Egged on by Jamie, Coop was doing his best to pound what was left of Matarael into a greasy spot, when Kiva spotted Unit-01. "Coop, look behind you". Jamie and Coop turned around to see something purple and green. And taller. Quite a bit taller. And ugly as hell.

And looking straight at them. While apparently scratching its head.

"Uhh...anyone else think it looks like somebody crossed Barney the Dinosaur with a Michael Bay Transformer on steroids, or is it just me? And maybe more importantly, did we just smash that thing's pet spider?" Jamie managed to get out. As he said this, he could feel the earth shaking, and a rumbling as two more of the things, a red one and a blue one came running at them. "I really, really, hope that we didn't just-" only to be cut off by Kiva.

"What are they? They look like some sort of mechs, but they also look alive."

"I don't think it's the Glorft." chipped in Jamie, "They're ugly enough, but they only seem to produce the one colour of paint in the Glorft Interdimensional Olive Drab Paint Factory - these guys use some primary colours. Though they could just be colour blind.

Even Coop was silent. He knew there was only one thing that needed to be said. So he said it. In a terrible approximation of an Austrian accent. "You are one ugly mother -OWW!" as a snackbox thrown by Kiva hit him in the back of the head.

"Shut up Coop! Don't provoke them, at least until we know if they're hostile or not. Now, no threatening moves, okay? We're on their turf, remember?" Kiva pointed out, all the time not taking her eyes off the Evas.
"Okay, okay, okay. I get it Kiva, but there was no need for that." came the reply, followed by an excited "Hey, there's still some jerky in the snackbox!". Kiva just rolled her eyes.

It was at that point, a girl's voice came over the communicator. "-ho the hell are you?"

As Shinji and whatever the small blue robot was eyeballed each other, his teammates arrived on the scene. "What the hell is that thing? It looks like something a child would have made!" mused Asuka. "It's painted like something you'd see in a Cartoon Network reject! And why the hell is there a car on top? Is this got something to do with Misato?"
"Why are you asking me? How would I know? You know as much as I do!" retorted Shinji.
"Who said I was asking you, Third Child. You never know anything do you, and when you admit as much you always follow it with one of those ridiculous apologies!"
"Sor-"
"GAAAAAAHH! JUST. SHUT. UP!"
"I still cannot get in contact with Nerv Headquarters", Rei interrupted, "I can only assume the power situation has still not been resolved."
Asuka took this on board. "Okay, so HQ's still incommunicado, but the Angel is down, yes?"
Rei thought for a second. "I think it is safe to assume that, Pilot Soryu. There does not appear to be any activity, whoever is piloting that robot appears to have neutralised the angel. I am not familiar with the design, however. It is smaller than the Jet Alone, I do not know how it could have defeated the Angel though. Perhaps we should make contact with the pilot?"

"Good idea. Let's find out what the hell's going on. Hey, you in the little robot! Who the hell are you?"

"She sounds human." Kiva reasoned.
"She sounds pissed." Coop pointed out.
"She sounds cute. And magical." Jamie added, only to be ignored by the others.
Coop started to hit the side of the communicator. "Let's see if we can get picture as well as sound. Hello there!"

Asuka was wondering if the robot was capable of communication, when a comm window popped up. She was expecting some sort of pilot, or a professional soldier. All she could see was a double, no, triple chin, and what looked like some sort of hideous beard with.. with... something (were those crumbs?) in it, and a lower part of a mouth roaring "Hello there!"
"Oh, dear God!" she screamed and involuntary jumped back. In response, Shinji and Asuka stepped back and got into combat positions. "Are you alright, Asuka?" asked Shinji.
"Y-yeah, of course I am, why do you think otherwise? Just got a bit of a surprise. Nothing I can't handle."

Back in Megas, Kiva looked at the communicator. "Coop, you've got the camera pointed too low, and zoomed in too much. Hang on a sec... there. That should do it. Try talking to them now."
Coop acknowledged Kiva with a nod. "Thanks. Okay, here goes again. Hello there!"

Asuka shook her head at the fat guy talking to her on the screen. Questions racing through her head. This guy is piloting that robot? Was this someone's idea of a joke? Why was there something familiar about his voice? Finally she replied. "This is Evangelion Unit-02. Identify yourself immediately."

"I'm Coop! And this is, uh, hang on a sec" came the reply, and as the camera moved drunkenly round, two other faces came into shot. One a redheaded girl and then something pale and inhuman... "This is Kiva, and that's Jamie."
Asuka could hear a "Heeeelll-oooooo" that made her skin just crawl.
"Oh-okay. Well, what are you doing here? Don't you know this is a restricted area by order of the UN and NERV?" and as she was speaking, she realised what was so familiar. She'd heard the accents before.

Americans.

She tuned back in to what this Coop character was saying... "- to sort out the EZ-Pass, but since that little accident befell the Newark office, we were heading down to Camden and took a bit of a wrong turn. We're in Japan, right? Um, we didn't know that this was restricted, and uh... we're sorry about your spider."

Asuka was now starting to develop a headache. Was this what Misato felt whenever her and Shinji had a spat in the apartment? "Hold on a second, Did you just say you're sorry about our spider? OUR SPIDER? What the hell do you mean by that? Don't you know that was an Angel? And you killed it!"

Naturally enough, this statement had a predictable result. "An Angel? We killed an Angel? Oh no. We are so going to go to Hell now" yelled Jamie, blessing himself. "Oh God, I'm so sorry, I tried to stop them! Please forgive me God!"
Kiva shushed him. "Angels? What kind of angels look like that? Acid filled spiders?"

"Seriously, are you a moron, or just pretending to be one? What do you mean what kind of angels look like that? What, are you stupid or something? They're trying to destroy the world - they're called Angels, don't ask me why they got called that, and anyway, how the hell do you not know about them?"

"Uhh, we're tourists?"

In Nerv HQ, power was being restored, much to the relief of everyone, well, everyone apart from possibly the two people who had been stuck in an elevator when the power went out, and who then found themselves in a rather compromising position when the lights came back on, and the elevator doors opened. Picking herself up from where she'd fallen in the elevator, Misato Katsuragi, the purple haired NERV Operations Director, ran to the bridge. "Report! What's going on up there? Have we re-established communications?"
"Yes, we have, but something strange is going on", came the reply from Shigeru Aoba.

"The Pattern Blue is gone. Rei's filling us in, we have her on speaker."

"-appears the Angel has been neutralised, but I am unable to say how it was done. There does not appear to be much left of it, and what remains has been mashed into the ground. Pilot Soryu is currently conversing with the pilots of the robot which apparently killed the Angel. Pilot Ikari is also with us. We are all functional, though some repairs may be required to Unit-02 as a result of the Angel's attack. Furthermore, I have reason to believe that the robot is from the United States of America. Do you have any additional orders?"

"Americans?" The word hit like a gunshot on the bridge. "What the hell are they doing here?" Misato asked nobody in particular. Unsurprisingly, she didn't get a response.

In a darkened office, two men were also listening into Rei's report. One, a tall elderly man looked at the man who was seated. "Americans... I wasn't expecting this." he said. The other, a younger man wearing dark glasses, pushed his glasses up his nose slightly. "This was unforseen. What could have caused SEELE to depart from their agenda to allow this intervention to happen? We need to be very cautious - those old men had their plans set in stone, and now they allow this to happen? Something is up, Fuyutsuki. And I don't like that. We'll have to find out what our American friends have planned. That power failure was no coincidence, either. I wouldn't put it past them to have set all this up as a distraction to keep us occupied while they infiltrated personnel into the base. Inform Section-2 that they are to conduct intensive sweeps of the area, and investigate that power loss"
Kozo Fuyutsuki nodded at Gendo Ikari. "It will be done." After a momentary silence, he spoke again." Ikari, Do you think this may affect the scenario?"
Gendo Ikari merely tented his hands, staring at the screen.

Back on the surface, the tension had eased somewhat as both sides were having little conferences of their own. "I think they're the good guys, Asuka" whispered Shinji. "Why would they have destroyed the Angel otherwise, right? We probably don't need to fight them."
Of course Asuka dismissed his thoughts, "What would you know? Do you know any Americans, do you?"
"Well weren't you born in America or something?" came the reply.
"Don't be a smartass. Now shut the hell up and let me do the talking."
"Sorry."

On Megas, Kiva and Coop were about to reach the same conclusion, when another communication came in. A purple haired woman this time. "This is Captain Misato Katsuragi, Operations Director of NERV, state your identity, unit and purpose."
Coop replied "As I was telling the redheaded chick, my name's Coop, these guys are Jamie and Kiva. We don't have any purpose, we just took a wrong turn and-"

Over the radio came a yell. "Redheaded chick? Just who the hell do-" before Misato interrupted her. "Butt out Asuka. Now once again, state your full identity and purpose. What's your unit? What branch of the United States Armed Forces are you with?"

"Chill, lady. We're not with the military, we're civilians. As I said, we just took a wrong turn in Jersey. We're trying to get to Camden, I don't know how we ended up here." Hearing that last bit, Kiva suppressed a snort.

Misato was starting to get frustrated. "Sure you are. You really expect us to believe the United States would allow such weapons to be in the hands of civilians. I want answers. Why are you here?"

"Hey, you ever hear of the Second Amendment? The right to bear arms? My uncle legally owns a bunch of anti-aircraft weaponry for hunting squirrels and magpies and gets his groceries in an ex-Soviet main battle tank. My buddy Goat also built himself a robot. Besides, this robot's for self-defense. And car shows."

Misato was about to let the fat fool have it when Shinji popped up. "I really think he's telling the truth, Misato. What army would let someone that size join? And surely a military robot wouldn't be painted up like that, would it?"

Asuka, not to be outone, had to chip in. "What did I tell you, idiot? You don't know what you're talking about. Let the adults talk."

To which Misato snapped "Good idea Asuka, let the adults talk. That means shut up. BOTH OF YOU!", wiping off the smug smirk that was growing on Asuka's face.

Coop looked at Jamie. "Did you hear that kid?" Then, putting on a whiny voice, "What army would let someone that size join? I save their butts and they repay me by calling me fat."
"Dude, you are fat."
"Kiva, can you remind me why I keep Jamie around?"

Just then, another communication window opened. Misato was about to unleash a stream of invective at whoever it was when she saw Gendo Ikari. "Sir, I-"
"It's all right, Captain, you're doing a satisfactory job, considering the circumstances." came the calm reply. "I think we should ask our visitors for a meeting, and try to clear up some matters. Be friendly and see what we can learn about what they're up to."
"Yes, sir.." she replied, as Gendo's image disappeared.
"All right, Mr. Coop, we're going to have a face to face talk, and you will give me answers." Turning to the blonde scientist beside her, Misato wearily nodded. "Rits, I know the power still isn't fully restored, but since their batteries are nearly done, and it looks like the Angel is gone, I think we should start retrieving the pilots. Start with Shinji, I'd rather keep Asuka and Rei keeping their eyes on these guys a little longer"
"Is that wise? Asuka's all fired up, and she's missed out on another Angel kill."
Misato shrugged. "Rei'll keep her in line." to be met by Akagi rolling her eyes.

Up in Megas, Coop was nonplussed. "No problem, you want us to meet you guys wherever, or you guys coming here?"

"Units -00 and -02 will escort you to the meeting point. We'll join you there." came the reply. "Rei, bring them to Access Point 23."

"Understood."

Megas followed the two Evas to what looked like a some sort of bunker. "We will wait here. Captain Katsuragi will be along presently" Rei informed them.
Behind them, Unit -01 was descending on some sort of platform.

Eventually Misato made it to the surface, she walked outside and was taken aback by the sight that greeted her. That was the crew that curbstomped an Angel? A fat guy who looked to be a hamburger away from cardiac arrest, a skinny guy who looked as pale as Rei, if not paler and a redheaded woman who at least seeemed to treating the situation with the seriousness it deserved. As she got closer. she could hear the fat guy studying the foot of the robot and moaning about something to do with having to redo paintwork. "Right, be friendly, he says. Easy for him in his darkened lair. Oh well Misato, game face on, and let's find out just what the hell is going on."

"Hello and welcome to Tokyo-3, Mr. Coop" Misato said, offering a hand to Coop. "I'm sorry for being a little unfriendly earlier. The citywide power outage followed by an Angel attack that we weren't really prepared for was a little stressful. Thank you for your timely intervention."

"No problems, captain... glad to help. Uhh...about your power outage, I think... uh... we might have been sorta responsible for that."

"Really?" came the deadpan reply. "And how did that happen?"

"Well, we uh, had a weapons malfunction... kinda reactor leak... but everything's fine now. Sorry about the damage."

Misato narrowed her eyes. "Weapons malfunction slash reactor leak? That sounds a little ominous."

Coop gulped "Well, technical difficulties really. We got it sorted and it's not going to happen in the future"...especially after I re-convert the damn thing to a fridge, he thought to himself. "Just the power surge may have caused a sort of EMP that knocked your electrical system off for a bit. I hope there's no permanent damage".

Watching in his office, Gendo raised an eyebrow. "Interesting, Kozo. they're not even denying their role in the power outage. While they seem to trying to play up to the stereotype of the Idiot American, what's left of that Angel proves otherwise. We'll have to check into this fellow's background." He then turned back towards the screen, as Misato was talking again.

"So, Mr. Coop, could you please introduce me to the rest of your crew and their titles, if any?"

"I'm Harold Cooplowski, but just Coop will do, Captain. This is Jamie, no title", Jamie facepalmed. "And this is uh, Commander Kiva Andru."

Turning to Kiva and saluting, Misato asked her, "Commander Andru? Are you the ranking officer then ma'am? Though I didn't know that the US Navy were involved."

Kiva grimaced a little at this. "Sorry Captain, I'm ex-military. Commander was my former rank."

"So you were US military, then?"

"More like Earth Coalition." muttered Jamie.

Somewhat confused, Misato pressed for more. "Earth Coalition?" I haven't heard of them, are they some new UN outfit or something?

Kiva heard Jamie trying to suppress a snicker, and squaring her shoulders looked at Misato and took a deep breath. "The reason you haven't heard of the Earth Coalition is because they don't exist yet, and won't for the best part of a thousand years."

You could have heard a pin drop. Dropping the military formality, Misato looked Kiva in the eye. "Bullshit."

Kiva looked Misato in the eye and simply said "I wish."

Looking at Gendo Ikari, few people would have noticed any difference in his demeanour. However, Kozo Fuyutsuki was one of those. "Are you alright, Ikari? You look like you've seen a ghost."

Gendo took off his glasses, rubbed his nose and looked at Kozo. "You heard what she said. She's from the future. A thousand years or so in the future. It may be assumed that robot is from the future too. It appears to be infinitely more capable than anything humanity has right now - it obliterated an Angel without any need of an AT field. You know what this means?"
Nodding his head, Kozo spoke the words Gendo did not want to hear or say.

"Humanity will continue to exist, as a technologically advanced civilisation that is made up of individuals. The Human Instrumentality Project has failed. So what do we do now?"
"Right now? I honestly don't know. First thing, we cannot allow SEELE to know of this. there's no telling how they will react. Kihl may not be able to restrain them more erratic members. And we need to get as much information from these people. Surely they will know what the next thousand years will bring, but we also need to know why they have such little knowledge of the Angels. There are some things that don't add up though. This Coop fellow said they were civilians, yet she's says she's future ex-military? What does that make her, CIA? "
"I don't know. But I will find out."
"I assume, Kozo, you have the same source in mind as I do for this task?"
"You know me too well Gendo, I think Mr. Kaji will enjoy finding out the truth in this situation. Especially if it distracts him from his normal activities ."

As Misato was desperately trying to think of another question for Kiva, a strange gurgling rumble could be heard.
"Oops, that was me" Coop admitted, "I sorta skipped lunch today."
"Okay, we can take a break, continue after lunch if you will. We have a canteen a couple of levels down, with a very good menu. If you'll follow me." Misato turned and headed for the entrance.

"Cool, do you do Kobe burgers?"

As they went inside, Jamie elbowed Coop. "Dude. Weapons malfunction, reactor leak? What was next? Shoot them and say the conversation was getting boring and run off to save the princess?"
Coop grinned. "What was I supposed to say? I hit a button wrongly labelled by Evil Me?"
"He didn't wrongly label it, you put the label on it without checking that it did the same thing as old Megas."
Kiva was next. "What the hell did you mention my rank for? You want them to think we're crazy? We don't need them knowing about Megas or my origins."
Screwing up his eyes, Coop nodded. "Yeah, I messed up, I just thought the way Lil Miss Military was on about titles, and the fact she thought we were a bunch of losers, mentioning you technically outanked her might throw her. Sorry."
Kiva acknowledged it with a nod of her head. "Accepted, but we'll have to be very careful what we tell these people. there's just something about this place that seems off. How come we haven't heard about Angels or these huge things? Especially given the way you attract all these off world horrors? And Tokyo-3? I've never heard of that."
"Maybe it's the codename for their base?" wondered Jamie. "And when did any military allow chicks with purple hair to command stuff?"
"I don't know - if this base is called Tokyo-3, then what's that city - it's far too small to be Tokyo, but why would..."
"Hey, maybe it's like Jersey, after all, nobody there thinks anything's weird about robots and aliens anymore. Maybe this stuff is just day to day stuff as far as they're concerned. It's Tuesday, therefore we get the giant acid filled spider kaiju attack, Wednesday means it's the magical girl attack, and so on!"

As they walked down a corridor, a door opened and Coop could see a young boy in what looked like a school uniform, looking through the doorway at him. Misato saw him, and motioned for him to come out. Turning to Coop, she declared. "Coop, Jamie, Kiva, I'd like to introduce you to Shinji Ikari, pilot of Unit-01 - the purple and green Eva you saw earlier. Shinji, this is Coop, Jamie and Kiva, the crew of Megas."

Shinji was in the process of bowing to them, only to have his hand grabbed and shaken vigorously by Coop. "You pilot that huge ass robot all by yourself? That is awesome!"
Misato grinned as she watched Shinji turn bright red, and even redder when Kiva shook his hand with a smile, saying she was glad to meet him. Jamie merely nodded to him.

Just then, another door flew open, and what could only be described as a red plugsuit clad force of nature breezed into the corridor. "So you're the pilots of that robot? Consider yourself lucky, you've just met the great Asuka Langley Soryu, pilot of the ultimate production model, Unit-02, and the greatest pilot in Nerv."
Kiva and Coop just stared at her, though Kiva did push Jamie's lower jaw back up into a closed position.
"Wooooaaaahhhh..." was all Jamie could say, though drool might have been the more appropriate word.

"So you really are the pilot of that robot? How the hell do you fit in it?" Asuka asked, ignoring Misato and Coop staring daggers at her. Turning to Kiva, she shook hands, asking, "Shouldn't you be in charge, you seem to be more, well, suitable. Us redheads do make for superior beings after all." Kiva, open mouthed just stared, turning to Jamie, Asuka stopped. Jamie was looking at her, yes, but not at her face, and with a look that could be described as stooge-esque. "Are you enjoying the view?" she condescendingly asked, however she didn't expect the reply she got.

"Oh yeah, enjoying it, yep, keep doing what you're do-"

SMACK.

"You disgusting pervert! You're just as depraved as that little hentai creep over there!" Asuka yelled, pointing at a stunned looking Shinji. "Where the hell do you get off treating women as mere objects? You-" only to be yanked away by Misato.
Turning crimson with anger, she let Asuka have both barrels. "Pilot Soryu. Remove yourself this instance. How dare you assault a guest! You're lucky I don't have you arrested for this."
As Asuka stormed off, ranting about creepy perverts, Misato turned to Jamie, who was rubbing his cheek, and trying to shake the stars from his vision. "Please allow me to express my deepest apologies for that outburst, I'll ensure she is disciplined for that."

Misato was confused to see Kiva and Coop sniggering between themselves, "Oh it's okay, Captain, this is just another addition to The Bumper List of Places Jamie's Been Smacked in the Kisser - it's kind of tradition if you know what I mean", Coop said, laughing.
Even though she hadn't the slightest clue, Misato allowed a wan smile to appear on her face, but all she could think was how these people were just weird.

Shinji, unsurprised by the outburst, went over to Jamie. "I'm sorry about that, she can be a nice girl, but she does have an extremely short temper."
"No kidding", came the deadpan reply, "pretty powerful swing too, I'd give her 7 out of 10 for that smack. What about the purple haired chick? She got some ninja death punch skills too, I suppose?"

"M-Misato-san? She's nice, but I wouldn't piss her off either."

Rolling his eyes, Jamie moaned. "So basically, every female here is a violent maniac? Wonderful. I'm doomed."

"No, you'll be okay" Shinji reassured him, "Just keep your head down, and don't say anything that could be construed as being offensive, tell them you're sorry and you should be fine. It works for me most of the time."

"Easy for you to say." Jamie snarked back at him. "Besides, if I was to try that, my friends would think there's something wrong with me. Getting the occasional smack goes with the territory, I guess."

"You mean... you mean you have no problem with getting hit all the time?" Shinji stared at him. "That's just weird."

Jamie thought for a second, and shook his head, "No, I do have a problem with it, I try to avoid it, but occasionally it happens - hell I'm one of those guys who just can't resist trying to get a good one-liner in, doesn't always have the desired effect though. Actually, that happens more often than not, really. Think of it like, say an occupational hazard. And as you pointed out, you do your little apologising church mouse thing, but it still doesn't work all the time, does it? And I think most people actually don't want to hear someone apologising to them all the time. So if you're going to get clobbered, may as well make it something worth getting clobbered for. But it still sucks."

"That... kind of makes sense... in a strange sort of way" thought Shinji, as he nodded at Jamie.

"I have my moments." smirked Jamie.

Just then a voice spoke up behind them causing Jamie to jump. "Pilot Ikari, you are to follow me to-"

"Wh-where did you come out of?" squawked Jamie.

"Through the door, and along the corridor to here. There are no other avenues of access I could have used." Rei replied evenly.

Folding his arms, Jamie looked at her. "Riiight, and we just didn't happen to hear you creeping up behind us."
"You and Pilot Ikari were involved in a conversation, and as a result I can only assume your attention was solely upon him, therefore my approach was unnoticed" was the matter-of-fact reply.

"And who exactly are you anyway" was Jamie's next question.
Shinji decided to intervene now. "Oh, this is the pilot of Eva Unit-00, Rei Ayanami."

"Oh, okay, nice to meet you, I'm Jamie" he said, extending his hand. "Interesting hair by the way, you one of those cosplayer types?"
Rei didn't acknowledge the handshake. "Pilot Ikari we are required elsewhere." She then turned and walked off.

"It was nice to meet you Jamie, but I have to go with her. Uhh, thanks for the advice, and hopefully we'll meet again. Goodbye." and with that Shinji went after Rei.

As he jogged to catch up with Coop, Kiva and Misato, the first thing that went through his head was "Did Commander Data have a blue haired daughter?"