In the recent past, three Angels had laid siege to Tokyo-3 and, in turn, had all been repelled by the efforts of NERV and the mysterious weapons known only as Evangelion. However, after the near breach of NERV HQ during the last attack, the unsettling knowledge that even the combined force of Units 00 and 01 may not be enough to secure mankind's fate in the near future.

With that in mind, a message was sent to NERV's German branch requesting that Evangelion Unit-02 and its pilot be transported to Japan to bolster humanity's first line of defense against the Angels, and against the possibility of the tragedy of the Second Impact repeating itself all over again. It would be several days before both Eva and pilot arrived in the far east, leaving the rest of NERV's staff plenty of time to prepare for their arrival.

"What's all that paperwork, Misato? Are you working from home tonight?" Shinji asked as he stirred a boiling pot of soup, the night's meal for both himself and Misato, who, despite her superior age, was something of a lousy cook.

Misato sat at the low dining room table, a thick packet of paper in one hand and a cold beer in the other. The massive pile of documents detailed in depth the background, history, and statistical information related to the Second Child, the pilot of Evangelion Unit-02 and the newest recruit of NERV's Japanese branch. Misato had been staring at the document for at least an hour now and strained both her eyes and her brain trying to make sense of it. Though everything was certainly seemed to be in order, there was something about the Second Child that just seemed off to NERV's Director of Operations.

"Nah, I'm just going over all this stupid information about our new recruit," Misato replied, her fatigue showing in her voice. "It looks like she's an incredibly capable pilot, but I just can't shake the feeling that something strange is going on here. She's just too perfect, you know?"

Misato took a deep drink of her generic convenience store beer and finished the entire can in one prolonged chug. With all the strange things going on at NERV, sometimes the best way to deal with it all was just to get drunk as humanly possible.

"That's not very nice, Misato," admonished Shinji.

"Well then you come over here and look at this, Shinji. Then you'll see what I'm talking about."

Abandoning his his station at the kitchen's stove for a moment, Shinji walked to Misato's side and snatched the file from her waiting hand. Pouring over it for nearly three minutes, the annoyed look that manifest on his young face seemed to show Misato all she needed to know.

"Still don't believe me, huh?" Misato pouted.

"From what I can tell, she just seems really talented, but there is something I don't get..." Shinji held the document aloft for a moment, pouring over its front page for another half a minute to confirm his suspicion. "What the heck is a 'Mutation Type?'"

Misato sighed. She had poured over the twenty page document for three hours but had failed to notice something so simple that sat on the first page directly under the statistical information concerning the Second Child's weight, height, and age.

"I knew I missed something... But from what Ritsuko told me, the whole Mutation Type thing is a grouping system NERV came up with to catalog the various changes that affected children like Rei after the second impact."

"And what's Ayanami's type?

"I'm don't really remember the specifics , but Ritsuko once told me that Rei's type was 'Group: Avian, Sub-Group: Harpy' that's really all I know about her to. The rest of her file was censored to hell and back. In fact, I don't think anybody at NERV knows anything about her."

Misato sighed again. Despite her senior status as an agent of NERV, there was so much about the organization that Misato didn't know... and that, on some level, she may not have wanted to know.

"That makes sense, she does have wings like a bird." Shinji thought aloud. "But what about, uh..." Shinji consulted the thick file again. "Asuka? It says she's a 'Group: Material, Sub-Group: Ooze.' How can a person be an Ooze?"

Shinji grimaced. Even the sound of the word "ooze" was gross and brought to mind images of sloshing sludge and slime of the type found primarily in sewers, back alleys, and various other unsavory places.

"I really don't know. But you should probably stop thinking about it before your ruin your appetite." Misato grinned at Shinji's disgusted expression.

"Fine! I guess I'll just wait and find out when she gets here in a few days."

In a huff, Shinji returned to the boiling soup pot and attempted to finish the night's meal without imagining NERV's newest pilot as a horrible monster akin to those found in found in American horror movies of the 1950's.

Somewhere on the open sea, two days' journey from the coast of Japan.

The transport of an Evangelion unit was a pain for all involved. Too big to move by air, it fell upon the navies of the countries allied with NERV in order to move the gigantic mecha, and all its weaponry, armor, and other attachments, across the open ocean at a snail's pace. And did they ever hate it – when mankind still waged war against itself, such ships had been the pride of their nation's navy and served to protect the open seas of their home nation with their impressive artillery. But now? They had been reduced to carrying Gendou Ikari's oversized toys to fight monsters that would not have looked out-of-place in a cartoon.

Today's colorful cargo consisted of Evangelion Unit-02, its pilot...and its backup pilot.

"Kajiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!"

A spry young girl, with almost translucent red skin, glassy blue eyes, and dressed in a crimson-colored plugsuit, wrapped her arms around the scruffy-looking man sitting in front of her. The man in turn seemed completely unfazed by the young maiden's advances.

"What is it, Asuka?" the man asked, annoyed.

"You should come and play with me!" the girl known as Asuka exclaimed.

Asuka tightened the embrace connecting her and Kaji, interlocking her hands to form a continuous loop around her overseer's body.

"How many times do I need to tell you this, I'm not going to 'play' with you, Asuka."

"But why?"

"One, you're too young. And two, you're made of slime and look like a dessert you might bring to a family get-together. Neither of those facts are terribly sexy."

Kaji laughed. He had been striking down Asuka's advances for as long as he had been designated her caretaker, and he didn't plan to stop anytime soon. The best he could do, he often thought, was push her constant need for attention onto someone else. But that would have to wait, given there wasn't anyone to push her affections onto aside from the Eva's backup pilot...

"That's mean, Kaji. You know I'm more mature then most girls my age and as long as I'm wearing my plugsuit I'm able to stay completely solid for as long as I want!"

"My point stands. Why don't you go play with Mari for awhile before bed? I'm sure she's been lonely lately since you've been spending all your time trying to seduce me."

Kaji stood, breaking Asuka's embrace in the process and began to walk off to converse with the ship's captain about when they would finally arrive in Japan, and when he would finally be free, more or less, of Asuka's constant attention.

Asuka, sad and annoyed, similarly slunk off. Her dejection normally would have caused her body to melt into a puddle and force her to wait around until her mood improved enough to coagulate into her humanoid form once more. Her plugsuit, jokingly called a "Gelatin Mold" by NERV's German staff, helped her to resist such involuntary changes, but the possibility still remained.

Asuka paced across the ship's deck, her gaze fixed on the ground below, as she made her way to the elevator leading to the the room she shared with her fellow Eva pilot.

"Stupid Kaji. He doesn't even know how good he has it with me. I mean I'm pretty much the best pilot around, AND I graduated from college when I was thirteen! Who else can say that?!" Asuka fumbled with the number pad that stood between her and a night of sitting alone and sulking. "No one, that's who!"

Upon entering the correct code, the electronic pad lit up for a moment before signaling that the door had been unlocked with a loud clinking noise.

"I'm home," Asuka announced in a sullen voice to no one in particular.

"Welcome home, Princess~" came the sultry reply.

From across the room Asuka spied a bespectacled young girl with brown hair gazing playfully back at her atop the room's bed. Like Asuka, she was dressed in a plugsuit, though hers was bright pink in color and modified specificity to accommodate it's wearer's massive, snake-like tail.

"Four-Eyes." Asuka stated crossly. "What are you doing here?"

"What else am I supposed to do around here?" the bespectacled girl slyly stated. "You spend half the day hitting on that old man of yours, and the rest sulking when he rejects you again."

Asuka was visibly angry, her jelly-like form smoldering with each lash of her fellow pilot's barbed words.

"I don't know, but you very well know that I don't like it when you hang around here all day waiting for me to come back. It's creepy!" Asuka retorted, getting increasingly upset.

"How is it any creepier then your hitting on a middle-aged man, Princess?" her companion replied, her teasing nature apparent in her voice.

Asuka opened her mouth to argue her friend's point... but couldn't. Mari was right, and now Asuka just looked like a fool.

"Fine! You win, Four-Eyes. Do whatever you want," Asuka sighed, admitting defeat.

"Get over here." Mari beckoned for Asuka with a motion of her right hand, a flick of her tail, and another sly smile.

"Why should I?" Asuka huffed.

"Because. You know you always feel better after we sit down and talk for awhile."

Asuka did ever hate it when Mari was right. But she couldn't argue; she did always feel a bit better after venting her problems with a friend for awhile.

"You coming or not, Princess?" Mari playfully asked, her tail swinging back and forth across the edge of the bed she was laying on.

"I'm coming, I'm coming..."

Even if it would be good for her in the long run, Asuka hated to admit loss at anything, even if it was something as simply as admitting she was wrong to a close friend.

Asuka sat beside Mari, her eyes closed and as much of a blush as her strange body could produce radiating upon her beet red cheeks.

"Okay, good~ Now take off the plugsuit," Mari hissed quietly into Asuka's ear.

Asuka was taken aback. "WHAT?!"

"Take it off. As long as you're wearing that thing, you're never going to be able to relax."

Without her plugsuit, Asuka's body was something of a malleable mess that took all of her mental fortitude to retain a humanoid shape. Any extreme bouts of emotion, primarily negative ones, could reduce her to a quivering puddle of a slime girl.

"Do you enjoy teasing me like this?"

"Of course," Mari smiled. "But that doesn't change the fact that I still think you'll feel a lot better if you take that dumb suit off."

"If it'll shut you up... fine."

Asuka made haste to another room with her sleeping clothes held close to her chest. Far away from prying eyes, Asuka stripped off the vacuum-sealed plugsuit, exposing her gelatinous body to the outside world for the first time in days.

"Stupid Mari, she knows that I look awful when I'm not wearing my plugsuit." Asuka slipped on a pair of shorts and a yellow tanktop before collecting the plugsuit and returning to Mari's side.

"Happy now?" Asuka questioned as she sat down on the bed again.

"Very," Mari replied. "But more importantly, do YOU feel better, Princess?"

For a long moment Asuka just sat and grumbled to herself, her slimy body shifting about to the beat of her sighs of dejection.

"Is that a yes I hear~?"

"Yes..."

"I can't hear youuuuuu."

"YES, I FEEL BETTER!"

"Good girl~"

Mari, with a smile on her face, hugged Asuka close to her chest as she often did. Though Asuka was slimy, and bit gross to the touch, it didn't matter to Mari as long as Asuka was happy.

"Now tell me all about everything that's on your mind" Mari spoke gently as she stroke the part of Asuka's head that passed as her hair.

"Well...