I did my best to hide my emotions, a mixture of fear and awe, as the video played before me. I could tell that Misato was eyeing me anxiously behind my back, obviously worried for me, but all of my attention was on the recording.

The camera was inside the entry plug, and it had begun recording the moment I set foot in the plug. It had gotten everything: my singing, my shaking hands, my screams…

I fought down a shudder. Misato noticed that and laid a hand on my shoulder. I winced at the touch. The pain was still all too fresh in my mind.

It had finally gotten to the point where I was defeated, lying on the ground in a ragged heap. I was muttering something, but it was too low for the camera to catch. The entry plug turned red, and the camera stopped. The recording switching to one of the various observational cameras that fed directly to Central Dogma.

Thank god for small blessings. I have no idea how the hell I was supposed to explain why I repeated 'old hag' and 'little bitch' over and over.

A knot went in my stomach as I saw Shamshel hang over Unit 00 like a predator moving in for the kill. A pair of wicked mandibles appeared underneath its massive head, clicking and gnashing in anticipation, drool dripping from fangs the size of trucks. The orange Eva shuddered, and looked up.

With a speed that should've been impossible for something its size, it tackled the Angel, easily twice the Eva's size, and began ripping and tearing at the carapace. A holy chorus broke out, and a flash of light ignited between the two, sending Unit 00 crashing into the street from the force of the AT-Field. As if possessed, it slowly rose, letting all bask in its horrifying glory.

It looked like anything but a savior of mankind. Its cyclopean head was cracked and burned, and it was making rapid movements, jerking left and right. Its armor was either melted or gone in places, revealing the boiling, muscle-ridden skin underneath. Its arms and chest were bleeding profusely, and its legs took visible effort to carry the massive body.

With a muffled roar, Unit 00 charged. Shamshel whipped all of its tentacles, lashing around the Eva. Unit 00 stopped in its tracks, writhing in muted agony as every part of its body burned. It seemed like all was lost…

… Until an orange and white hand, two fingers broken, reached out, grabbed a tentacle, and began to pull. The other hand joined in, and the rest of the Eva's body twisted and spun as it pulled itself closer and closer to Shamshel. Every step was laborious, and Unit 00 seemed like it would collapse at any moment. But, driven by an indomitable will, the Evangelion kept going until it finally reached the Angel.

Still bound by the tentacles, Unit 00 reached out and gripped the carapace, its fingers wrapping around the grooves in the chitin. And, with all its might, began to pull. I could've sworn I heard Shamshel squealing as the plating was torn from its body with sick tearingsound. Blood, a sickly purple color, dripped from the ripped skin underneath. Unit 00 was… growling.

So this is what the Evangelion and Angel has been reduced to. Predator and prey.And the two couldn't seem able to stick to one side or the other.

Unit 00 slammed its head into the exposed skin over and over again with an unnerving amount of fervor. The knot in my stomach tightened even more as I realized it was trying to eat Shamshel.

Catching on, the Angel made a horrific shriek, like some twisted mix between a cricket and a cat, and began firing haphazardly at the Eva. Blinding light encompassed the landscape around the battling titans, engulfing buildings and forests in Angelic fire. I winced as I saw millions of dollars gone in a second, reduced to dismal rubble. Thousands of people were now displaced; they'd very likely leave the city all together.

Tokyo-3 was officially a warzone.

But despite Shamshel's best efforts, Unit 00 wasn't hit once. It kept trying to get at the skin, until it noticed a red orb the size of a two-story house nestled in the Angel's chest. Something seemed to click in the Eva's unstable mind, and it stared at the core as it began to crawl across the Angel's still-frantic body to reach it. A titanic orange hand moved to touch the core…

Shamshel went ballistic. It roared and flew up into the sky like a bullet, carrying the Eva with it. Unit 00, all thoughts of survival abandoned, kept trying to get the core despite the sudden rise in elevation. Wind buffeted the Eva as Shamshel rose higher and higher, and the Angel seemed to tighten its grip on Unit 00, the glowing tentacles constricting along the Eva's bloody and burning body.

The Angel abruptly halted in the air, a good few thousand feet above the ground.

And began to fall.

With the speed and force of a freight train, Shamshel shot to the ground, slamming into the earth with a colossal explosion. Rubble and debris was tossed into the air for miles around, and I could feel the weight of the impact in my chest. It was like watching a loud movie in the theaters, and my heart skipped a beat when something finally hit me.

I was in that thing. I was in that… monstrosity during all of that. I felt my sides, where phantom pain still tinged at my skin. I shivered and tried to hold back my emotions. I couldn't let Misato see me like that.

A wet crunching noise caused me to look up. Unit 00 stood victorious over the shattered form of Shamshel, its orange and white armor warped and torn. Blood flowed everywhere; the Eva was drenched in the stuff, and Shamshel seemed to fade away in the purple liquid as its skin bubbled and liquefied. I heard a low roar, and it took me a moment to realize it was coming from Unit 00. Its arms were stretched to the sky as if it were a gladiator accepting the glorious approval of the blood-maddened crowd.

The light in the Eva's single eye died, and its arms fell to its side. Its entire form sagged backward until it crashed into the Angel's corpse, sending gore and rubble flying in the air from the impact. Finally, it could rest.

The feed cut out after that. I kept staring at the blank screen. Misato tried to talk to me, but I didn't hear a word she spoke. In my head, I asked one thing, over and over.

Why am I here?

Hours later, lying in my bed, I still had yet to find the answer.

I was curled up in a ball, quietly sobbing as yesterday's events played over and over in my head. I kept touching my spine to make sure it wasn't broken. I pressed my hand to my chest just to see if it had melted away. All I felt was numb fear.

Never before had I felt such pain. I knew it was fake. I tried repeating that to myself, but it never seemed to work. I couldn't but feel so… pathetic. Everyone back in the real world kept saying Shinji was such a wuss for angsting so much, but after actually going through the same thing he did, he's a goddamn hero. Seriously, getting back in EVA after something like that? That took balls.

I was currently debating whether or not I had balls.

Could I get back in that thing? Even with such a low synch score, I felt the pain so purely it was as if it were my own body being smashed and flayed. I could credit the fact that Unit 00 was patchy and had tons of flaws to it, but I wasn't sure that that was the reason for it.

Maybe it was because it knew I didn't belong here, and it was punishing me for intruding. Which led back to my original question: what is the point of me being here?

… Kaworu? Can you hear me? Uh… I could use some help, if you don't mind… Do you prefer Tabris? I'll call you Tabris, if that's what you want. Please, give me some help.

I sat still for a minute, half-expecting to hear Kaworu's angelic voice echoing in my head, promising enlightenment and good tidings. Of course, nothing came.

Fine. Prick.

The door slid open, and light leaked into the room. I winced as my eyes were temporarily blinded by the glare. I could make out the slim figure of Misato in the doorway.

"Hey. You awake?"

Well, she probably saw me wince, so there was little point in pretending. "… Yeah." I croaked out. Why was my voice so hoarse?

"Well, I just wanted to say… Thank you, for doing what you did today. You did well."

"Well?" I snorted, my tone taking a bitter turn, "I clocked out in less than a minute. How is that well?"

There was a long pause. Misato sighed, and she tried the maternal tone again. "You did something no one else could. You protected us, without any hesitation. Regardless of the outcome, you put forth your best effort. And remember, you're not alone. Shinji has gone through the exact same thing as you."

What, failing at piloting, then having the Eva go berserk?

"You can always go to him for comfort." Misato continued. "You're teammates, and teammates back each other up, no matter what. And honestly, you both desperately could use a friend. Just… hang in there, okay Ken?"

Damn. I couldn't resist that tone. It was too much like my mom's. A wash of memories came back to me when I thought of her, and I wondered if I would ever see her again. I almost cried again as I said, "I w-will, Misato. Th-thank you, for… for everything."

She smiled warmly. "You're welcome. Good night."

"Good night."

She closed the door, and darkness swallowed up the room again. Wow. That… that actually helped, a lot. I smiled as warm tears fell down my face. Maybe it was just a pep-talk to keep me going and she didn't really care about me, but then and there none of that mattered to me. I'll have to talk to Shinji tomorrow, maybe get the friendship started proper, even.

But still, I couldn't sleep. Whether it was restlessness or all the emotions, I couldn't find the will to keep my eyes shut. I sighed and rolled off my bed, pushing the blankets away. I stood up and walked over to the window, peering through the closed shades to get a look outside. The streetlights were on, standing vigil like lighthouses to keep the darkness at bay.

Maybe I should write that dream I had the other day. If I wasn't going to get any sleep, I might as well do something with all that free time. I clicked the desk light on, and winced from the glare. I opened the bottom cabinet and removed the notebook, making sure to make as little noise as possible as I moved about the room. Placing the notebook on the desk, I sat down in the wheelie chair, which hissed at the pressure placed on it. Taking a pencil in my hand, I began to write the visions of a dead Angel into reality.

The Uwaoui, despite being amphibians, were brought into the world as live-born grub-like creatures that slithered about with underdeveloped eyes. When a female Uwaoui had given birth to over twenty grubs, she, along with her mate, would then store her clutch in a small burrow which was completely cut off from the surface. In the burrow were very limited food supplies; the grubs had to fight and kill one another for control of the precious resources. Through this process, a single triumphant adolescent Uwaoui would emerge from the earth, a tinge of cunning in its black, pupil-less eyes. Its form would be vaguely humanoid, two legs that jointed backwards, and two arms, which had small spikes sprouting from the elbows. Their hands were claws, already fully-developed during their battle for survival in the burrow. Atop its head, typically squat in shape with a small, lipless mouth and no ears, were two small horns which had been used for warding off enemies in the distant past. Their skin was usually blue-ish green, but occasionally there were a few with an olive-green coloration.

Because of this 'Birth Trial', as they had called it, Uwaoui quickly learned to be greedy and respectful of power. As their civilization grew, this warm-blooded race of amphibians focused primarily on two paths; business and intelligence. Intelligence was key to maintaining power in their world, and certain Uwaoui became masters at spying and subterfuge. Had their race spread to the stars, they would be known by other space-farers as shrewd businessmen and sharp-witted spies.

Unfortunately, they never made it past the moon. In fact, the moment their first shuttle passed the blood-smeared moon an inky blackness, bursting from dark space, engulfed the ship, and begun to descend upon the planet.

As the void, a formless mass of hate and hunger, spread across the planet, all the Uwaoui could do was scream as all of their wealth and networks dissolved into nothingness. No amount of money or intelligence could hold the abomination at bay and within twenty-four hours all traces of the Uwaoui race was gone.

All that was left was a desolate Earth and a Moon tainted with the blood of a god.

The pencil fell on the desk.

Lances of pain drove into my skull, causing me to grit my teeth to keep myself from screaming. My fingers clutched my hair, pulling and doing anything to make it stop.

I banged my head against the desk, trying to numb the internal pain with external.

Get…

Thud!

… out…

Thud!

… of …

Thud!

… my …

Thud!

… head!

I didn't care if Misato or Shinji heard me. All I cared about was stop thinking about it!

No matter how hard I tried, that damn blackness still tugged at the back of my mind; a parasite taking pleasure in the suffering of its host. I pulled at my hair, my eyes watering, and began to pace across the room manically.

Stop thinking about it stop thinking about it stop thinking about it stop thinking about it stop thinking about it!

The pain receded, slowly, but it when it did the tension stayed. My mind was moving in overdrive.

That didn't bode well, at all. If I got such horrible migraines after every damn Angel vision, I'd never get any sleep! Why the hell did I have to go through that?! Was someone trying to give me some cryptic-ass message or something? This is EVA for chrissakes, I didn't need any more of those!

I pinched the bridge of my nose to calm myself down. Deep breaths. In. And out. In. And out. In. Out.

I'll think about that later. Light started to leak in from the windows; the sun had finally begun to rise over Tokyo-3. I'd stayed up all night and I have school that day. Not good.

After putting my notebook back in its place, I plopped down on my bed, hoping to at least rest my eyes a bit.

Idly, I felt my sides again.

Still intact.

"So, uh… "

Toji shifted about uncomfortably, obviously uneasy with talking to me. He refused to make eye contact and was scratching the back of his head for an itch that I doubted was really there.

"Sorry about what happened yesterday, man." he managed.

The two of us, along with Shinji, were standing outside the school, a few minutes before class was supposed to start. He had approached Shinji and I as we were walking up to school, with Kensuke oddly absent. He seemed nervous when he came to us, which was a stark contrast to his more confident attitude just yesterday.

Perhaps seeing me get thrashed had a similar effect on him as Shinji fighting Shamshel did in the original timeline. Although I couldn't see why he had to apologize. He had nothing to do with it.

I shrugged. "It had nothing to do with you," I said, echoing my thoughts, "It was all on me. We would've all died if it weren't for the Eva." I wasn't even sure what emotion leaked in at that last sentence. Bitterness? Sadness? Anger?

Irritable would be the best word to describe myself at the time. Gone were any illusions that piloting would be just as glorious as Kensuke or anyone back home would lead you to believe. I was trapped in a world that still felt alien while familiar, forced to protect humanity from monsters with monsters. All I could do was keep my head on my shoulders without losing it, mentally or otherwise.

Now, if I could get some sleep in the meantime, that would be fantastic.

"Yeah, well, at least you'll have us to back you up next time. Right, Shinji?" Toji managed a smile, letting a little infectious bravado rise in his voice. Shinji, as if his mind had been wandering, started a bit and hastily said, "Uh, right."

"See?" Toji clapped his hand on my back with a bit too much force, making me go "Oof!", and guided me inside. "Now come on, guys, the Class Rep is gonna kill me if I'm late again."

No way had Toji understood. Not really. Not until he actually piloted. To be fair, no one can truly prepare for something like that and deal with the pain like it was nothing.

I rubbed my sides. They weren't melted.

But they had been I felt it! EVA's pain was my pain. Shinji, Rei, and Asuka could bear it. They were heroes, destined to fight the good fight at the cost of themselves, body and soul. I… was not worthy. I panicked the second things went wrong for me, cowering like a goddamn animal.

We walked into the classroom. I watched Shinji as he past Rei, each ignoring the other. Shinji sat down quietly and waited for class to start. Rei kept staring out the window. Her bandages were still on.

"Just… hang in there, okay Ken?"

… I couldn't run away from this. I had to cowboy up and take it. If not for my sake, then for theirs. They didn't deserve to live through hell again, but they were going to, regardless of what I did. I might as well make the road less painful.

Class started. Surprisingly, Second Impact wasn't mentioned once the entire day, with the focus instead on math. It was all stuff I had learned before, so I let my mind wander, occasionally glancing at Rei or Shinji.

A few hours later, the lunch bell finally rang and I made my way to Shinji's table. Toji and Kensuke were already there, chatting about something with him. Still no Rei, though. Hm. I looked over at her usual lunch spot, the tree, but she was nowhere to be found.

A giggle came from behind me. "Looking for someone?"

I jumped at the sound, and the voice, most definitely belonging to a girl, giggled again. "Sorry, I didn't mean to be rude."

Pig tails, freckles, tan skin. Hello, Hikari Hokari.

"It's all right," I said, offering my hand, "Keniuchio Harada. Nice to meet you."

She paused for a moment, then her eyes lit up when something clicked in her brain.

"Oh, I forgot, you're American, right? People don't usually shake hands around here." She took my hand and gave an awkward shake. "I'm Hikari Hokari, Class Representative. I was actually supposed to meet you ahead of time when you joined our class, but I was sick that day." She released her hand from mine. "Just wanted to see how you're holding up."

I was almost killed fighting an alien monster that wasn't really an alien, cried in my bed for a while last night, and I was trapped in a fictional universe that will end with everyone joining as one being in a beautiful display of tang and sexual imagery.

"I'm doing fine, thanks."

"That's good. So, I heard you're the other new pilot, right?" she asked.

"Yup," I said with as much fake nonchalance as I could muster, "Lucky me."

"Wow!" She had a cute little smile… No! Bad! Stop thinking like that!

Damn hormones all over again.

"Hey, Class Rep!" shouted Toji from the table, "Stop bothering the new kid! I already gave him the ropes around here."

He did?

"Oh really?" asked Hikari, her tone making her disbelief obvious, "Did you catch him up on all of the school work?"

"Erm, no…"

"Did you give him a tour of campus?"

"No…"

"How about-?"

"No, okay!" Toji sounded exasperated. "It's all boring stuff anyways! He doesn't need to know any of that!"

Hikari frowned. "Boring or not, it's school. Come on Keniuchio, I'll help you out."

"Um, 'kay." I said as she led me away from the boys. From behind I heard Toji shout "Sorry, man! I tried!"

Tried what?

The rest of lunch was spent touring campus with Hikari, through which I was totally silent. Not like I had much choice in the matter; she could really run her mouth on the simplest of things. Not that I minded really. In fact, I somewhat preferred it like that. I was always the quiet one, never really speaking unless spoken to. Hikari was a nice enough girl, although a bit bossy. Came with her job I guess.

It had begun with Toji snickering in his seat during a study period, whispering conspiratorially with Shinji when he thought I wasn't listening.

"Hey, Ken!" he yelled, quiet enough as to not get the teacher's attention, but still loud enough for me to hear.

"What?" Kensuke and I both turned our heads at the same time, causing Toji to erupt in laughter. He leaned back and gave Shinji a high five in between laughs.

"Heh, told you they'd both look!" Toji said. Shinji laughed at that, surprisingly unreserved and at ease. Maybe it's because he never had to fight Shamshel, but he seemed happier than he did at that point in the show.

And did Toji just…?

Kensuke nodded and sighed. "Yup."

Wait, I said that aloud?

"Yup."

Oh. That's not good.

"Eh, people accidently speak their mind all the time. Heck, Toji says I do it way too much." Kensuke shrugged and smiled. "Must be a Ken thing, right?"

"Yeah…" This entire situation reminded me of similar jokes made by friends of mine back home. I had a friend who shared the same name just like now, and whenever I was with him my other friends would do that all the time and I. Always. Freaking. Looked! Just imagining their smug laughing faces…

… That I'll never see again. No more movies, no more video games, no more plays...

I couldn't stop the flood of memories. Emotions that had been repressed since I got here finally got through the cracks made by my utter failure as a Pilot yesterday.

My first friends that I made in preschool, two siblings my age, a boy and a girl. Siblings. My brother, only fifteen months younger than me; people always thought we were twins. We always got so mad at that. My little sister. She never worked a day of her life. My parents. Caring. Normal.

Damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it don't think about it, Ken, don't think about it-wait.

No. My name is not Keniuchio Harada, it's…

Whoever I used to be, he probably died in Second -fucking-Impact. All of the people he knew probably died, too. All of them, gone.

Forever.

"Uh, Ken? Are you okay?"

I blinked my eyes, but my vision was blurry. Warm tears fell down my face. I was crying. Pathetic. That's what Asuka would say.

"Keniuchio? Is everything all right?" That meek, careful voice. Shinji.

"Yeah, yeah." My voice cracked. I numbly wiped the tears off. When my vision cleared, I saw Kensuke, Toji, and Shinji staring at me with worried expressions on their faces.

"Just… had a bad memory. It's all right. Really." I half-lied.

"If you say so, man." Toji said warily before getting back to work. Shinji and Kensuke stared for a little while longer, but eventually started working after it got a bit awkward.

Grateful that the attention was off me, I sighed and rubbed my eyes of any remaining tears. How could I just cry right in the middle of class? Why couldn't I go through all of that at night?! I already knew I wasn't getting any sleep, might as well pile on more shit to cry about!

Well… it was a work period, a.k.a. free time. I've been meaning to look up what happened to the U.S. since Second Impact, and I have a computer with Internet access right in front me. I opened up a browser and started digging. A hour later, I was staring at my screen with disbelief.

The United States was a different beast than it was in my world. As reliant on Canada as Canada was to it, fueled by extreme patriotism and optimism that hid a terrible depression, and officially the United Nations' very own pet dog, eager for its master's attention.

… I'm not entirely sure I wanted to know all of that. What I was reading… war records… economic disasters… it painted a different picture of the America than I was used to seeing. It felt so wrong to have missed so much history that by every right I should've been a part of. Hell, Ken as everyone else knew him actually did go through that!

I sighed and rubbed my eyes, trying to somehow smear the stress away. It didn't really work. I glanced at the clock. A few minutes until school was over. Good. I need to get away from people for a while.

The bell rang and class was excused. Shinji was waiting for me to walk home with him, and I was about to tell him he could go on ahead of me, but… I told myself I was going to help him, so I figured I might as well start sooner than later.

"Wanna take a little detour?" I asked him as we began walking.

"To where?" Shinji asked, discomfort easily readable in his voice.

I walked ahead of him, taking the lead. He quickened his pace to keep up. "Just to look around the city a bit," I said, "I haven't really had a chance to check it out since I got here, what with the Angel attacks and all."

"Oh. I haven't really done that either," he commented as we headed into the city, "I suppose I should, too."

"It's always good to know what you're protecting," I said with a forced smile. To say the irony is not lost on me is a bit of an understatement.

He nodded. "I suppose."

Oh no you don't, Mr. Compliant. "Hey, if you don't want to go you don't have to," I said, "It won't hurt my feelings."

"No, I want to. Really. It's better than walking home alone," he said with a smile.

I wasn't entirely sure if he was truthful or not, but any further pressing would make him uncomfortable, so I shut up for most of the walk. Shinji was… Well, I wouldn't say different, but eh, different is the best word I could think of. He seemed a little more relaxed than the show portrayed him, although he most certainly was just as distant; he'd spend hours at home just listening to that player while cooking or doing homework. Note to self: get him away from SDAT. Making him open up more should be easy-peezy after that.

We made our way downtown with me leading and Shinji following obediently right next to me. It was still the small timeslot between school ending and rush hour, so the streets thankfully weren't terribly crowded. It wasn't hard to find my destination; enormous cranes and the loud sounds of construction are usually easy to track down. I ignored Shinji's curious expression as we moved closer to the construction, almost running in my eagerness to finally lay on eyes on it.

I needed to see that. I needed to be reminded just why I was fighting, and so did Shinji. I needed to remember why this was called the Angel War.

We rounded the corner and saw it. A vast hole in the earth, only partially patched over by metal frames crisscrossing along the sides. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of workers milled about the site like little orange ants, and from such a far distance, maybe two miles, I'm not good with measurements, they seemed just as insignificant. Heavy machinery whined and roared as metal moved metal, and as far as I could see cranes lined the entirety of the hole's rim. I peered down into the opening and all I saw was blackness with red lights dotted along the walls. The lowermost layers of the Geofront had been repaired already.

All of this caused by Sachiel. It was a miracle Shamshel wasn't nearly as destructive, otherwise Tokyo-3 would likely just be a huge crater. Again, I have to ask why the hell the Angels are so goddamn powerful this time around. What's so different about this that they have to resort to such ridiculous levels of power to win?

… I was here. That was the only thing different about it that I could think of. Wait, Misato said Gendo had requested more EVAs ahead of schedule, something he never did before. So Gendo must know something about what changed.

I didn't realize I was rubbing my back until Shinji spoke. "That's… big," he said, his tone full of awe.

I quickly brought my hand back to my side. "Yeah, no kidding. Sac… The Angels hit pretty hard, don't they?"

"No kidding," Shinji echoed as his eyes wandered to all of the workers, "There's so many of them. So many machines. Do they all work for NERV?"

That was as good an opening as any. Beginning inspirational speech in three… two… one.

"I think so," I shrugged, "I think they'd have to. If not, they probably work for the UN or something like that. I doubt they'd trust something like the Geofront with average civilians. But yeah, that's a lot, but what did you expect? Everything is big whenever EVA is involved."

There's a metaphor hidden in there somewhere… Damn it, Anno!

"It's so easy to forget that, when you're in EVA," he breathed.

I nodded. "I know. I felt the exact same thing when I got in. It'd all been so quick that I just accepted it all. I was taller than buildings, cars were smaller than my feet, but I just took it in stride. Like a videogame, you know?"

Shinji frowned and bowed his head. "It hurts more than a game," Shinji muttered.

I sighed and looked up at the sky dramatically. "Yes. It does. I still think I'm back in the Eva, being hurt by Sham… that Angel and fearing for my life. But you know what?"

Bring it home, big daddy.

"I'm going to keep fighting. Because of this," I waved my hand at the construction, "Because lives depend on us. It's our duty to NERV, yeah, but it's also our duty to everyone on the planet. If we lose, it's game over. No more humans. Only whatever the Angels leave behind." Uwaoui or otherwise.

Shinji was quiet for a while, and all that was heard were the grunts of men and machines. I held back a smile. He seemed to really listen to me! Awesome!

I could barely make out the "I suppose," he grumbled and just like that he was walking away. All I did was stare at his back as Shinji walked back down the street.

No. Freaking. Way. No, I couldn't accept that! I couldn't! I thought that was a damn good speech too! You know what, fuck that! If I was a goddamn character in this goddamn series, I damn well had the right to cut through the pseudo-deep bullshit, Gendo be damned.

I chased Shinji down, roughly grabbing him by the collar and turning him to face me. "Look, Shinji," I started, "I know getting in EVA hurts. Hell, I might know that better than you! But hey! Look at me. Understand that you aren't the only one suffering. We're Pilots, and when we have to, we fight together." I got nothing out of him. He kept looking away.

Fuck it. "Why do you pilot Eva?" I asked him.

That got his attention. He stared at me with wide blue eyes. That's right, Shinji. You're not getting off that easy.

"I… I don't know," he finally said.

I was seriously debating whether or not to actually tell him. Would it really benefit him? Or would it only make things worse?

"Well, you better find a damn good reason, if saving lives isn't good enough," I chose to say, letting go of him, "Even if it's only for yourself, it's something that needs to be done."

He stared at the ground for a while, mulling over what I had said. C'mon, Shinji, give me something here.

Shinji lifted his head and looked directly at me. "I-I-I'll find a reason. Don't worry. I'll find one that's good enough for me."

I smiled. "Atta boy. Be as selfish as you need to be. You're your own man, right?"

Shinji smiled, a real one this time, and we started the long trek home. In my head, I patted myself on the back.

Well done. Well done. Ripples have been made. And no way no how did I feel bad about manipulating his emotions like a conniving bastard.

No sir.

Earth was a strange planet.

A single landmass, maybe a third of the planet's surface, stood out amongst the global ocean. A forbidding range of mountains were nestled at the center, the sole recognizable landmark amidst the continent-wide tropical forest.

Creatures, some reminiscent of lizards and amphibians and insects, crawled around the trunks of trees fulfilling an endless cycle of predator and prey. Insect ate insect and plant. Amphibian ate insect. Reptile ate amphibian and insect. Reptile died, fed earth. An endless cycle, perfect.

Another, more dominant piece of that cycle swung from the trees and scooped up a lizard with its tentacle.

The grey cephalopod, no bigger than a monkey, crushed the lizard's neck with its stronger tentacles and slowly fed the carcass to its beak with its more delicate appendages.

It heard a sharp chittering, and its eye stalks darted from side to side. It spotted the source; a member of its own species, swinging through the tree branches towards it. It had come to steal its catch.

The cephalopod shrieked and, still holding the food to its mouth, latched onto a nearby branch and swung away. The other kept up the pursuit; a lizard was a fine catch, and a rare one. Lizards almost never dropped their guard.

The chase continued for a few minutes, but eventually it's pursuer gave up and stalked away, but not before letting out a very strongly-worded chitter. Satisfied, the cephalopod climbed up the tallest tree it could find until it reached the top and rested. It looked up into the starry sky, gnawing on the frayed corpse as it did so. Its eye stalks wandered until something caught their attention. A pale orb, high in the sky, with a smear of red marring its pristine surface.

And so the Mo-Ningu race was born.

A bright flash.

Shamshel is staring down at me, its hideous writhing form covering me in shadow. The whips swing…

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Oh god oh god oh god please go away go away oh god-

"Ken! What's wrong?!"

I can't, I can't…

The whips swing…

"NO, GO AWAY! Get away! You're dead!"

"Ken, look at me!"

I saw Misato's face. I saw the concern in her eyes. In a flash she was the fourteen year old girl in an escape pod, witnessing the apocalypse. Her coat had blood on it. In the distance, four great wings of light rose. I blinked and she was twenty-nine again, playing the worried mother.

I cried, ashamed at myself.

What the fuck was wrong with me?