance, hanging low over the ocean on its approach to Tokyo. Then someone had decided to check if any Zeppelin arrivals were scheduled, and found the next one to be due that afternoon, and being a flight from inside Japan, therefore coming in from another direction. Within seconds, the tone and atmosphere around him had shifted drastically. After more than a day in a constant state of alertness, the moment had come when the tension broke. There really was an enemy out there, and it was coming for them. Half of the people in the First Home Defense Fleet would consider it a pure coincidence, Gendo knew that. The other half would chalk it up as The Admiral somehow having expected this. Which, technically, he had.

Now, they had someone to fight, and the period of waiting for something - anything - to happen was over. Oddly enough, the people around him seemed to be glad to be going into the fight. It certainly beat sitting around any longer, he had to give them that.

"Sir! Unryu reports they have left the airbase and are moving to engage the enemy. They are launching their embarked fighters as soon as they have reached sufficient height. First Naval Aviation Squadron is still assembling a strike group."

Gendo nodded a thanks to the young woman from the Naval Support Service. The time spent watching the empty sky had certainly been put to good use, as everyone knew what he - or she, for that matter - had to do if an enemy attacked. If it had been an actual drill, it would have been most successful. As it stood, its success was still in doubt.

"Status of the Evangelion?" he asked the group that was assembled on the small hill he had picked to observe the battle.

"Hangar reported Unit 1 started up successfully and is ready to move out. Captain Ryouji has requested that he is allowed to act as copilot."

"Denied. Send it to the Palace Grounds. And tell Lieutenant Hyuga to make sure Ryouji follows that particular order."

It would just be like him to ignore it and go anyway. Gendo had no intentions of letting that happen, since the Captain's role in the big game was far too important to risk him in battle. Gendo's orders had been very clear on that part.

"Is it wise to send him out alone?" Fuyutsuki interjected, and not for the first time, Gendo wished he would refrain from questioning his decision when there were other people around. Especially when those people were his direct subordinates. He didn't mind explaining his orders to Fuyutsuki. It forced him to think them through, which more than once had prevented him from doing something rather stupid. The old man probably had a genuine interested as to why he did what he did, rather than trying to make him look silly. He was much too old for that.

But the commanding officer of a combat unit - and as much as the Imperial High Command was disturbed by the idea, the First Home Defense Fleet was in fact a combat unit - relied on an aura of absolute and unquestioned authority. The Admiral is always right. Unless the guy with a rank above The Admiral decided that he was wrong, in which case that guy would be right. This aura was, for one, based on the fact that The Admiral never had his orders questioned in public, much less by an officer of lower rank.

"We have no trained copilot, so anyone we send with him would just be a liability."

"Having no trained pilot did not stop you from sending him out the last time."

"The circumstances required it then, and they do not require it now.", Gendo answered, with enough force that Fuyutsuki took the hint and pursued the topic no further.

Both men stood in silence, their eyes on the small but growing speck on the horizon. The Unryu, a light scout Zeppelin, was now coming into view. Around the airship were the tiny scout fighters of its air group, circling the bigger aircraft while they waited for the last of them to launch, before forming up and heading towards the invader.

By the looks of it, they would be the first to engage the enemy. Meanwhile, the smaller ships of the Imperial Navy that were stationed in Tokyo and Yokohama Naval Base were slowly getting under way and moved to block the enemy's path into Tokyo Bay. At least this time the enemy approached in plain view, instead of sneaking in under water. Gendo frowned at the thought. Logically, that would mean that the Angel was completely unafraid of whatever the humans could throw at him, as opposed to his predecessor, who had at least had the decency to hide. Or maybe he had been the scout to see what mankind could put against them, and this one would deal the crushing blow against their weak defenses.

Simple economy of force, too, dictated that, after they had beaten back the last assault, the enemy's response would be a lot stronger. One did not send a battleship to take out a pirate's nest. One would send a destroyer group, and if the pirates proved strong enough to beat back several warships crewed by professional soldiers - which happened from time to time, considering that the distinction between 'pirate group' and 'Fleet of the pretender to the throne of England etc.' in the former Dutch East Indies was more of a case of semantics than anything else - then one would send a cruiser. And if they could beat that as well, only then came the time to assemble the fleet and level the entire place, burn the land and salt the earth.

So, he wondered, was this this angel the equivalent of a scouting destroyer, or of the First Angelic Battle Squadron, ready to turn Tokyo into a modern day Carthage?

The tiny dots that were fighter planes split up and dived, and as one, every officer not presently engaged in a vital task raised his pair of binoculars to observe. It was difficult to see at this distance, even with the binoculars. All Gendo could make out were flashes, explosions and tracers splashing against the enemy, but nothing that told anything of the effect they had on the flying monster. After the last plane finished its run, the enemy seemed unhurt and apparently paid the attackers no mind.

"Target has increased speed!" came the cry from the man on the range finder. It was supposed to guide the shore batteries, but worked just fine for observation purposes. And indeed, Gendo noticed through his binoculars, the scouts could barely keep pace. Gaining height to make attacks was out of the question, and so they settled into the flying giants wake and fired into his rear, with no apparent effect.

Within moment the Angel had passed the Unryu, which had briefly fired its dorsal cannons at it, before leaving the airship behind, with no chance to catch up. From the hill they were on, the gathered command team of the First Home Defense Fleet could see the shore batteries in Yokohama spring to life. They managed three salvos before the enemy was upon them. Unlike the last Angel, however, this one did not bother to destroy them, after their attacks had made no impression on it. It simply flew over them - no doubt causing some of the crews to consider requesting a transfer to a safer posting - and continued on as if nothing had happened.

It was not the fact that they could not hurt the Angel that bothered Gendo. He had expected this. Had they been able to do damage to it, it would have trivialized the whole thing. Not that he minded easy victories - only fools and SNLF officers wanted a challenge in war, and there were quite a few people who would argue that there was no difference between those two anyway. No, what bothered him was that the enemy wasn't slowing down at all. The last time, the Angel had spent a great deal of time on trashing the forces sent against it. This one ignored them. While it wasn't nearly as time-critical as the last time, this was still very worrying. He turned around and searched for the Evangelion. He found it lumbering through the streets between the low houses, slowly making its way towards the ruins of the Imperial Palace.

Taking a quick glance back towards the Angel - which had gained a disturbing amount of ground in the meantime - he came to the conclusion that the two would probably reach the Palace at the same time, unless the Evangelion sped up or the Angel slowed down. Noticing the slow and careful steps of the Evangelion and the complete ignorance of their efforts by the Angel, neither seemed very likely.

Moments later the Angel passed the Yokohama Naval Base, leaving the ships there behind and unable to take any part in the coming battle. The fire control officer for the shore batteries assigned to the First Home Defense Fleet shot Gendo a questioning glance, which was answered by a shake of his head. Firing on the Angel now would mean that any shell that missed its mark - and those were usually more numerous that those that found it - would continue on its way and hit the Naval Base. Gendo had his doubts whether the Angel had actually planned for this, but it certainly did not help matters.

The flying monster continued unerringly on its course, and now the assembled officers could make out its shape. Gendo's first thought was that it looked like something rather indecent. By the looks of it, so was the first thought of most of the others, before Fuyutsuki salvaged the situation with the observation that they were facing a giant flying squid. And indeed it looked like one, except that it had eyes where a squid had fins and its tentacles - only two - at entirely the wrong spot.

It went past their position, ignoring them like it had everything else on its mad flight towards the palace, but giving them the opportunity to observe its size as it flew past the hill that was acting as the Temporary Combat Headquarters. It was truly gigantic for a thing that was supposedly heavier than air, almost the size of a (very) small Zeppelin. At least 40 meters in length, and perhaps a dozen across, it would tower above even an Evangelion if it would be standing up, and easily outmassed it, too.

Looking at the retreating Angel and its entourage of biplanes, Gendo could only hope that it did not also outsmarted the pilot of Unit 1.

Imperial Palace
Tokyo
July 5, 1915, morning

This time, Shinji had made sure he didn't step on anything too valuable. He had made sure his cable was lying in the middle of the road, with enough clearance around the corners, just as he had been drilled by Lieutenant Hyuga and, in a rather different form, Ensign Suzuhara. It had taken much of his concentration, and thus he had only been able to glance at the approaching enemy from time to time.

What he had seen hadn't improved his morale at all - every attempt by the other forces had been completely ignored or was ineffective, and probably the former because of the latter. Certainly, he had the spear that had killed the last sea monster with him again this time, but knowing that there would be no support coming was not exactly heartening.

He had reached the Palace Grounds - or what was left of them - only moments ago. Turning towards the enemy he had been shocked to notice that it had already cleared the coast line of Tokyo proper and was rapidly advancing towards him. A veritable swarm of biplanes kept up a pursuit, firing at it every now and then, to no apparent effect.

Within moments the monster had cleared the remaining distance. Seeing the Evangelion it did not, as Shinji had somewhat hoped, ignore him, which would have given him the first strike. Instead, it slowed down rapidly and rose up like a cobra ready to strike. The planes pursuing it broke off to the sides in an attempt to clear the area for the two combatants. Though his eyes were fixed on his enemy, Shinji noticed from the corner of his eyes that the planes wiggled their wings as they flew past him. He assumed what the book he had read called the fundamental position: both hands around the spears shaft, tip pointed towards the enemy, body slightly turned to the right to minimize the profile and to maximize the thrust going into the strike.

The two opponents regarded each other across the barren field of what used to be the Imperial Palace, locked in a battle of wills, either trying to will the other into giving up his defensive advantage in an ill-advised attack. At least that was what Shinji was doing, but considering that his enemy hadn't moved an inch - tentacle waving excepted - it was probable that it was waiting as well.

Shinji, for his part, was more than unwilling to make the first strike. Normally, Imperial Navy standard doctrine emphasized getting the first strike in - or as one teacher back at the academy had put it: 'Hit them first, hit them hard, keep on hitting them until they surrender or die'. That, of course, was the ideal, assuming that one could catch the enemy unprepared and achieve surprise, allowing one to dictate the terms of the battle by forcing the enemy to react. Charging into a prepared enemy, however, was a good way to end up as yet another example for aspiring navy officers to learn how not to do it.

Unfortunately, the enemy did not seem much inclined to do him the favor, and appeared content to just stare at the Evangelion. This made Shinji's tactical position even worse. Not only did he not know what his opponent was capable of, because it had refused to show any of its abilities on the rush to the palace. No, he also had to assume that waiting it out was perfectly fine with whatever it had planned for the attack. Apparently, it could afford to wait, which meant the Shinji could not.

Fortunately, he did not have to resort to hand to hand combat just yet. He made a step back, bringing his Evangelion around so that they were front to front, and calmly squeezed the right thumb button. The machine guns built into the shoulders opened up, sending a hail of bullets against the enemy. He noticed, with some satisfaction, that all of them hit the enemy, who was quickly disappearing in a cloud of dust from bullets shattering from the impact against the enemy's armor. But then again, he reasoned, it would be hard to miss a target even larger than an Evangelion at a distance of perhaps 50 meters.

He let off the button to allow the guns to cool and to observe the effects. Suddenly a glowing tentacle lashed out from the dust, swinging in a wide arc, searching for the offending Evangelion. Shinji wisely decided to take another few steps back to stay out of the enemy's reach. He moved the Evangelion to the left of the slowly settling dust cloud, which would allow him to attack from what he hoped would be an unexpected position once he could see his opponent again. Given enough time, he might even be able to get around his enemy and hit it from behind.

One might think it rather silly to try and sneak around with a metallic monstrum some 30 meters high and weighing several dozen metric tons, but Shinji expected his opponent to be shaken from the attack, blinded by the dust and therefore, at least temporarily, vulnerable to attack. Besides, it might not have ears to hear the noise of a machine the size of a large building moving around. It certainly didn't have legs to feel the ground shake.

When he reached the position he had chosen for is next attack, a brilliant idea came to him. Turning his front towards the silhouette of the monster, barely visible against the sun shining through the dust, he fired the machine guns again. This would create more dust, allowing him to finish his flanking maneuver and attack from behind.

It was, in the effect, a fundamentally flawed idea. A moment after Shinji had pushed the button and the first bullets hit, another glowing tentacle whipped out of the dust, extending far beyond the range he had expected, and buried itself into the Evangelion's right shoulder. It rammed itself deeper into the machine, setting off the ammunition stored next to the guns in the process. Shinji could hear them fly around randomly inside the Evangelion's hull, until their energy was spent or they hit something. Fortunately for him, none had hit anything vital so far, like, for example, the pilot.

He tried to free the Evangelion by taking a few steps back, but the monster had no intention of giving up its hold on him just yet. It easily kept pace with Shinji's increasingly desperate attempts to shake it off. Now free of the dust, it apparently had no difficulties in seeing its enemy, and quickly wrapped the other tentacle around the Evangelion's right arm. The tentacle tightened, easily cutting through the weak armor of the arm, before destroying the main frame and the hydraulic systems that connected the arm to the Evangelion's torso. In a torrent of hydraulic fluid, the arm tore itself out of its joint, falling to the ground and taking the spear with it.

On the one hand, Shinji had just lost his main weapon and suffered serious damage to his fighting machine. Already the dial displaying hydraulic pressure was falling fast. Supposedly the production model would have a redundant system for just this case, but along with its gold-plated armor and aerial torpedoes, this was little comfort to Shinji. On the other hand, he was free of the monster and could launch a counter attack. Given his tactical situation, he wondered if he should retreat, but figured that the monster, being so much faster than him, would easily keep pace and exposing one's back to the enemy was never a good idea. One tended to get stabbed into it when doing so.

No, Shinji figured, this could really only end one way. Unless the monster decided to simply leave - it wasn't like he could really do anything to stop it from doing so - this fight would end in the death of at least one participant. And it would take all of his skill and luck to ensure it wasn't him. Either way, a look at the dial for the hydraulic pressure showed that this particular fight would be over in the next 5 minutes.

Before Shinji could come up with a plan of attack, his enemy had apparently decided to press its advantage for all it was worth. Shinji had just brought the Evangelion around to search for the spear - which he knew from experience could be used with only one hand - when his enemy darted forward and smashed into the war machine. The crash shoved the Evangelion back, and for a precarious moment the Evangelion hung in the balance. A step back stabilized it again, but the enemy rammed itself against it again, slowly driving it back.

Step by step, the Evangelion fell back before the advancing monster. Stumbling backwards, Shinji found himself cursing the constructor of the Evangelion once more, as he had apparently decided that the pilot did not need any view ports to the rear, forcing him to move blindly and hope that he didn't run into any of the larger ruins. Perhaps another thing to ensure that the pilot would advance rather than retreat in his machine. Stepping on one of the wooden building surrounding the Palace Grounds would do little to harm an Evangelion, but an unlucky step on a stone wall here could easily damage one of the feet. Or worse, he could fall into one of the dozens of pits that had been dug recently as part of the reconstruction effort.

As it turned out, he had overlooked another disadvantage of retreating in a machine that was trailing its own power cable. By necessity, walking backwards meant that the power cable was now running from the back of the machine, through the legs, to the front of the Evangelion, and then off into the distance. Inevitably, that meant that after yet another strike by the monster, Shinji managed to step on the power cable of the Evangelion while attempting to remain upright. Several tons of various metals, driven against the earth by hydraulic power, could only lead to one result, best represented by fact that the entire cockpit of the Evangelion went out from one second to the other. This logically meant that the Evangelion could no longer move.

This would have been the ideal situation for Shinji's enemy to move in and finish the job, but gravity was faster. Having lost power in the most critical moment, Shinji was stuck inside the cockpit and had to watch helplessly as his war machine slowly, but very surely, crashed to the ground in front of the monster. The impact threw up a cloud of dust around the fallen warrior, and the first deep breath Shinji took after having the wind knocked out of him by the fall was choking. He briefly considered his options. He could not escape, neither by himself - as he could not free himself from the control harness - nor with his Evangelion, as the enemy would easily overtake him. Surrender was not an option, if just for the simple reason that it could never be negotiated. Never mind the fact that he would also be the first officer of the Imperial Navy in its entire (admittedly rather short) history who surrendered to an enemy, and that was not how Shinji wanted to be remembered.

With those two options out of the way, the only thing left was to either somehow continue the fight, or to die. This simple revelation cleared up the further course of action rather quickly. He pushed the button for the emergency engine, and with a loud sputtering, it came to life, just in time for his enemy to appear in front of his cockpit, hovering above the crashed Evangelion, apparently looking for a sign of life. Seeing the left arm shift slightly as Shinji moved it out of the firing arc of the shoulder mounted guns, the monster immediately rammed its tentacles into the lower body of the Evangelion and started to dig around. Shinji had his doubts whether it knew what an internal combustion engine was, but could not deny that the beast seemed to instinctively know where to cause the most damage. His had opponent come closer, the opening that looked like its mouth now hanging directly above the open cockpit. The dozens of smaller claws around it were now scratching and digging at the armor of the helmet, leaving Shinji under no illusions what his fate would be if - or, judging by the fight so far, when - he failed.

This move, however, brought the glowing red orb in the center of monster finally within reach of Shinji's guns, and the fact that they were touching each other probably meant that its defensive shield was not working. With a savage grin, Shinji pressed down his right thumb to unleash a storm of bullets upon the unsuspecting creature. When no such storm was coming, he pressed down the button again, and then, with a feeling of growing horror, again, but the guns remained silent. Perhaps the crash had destroyed the controls, perhaps the dust had jammed them, perhaps they had run out of ammunition. All that mattered was that he was now effectively unarmed. A small part of his mind dryly noted that he had been unarmed several minutes ago, though the pun did little to lift his spirits.

Now running desperately low on options and time, Shinji used his remaining power reserves in an attempt to push the monster off of him. By now, any thought of tactics or strategy had gone out of the window, having been replaced by brute strength. Going by the sounds the left arm was making, the enemy was winning that contest as well. To make matters worse - and a small part of Shinji's mind once again noted that they were rapidly running out of ways to make the situation any worse - a wave of heat washed through the cockpit. A short look on the dial showing the temperature of the engine showed it well above where it should be, while the fuel gauge was running empty a lot faster that it ought to. Together with the smell of burning gasoline, this left only a single conclusion: the Evangelion wasn't just in a terrible tactical situation anymore, it was now, also, on fire. Apparently, a glowing tentacle had found one of the gasoline tanks and ignited it, drenching the inside of the fallen machine with happily burning fuel.

Thankfully for Shinji, the construction of the upper torso meant that the burning fluid couldn't spill into the cockpit, but the by now the fire hat set parts of the electric system aflame, which created a great deal of smoke to waft through the interior. With a curse Shinji realized that he couldn't even dump the burning fuel because the emergency fuel dump had been rerouted to the rear cockpit in Hyuga's silly upgrade. Thumb hovering over the button on the left handhold, Shinji did remember that this meant he had one last card to play. The fire was already damaging the hydraulics in the lower body and the electrical system. In a few moments it would no doubt set off the other gas tanks, and at that point he was as good as dead, either by the explosion or because the engine would fail, leaving him at the mercy of his enemy. If he didn't burn to death, stuck inside the control harness like he was.

Once more, Shinji willed the failing arm of the Evangelion against the enemy above him, smashing the empty fist against the red orb which he hoped had the same function as it did on the last monster he fought. Already he could feel and hear how the Evangelion was nearing the end of its strength. Moving the arm was becoming more and more difficult as the harness, designed to always ensure that the operator had the same posture as the Evangelion, restricted his movement to match it. With one mighty effort, he raised the arm once more, and to the cacophony of metal screaming under stress and his own scream of rage and horror, he pushed down the button. The last bit of hydraulic pressure in the system pushed forward the arm blade, a weapon of some 5 meters in length, slung underneath the left arm. It pierced straight through the red orb, unblocked by any shield or any armor, and for the first time since it had arrived, his enemy bled.

With a choke, the engine seized, and whatever strength the Evangelion had left was now spent. But in its dying moments, it had hurt the monster, and going by the veritable torrent of blood that was now spewing forth from the wound the last attack had created, it had to be serious. Howling and trashing, the enemy rose up into the air, hanging still for a moment, as if surprised that death was something that could really happen to it, before faltering and crashing back down to the ground. It missed the Evangelion by a small margin, but sprayed its blood all over it. The air was filled with the disgusting smell of burning meat and boiling blood as Shinji realized that, once again, he had succeeded at the last possible moment and had killed the enemy. As had been his duty. Which was not too bad a way to be remembered, all things considered.

First Home Defense Fleet, Temporary Combat Headquarters
overlooking Tokyo Bay
July 5, 1915, morning

Watching a battle was always a strange experience for Gendo. His mind worked with variables and force levels, with time tables and logical reactions to a given situation. His was the world of radio messages saying that battle had been joined, followed eventually by the message claiming that the battle had been won or that the battle had been lost. In either of the last two cases, he could usually tell why. It was most unusual that he actually got to see what was usually hidden behind them. At such times, he found that he honestly preferred the messages.

Watching combat in a larger group was even more of a strange experience. His entire staff was with him on that hill, but the rapid advance of the Angel had made their contribution to the battle negligible. That meant that everybody without something better to do - and, given the situation, that had indeed been everyone - had watched the battle unfold on the Palace Grounds. The Temporary Combat Headquarters were excellent for this, allowing Gendo - and those with him - unrestricted view of the battleground.

Every pair of binoculars had been turned on the two giants as they faced off against each other, and the proceedings relayed in hushed tones to those that didn't have anything to make out the details with. The fighting, once it had been joined, threw up a lot of dust, but even so they could see that the Evangelion looked worse for wear every time it came into view. Then it had stumbled and dropped to the ground, among shouts of disbelief and horror from the spectators. When the Angel moved for the killing blow, Gendo noted several people turning away so that they didn't have to witness it. As if that would keep it from happening. He had only felt an odd calmness. He was watching the last moments of the human race, that much was certain, for with the Evangelion destroyed, there was now no hope of victory. It was a blessing, he figured, that in his position he would not have to live very long with his failure.

All the greater was the commotion when the Angel rose again, twisting in obvious pain. The sight of a great stream of blood spraying all across the area gave rise to a roar of triumph from the gathered officers. When the Angel collapsed upon itself, all military decorum or discipline was forgotten. A loud cheer went up, several officers congratulated each other, and even Gendo could not suppress a genuine smile. He nodded to Fuyutsuki, who went to organize the recovery crews, and left the hill under frenetic shouts of "Banzai!".

Palace Grounds
Tokyo
July 5, 1915, morning

Consciousness came with a shock and the realization that he had been out for some time. Blinking against the harsh sunlight, Shinji tried to remember what had happened in the last few minutes and came up empty. The last thing he did remembered was being stuck in the control harness inside the burning Evangelion, caught in a hell of smoke and heat. His eyes and lungs were burning, but through the tears he could see the blurry image of the Evangelions cockpit. He tried to move his hand to wipe his eyes, but found it unable to move. He was still in the harness.

It was almost completely silent inside the Evangelion, the only being the ticking of cooling metal. Normally, there was a multitude of sounds that the machine made when moving, of metal grinding against metal and of hydraulics whining, but no longer. Everything was quiet. Given the stress and the horror of the battle, the sheer intensity of hand to hand combat with a foe of equal size, the absolute silence was somewhat unsettling. Hanging inside the cockpit, Shinji wondered for a moment if the Navy had forgotten about him or given him up for dead. It was, of course, a silly question. Sooner or later someone would come to check if the Evangelion was recoverable, and in the process find him. It was just a question of time. All he had to do was wait.

He did not have to wait long, as it turned out. Within moments of awakening, he heard the first voices outside. He wondered exactly how long he had been out, it had felt like it had been only a few minutes, but if the recovery crews were here already, it had to have been closer to an hour. He frowned. Going by the voices he heard, there were only two people outside, and considering the volume, they were...arguing. That was certainly unusual for a recovery crew, both in size and in behavior. Then he could hear footsteps on the metal as one of them climbed up. When a face appeared in front of the cockpit, things got a lot clearer.

It was Kensuke Aida that was looking down on him, apparently completely delighted with being here and having the opportunity to see the inside of an Evangelion. A shout came from below, causing him to turn.

"Yep, he's still alive.", he shouted back down, causing some grumbling from the other guy, presumably Suzuhara. "Now get up here and help me get him out."

Road to the Imperial Palace
Tokyo
July 5, 1915, late morning

There was a marked difference in the city, between this attack and the last. The first time, there had been widespread devastation and refugees picking amongst the debris for something that once belonged to them. Even now, the rebuilding had only just begun. When the fourth Angel appeared, people had feared for the worst, had feared that what little they had managed to recover would be taken away from them again. But, miraculously, the Angel had decided to spare them.

This was an important piece of information to Gendo. Angels had no such thing as a unified tactical doctrine. Perhaps they were in the process of developing it, if they were organized at all, perhaps they had scrapped it after it had failed the last time. What mattered was that they were essentially unpredictable. One might assume that this was bad news for someone tasked with finding a strategy to defeat them, but knowing that one's enemy was not fighting by a single set of rules meant that it was useless to try and see a pattern when there was none to be found. He could not predict the next move, therefore, he could only make sure his soldiers were prepared, and hope that was enough. Except for one thing, of course. The Angels wanted to have the Palace Grounds. And that meant he would do everything he could to make sure they wouldn't get it.

As he made up his way towards the battlefield, Gendo could not help but feel a sense of dread as he approached it. Certainly, they had won. It was, in any way, preferable to the alternative, especially considering how close they came to it. But still, he feared what he would see once he would get a good look on the Evangelion and the Angel. From what he had witnessed from his observation post, the Evangelion had suffered greatly. If it was irrecoverable, they would be in dire straits if - or rather, when - the next Angel arrived. He knew that the Germans had a few finished Evangelions that could fight with the Lance. If they were willing to send them half way around the globe was more questionable. Then again, there were ways to answer those questions, which, incidentally, were also ways that would answer quite a few questions more.

He had reached what had once been the Palace gate, and what was now just a burnt out archway, and could take a good look at the battlefield. It was a scene of complete carnage. Bits and pieces of the Evangelion were littering the ground. The lance, still grasped by the right arm of the Evangelion, was sticking in the ground where the arm had been ripped off. In the numerous depressions of the area, be it shell craters from the first attack, the footsteps of the giants that had fought here or the excavation sites he had ordered to be dug, the dark hydraulic fluid and the bright red blood of the Angel had formed puddles and ponds.

Gendo had his doubts whether His Majesty would find them quite as entertaining as the ones that used to be here. Kois, for example, would have a very hard time in them.

He marched across the field, stepping around the numerous pieces of broken armor that littered the area. It certainly gave a good show of the many, many small parts that allowed an Evangelion to move and fight. As his wife had once put it, an Evangelion consisted of around fifty thousand critical parts. All of which could break, and all of which would break. Usually at the worst possible time. From an engineering point of view, they were miracles. From the point of view of a supply officer, they were a curse.

Finally, he came to the area where the two enemies had fallen. The Evangelion was still in one piece, not broken into several, though the lower half was blackened and still smoking. It would need a good long time to repair, but it looked salvageable. The maintenance crew, however, would be cursing his son for the next couple of months. As for the pilot, he was standing next to his wrecked machine, apparently unhurt, and was describing something or other to two other Ensigns. Gendo felt a highly unprofessional sense of relief over that fact. While an officer should not spend the lives of his men easily, too much of a relation to any one of them could prevent him from spending them at all, and sometimes, that was simply what was required to achieve victory. Everyone in the Navy was replaceable, including his son. Including himself. Considering the stakes, it would not do to hesitate in doing what needed to be done, just because they were related.

He left the Evangelion where it was and went to the fallen Angel. It had rolled to the side in its death throes and had wrapped its tentacles around itself, much like a human hugging himself to ease the pain. Looking at it, it seemed completely unhurt. There was only a tiny - compared to the size of the Angel - injury in the red orb that had been just below the creature's mouth. Apparently, that had been enough to kill it. Another useful information. He would have to make sure Captain Ryouji noticed it as well and drilled Shinji - the pilot, accordingly.

With that, he left the site of the carnage to send a few dispatches to people around the globe, who were waiting quite anxiously for them.

A/N: So ends the second chapter of NGE: A Century Apart. Thank you for all your kind comments on the first chapter. I have to admit that it get a lot more attention and feedback than I had anticipated, and I hope this chapter has fulfilled the high expectations that have been set into it - though if you have read up to this point, it probably has. Still, any comments, criticism or praise is very much welcome.