A/N: Once I managed to get this one started, it flowed pretty easily. I had a couple things distracting me for the past week though. You can blame American presidential politics and my introduction to Cowboy Bebop for my failure to deliver sooner.

Disclaimer Theater:

Gendo Ikari stared dispassionately at the camera in front of him with hands folded in front of him, covering the lower half of his face. He looked down at the script on his desk. "Fourth Impact asked me to read this disclaimer for chapter nine of his little story. I only agreed in order to let him think that he is in charge of the scenario. Of course he has no actual control over Neon Genesis Evangelion." The evil grin on his face was concealed by his hands. "I control it all. Even Gainax is unaware of the extent of my power."

From off camera, someone cleared his throat. "Commander," Fuyutsuki said. "You do realize that the camera is rolling and we're broadcasting live, right?"

Ikari's face remained as unreadable as ever. "Crap."


Neon Genesis Evangelion: Mitigation

Chapter 9: Expansion


"Ladies and gentlemen, please kindly put your tray tables and seat backs in their upright and locked position," the pleasant voice requested over the plane's PA system. "We are about to begin our final descent into Saint Petersburg."

Shinji yawned and stretched out as best he could in the cramped confines of his seat. He had tried to take Kaji's advice and get some sleep. It didn't work out very well. Every time he managed to doze off, he would inevitably jolt awake a few minutes later. The end result was to leave him even more tired than he'd been before trying to get some sleep.

Kaji, he noted, hadn't even tried to get to sleep. As soon as their conversation ended, the man had gone back to his careful survey of the other passengers. Obviously, nothing jumped out at him as overtly threatening, which was good since there was precious little he would be able to do at thirty thousand feet.

A flight attendant passed down the aisle collecting trash. As she passed, Shinji looked at Kaji. "So, um, what happens when we land? Are your friends meeting us at the airport?"

Kaji frowned thoughtfully. He glanced past Shinji and out the window, toward the steadily approaching ground. "We get the bags and get out," he said quietly. "Then we find somewhere out of the way to lay low."

"When are we meeting your friends?" Shinji asked.

"I don't know yet," the man admitted. "I have to get in touch with them when we find a place to sleep."

Shinji's jaw dropped. "Wait. You mean you haven't even talked to them yet?"

"There wasn't a secure way to contact them while we were still in Japan," Kaji explained. "Most likely, NERV hasn't tapped the nation's communications grid, and even if they did, it would take a while for even the MAGI to sift through it all, but I don't want to push our luck." He paused for a moment, "We already did that enough by going through the airport."

Shinji gripped the seat's armrests as the plane touched down on the runway with a jolt. "And now that we're out of Japan?"

"We have a lot more leeway," he replied. "As long as we don't draw attention to ourselves, we'll be fine. NERV can't possibly monitor communications everywhere."

As much as he wanted to, Shinji couldn't find any significant flaws in the man's thinking. "So we're safe now?"

"Hardly," Kaji said with a dark chuckle. "Your father probably has his best men looking for us. As incompetent as Section Two can be at times, it would be stupid to underestimate them. I can tell you I'll feel a lot better when I get a weapon in my hand again." A quick glance left him fairly confident that nobody was paying attention to their conversation. "And then there's SEELE."

Shinji blinked in confusion, "Who?"

Ah. Right. Shinji still had no idea about his father's true goals, about the sick bastards looking to destroy the human race. He hadn't tried to find out what was going on beyond a couple panicked questions while they were fleeing Tokyo-3. Kaji had been too distracted with finding a way out of the country to even think about explaining it to him. That was going to have to change. "That's a conversation that will have to wait until we're somewhere relatively safe," Kaji answered. "I'll explain everything I know then."

Shinji seemed to accept this. "Okay."

The conversation came to a halt after that. They sat in silence as the plane taxied to its terminal and only exchanged a few words as Kaji pulled their one carryon bag out of the overhead bin. They followed the tired looking mass of humanity out of the plane and into the airport.

From the moment they stepped out of the plane, Kaji's eyes were in constant motion, scanning the crowd for anything suspicious. They weaved their way through the throng toward the baggage claim. The spy had been dreading this from the moment they'd checked their bags. There were so many people standing around waiting for their luggage that it would be basically impossible to spot any suspicious behavior.

He spotted their bags and hurriedly grabbed them from the carousel, handing one to Shinji. It took some time to get through the line at customs, but the bored-looking official didn't give them any trouble. When they were through, Kaji tilted his head in the direction of the nearest bathroom and started walking. Shinji nodded and followed. In the bathroom, Kaji stepped into a stall and immediately unzipped his bag. He opened the gun case, pulling out the two handguns inside. The 9mm got tucked into the back of his waistband, where his jacket concealed it, while the smaller holdout pistol went into his ankle holster.

He stepped out of the stall to find Shinji at the row of sinks washing his hands. Kaji checked the mirror to make sure the guns weren't making noticeable bulges in his clothes. Satisfied that they would go unnoticed, he led Shinji out of the bathroom. "Stay close," he whispered.

Shinji nodded, eyes darting around nervously. Kaji kept looking around in a much calmer, more controlled fashion. Everything seemed fine at first, but then he saw it. Up on the raised walkway, a man leaned against the railing speaking into his collar and very pointedly not looking in their direction. It was only years of experience that kept Kaji from coming to a dead stop at the lackluster attempt at subtlety. Sheer discipline kept him from grabbing Shinji and running out of the airport.

He forced himself to keep studying the crowd. If the guy upstairs was a spotter, there would be at least a few others around to ambush them. There. And there. Two people making their way through the crowd in their direction but looking everywhere but at them. There would be at least one more coming from behind. He judged the distance to the exit and the speed of their would-be ambushers. He and Shinji wouldn't make it at this rate. He sped up slightly and Shinji followed suit next to him. "Don't look around," he whispered to the boy. "Don't react, but get ready to run. Cough once if you understand."

Shinji coughed.

"We'll make our way to the line of cabs," he said. "Get in the front one as fast as possible."

They were about twenty feet from the exit, and if they kept walking, their pursuers would intercept them in half that distance. There was nothing else to do about it, then. Kaji took a deep breath. "Now," he hissed to Shinji. The two instantly took off at a run.

#


#

The rapid clacking of a keyboard always served as a soothing sound to Kensuke Aida. Sure, he was perfectly aware of the fact that most people found it more irritating than soothing, but Kensuke had long ago realized that he and the average person didn't see eye to eye on most things. Most people didn't have the slightest appreciation for the brilliance and engineering complexity that went into designing and building most modern military hardware, from a fighter jet straight up to the Evangelions. Most modern VTOLs, for instance, were so insanely sophisticated that they were completely disassembled and reassembled every sixty days to ensure that none of the parts had degraded or become overstressed. Truly, Kensuke was blessed to live in such a technologically awesome time. If appreciating that fact got him labeled a military nut by everyone at school, then so be it.

But back to the clacking of the keyboard. It was not quite as widely known that Kensuke considered himself a somewhat talented hacker. That wasn't unfounded bravado either. There were precious few systems that he was unable to access, just ones he was unwilling to. Specifically, he avoided anything even tangentially related to NERV.

The bespectacled boy shuddered at the memory of the day, a year and a half ago, that had brought about that particular lesson. He'd broken into NERV's public webpage, just for the personal bragging rights of saying he got into a NERV owned system. It wasn't like there would be any secure data to access, he justified at the time. It probably wouldn't even be terribly difficult.

It was a fifteen hour hack. He got in, saw that he was in fact in control of the website, and got out. In all, he was in the system for barely thirty seconds. NERV security showed up at his door a minute later. After a couple hours of threatening jail time and treason charges, they gave him an unequivocal warning to stay away from any NERV systems in the future and handed him a check for eighty thousand yen. For helping reveal weaknesses in their security, they told him, but they wouldn't be so grateful in the future.

It was simultaneously the proudest and most terrifying day of his life. His father had grounded him for three months, unsurprisingly, though Kensuke didn't miss the almost-proud smile on his face, or the way he muttered about his son's intelligence as he walked away.

At the moment, he was trying to break into the network of a bank a few blocks away from his house. It was a surprisingly secure network, which was the only thing Kensuke cared about. He was what was called a white hat hacker. He was in it for the challenge of breaking the system, not for money or anything like that. Once inside a system, he never did anything besides poke around for a few minutes.

Every couple months, this particular bank would upgrade its security infrastructure, and Kensuke would try to break into it. This update was proving more resilient than usual. Not that it would thwart him, of course. He felt fairly confident that he was almost through. Right around the ninety minute mark, the system folded like a cheap suit. "Gotcha," he whispered excitedly, pushing his glasses up his nose.

He spent a few minutes looking around the systems. Maybe five minutes went into skimming the list of the day's transactions. That proved unbelievably boring, so he made the transition to the security footage. People did some hilarious things when they thought nobody was looking, and the camera in an ATM made it easy to see them.

It took a few minutes of randomly opening video files to find something good, but he found a week old video of a guy with his finger buried in his nose. Then he found footage of a drunken guy staggering past the ATM and falling flat on his face.

Eventually, he tried to open a file from a few weeks ago. A file not found notification popped up instead. Kensuke frowned. Why would they delete security footage? That was hardly standard procedure. This was worth poking around for.

It took twenty minutes, but he managed to dig up the remains of the file. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to make sure that this video never saw the light of day, but they didn't overwrite the sectors of whatever hard drives the video was stored on.

Grinning with his triumph, he brought up the resurrected video. At first, it seemed like standard security footage from an ordinary evening. Then someone walked into the frame a few feet away from the camera, moving purposefully across the frame. Kensuke furrowed his brow. What was the point of going to so much trouble to hide this video?

That was when he recognized the person in the frame. That was Shinji, all dressed up for something. Eyes wide, Kensuke looked at the date stamp in the corner of the video. It was from the day Shinji went missing. This must have been him on his way to his date with Asuka.

A black NERV SUV skidded into the shot, coming to a stop a few feet away from Shinji. Kensuke watched the four agents climb out of the SUV and start talking to the Third Child. "Holy crap," he whispered as the agents drew their guns and aimed at Shinji. He shot forward in his seat as a sports car flew into the shot and one of the agents dropped to the ground.

The other three agents dropped and a man stepped out of the car. Kensuke paused the video and squinted to make out the man's face. "Is that…that Kaji guy?" He hit the play button again and watched Kaji rifle through one of the dead men's pockets as Shinji got into the car. Kaji joined him in the car and they drove off as the video came to a stop.

Kensuke stared at the video, stunned beyond action. NERV, or at least some of its agents, tried to kill Shinji. What the hell? Not taking his eyes off the screen, he fumbled around in his desk drawer for a flash drive. Inserting the drive, he copied the video over. He spent an hour covering up his digital footprints and hiding any trace of the intrusion.

Yanking the Ethernet cable out of the back of his computer, Kensuke sat on the floor and started to hyperventilate. This was so bad. Did Asuka know about this? Did Toji? Hell, did anyone at NERV? He stared at the flash drive in his hand. He had to tell someone about this. He picked up his phone and dialed.

#


#

Almost as soon as Shinji and Kaji started running, the men moving to intercept them took off as well, shoving their way through the crowd. Kaji burst through the doors and into the late morning sunlight, Shinji half a step behind. People stared in shock as they sprinted past, but made no effort to stop them. Most of them didn't bother getting out of the way either, forcing Kaji to weave through them.

The two reached the taxi at the front of the line and practically dove into it. Kaji barked something in Russian and the cab started to move. He looked at Shinji, whose breathing was slowly returning to normal. "Try to stay low." Satisfied that Shinji wouldn't go sticking his head out, Kaji carefully peered through the back window. There were six men forcing their way through the crowd trying to get a glimpse of the cab as it pulled away.

He sighed and ran a hand over his face, noting the overgrown state of his usually carefully crafted five o'clock shadow. Shaving hadn't exactly been on the top of his list of concerns lately. They wouldn't manage to spot the car's license plate. There were too many people and too many cars between them. No, the real danger would come from any others that may be stationed at a different vantage point, and he was positive that there were others. It would be wise to ditch this taxi as soon as possible.

"Damn it," Kaji whispered. "I didn't think they'd be able to find us so fast." His mind was racing, trying to come up with a new course of action. From this point on, they had to assume that they were being watched constantly. He glanced out the window. The car was driving parallel to the airport's enormous parking lot, heading for the exit.

Shinji started to say something, but his head whipped around to look at the driver. The color drained from his face.

"What's wrong?" Kaji started to ask. He didn't even finish the first word as he looked toward the driver. To the spy's honed reflexes, it was like the driver was moving in slow motion, twisting in his seat and bringing the gun to bear on Shinji at a snail's pace. Before his conscious mind reacted, Kaji shoved Shinji out of the way. His gun was already in his hand and halfway to being pointed at the driver's face.

The two men fired at the same time. Kaji grunted as the bullet drove into his arm. The back of the driver's head exploded. Shinji looked up from the floor of the car, his pale face tingeing a sickly shade of green at the sight. He looked over and gasped. Kaji's face was screwed up with pain as blood leaked down his arm. "You're hurt."

"It's not bad," Kaji said, already opening the car door. "It didn't hit the bone. Let's go. We have to keep moving."

Shinji followed him, all too glad to get out of the car and away from the corpse. Kaji was crouched low and making a beeline for the parking lot, gun held firmly in his uninjured hand. Shinji stayed low as well as they slipped around to the far side of the nearest parked car. "What do we do now?"

Kaji winced as his arm gave a particularly painful throb. "Try to find a car to steal," he said. "Maybe get our hands on a cell phone so I can call for help." He paused as the sound of running became audible. "I'm going to pick off as many of them as I can in the meantime." He pointed down the row of vehicles and cast a pointed glance at Shinji.

The boy understood his cue and took off down the row, making sure to keep himself low and out of sight. Kaji crept around to the front end of the car and looked over the hood. Their pursuers had slowed to a cautious walk and drawn their guns. They broke up into pairs and went down separate rows to search. Kaji braced the gun against the hood of the car and aimed at one of the agents. One shot rang out and the man dropped. A series of gunshots and a wave of shouts answered as Kaji ducked back down and ran after Shinji.

He caught up with him and grabbed his arm as several gunmen stepped into his vision. He fired several shots, forcing them to take cover. In that second, he dragged Shinji out through the open lane and toward the relative safety of another row of cars. The one man left watching that row took a slug between the eyes and dropped without a sound.

Going prone on the asphalt, Kaji looked under the truck they were using as cover to see what was going on. It seemed that most of their pursuers had converged around the newest corpse. Perfect. He motioned for Shinji to follow and took off running through three more rows of parked cars, putting extra space between them and their pursuers. Pausing for a moment, Kaji tried to think tactically. By now, they'd have realized that they weren't back there, so they would be spreading out again. They knew he was armed, so if they weren't completely brain dead they would be quieter from now on.

He glanced under the car, easily spotting the two pairs of feet slowly making their way toward them. He forced himself to relax; there was no point in being afraid. Fear is the mind-killer, and Shinji was counting on him to get them out of this.

They ran across a couple more rows. "There's no way we'll be able to get out of here on our own," Kaji said. "There's going to be more of them watching every way out of here. I need a phone."

Shinji dropped to the pavement and looked around. "There," he said, pointing toward something. "There's a car pulling in."

Kaji peeked around the corner of the van to look in the indicated direction. A heavyset man in a suit stepped out of said car with an attaché case in one hand and a cell phone held against his head in the other. "Perfect." He started in the man's direction, settling into a brisk walk. Running would attract his attention, but walking left them too exposed to the men trying to kill them.

The guy didn't notice the pair approaching him, so he never knew what hit him as Kaji struck him at the base of his neck, sending him into unconsciousness. In one smooth motion, Kaji caught the phone before it hit the ground and pressed the end call button.

He looked down to study the phone as he tried to remember the correct phone number. His thought process was interrupted as Shinji grabbed him and pulled him to the ground. A bullet shattered the window, passing through the space Kaji's head had occupied just a second before. Kaji instinctively sent two shots in the shooter's direction. The first ricocheted off a car's bumper, but the second struck the target square in the chest. He dropped with a dull thud.

"Thanks, kid," Kaji grunted as they took off running yet again. When they stopped, he slumped against the car for a minute. He was starting to feel the blood loss. He looked at the cell phone again and dialed a phone number. "Come on," he whispered as he listened to the ringing from the other end.

A wave of gunfire forced them to move again, Kaji holding the phone in his wounded arm, teeth grit against the pain. The bullet was still in there. The phone kept ringing. "Answer your fucking phone," he hissed.

"Da?" a voiced finally answered.

"About damn time," Kaji snapped in Russian.

"Kaji?" the shock was audible in the man's voice.

"Yeah, Vasily, it's me," he said. "I'm in town and could use a little help." The gunshot aimed at the assassin who'd just spotted them served as the punctuation to his statement.

#


#

"This better be good, Ken," Toji grumbled as he stepped out of the predawn chill and into the warmth of the Aida residence. "I have a ton of crap to do today before my synch test tonight." It was true, Toji had a brutally long day ahead of him and he didn't appreciate being woken up at three thirty in the morning. "So what in all that is holy is so important that it couldn't wait until a more normal hour?"

"Well," Kensuke began in a hushed tone, hurriedly shutting and locking his front door, "I was online, poking around a bit, you know, keeping my skills sharp."

"Oh, god," Toji groaned. "You didn't hack into NERV's computers again, did you?"

"What? No…" Kensuke started to protest before Toji cut him off.

"Because I don't care if I'm a pilot," he said. "They were pretty clear last time. I don't think I'll be able to help you out."

"Will you listen?" the military otaku hissed as he led his friend into his room. "It wasn't a NERV system. It was a bank."

Toji's bemusement was plainly written on his face. "And what did you get from a bank that made it necessary to wake me up this early?" His eyes widened. "Please tell me you didn't steal any money."

Kensuke rolled his eyes. "It was the security footage from the ATM." Toji opened his mouth to say something, so Kensuke kept talking, "Somebody went to a lot of trouble to delete one of the video files. That's not exactly SOP, so I dug it up to see what it was."

"And what was it?" Toji asked halfheartedly. He was seriously considering going back to sleep right here on Ken's floor.

The sandy haired boy inserted a flash drive into the computer and pulled out the desk chair for his friend. "See for yourself," he said, opening a video file.

Reluctantly, Toji dropped into the chair and hit play. He watched the video dispassionately. Then he watched it again with a bit more interest. Then he watched it a third time, unable to believe what he was seeing. He looked at Ken, who was watching his reaction anxiously. "Please tell me this is a joke."

"Afraid not," Kensuke replied with a shake of his head.

Toji turned back to the monitor, staring at the final frame of the video. He pressed a hand to his forehead. "But that's…"

"I know," Ken supplied, already knowing what Toji was about to say.

"And they tried…"

"Yeah."

"Then…"

"I think so."

"Oh, god," Toji groaned, leaning forward in the chair. He sat up abruptly, "We have to tell someone."

"Who can we tell?" Kensuke asked helplessly.

"I don't know," the pilot admitted. "Someone at NERV."

"Toji, for all we know, NERV might be responsible. What if we tell them and they decide to send people after us?"

"What about Misato?" Toji suggested as he rose to his feet and started to pace. "There's no way she was a part of it."

"Probably not…" he said slowly.

"Oh, come on. You think Misato was in on trying to kill Shinji?"

Kensuke took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I don't know. I can't imagine that she was either, but she did get promoted right after he disappeared. She went up two ranks at once. That's unheard of."

Toji stared at his friend in disbelief.

"I'm just saying we need to be careful."

"You're right," the taller boy sighed. He sat on the edge of Kensuke's bed and stared at the floor. "There's got to be someone we can tell."

"I've been trying to think of someone who I know we can trust."

A few seconds later, Toji's head snapped up. "Sohryu," he said.

"What?" Kensuke blinked in confusion. "What about the Red Devil?"

"We have to tell her," Toji said.

The bespectacled boy frowned. "Are you sure we can…"

"Yeah," Toji cut him off. "I'm positive that we can trust her with this."

Kensuke watched his friend curiously for a moment. "What happened with the two of you? You guys just started tolerating each other all of a sudden."

It took a moment before Toji responded. He grimaced, trying to figure out how to answer that. "We…came to an understanding," he finally said. "It was on the day they first put me in the Eva."

"Oh," Kensuke muttered. "You become a pilot and you two are buddies all of a sudden?"

"Not exactly," he sighed. "But that's gonna have to wait. She and I might have a truce, but she's still the Red Devil. I like my balls where they are, thanks."

"Fair enough," Kensuke said, shifting uncomfortably at the mere thought of testicular relocation. He paused. "We can tell her if you really want."

Toji nodded. The two watched each other uncertainly for a moment. Neither made any move to do anything. "I'm not calling her," they both said simultaneously.

Kensuke fell into his desk chair with a groan and Toji buried his face in his hands.

#


#

Shinji watched apprehensively as Kaji finally put away the pilfered cell phone. He'd been speaking to whoever it was for the better part of ten minutes in a mixture of Russian and Japanese. "Well?" he asked anxiously.

"They're on their way," Kaji said, wincing at the pain in his shoulder. He slumped against a pickup truck. "We just have to make it for another twenty minutes or so."

Shinji eyed the man uncertainly. "Can…can you make it that long? You're losing a lot of blood."

"It might be a near thing," he admitted. "I need something to use as a tourniquet."

Shinji looked around frantically for a second, before it occurred to him. He whipped off his belt and offered it to Kaji. "How about this?"

"Perfect," he said, taking the belt and wrapping it around his upper arm. He pulled the end as tight as he could end held it in his teeth so he could fasten it. Blood welled from the wound for a moment before tapering off to a trickle. "There. That should hold me for a while."

Shinji pretended not to notice the pained wavering in the man's voice.

"Now let's get moving," Kaji said, glancing up and down the next row of parked cars. They'd doubled back a few minutes earlier in hopes of throwing off their trackers. They sprinted into the cover provided by a large sedan. They stopped for a moment as Kaji plotted their next move. A sudden grunt brought them spinning around to find one of the agents vaulting over from the other side of the sedan and landing between the two of them.

A sudden elbow to the face sent Shinji reeling backwards. A brutal kick flew at the side of Kaji's leg. The scruffy man managed to stay on his feet but dropped the gun in the process. He sent a fist into the man's gut, following up with an uppercut when he doubled over.

Shinji recovered from the elbow and spun around when he heard a click behind him. Another of the assassins had snuck up behind them and was aiming a gun at Shinji. He froze for an instant before he managed to react. Before he had a chance to talk himself out of it, he dashed at the gunman with an animalistic growl. Shinji tackled him, slamming his head into the guy's gut. He dropped his gun and fell backward as the air left his lungs with a whoosh.

Kaji grabbed his attacker roughly by the hair while he was recovering from the uppercut. He slammed the man's face into the roof of the sedan. A crack told Kaji that the bastard's nose had broken. He forced his head through the sedan's window for good measure before letting the attacker's limp form fall to the ground.

Shinji followed the second agent to the ground and knelt on his chest. His conscious mind wasn't fully aware as he rained punch after punch on the man's face. He didn't snap out of it until Kaji laid a hand on his shoulder.

"Shinji," Kaji said. "We have to keep moving."

Shinji looked down at the bloodied face under him and his blood stained knuckles. He pushed himself to his feet. "I…I don't…couldn't stop myself."

Kaji bit his lip. "It's okay, Shinji. Grab his gun. It can't hurt to have it just in case."

Shinji nodded numbly and picked up the gun, uncomfortable with the weight in his hand. Both of them froze as the sounds of sirens began to carry across the parking lot. "Your friends?" Shinji asked hopefully.

"No," Kaji muttered. "You won't know they're here until they're right in front of us."

Shinji looked around, watching for any more attackers. "So that's…"

"The police, yeah." They ran to a new row of cars, which turned out to be the last one of the lot. A chain link fence was in front of them. "This might get a bit messier before we get out of here."

A bullet embedded itself in the car a few inches away from Kaji. He spun around and laid down a burst of suppressive fire. One shooter went down and two more dove for cover behind separate vehicles. "Over the fence, Shinji," Kaji called over his shoulder. "I'll cover you." He leaned out and fired off a couple more shots. Behind him, Shinji made a dash for the fence and hauled himself over in a matter of seconds.

Kaji emptied his clip and ran for the fence himself. He pointedly ignored the vicious burning in his arm as he climbed. A handful of shots flew in his direction, but they were hurried and didn't come near him. He landed next to Shinji on the other side of the fence with a grunt. "Time to run again," he said with a forced grin.

They took off in the general direction of the road, weaving occasionally to throw off their would-be assassins' aim. They hustled down a small hill and Kaji breathed a sigh of relief. That would buy them a couple seconds out of the crosshairs. He was just reaching for his cell phone when two black sedans slide in front of them, cutting off their escape. Eight people piled out and suddenly Kaji and Shinji found themselves looking down the barrels of an assortment of guns. Off in the distance, the police sirens grew steadily closer.

Kaji dropped his gun and slowly put his hands up. After a moment's hesitation, Shinji followed suit. "Well," Kaji said. "We must be pretty popular. I take it the commander sent you?" None of them reacted in the slightest. Kaji swore under his breath. "Come on, Vasily."

#


#

Asuka Langley Sohryu was going to rip someone's head off. That was, of course, the only reasonable response to being awakened at this ungodly hour by the stooges. It wasn't bad enough that they had the nerve to call her hours before the sun would even be up, but they insisted that she go to stupid Aida's stupid house.

Oh, no, they couldn't explain what was going on over the phone, but could she please get over there as soon as possible? Her angry growl quickly turned into a yawn. She had told them to screw off and hung up on them, but they just called her back. And they kept calling her back until she agreed to show up. So she got dressed and left a note for Misato on the kitchen table, just in case this took longer than she expected. If this wasn't important, and she meant earth shatteringly huge, the school would be short two more stooges and NERV would need to find the Fifth Child.

As she approached Aida's front door, it swung open to reveal the two stooges standing in the doorway watching her gravely. Aida stepped aside to let her in and shut the door. She looked watched the two of them for a moment. "You have thirty seconds to explain what the hell is going on before I beat you both to a pulp for getting me out of bed," she hissed.

Toji and Kensuke exchanged a glance but didn't say anything.

"Twenty-five seconds," she said, feeling the vein above her eye twitch.

Kensuke cleared his throat, "I think it would be easiest if we just show you." He turned and led her into his room with Toji bringing up the rear.

In Kensuke's room, Asuka but back her comments about the dozens of model airplanes hanging from the ceiling and the posters of big breasted women lining the wall. She settled for glaring at the boy as he brought something up on his computer. He gave her the desk chair and started a video as she sat down.

A few short minutes later, Asuka stared blankly at the computer screen. "How did you get this?"

Kensuke told her how he found the video and his reaction since watching it. "We figured you should know," he finished.

She closed her eyes and sighed. Shinji was with Kaji. She was surer than ever that he made it out of the city alive. "Thank you," she whispered.

She didn't see Toji's eyebrows lift slightly or Kensuke's jaw drop at the two simple words. "Um, yeah," the shorter boy said. He trailed off when he realized Asuka's shoulders were shaking slightly. His jaw dropped even wider.

"You all right, Devil?" Toji asked with a hint of concern in his voice.

"I knew it," she murmured. "I knew it."

Kensuke frowned, "Knew what?"

Suddenly, her shoulders stopped shaking and she was on her feet. "I knew that NERV had something to do with this."

"You did?" Toji sounded skeptical.

Asuka crossed her arms over her chest. "Yes. I don't trust the commander at all."

"You think this," Kensuke gestured at the paused video on the monitor, "came down from the top?"

"I'm sure it did," she answered, narrowing her eyes."

"That's a little out there," Toji said. "Why would be try to kill his own son?"

Asuka's mouth was a thin line as she stared levelly at Toji. Her eyebrow quirked upward.

"I get that the guy isn't gonna win any father of the year awards," he acknowledged. "But come on, how messed up do you think the guy is?"

The redhead's expression darkened. "About as messed up as you can get."

Kensuke frowned, "The UN put him in charge of NERV. He can't be that bad. He probably wasn't the one to order it."

"I didn't say he was stupid," Asuka fired back with a roll of her eyes, "just out of his verdammt mind. Besides, who else would have the authority to order Section Two to kill a pilot?"

Neither of the boys had an answer to that. The three of them stood in an awkward silence for a moment. Finally, Toji cleared his throat. "What did the commander do to make you hate him so much?"

"He tried to have Shinji killed."

"Sure," Toji said with a nod. "That makes sense. But…"

Kensuke, realizing where his friend was heading, jumped in, "But you said you already thought he was completely off his rocker."

Asuka stiffened. "I have my reasons."

The look on the girl's face made them think twice about pressing her for more information. "Fine," Toji said. "You think it came from the commander, we aren't sure. The point is we don't know who we can trust."

"So we need a plan," Kensuke filled in. "We need a way to blow the lid off this whole thing. Let someone with, you know, actually authority get to the bottom of it."

"Preferably without us getting dragged out and shot by whoever tried to kill Shinji."

"I've been thinking about how to do that for weeks," Asuka muttered. "That video didn't do anything but confirm what I already figured out."

"So you've got a plan?" Toji looked hopeful.

Asuka's single bitter laugh told them no, she did not, in fact, have a plan yet. "I wish. I'll let you know if I think of anything. You two try to work up something too. Three heads are better than one, even if two of them are yours."

Kensuke nodded. "Let's figure this out so Shinji can come home." He reached his hand out, palm down, between the three of them.

"For Shinji," Toji agreed, placing his hand on top of Kensuke's. They both watched Asuka expectantly.

She rolled her eyes, though her hand was already on top of their hands by the time she finished the motion. "For Shinji," she whispered weakly. Their hands dropped to their sides and Asuka stepped toward the door. "I'm going home; I want to be back in bed before Misato wakes up."

The boys nodded as the three of them quietly made their way to Kensuke's front door. "We can regroup later," Kensuke said.

Asuka grunted as she opened the door. She looked back at the two stooges and paused. "Thanks," she whispered. Before they could answer, she was outside and walking away at a quick clip.

#


#

Shinji and Kaji sat wedged uncomfortably in the back seat of one of the sedans. They'd been searched for anything that even remotely resembled a weapon, so needless to say Kaji's holdout pistol had been taken. The rest of their things had big taken and thrown into the trunk of the car, not that there was much besides the backpack Shinji was carrying. He'd left the luggage bag in the taxi with the dead man.

Both of them had their arms held behind their backs with zip cuffs. Kaji noted idly that the plastic loops were cutting off the circulation to his hands. From the corners of his eyes, he studied the agent to his right and the one to Shinji's left, both holding a handgun at the ready. In the front, the agent in the passenger seat was turned to face them, an submachine gun ready in his hands.

On Kaji's left, Shinji stared at the floor of the car, completely motionless. Kaji studied the man in the passenger seat. "So," he said, "let me guess. Task Group Seven?"

None of them said anything, but the one in the front narrowed his eyes.

"I've got to say, I'm honored," Kaji continued. "I figured Ikari would send someone, but I never dreamed it would actually be his personal Gestapo."

Kaji fell silent at the acidity of the glare directed at him. He tried to settle back as much as he could to wait for an opening. The driver reached to the center console to pick up a cell phone and dialed a number. "Mission accomplished, sir," he said, then paused to listen to the response. "The inspector is injured, but they're both alive. Thank you, sir. We're en route now." He placed the phone back on the console turned his attention back to the road.

Kaji had to hand it to them. These guys were disciplined, showing no signs of distraction or leaving an opening for him to strike. He choked back a curse. This did not look good.

Right about then, all hell broke loose. Through the windshield, he saw something streak toward the other car, directly in front of them. The ensuing explosion lifted the stricken car off its wheels, only to come back down with a thunderous crash.

Acting immediately, purely on instinct, the driver of their car jerked the wheel to the side in an attempt to avoid the now-burning hulk. It didn't do any good. A colossal impact shook the car, sending the world outside the windows jolting sideways violently. Kaji flew sideways, his head impacting with that of the agent next to him. Dazed, he was vaguely aware of Shinji slamming into him.

The sound of noise-suppressed gunfire cracked through the air. Kaji watched as the two agents in the front were riddled with bullets and slumped in their seats. The rear passenger-side door was wrenched open and the agent on that side was pulled out. He tried to fight back and got a bullet in the head for his trouble. For the first time, Kaji got a look at one of the attackers. A Black Kevlar bodysuit covered him from the neck down. A balaclava covered his entire face, save for the eyes.

Kaji turned to his other side just in time to see the other agent get his throat slit. Shinji stared, eyes wide and utterly still. Kaji started to reach out to him when a hand grabbed his shoulder and hauled him out of the car. Another pair of Kevlar covered hands pulled Shinji out from the other side.

"Kaji, are you all right?" the masked man asked in Japanese.

The scruffy man blinked, still feeling fuzzy from when he hit his head. "Vasily?"

"Are you all right?" he repeated.

Kaji nodded, "Yeah, I'll be fine."

"Good, let's get out of here," Vasily started to pull him away.

"Wait," Kaji said, pulling his arm free. "The trunk. I need to get something out of the trunk."

Vasily twitched his hand at one of the other black clad men, of whom Kaji now noticed there were five. He leaned into the car, over the dead driver, and popped the trunk.

Kaji reached in and pulled out the backpack Shinji had been carrying. He turned back to Vasily. "Okay, let's go."

The masked man nodded and ushered Kaji toward the banged up white van. One of his men did the same with Shinji. All of them were in the van less than two minutes after the attack began, and on the move barely fifteen seconds after that. Kaji didn't let himself relax until the van had merged into traffic a few minutes later. His head dropped back into the side of the van. "I was starting to think you weren't going to show up, Vas."

Vasily took off the balaclava. He was maybe a few years older than Kaji. His short black hair was messed up from its time under the balaclava. He smiled at Kaji, "You moved a bit more than we expected. We had to find you again and wait for you to get to an out of the way spot."

Kaji clapped him on the shoulder and turned his attention to Shinji. The boy hadn't moved since they'd gotten into the van. He was just staring ahead numbly. "Are you okay, Shinji?"

The boy gave no indication that he'd heard Kaji say anything. That was when Kaji noticed the blood on his shirt. "Jesus, Shinji," he muttered. "Are you hurt?"

Shinji looked down at the blood. "It's not mine," he said weakly.

Kaji closed his eyes. He sometimes forgot that Shinji was just a kid. It wasn't right that a thirteen year old had to deal with this kind of shit. "It's going to be okay."

Shinji just nodded, his gaze already fixed blankly ahead again.

"You said you had something important, Kaji?" Vasily asked.

"Yeah," Kaji said. "Something that's going to change the world."

"You found what you were looking for," the Russian man stated.

"I did."

Vasily let out a single sharp laugh. "Care to fill me in?"

Kaji looked around the van at the other men. While he was sure they were trustworthy, he would feel better keeping what he knew quiet for the moment. "I'll tell you when we get wherever we're going."

"Still as careful as ever," he nodded. "We should be there shortly." He looked at the motionless teenager. "You are the Third Child, aren't you?"

It took a moment for Shinji to register that he was being spoken to. When it finally clicked, he turned to face the sturdily-built Russian. "I…yeah. How did you know?"

"I told you when we first met, Shinji," Kaji said. "You're famous in the defense business."

Vasily reached out to shake Shinji's hand, "It is an honor to meet you, Mister Ikari."

"Uh, thank you," Shinji stammered, shaking the proffered hand. "Shinji's fine."

"Commander Vasily Kaverin, at your service. You can call me Vas." He gestured to the rest of the men in the van, "I'll introduce you to the rest of the team later."

The rest of the team, Shinji noticed, was looking at him with unabashed fascination and curiosity. Apparently Kaji hadn't been joking when he said Shinji was famous. "Who are you with?" he asked Vas. "The army?"

The Russian gave a loud, boisterous laugh. "No, Shinji. We're an Alpha Group team, part of the Russian Federal Security Service."

Kaji, noticing Shinji's nonplussed expression, jumped in, "They're mainly an anti-terrorist group. They report directly to the Russian government's top leadership."

Shinji cocked his head to one side, "So the government knows about Kaji and me?"

"No," Vasily shook his head. "A handful of Alpha Group teams are virtually autonomous. We're lucky enough to be one of them. We get orders every now and then, but we mostly keep our ears to the ground and do what we can."

"And you want to help us?" Shinji asked.

"I owe Kaji that much at least," he said. "Besides, if whatever you know is as big as I think it must be, I want to be a part of it."

"I don't know anything," Shinji muttered.

Kaji nodded, "I know. That's going to change soon, I promise."

#


#

Asuka sighed. She'd almost forgotten about this particular humiliation. Not the Angel of course, just the part where she ended up stranded, completely naked, in a jettisoned entry plug bobbing in the Geofront's lake. Getting recovered by the NERV crew was no less embarrassing the second time around.

She was thankful for the sweat suit they'd provided at least, ill fitting though it was. She leaned against the railing on the edge of the ship and watched as the shore grew closer. Pushing a hand through her hair, she sighed. The LCL was beginning to dry. It was going to take forever to wash it out now.

The sound of footsteps broke her out of her reverie. Looking to her right, she saw Suzuhara a few feet away, leaning with his back against the railing and his arms folded across his chest. He too was dressed in a sweat suit, though his fit somewhat better. "What do you think happened?"

Asuka thought about the question for a second. "Angel attack," she said simply.

"What?" The boy's head whipped around to look at her, "An Angel? How the hell do you figure that? Wouldn't they be trying to get us to the Evas a little faster?"

She looked back toward the shore, trying to figure out what to say. She watched Suzuhara from the corner of her eye. He wasn't as big an idiot as she used to think, and he probably wouldn't go running to someone at NERV. "They dealt with it without us."

Toji frowned, "That doesn't sound like a guess. Did you talk to somebody already?"

Asuka just shook her head, doubt beginning to creep in. Would he just dismiss it as a lie? Or worse, think she was insane?

The Fourth Child looked confused. "Then what?"

Asuka bit her lip and didn't answer for a long moment. "I'm from the future."

Toji stared for a minute and arched an eyebrow. "If you wanted me to leave, you could have just said so." He pushed off of the railing and started to walk away.

As he walked past her, Asuka spun around and grabbed his arm just above the elbow.

"What?" he groaned as he turned to face her again. His eyes widened at the seriousness of the expression on her face. "Something I said?"

She stayed silent, her expression completely unchanged.

"You…you were joking, weren't you? You must have been."

Slowly, she shook her head.

Suddenly lightheaded, Toji stumbled toward the railing. "Holy shit."

Asuka breathed a silent sigh of relief. "You believe me?"

Toji took a moment before he responded. "I think you believe it, and I don't think you're crazy enough to imagine something like that."

The redhead nodded. It felt good to tell somebody after all this time and even better to have them believe her. "Fair enough."

He looked around to make sure nobody was listening to them. "How far in the future?"

She frowned. Keeping track of time hadn't exactly been high on their list of priorities at the time. "I'm not really sure," she admitted. "End of next year maybe."

"You're not sure?"

"Things were a little complicated," she said defensively. "More than you could ever imagine."

"How the hell is this possible?" he whispered. "What happened?"

Noticing that they were almost at the shore, she shook her head. Already, she could see Misato pacing anxiously in front of her car. "I think that's going to have to wait for another time," she said. "We're about to be swarmed." She nodded toward the dozen or so NERV personnel standing around waiting for them.

Toji nodded his understanding. "Who else knows?"

"Nobody."

He blinked in surprise. "Why me?

She thought about this for a second. "If we're going to get anything done, you need to be able to see the whole picture."


A/N: Chapter 9, reporting for duty. Quite a bit of non-Eva based action here. Let me know what you think about it, because it wasn't the easiest thing for me to write for some reason. Some big things happened in here, but it's a pretty small chapter in scope. The NERV crew got to take a bit of a break for a chapter. I just had Kaji and the kids on call.

Anyway, we finally got to meet Kaji's mysterious friend in Saint Petersburg. It occurred to me while I was writing that I hadn't picked a name for him until the moment I typed something. I'm pretty happy with him as a character and I can't wait until you get to see more of him.

Get ready, because next time we get a look at Future!Earth.

Oh, in case anybody cares, I have a twitter account now. If you want updates on my writing without the hassle of visiting my profile page, follow me Fourth_Impact.

I choose you…

Review Acknowledgements:

Ctelenku: I'm glad you've been enjoying. You were definitely right about things getting messy, by the way. Shinji did bring up why they were being hunted when Section Two first tried to kill him, but he got a little too into his own head to push for an actual answer.

Lachesis: Hope this lives up to the standards I've set, both for disclaimers and for story.

justanotherguy: Don't worry, I've got big plans for Kozo. It's going to be awesome.

Hotako Tomoe: Not going to lie, things deviated a bit from my original outline for this story. Shinji was originally planned to stay in Tokyo-3 for a while longer, so there would have been quite a bit more Shinji/Asuka content. I got him out sooner for pacing reasons and I never even thought to change the category listing. I'm being lazy right now, but I'll probably get around to it at some point.

Jack: As much as you may want me to, I will not forget the beginning of that review. Future!Earth is in the hopper. Get ready. Also, fun as it would be, I think I'm going to leave the over the top violence and Falcon Punches to other authors, or at least other stories.

KnightLance: Sorry, I didn't get a chance to give you a heads up about Ken, but he finally did something. Also, I'll make sure to let you know next time I go after NGE ownership. As for last chapter's filleryness (my spell check hates me for that): anime lovers may hate filler, but what's an anime without it? But seriously though, there is some important material in there. I'm just playing the long game with it. I'll leave you with that.

Watchdog: Yeah, Asuka was this close to telling Misato everything. Now Ken, he's fun to write, and as a writer he's a wonderful tool. He gets into everything and as the resident nerd, you can get him to fill a wide array of roles without it feeling forced. I was glad to finally get to the point where he has something to do.

1337: Thanks. I was pretty fond of that conversation after I wrote it.

Cypher: That is just about the most succinct and accurate summary of my story so far that I could have ever hoped for. Timing's been important to me through this whole thing. I was originally going to keep Shinji in Tokyo-3 for another three chapters or so, drawing out the mystery for that whole time. I sensed things had run their course though, so I sped things up. As for the little moments like Shinji's sarcasm in the first chapter, I was getting bored with the early chapters and just wanted to get to the new stuff as soon as I could. That's why those moments kind of tapered off.