A/N: Yo! Er…okay, no-ones here, but… well, never mind. I must sincerely apologise for the slightly, okay, overwhelmingly extreme delay of this chapter. Several outside factors have contrived to put my life in the cosmic equivalent of a blender over the past few months, so my writing sorta fell by the wayside. Some people would argue that that's the best place for it…but I know where they live… anyway, I digress.

Thanks for the reviews, the few that there have been, and to answer your question, yes, there will be pairings, currently it looks very SxA, but nothing ever stays the same for long in this plotline…maybe that would help…a plot…All the pairings haven't been figured out yet, currently there are no OC/ACC pairings, I might stay that way, who knows?

So, here's the chapter. It's been re-worked more times than I care to imagine and it still hasn't turned out how I'd like. Shinji's OOCness can probably be attributed to reading to many web comics, namely 'Untitled!' and 'The Whiteboard'. Perhaps the first more so than the second….still, Shinji being hit in the head with a giant mallet, not out of the realms of possibility….

For all spelling and grammar mistakes I blame Bill Gates. Er, only in a non sue-able way of course.

"Blah"-speech

"Blah"-Tannoy/announcer

'Blah'-thoughts

NGE: Mind of Metal

Chapter Two

Another day, different agendas

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Main control was the centre of the ENSIS facility. Similar to central dogma, main control still wore the trappings of a different era. Although filled with the latest communication and control systems, one wall still bore a giant red hammer and sickle. A common feature around many of the older parts of the facility. The commander had never got round to ordering its removal, so instead it had been gradually covered by screens and charts, but its presence could still be felt through the entire room.

The control was divided into two parts, an elevated command deck, from which the facility and all operations were run, and a lower deck, which served as an all purpose briefing and assembly area. This area was currently being filled by the amassed ranks of ACU pilots; all dressed in the standards ENSIS black uniform. The curious thing about all the pilots was that they were all in their mid-teens, just like the Eva pilots.

As the senior officers approached the pilots were shouted into file by the sergeants, no older than the pilots themselves, and stood smartly to attention. They stood in groups of five, called squads, which were then arranged into three units consisting of three squads each. At the end stood a group of eight pilots who bore two red flashes over their left arm shoulder guard, the second generation pilots. These two squads were missing their sergeants, and were instead being commanded by two corporals.

Arvus rounded the corner, only to be met with the grinning face of Mukuro. He tried to go from full run into a salute, but failed and fell onto the floor at the liaison officers' feet. Dragging himself up, he attempted to make himself look as presentable as possible, but only served to make him appear even more dishevelled.

"Sir!" he threw an uneasy salute, desperately trying to stay on two feet.

"Sergeant, running late?" Mukuro asked, his grin never slipping.

"Sir" It was a well known fact that Arvus despised the liaison officer intensely, and the feeling was entirely mutual.

"The commander won't be too happy, I mean, Kaevan has an excuse, but you're, well, just late"

"Sir" Arvus' voice was barely above a growl, he knew Mukuro was milking this to the full.

The rest of the pilots were being briefed by the Captain, the two second generation squads were to accompany the delegation, while a third squad was to stay on standby should the need arise.

"Now, you know as well as I do that a week in the brig is what you'll get if the commander hears of this, but if I was to give you a reason for this absence, well, he might overlook it perhaps?"

"Sir" Whatever Mukuro wanted, it was probably better than the brig.

"I need you to fetch your fellow Sergeant, the commander specifically said he was to accompany the delegation, and I know he'd consider you a 'friend'. I think its best if he hears about this trip to NERV from you yes?"

"Sir! Yes Sir"

"You know where to find him, dismissed sergeant"

"Sir"

With that Mukuro left to talk to the captain. Arvus headed off in the other direction, towards the brig, muttering as he went "Spineless piece of shit, still at least it ain't cleaning the entire east wing like last time, what an arsehole"

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"BAKA!"

"Argghh!!"

For the second time since breakfast Shinji Ikari was sent flying backwards by the force of an angry German fist. Actually the fist was only slightly irritated, but the feeling was the same on his part.

'All I did was suggest that it would be better if she maybe covered up a bit more? And she flies off the handle and accuses me of ogling her!'

Luckily for Shinji, Misato had entered the kitchen, drawn by the smell of food and the thought of beer. Her first instinct after entering the room was to tell Asuka to stop beating/berating/teasing Shinji, delete as applicable.

"Mmm, smells good Shinji-kun"

Shinji had managed to stand back up, and was steering clear of a glaring Asuka.

"Er…Misato…that's the dishwasher"

"It is?..I need a beer"

After having got said beer from the fridge Misato proceeded to down the can in one go.

'Some things never change' both children silently thought.

After breakfast Shinji offered to clear the plates away, partly out of courtesy, but mostly so he could get away from Asuka's burning gaze.

'I still gotta survive a tram ride later' was what went through Shinji's mind. He severely hoped that the short walk to the stop would calm his tuetonic housemate down, but he doubted it.

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The brig was located in the lower south wing of the ENSIS facility, in the section that had become known by pilots and staff alike as 'The Labyrinth'. It was the oldest part of the facility, being built sometime in the 1800s as a hideout for Russian Cossacks. It had subsequently been added to, improved, blown up, repaired, blown up, repaired, abandoned, repaired etc., and as such had acquired corridors that led nowhere, stairs where there shouldn't be stairs, and doors that seemed to open into different rooms every time they opened. It was highly confusing to say the least.

The Labyrinth was the nominal headquarters of the 2nd Generation ACU Division. The pilots had their barracks in the upper, slightly more inhabitable levels, the lower levels held an array of storerooms, workshops, offices and recreation rooms for the various technicians and staff who maintained the second generation units. The lower levels were uninhabited, filled with blocked off rooms, long forgotten soviet research labs and rats. The lowest level, the deepest in the entire facility save for Division Six, held the brig.

Arvus nodded to the two guards outside the cell block, who grunted a reply before they pulled back the iron door to allow him access. He didn't begrudge their foul demeanour, they were probably here on punishment detail after all.

The rows of cells had originally been designed to hold the greatest enemies of communism, the enemies that they could not afford to kill. Many of them were now in disrepair, the rest however, were still foreboding prisons in their own right. Arvus made his way to the end of the corridor where Kaevan had his cell, his own personal one. Sometime in the past some of the newer pilots had painted 'KILLER' and 'LOONY BIN' on the front of the door.

He slid back the bolt and opened the cast iron door. The room inside was completely dark. Arvus stayed in the doorway.

"You should really get a light bulb in here or something can't see a damn thing" He spoke into the darkness.

"I would, but the décor leaves something to be desired" the darkness replied. It had a deep voice, and spoke in a level tone. "What do you want; I was busy counting tiles with my foot"

"The commander sends his regards; he's been talking to Fraser"

"Ha! What'd the old bugger have to say?"

Arvus took a deep breath "He wanted us to talk to NERV"

The darkness' grew darker. "And the Commander agreed?"

Arvus nodded in response. "He wants our teams to accompany the delegation, now, and that includes you"

"To 'scare' them, no doubt" the darkness said sourly.

"That's the gist of it, yes" Arvus took a small, slow step back.

Sighing, a young man stepped out into the half light, he stood a half foot taller than Arvus with matted dark hair that was in need of a wash. His eyes were rimmed with dark circles.

"Christ, how long you planning to stay in there?" Arvus asked his friend

"Month and a half if you hadn't shown up, has Dremmond got out of the med wing yet?"

"He's on a drip, did you really need to use the missiles?"

"I was testing the lock time"

"The chain cannon?"

"Loading exercise"

"And the chainblade?"

"The bastard wasn't following orders, he was in my firing line, and I hate the fucker, so what's that Latin crap 'quant pro quo'?"

"Don't have a clue, better get going, Mukuro's on the warpath"

Kaevan's expression changed to one of mild amusement. "Haha! Late again, you're makin a habit out of that"

"At least I don't have a habit of hospitalizing my fellow pilots"

"That my friend, is because I am the better shot, now, I need a freakin shower before I go anywhere"

As they left the guards edged further away from the door, and tightened their grip on their weapons, it wouldn't be the first time Kaevan had found his way out of the cells.

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NeoTokyo Hospital

The rooms were quiet. They would have been completely silent, save for the low hum of the life support machines or the rumble of a distant tram from an open window. The hospital had entire corridors made up of rooms like this, silent, but not empty. Third impact had another legacy; across the globe thousands of people had come back from the LCL, or at least, their bodies had. All of them were in a deep coma; many of them had no identity, only a number attached to them by the hospital staff. They were kept alive in the hope of waking, although many of them had nothing to wake back up to.

One of these rooms contained a young woman with light blue hair, attached to a drip and monitor. The rescue teams had found her the very first day of the operation, floating out on the sea of LCL, and still no one had any clue as to who she was.

The soft hissing and beeping of the machines continued unnoticed by their patient. The nurses had taken to calling her Blue, not just because of her hair, but because of her expression. Her number was #001.

Today, however, the beeping of the machine was not the only thing that could be heard in that room. A soft voice, just audible, was repeating "Ikari…I failed….failed"

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Shinji sat at the tram stop nursing his head. Asuka still hadn't forgiven him for yesterday's incident, and to cap it all off he'd been found in possession of her underwear this morning.

'I was putting it in the washer! She needs anger management or something' he thought while glancing at his friend. She was on the phone to Hikari, and was pacing up and down the platform in an animated fashion. The tram appeared round the corner and people began to line up at the door stops.

"Asuka, tram's here" he called to her.

"I can see that idiot! Geez!" she replied snapping her phone shut.

The tram was fairly packed, Shinji deliberately tried to move as far away from Asuka as possible so as not to be accused of groping her. Luckily this got easier as the journey progressed. The tram made its way through the city and out towards the new NERV base.

The base had been rebuilt on the outskirts of the city, within a small mountain. The facility was completely new, and many parts of it were still under construction. The base served not only as a NERV facility, but as a NEF military strongpoint. Various cranes and building equipment were visible from the tram as it wound its way up the slope towards the terminus. Shinji sighed, turning away from the window he had managed to find a seat next to and pulled piece of paper from his bag. He read the memo carefully, ignoring his housemate as she tried in vain to irritate him by drumming her fingers across the armrest repeatedly. Seeing her tactics failing Asuka settled for moaning instead.

"What the hell are we here for anyway? It's not like we can do anything until they get the rail launch system running properly. How long we gonna be here for?"

Shinji didn't look up, but spoke in a tired tone to his moping friend "We've got a whole battery of sync tests, then some meeting or other. Looks like it'll take up most of the day"

"Arrggh!! More sync tests mien gott!!! That's all they do, test, test, test!!!" Asuka screamed in her annoyance, beating her fist down on the armrest, causing a few passengers around her to move away slowly.

"I don't know hat your worried about Asuka, you always get high scores"

"Of course I do dumpkopf!" she huffed folding her arms and leaning back in her seat, her mood slipping into a sulk "But it's the principle, I mean, gott, school's less of a slave drive than this!"

"For you maybe" Shinji barley muttered the words, but Asuka latched onto them like a shark to blood. A predatory grin came to her face as she leaned in closer to Shinji, causing him to look up in surprise and blush at her close proximity.

"What's that, is the indomitable Shinji Ikari having school problems?" She asked wryly with her twisted smile. Shinji didn't reply, instead he turned his face away. Asuka reclined back, her grin not slipping.

"Relax, baka, I'm sure you'll get through it somehow. Maybe you could ask someone to help you or something?" She had to mentally bite her lip to stop herself from saying 'ask instead. Truth be told she'd gladly help him, she was, and though at times it wasn't very apparent, his friend. But while some of her stubbornness had worn away, she could still not bring herself to offer directly.

Shinji shook his head, deliberately avoiding her fishing attempt "No, I don't think that'll be necessary, I just gotta study harder is all, I've still got a lot on my mind"

Asuka deflated somewhat at his pseudo-refusal to her pseudo-offer of help, but not enough for it to externally show. "Whatever baka-boy" she said folding her arms and looking out of the window again.

The trip continued in relative silence from then on. Asuka resumed her finger drumming, humming a tune of an old song Shinji couldn't place. Finally, the tinny voice of the tannoy announced their arrival at NERV central headquarters and NeoTokyo Military base.

As they got off onto the platform Asuka walked briskly ahead, still annoyed at Shinji's apparent density to her offer. Shinji followed more slowly, shaking his head as he did.

'I can pilot a giant robot, yet I can't ask for help with algebra. I don't even know what I'm afraid of, despite the obvious physical assault, but I can cope with that' he thought solemnly as he passed through the security checkpoint '…I'm gonna have to look into this psychology stuff…"

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A/N: There you have it, I'm trying to increase the size of my chapters, but I find I can only write so much before I lose the 'plot' altogether and descend into OOCness and random crazy talk. I find I have to re-work most of my chapters ages after they were written because they are often just assorted ramblings strung together with a weal pretence of a storyline. So yeah….next update? Check your horoscope, maybe if I updated more regularly I might actually build up a fan-base to talk to like this nay? Great, no I'm talking to myself…I need a beta reader…

Watch this space…it bites