Author's Notes: My most sincere thanks for your support. Also please extend your gratitude to BlueGlass54, who undertook the difficult task of pre-reading this chapter and fighting through my inaptitude concerning english language, which can be seen from the imroved quality of this chapter.

Disclaimer: Standart disclaimer applies.

Chapter 4.

People, as Asuka had recently found out, stared. Apparently there was some infinitesimally small string of DNA coded into every person's genome that ordered the usually composed and serious people to stare with slack jaw and boggled eyes at everything they figured wasn't usual. Such as her bald head.

Slamming down her schoolbag and plumping heavily onto her seat, glaring at anyone who still couldn't avert his or her eyes (and that was pretty much everyone in class, including the Suzuhara moron, who had, apparently, already recovered from his broken leg. If Asuka didn't owe her life to the miracles of modern medicine, she'd have hated it with a passion.) and finding out that her glare didn't have its former power because she lacked eyebrows, the Eva pilot admitted that perhaps wearing a wig wouldn't have been as cowardly as she thought earlier.

But, noo, her pride had demanded that she go to class with the sun reflecting off her smooth head in a perverse show of what exactly protecting all the sheep had cost her. Not that she'd want their pity or anything.

Now the girl was quite ready to have her pride amputated.

The only one who didn't react at all to her new, errr, 'hairstyle', for the lack of better term, was Ayanami, but that was no consolation at all since Rei wouldn't have reacted to an N2 detonation in front of her nose and because the First Child had already seen her like that.

Just great, the sensei was also staring. Wasn't he, like, really nearsighted?

Throwing Hikari a murderous look that managed to snap the class rep out of her slack-jawed bewilderment and try getting the class into some semblance of order, Asuka leaned back onto her seat and forcibly tried to relax. So what if she was bald and didn't have her glorious red hair (which had been the envy of every single girl at school) anymore? She'd been friggen boiled in LCL while protecting every single one of those stupid, staring, whispering people…

The desk creaked pitifully and she quickly unclenched her hands, which, she noticed, were attempting to strangle the tabletop, so hard had they been clenched.

Calm. She had to remain calm. The Commander, god strike him down with syphilis, had already cut her allowance to the quarter of it's normal size for this month (the other shoe for her impromptu shopping trip with Rei had dropped yesterday), and if she were to kill all of her classmates, she'd probably not get anything at all by the thirty-first, so she had to find her center and stay calm…

Oh, and the baka Ikari stupid Shinji was still not talking to her, though he had finally deigned to push up her synch ratio during the synch test… Calm. She would be calm. She was a mature, responsible, adult person and she would not be angered by mere whisperings of her juvenile classmates and pouting from her equally juvenile wingman…

"Psst, Sohryu! Nice haircut!" Suzuhara's whisper drifted towards her from the other end of the classroom, where his grinning face was smiling smugly at her…

A loud snap startled everyone in the classroom and caused sensei to drop his glasses he was cleaning a second ago. It echoed through the whole school corridor, announcing to everyone who heard it that Asuka Langley Sohryu had broken her quite sturdy, solid wood, relatively new desktop into two halves with her bare hands.

"Come on, Asuka, it's nothing, the sensei said the desk was already old, so you won't be punished for it." Hikari tried to calm her companion who bit into her cafeteria sandwich with enough power to bite through solid steel.

"He probably said it cuz he thought I'd snap his neck next." The former redhead mumbled, "It's not like I just woke up and thought 'Hey! Why don't I shave my hair and eyebrows off?' At least they could be more discreet! I mean, isn't that what you Japanese people are known for?"

The class rep took a cautious seat near her friend and patted her on the shoulder lightly.

"Don't worry, they'll forget all about it by tomorrow. I mean, when Kyoko showed up with green highlights, everyone stared too, but now no-one's bothered at all!"

The cardboard juice container sputtered pitifully as it was crushed in Asuka's clenched fist.

"Can we not talk about hair?" the pilot glowered, causing Hikari to jerk away from her quickly, as if burned.

"Ok, no hair talk!" the class rep quickly confirmed, holding up her hands in surrender and watching her friend wearily, as if expecting a sudden lunge, which, considering the circumstances, wouldn't have been all that unexpected.

Finally throwing the ruined juice box away and lamenting her lack of money to buy herself another, Asuka stuffed the rest of her sandwich into her mouth and finally felt herself relax a little.

"So," Hikari asked hesitantly, "How did it happen, anyways?"

"I got fried in my entry plug by the last Angel," Asuka commented darkly, then continued, ignoring the class rep's horrified gasp, "They had to re-grow all of my skin, since it got boiled off, and that included hair as well. I'll have to grow it out again."

Silence met her admission, the gentle (well, at least when off-duty) class rep simply not knowing what to say, until Asuka's attention was distracted by quiet whispering coming from behind the school wall the girls' bench was positioned at. And the young pilot didn't like what she was hearing.

"Come on, Ken, are you insane?" Suzuhara Toji whispered franticly, staring in horror at his friend, who was grinning happily and counting the yen he had received from another satisfied customer.

"Chill, Toji, her being bald is the best thing that's happened in the last three weeks!" the bespectacled boy crowed; "Now everyone wants to know if she's shaved down there too! It's great for business, everyone just can't get enough of her!"

"You did see that she broke the friggen desk with her bare hands, didn't you?" the sportsuit wearing boy inquired with reluctant admiration for such an act of strength.

"Phish-posh," Kensuke dismissed with a wave of his hand, while carefully storing the money into his trouser pocket, "I mean, so she's freaky strong. It's not like she'd assault me, she's got the whole 'military personnel can't assault civilians' clause hanging over her, so I'm pretty much in the clear. Why're you looking at me like that?"

Under Toji's horrified gaze two feminine hands that not an hour before had committed grievous harm to an innocent piece of furniture were softly placed onto his best friend's shoulders, causing Kensuke's head to turn around almost robotically to stare at the smiling eyebrow-less face of Sohryu Asuka Langley. Neither of the boys liked that smile very much. Behind the former redhead, Hikari crossed her arms over her chest and demonstratively turned her head as if showing that she wasn't seeing anything that was about to happen.

"Boys," the insane bald demon hissed out, still somehow maintaining her smile that now reminded Toji of an Oni's maw, "boys, boys. Did you know that two days ago, I got a very unique experience on what it feels like to be burned to death? Only to find that now you're selling pictures of me?"

Toji felt a bead of cold sweat run down his back, staring in horror as the demon somehow smiled even wider.

"Money."

Kensuke's hand movements were a blur as he proffered his money bag towards the clearly unstable demonic entity.

"Negatives. And pictures."

The process was repeated with surgical precision.

"And now," the bald hell-beast hissed, her hands tightening over Kensuke's scrawny neck, only to be interrupted by her cellphone emitting a cheerful beep. Nonplussed, Sohryu pulled it out and flipped the lid open.

"This isn't over by a long shot," she commented with a hint of disappointment after reading the message, then proceeded away at a sedate pace, Hikari trailing behind after giving both boys a rather disgusted look.

"Toji," Kensuke finally said after almost a minute of silence, "if I do something this stupid ever again, punch me. Hard."

"So," Asuka summed up in a slightly incredulous tone, while leaning back in her Eva's command chair and contemplating the grinning face of the now Major Katsuragi on the Eva's optic screen in front of her with a look that clearly stated that said Major was out of her mind, "you want me to get you onto a walking unstable nuclear reactor, that could explode at any moment, so that you can try to disable it from within? While I'm trying to restrain said reactor from walking towards a heavily populated city? Am I getting this right?"

The smiling face nodded eagerly, the large radiation suit's helmet bobbing a bit with the motion. The young girl closed her eyes and sighted deeply.

"You're insane, Misato." She finally breathed out, shaking her head, "But fine, whatever. I'll hold it in place for you as long as you like, but for the record, you're verfluht noch mal nuts and whoever made you major is even more nuts than you are, and that's saying something."

"Aw, don't worry about me, Asuka! Everything'll be fine!" Misato grinned, giving the girl a thumbs up gesture, causing the pilot to snort in amusement.

"Yeah, whatever. How far am I from the drop zone?"

"Twenty minutes, so sit tight there, Asuka. I'll tell you when you're getting close."

With a nod, the girl terminated the call link and sighted once more, snuggling into the command chair a bit for more comfort. The LCL was clear and at its usual warm temperature again, and the visual screen was once more crisp and sharp. The only thing missing was the voice of Ikari Shinji.

"Still not talking to me, I see," the girl commented tiredly, massaging her shoulders and not really expecting a response.

When only silence greeted her, Asuka leaned to the side and knocked with her knuckles against the capsule wall.

Knock-knock. Knock, Knock, Knock, Knock, Knock, Knock…

"Cut it out already!" Shinji's mental presence almost shrieked, illuminating the plug with bright blue and transmitting the feeling that he was quite clearly glaring.

"Ah, there you are." Asuka smiled smugly, leaning back into the chair and putting her feet onto the control yokes, "And here I thought you were pouting somewhere, leaving your poor innocent pilot to fend off the aliens by herself."

"What do you want?" Ikari spit out, ignoring the sarcasm.

"Look," Asuka expelled a lungfull of LCL in quiet frustration, "I'm sorry, ok? I panicked and said stuff I shouldn't have."

"Oh, so now you want the whiny loser's company? I thought you'd rather die than be stuck with me?"

"I didn't say that!" the girl scowled, "I said I'd rather die than be stuck in an Eva!"

"That's not what I remember, Asuka! What the hell do you want, anyways?" Ikari's mental voice shouted, "I'm helping you out on missions already! What more do you want?"

There was a long pause, the girl struck dumb by the sudden vehemence and failing to come up with a reasonable, intelligent argument why she wanted him to stop being angry with her.

After almost a minute went by, the blue flame dimmed again and vanished with a mental sigh of disappointment, leaving behind only the sounds of LCL scrubbers.

After another minute Asuka blinked stupidly. Then she scowled.

"Well FINE!" the girl shouted, twisting around and kicking the capsule wall savagely, "I don't need you anyways, you jerk! I'm fine by myself! I was always by myself and I came through just fine without you, you idiot! I don't need anyone!"

No response was forthcoming, and her foot only throbbed in pain from kicking metal with her basically unprotected appendage (the plug suit was an incredibly comfortable and warm piece of clothing, but it lacked shoes), so the girl crossed her arms, still scowling, and settled into the command chair with a bit more force then was necessary, suppressing the sudden and unwelcome feeling of tears coming to her eyes.

"Stupid jerk."

"Ok, Asuka, put me down by the hatch!" Misato screamed through the com, causing the girl to lick her lips and, while maintaining the breakneck speed she was running at, grasp at the huge robot's back. Getting a good grip on a large Eva-sized handle-like protrusion, that had been conveniently provided, the girl tried to keep the charging Jet Alone in place, while carefully depositing her commanding officer onto the metallic amalgamation's back, near the barely visible access hatch.

After Misato disappeared inside the huge war machine, nearly falling off in the process, the girl accelerated and quickly overtook the struggling robot, placing the Eva's hands onto it's 'shoulders' and leaning against the still walking Jet Alone with all of Unit 01's considerable power and weight. The metallic ugly beast still attempted to push past her, even speeding up its steps, thought not having much success against the purple giant. After almost two minutes of the standoff steam started to escape through Jet Alone's neck, a clear sign of the reactor overheating.

"Damn it," the girl grumbled, pushing more firmly against the robot's attempts to advance and not knowing whether she should plug the hole in Jet Alone's fuselage to keep the steam from escaping and irradiating everything around or let the pressure out so the reactor didn't overheat even faster.

The standoff continued, with Jet Alone accelerating even more, pummeling the innocent ground below it with relentless steps and even forcing Unit 01 to slide back a few meters, until Asuka dug her Eva's feet more deeply into the earth.

"Jeez." The girl panted, "How much time does it take to enter a password!"

Another part of Jet Alone's fuselage got blown off and more steam rushed out, hissing ominously and causing the girl to curse savagely.

"OK, that's it!" the young german exclaimed, digging her fingers in and ripping Jet Alone's front armor off as if it was tissue paper, exposing its innards and causing the collected steam inside to rush out in a cloud.

"Maybe it'll cool it off a little!"

"Asuka! LCL! Douse it with LCL!" Shinji cried frantically, watching as the radioactive steam floated around them.

"Baka! Where the hell do you see that much LCL here?" Asuka grunted, studying the revealed innards of the huge robot intently, looking for anything that could help her and suppressing the inner need to bitch Ikari out for his thoughtlessness before. As long as he was helping…

"It's the Eva's blood!" the boy immediately answered, already throwing the prog knife hatch open, "Just stab yourself in the palm or something!"

Asuka, the light bulb finally coming on in her head, quickly grabbed the progressive blade and activated it, silently cursing herself for not thinking of the idea herself, then flipped the knife and grabbed it by the blade, where it dug into the palm's purple armor, quickly reached the bio-robot's flesh and equally quickly slashed it open. Clenching Unit 01's fist for good measure and suppressing a grimace at the neural feedback, which clearly told her she had just slashed open her own palm, the girl dropped the still-humming knife and put her LCL-gushing palm into the Jet Alone's mutilated sternum, hoping fervently that it'd work.

"Good idea, Ikari!"

"Th-thanks!"

Apparently, it did work, since the clouds of white steam billowing out of the malfunctioning machine were reduced to almost nothing after a minute, but the negative of that plan was soon presented in the form of Katsuragi Misato's very displeased voice.

"Asuka, what the hell are you doing! You've flooded the whole thing! You're lucky this suit's watertight!"

"Well, it helped, didn't it!" the girl snarked in response, straining to keep Jet Alone from moving with only one hand, when suddenly…

The ugly amalgamation shut down, toppling to the side and causing the surprised girl to just barely catch it and lower it down much more slowly.

"What the hell was that?" The girl muttered, addressing Misato, who, in turn, was silent.

"Beats me," the woman finally answered, "but it sure as hell wasn't me."

"Misuse of valuable Nerv resources, willful endangering of expensive and irreplaceable equipment, endangering of key personnel and disregard of safety procedures," Fuytsuki lectured, reading from the incident report with a look of distaste on his face, while the commander simply sat behind his desk, hands tented in front of his face, glaring at both Asuka and Misato.

The young german could almost hear Misato's quick return to the rank of captain approaching.

"Nevertheless," the sub-commander commented, finally putting the report down and studying both women with a piercing gaze, "the incident has been resolved in our favor, so we have decided to forgo disciplinary actions. Don't think, however, that we're pleased with your decisions, Major Katsuragi. Consider yourself on notice."

"Yes, sir." Misato briskly saluted, remaining at attention. The sub-commander's gaze traveled from her to Asuka.

"Pilot Sohyu," Fuyutsuki finally said, after studying her for a few seconds, "was it necessary to damage the Eva during the engagement? Your orders were to restrain Jet Alone, not disassemble it and flood it with LCL. Don't answer that," he quickly raised his hand when Asuka opened her mouth, "The question was purely rhetoric. Your actions, while they proved to be beneficial, were unnecessary and jeopardized the operation as a whole. You are also on notice, pending a review of you decisions. Dismissed, both of you."

As the women stormed out, the commander finally put his hands down onto the desk and sent a small, almost unnoticeable smirk towards Fuyutsuki.

"I wonder what they'd say, had they known about the whole operation."

"That's your problem, Ikari," The sub-commander grumbled, "you always wonder in hindsight. I stand by my opinion that the ops director should have been informed about the operation. Then we'd have been able to avoid the whole disaster." The old man ran his hand through his hair, pulling the report closer, "Unit 01's chest armor is a complete loss, heavily irradiated as it is, the left hand will take two days to regenerate, and we now have a lawsuit over our heads for ripping their robot apart. That all could have been avoided had you not kept your cards too close to your chest. It was unnecessary and…"

The old man fell silent, noticing that Gendo apparently wasn't even listening. Resisting the urge to throw his hands up in frustration, the sub-commander readjusted his tie instead.

"So, how is the retrieval project coming along?" he said instead with a touch of irritation, causing his former student to smirk again.

"Poorly, as has been expected. Still, we should have a viable clone within the next two months, longer if we are met with more interruptions."

Only Gendo Ikari would call an attack from a huge extraterrestrial creature bent on the destruction of humanity an 'interruption'.

"Will Unit 01 be able to function, should we be successful?" Kozou inquired after a short pause, his tone truly curious. Ikari moved his shoulders in a barely perceivable shrug.

"Unknown. I have made arrangements to have Unit 02 transported here, should Unit 01 prove no longer useful. The Marduk initiative has" here, the commander's tone took on a mocking edge, "conveniently released a report on the Forth child."

"Indeed," Fuyutsuki nodded, smiling slightly, "Can't have an Evangelion just sitting around, can we?"

The Nerv cantina was a rather pleasant place, despite its lack of decorations and a very military feel. Still, the tables gleamed with stainless steel, and the padding on the chairs around said tables was rather soft and comfortable. The automated food dispensers were also a nice touch, avoiding the issue of having to see the food one was about to consume being cooked. The designers even took care to provide a feeling of privacy by arranging the tables at a considerable distance from one another.

One of these islands of privacy was currently occupied by two scowling females, one slurping angrily at her coffee and the other smoking savagely, both emanating a clear feeling of 'approach at your own peril'.

"At least he didn't dock my pay this time," Asuka muttered, putting her coffee cup down with excessive force and scowling angrily down at the table, the electric light gleaming off her bald head. Misato nodded with empathy, stamping out her cigarette butt and immediately lighting another, blatantly ignoring the 'No Smoking!' sing at the far wall.

"Tell me about it," she grumbled, "On notice, my ass. I'd like to see the aging butt-licker do any better."

Both women expelled a heavy sigh in amusing synchronization.

"This whole thing reeks of a set-up." The older woman grumbled, taking a deep drag and exhaling, while Asuka cocked an eyebrow, "I mean, first, the Jet Alone goes crazy during a demonstration? It's been double and triple-checked before they activated it. It wasn't even a first activation, they tested it before. And then the bloody thing won't accept the shutdown override code. And then it turns off on its own at the last minute? Very suspicious, if you ask me."

"Huh?" her charge scratched her bald head, "You mean someone sabotaged it?"

"Not someone." Misato leaned back on her chair and put one leg over the other, "I think Nerv did something to it."

The young girl thought it over for a minute.

"So," she begun, "you mean that the commander had it sabotaged, put the whole of Tokyo 2 in danger, as well as me, Unit 01 and you, only to get some good PR?"

"Well, no, I don't think you with Unit 01 or me should've been in the blast radius at all. I figure, it was supposed to rampage to Tokyo 2 and detonate, but they shut it down since we've messed up the plan. And before you say I'm nuts, remember, we're talking about the man who sent his own son to his death. He wouldn't have cared about anyone in the city."

Asuka digested this for a few minutes, trying to come to terms with the fact that she worked for a guy like that.

"Are you sure?" she finally asked, but Misato only shook her head at that.

"No," the woman answered, "I don't have any hard proof, if that's what you mean, but the whole deal is deeply suspicious."

"Hmm." Asuka mumbled, quite a bit unsettled, than grinned suddenly.

"Hey, doesn't that mean we just saved everyone in Tokyo 2? Aren't we like, even more awesome heroes, or something?"

"Yeah, heroes," Misato grumbled joylessly, "and now we're on notice for our trouble."