Author's note:

I had a very hard time with deciding this next chapter. I wanted to do a timeskip, to
get the story moving. This story should be finished before it has a chance to get all
bloated and unmoving, for as time passes the reserves of enthusiasm and creativity
as shown in the first chapters would slowly dry up. It's really hard to pick up a story
that's been left hanging too long... Agh. In other places, I'm rather known for all the
dead stories I leave in my wake.

Not any more, I swore. This one, I'll finish. Dammit. I will!

However, the title of the story is Shinji and Warhammer40k, and though simple to the
point of being retarded... (heh) it does sum up the story. To digress a bit, at first it
was just a temporary title until I could think up something more apt, but for the life of
me, now I can't think of anything else it could be.

Okay, so perhaps I should bring back a little of the grimly humorous theme. It's not
Shinji and Tokyo 3. Rather, the story one boy and his weird viewpoint of how the world
should be. While it is a retelling of the Evangelion story, perhaps I have been focusing
too much on the 'epic sweep' of things than the examination of the true roots of such
things... emotions, flaws, and through all that the little triumphs building something
greater than the mortals that feed it.

To make 'filler' stories would dilute the story and mean more work for me.

But what the hell.

The outline for the 'next season' is here. It works out. But it still feels as if something
is missing. Perhaps I've made the change too abrupt, and the explanations behind the
events in question lie in... timeskip territory. Obliquely referring to them, does it evoke
mystery... or the irritation of omission? Huh. If even I, the writer, am frustrated with
what I'm reading, then it's likely I'm really slashing away too much of essential back-
story.

... doing this is going to delay the completion of this thing. The farther away that
date seems, the more likely this would die off from unforeseen causes. Looks like I'll just
have to pray my inspiration endures that far.

But enough talk. Have at you!

-Bpen

-o-

-o-

-o-

Timeskip Troubles part one

-o-
-o-

Tokyo-3 was not a particularly big city, ringed with mountains, barely capable of
supporting its population. The localized economic boom following Sahaquiel's attack
meant that commerce relied upon food and raw goods shipped from all around the
countryside, with the labor force to match. The de facto capital of the nation was
hard-pressed to deal with the political and social complexities this brought along.

However, for the most part, people considered it a good thing.

Old man Yamada at the corner store was ambivalent about it. For one thing, business
was picking up; so much so that the 24-hour grocery had enough customers even
past midnight to make it worth staying open that late. On the downside... the city
was a lot noisier, much more faster-paced; the nights were not as peaceful as he
preferred.

Case in point; being held up in his own store. He blinked at the obviously panicking
young tough. The gun looked real. It was also getting much easier to get ahold of real
firepower, what with the military interests surrounding the city and all. The old man kept
his hands up, and away from his own revolver under the cashier's desk. "You're new
here, aren't you?" he asked, in a pitying tone.

"Keep those hands up! Don't play with me, old man..."

"You're making a big mistake, you know..."

"Shut up!"

The old man just sighed. He looked aside, and the robber unwisely followed his gaze.
Approaching the counter was a middle-aged man in a well-cut black suit, inexplicably
wearing sunglasses even at night and indoors. He dropped several bottles of chilled
green tea onto the counter.

"So, new to Tokyo-3?" he asked conversationally.

The thug, even more unwisely, decided to point the Beretta knockoff at him. "Who the
fuck are you?"

Both older men just sighed. Ah, youth.

"No one of any importance." Agent Kentaro replied, in an uncharacteristically friendly
tone. "Now why don't you just put that gun down before you hurt yourself?"

Which, unfortunately, could only be taken as an insult. The two old men noticed the
somewhat unfocused gaze of their assailant. Was he drunk, or under other influence?
Ah; the city was getting too big, too profitable, to too many many interests.

"Hey, look, this is all I could find. There's no more of the cheap stuff we normally buy.
What's up with these prices...? It's just crab, man! Crab! It's not like it's some sort of
rare delicacy or something!" Agent Jiro went out from behind the shelves, showing a
tin of imitation crab meat as like a bludgeon. Then, he recognized the impasse. "Oh."

"Don't mind him, he's new." said the storekeeper.

"Okay." The younger Section 2 agent kept his hands up, but looking at his partner.
"Can we get this over quick? The wife's been talking about the irregular hours I keep
for only so much pay."

"HEY!" the robber shouted. "I'm doing something here! EVERYBODY SHUT UP!" He warily
swung his gun around. "Do as I say and nobody gets hurt."

Agent Kentaro sighed. He touched at the frame of his sunglasses and for some strange
reason, it conveyed an all-enduring weariness and irritability, despite the eyes never
being visible. "You probably don't know any better, so I'm giving you this chance. I'm
in a bad mood, boy, and I need a reason not to tear you apart limb from limb."

"No dismemberment!" Old man Yamada shouted helpfully. "It's a bitch cleaning off the
blood from the tiles!"

"Listen to the man, friend..." Agent Jiro added, nodding. "He has a real reason to be
pissed, yeah. You don't want to get on his bad side."

The petty crook's hands were starting to shake. True, while he was already getting on
with the years, with his face starting to wrinkle, Agent Kentaro's suit could not hide
his compact but powerful frame. Nevertheless, the robber summoned his courage, as
he had the overwhelming might of a gun. "So what? Think I won't shoot? Don't mess
with me, you bastards! Can you move faster than a bullet? Hah?"

"I feel obliged to warn you..." Agent Jiro added. "That we're wearing body armor."

That brought the robber short. He shivered slightly under the force of the old agent's
impassive scrutiny. "Uh.. so... so what? I can just shoot him in the head!"

"Please don't kill him. The gene pool might benefit, but... don't." Agent Jiro begged his
partner. "You know, that's not... his... style. He won't approve. Even if he's not here
anymore..."

The older agent unclenched his fist. "... and we have to respect that. Fine. But he
has five seconds to get out of my sight."

"What are you talking about? Hey!"

"Four."

"Screw you! I'm not falling for your tricks!"

"Three."

"Don't move! Stay away from me!"

"Two."

"Ora! You, y-"

Bzzt.

The crook slumped, his gun tumbling from his hand. Agent Jiro took his left hand off
the man's shoulder and let him fall. His gloves sparked a bit.

"Ah, taser gloves. The next best thing to a Nerve Pinch this side of the Pacific."

"You need to lay off the stale pop culture." Agent Kentaro mused, while kicking slightly
at the fallen criminal to check if he was truly unconscious.

"Hey, the fact that you actually know what I'm talking about makes you a little bit of
a hypocrite..."

"Yes, but as you point out now and then, I'm getting OLD. I know the classics." he
added with a slight grin. "That makes you lame instead of just uncool."

Agent Jiro muttered some more as he gathered up the purchases; something about old
age turning nerds into just afficionados. 'Unfair. Don't get no damn respect.' The shop-
keeper rang up the merchandise, but refused to accept the money. Agent Kentaro
insisted, otherwise it would set a bad precedent. They could just divert some morons
into the store if they ever wanted to get out of paying for anything.

... yeah, so it was unlikely; he admitted. But ultimately, possible, so it was principle of
the thing. The sleeping hooligan was left for Tokyo-3's police force, one that was still
only barely equipped for the previous size of their metropolis.

Once outside, and holding the bag, a thought popped into Agent Jiro's head. "It occurs
to me... if you were really vindictive, you could just give his name to Sister."

"... she could use some more interrogation practice." He took a deep breath of the
mountain air and looked up at the silhouette of buildings. Tokyo-3 was ever their city,
and now... no harm will come to it, it would be there when should its chosen son feel
it was time to return.

-o-
-o-

Misato Katsuragi had a stature (or, as Ritsuko had said, the bust) that made people
continually underestimate her intelligence. She was once, for few months, Asuka's
guardian in Germany. As such, she could understand every single one of the curses
the girl was shouting. She was being irritated too, but more of how Asuka might be
using up some universal reserve of aimless anger. She wanted to blow up and just
stomp around too, but she had to maintain her calm. It sucked being the adult in the
situation.

"That's enough!" she shouted, slamming down her can of beer on the dinner table. "I
don't know where he is. As far as the UN is concerned, NERV and its people have a
flat edict to just stay away."

"But the bastard's just going to get away with it, if baka Shinji doesn't press charges!
Aargh! What's wrong with him?"

"The bastard is NOT going to get away with it. You have no idea how many people
he'd already pissed off before this. The only reason he's not a smear on the ground
right now is that beating on the helpless makes us as bad as he is."

"Hmf. Well, this you should know. Where is he?"

"He's in a cell block all by himself. And I had it welded shut just to make sure." Misato
took another sip, and thought about it. Gendo might possibly have hidden a key
somewhere, or arranged for an escape. A truly unopenable cell door however, helps
more against the temptation of those who had those keys. One of whom, was she.
"Right now, he's suspended from any and all authority from NERV, until a UN panel
decides otherwise."

"What going to happen then?"

"We don't know exactly. It's still iffy if what he did constitutes an abuse of power,
just straightforward child abuse... or if we really need to put a moral requirement to
the leadership of NERV."

Asuka nodded. "Okay, I can understand that. It's not our place to decide, we're too
emotionally involved. What I don't get, however..." and she pointed accusingly. "Is
WHY is she here?"

Seated formally nearby, Rei nodded.

"I mean, seriously, he's barely an hour gone and she's all set to move in! What's up
with that?"

"Ah. Well... for security reasons it was decided to combine the residences of the two
remaining pilots." Misato said with grim satisfaction. She knew she was an unsuitable
person as a wife or mother... but as a soldier, a protector, someone who would lay
down her own life in defense of another? To kill in the name of her charge? That, she
understood extremely well.

"I do not wish to be a burden, Sohryu. Nor do I intend to be a replacement for Pilot
Ikari. Surely you do not think I am capable of it?"

Asuka winced.

"What's your problem with this, Asuka?" Misato asked. "We've done this before."

"Well, yeah, but she was always gone by morning. Not... you know... there. Being all
silent and creepy and thoroughly... Ayanami. It's... it's not that I have a problem with
it, per se!" She crossed her arms and sat down, huffing again. "Just stay out of my
room, okay?"

"I promise." Rei nodded. "As long as you do the same, to remain outside of what has
been pilot Ikari's room..."

"That goes without saying!"

"... no matter what strange sounds you may hear from there."

"Of course I... what?" Asuka blinked. "WHAT? Misato, did you hear what she just said?"

"Hm?" Misato looked back, seemingly distracted. She sighed at the look of total outrage
on the red-haired girl's face. "Asuka, do you know what a 'tsukkomi' means?"

"...no. But knowing you people it's likely to be something weird and perverted!"

Misato sighed again, and shook her beer can. "Then it's probably better if you never
find out."

-o-
-o-

Meanwhile, back at Riga and the council seat of the Noviiy Soviet, it was just after
dinnertime. The current Prime Minister stared off at the sleeping city, and once again
reflected on how hot and unfamiliar the world had become. He turned back to his
desk, nodding wisely to himself that he had let the business sit until he had eaten.

"So, the boy has well and truly decided to abandon NERV, then?"

"It is as far as I'm told." replied Antonin Popov. "It is useless for me to go back there
now... or should I see if I can pick up the trail?"

"If the boy wants to be found, he will be. No doubt many will be trying to attract him
to their cause, but... it might only backfire if we attempt."

The ambassador patted the thick folder on the desk. "Because we might already be
getting into a stable working relationship?"

Emil Bundayev grinned. "Perhaps. The Ruso-Sino-Niho alliance might be only economic,
it might be full of suspicion, and it might remain a marvel that it actually works at all
considering how deep the antagonism between our nations run... but it does work. And
we need each other's support if we want to continue living in this world. So, this new
package from Tokyo-3. It comes rather quickly... rather fortuitously, don't you think?"

"It has been prepared by NNHIS, though, not Shinji Ikari." He pushed the folder forward
and opened it up. "It is a complete working blueprint on a new tank design. According
to the formal request, since they lack the resources and the expertise to attempt it,
they would be grateful... in both will and cash... if we could prototype and produce it."

"That cannot be taken any way but suspiciously, from the same people that managed
to produce -Magnos Tancred-. Sending the full plans, no... more to the point... to
give it to ME, here in Latvia, instead of directly to the Russian military command is a
glaring political statement that simply has too much of the Ikari touch."

".. may I ask what that statement is?"

"That there is no choice. It will be built, no matter by who or how. It is necessary."

"If it was really that important, they would be building it themselves. Engineers given
preliminary samples had an instinctive reaction of disgust with this design." Popov
shrugged. "The communique did specify that we had the best tank makers in the world,
and no one else was truly suitable for the attempt. Any modifications in regards to
practicality was welcomed."

"They are aware they are asking us to mount a cruiser's thirteen-inch gun into a land
frame, correct?" That would be a 330mm tank gun, more than double the gun artillery
in use.

"The design is insistent on that."

"Fine. Assuming we do decide to shoulder this project, it would not just magically
appear. It requires manpower, redesign, resources...! Profit is a tricky word, but how
are we expected to benefit from this?"

"The design, once finalized and put into production, would be ours. The costs would
be compensated for adequately... which is actually rather too generous... and there
is an initial order of fully twenty-four units intended for Tokyo-3."

"That isn't much, considering. They could still pull out and waste our time."

Popov pulled out a sheet from the folder and handed it over. The Premier's eyes bulged
at the statement.

"Am I reading this right? They already paid half in advance? Plus expected prototyping
costs? This is too good to be true."

"Would you like my opinion on this?"

The older man waved. "Feel free."

"It is a bribe, a big one, not personally to those involved but an appeal to the pride of
our nation." He coughed. "Our entire confederation, rather. It is a direct challenge that
we must meet. If it can be done at all, within three months, then we must manage it."

"Hmm. I wonder if any other offers have been made to other nations?"

It was a wonder that while the problem of logistics concerned them, the thought of
where that money may have come from, magically as it were, did not interest them.
NNHIS was a big company, getting too unweildy, and its connections to government
interests all too obvious.

"I'm not sure, but... the loss of NERV China has that nation scrambling to recover its
normal functions. I do believe there's a new factory somewhere producing bolter shells
in the caliber we require. However, they seem to be focusing mainly on mass-producing
bolt rifles and bolt pistols on request."

"Trying to ape the popularity of the Kalashnikov, eh?"

Popov shrugged. "It's hard to produce, but apparently with the rising paranoia of being
attacked again, the weapons known to reliably blow Angels into chunks are being made
in numbers sufficient even for export." The Aida-75 just did not roll of the tongue. KSK-
75, however, was just trying too hard it was sad.

"A handheld burst-firing RPG might actually prove troublesome to us."

"It's not much of a threat against medium armor. And certainly, almost ignorable to
this monster."

"Please, Antonya, its own guns are nothing to this beast." He began to reconsider.
"Not the least with what they want to have us fire from it... then we could more than
double that trouble back in turn."

"So, you give this your own personal approval, then?"

The Premier nodded. "My own personal power may be limited, but this post more than
makes up for in influence what it lacks in direct force. The moment it was sent, we
had no choice."

"Ah... this was sent with the package..." Hesitantly, the ambassador took out a black
ball from his pocket and gave it over.

Emil Bundayev, aged and experienced statesman, frowned. "Now he's just being sarcastic."
He shook the Magic 8-ball.

All signs
point to
yes.

-o-
-o-

It was well past midnight when he left, and in the same innocuous manner he entered
the city. He would be leaving what had become familiar and safe, and once again be
just one more small mortal sample in the sea of humanity.

And, just as before, he felt them approach to chase the fear away.

'All things must end.' he heard the Farseer say. 'And that same end in itself is the start
of something new. However, if we must leave the city... then perhaps we must... leave
the city? This is still technically within Tokyo-3 boundary.'

NNHIS Trident Base had turned into a sprawling industrial attachment to Tokyo-3. It
also held the sundry secondary businesses seen as undesirable (or rather too much fun)
by the general populace. Still, crime of all sorts in Tokyo 3 was practically nil for some
dark and undefined reason. Criminals were a cowardly and superstitious lot.

He went in through one of the side gates, inside one of the nondescript black cars of
NERV Section Two. The driver and his partner were unfamiliar, but showed professional
disinterest. 'I'm still being watched by... well, pretty much near everybody. I'll shake
them off in an international airport somewhere. In the meantime, I need to give myself
an excuse for my disappearance.'

'That girl, Kirishima. She is not here.'

'No, she's still confined to her room.'

'It would be easy to spirit her away, and in this city there are many dark and private
places. Give yourself one certainty before hurling yourself into the unknown.'

'No.'

'So instead you decide to visit an unmarried middle-aged man? It would be too easy to
misunderstand this situation.' A pause. 'Although, I am not averse to a little expe-'

'Stop. There are places I don't want my subconscious to go.' She was a facet of his
imagination, after all. He no longer even tried to figure out how it all worked, but she
was female. Any of her preferences disturbed him greatly. Fortunately she seemed to
have grasped the... mechanical aspects... and for the most part shifted her desires
to suit. It was really hard to affirm that he did not want a harem when there was one
small part of his shouting loudly for it to be so.

On the other hand, all the practice in denying that also made it easier to block out the
other voices clamoring for, respectively: righteous smiting, worshippers, or loads of
dakka. All of which, while emotionally satisfying, he actually had little practical use for.

As far as he was concerned, only six days had passed; not the month or so that the
rest of the world knew. He had nothing; no plan, no reliable source of intel. Yet, with
no direct strategem on his end, the whole thing had just blown wide open. He was
caught by surprise, much as everyone else.

'No, Chaos may NOT take credit for this.' he said silently. 'I'd rather blame Heisenberg.'

He sighed. Showing a digested version of the truth, upgrading the Angel threat, taking
control of assets, handling Gendo... that was just politics. There was nothing he could
do about that. There was only one thing he was really good at. His weird intellect, his
weak abilities. Not for ruling. He clenched his fist and summoned his resolve.

He was only useful in killing.

His cane tapped at the pavement as he exited. He winced. Had it really been barely
sevent months? He had lived fifteen years before, but as he stood there at midnight
he struggled with trying to define if he still really... existed... without the Evangelion.

-o-

Yang Wen-li was the UN observer to the JSSDF, roughly equivalent to Kaji Ryouji. The
actual Chinese ambassador was feeling one hell of an inferiority complex; never once
succeeding at striking up a conversation with Shinji Ikari.

He was a slob. He was lazy. And yet, what frightened many was that already they
could see they already were so similar, he and Shinji Ikari.

"What can I do for you, Mister Ikari?"

"... nothing, really. I felt like I needed to apologize, somehow."

"I see." Yang soaked the tea bags into two cups of hot water. He would normally make
some attempt at not being quite so cheap and lazy (hence, the expensive cappuccino
machine in the office) whenever distinguished guests arrived. It was a peculiar honor,
since he knew that finally, he was talking to someone who understood the difference
between being a good host and being kind. "But free will does exist, you know. We
made our own choices."

Shinji beamed. "It's useless to play chess against you, isn't it, admiral?"

"It's a game. I lose a lot at it." He had always been hideously bad at all games that
involved strategy. Except, for some strange reason, Monopoly. Which was hard enough
to find in the Post-Impact PRC, much less willing players. "And I'm not an admiral anymore."

"I've seen your service record, sir. Half the time you're actually playing at being a
general, and the other half fervently denying you're a politician."

And normally that would have been an insult. The tone the boy used however, implied
'... you poor sod. I hope to hell I don't become you.'

Yang laughed. "Do you think yourself more clever than most people?"

Shinji groaned. "Sir, I am about to do something so tremendously stupid, it just might
raise the collective IQ of our species if I fail. No, I don't think I'm clever." He shuddered.

"That's why there's a difference between Intelligence and Wisdom." Yang replied. The
boy was frightened. That was completely understandable. The boy was looking at him
strangely. What? It was a perfectly valid intellectual pastime. Much easier, at least,
to get his generals gathered into an adventuring party than as fantasy moguls.

Sometimes, he had to explain, such a party was necessary rather than organizing the
locals into action against the oppressor. Because the oppressor happened to be a
dragon in human form, with all the fire-breathing and big-teeth and resistance to iron,
arrows, magic, and all other forms of damage, that all that implied. Sometimes, he
explained, one needed to escape into a place where it was all just simply about the
recognizably good against inescapably evil.

He pitied the boy, who was going to be thrust into the world where absolutely nothing
was that simple.

Yang leaned back. The boy's face was a horrid mess. It would be too easy to pity and
underestimate Shinji Ikari... which, he thought, may have well been the whole point.
"You're really leaving?"

"Yes, sir."

"So..." he asked casually. "When are you going to put on the mantle of Emperor?"

The injured teenager choked on his tea. He coughed and spat aside, then looked up
with an expression of sheer horror. "W-what?" he asked hoarsely.

"It's not just Rome or Japan that has an Imperial legacy, after all." Yang took a careful
sip. "Back during the war, they actually offered me that. If there was anyone alive who
deserved to receive the Mandate of Heaven, it should be me." He blanched, as if the
tea he'd carefully prepared had soured suddenly. "I refused, of course."

"Very sensible of you, sir." The populace may have meant it, but for the others in the
government it was such a poorly-disguised scheme for them to sow the seeds of a new
revolution to sweep them into power.

"Funny, the whole citizen of the world status makes you legally a Chinese citizen too."
And also with all that implied. All of the privileges, with hardly the obligations.

Shinji made some sound equivalent to 'guh!'. "I would have thought that history had
adequately proven the failure of relying on an ultimate singular authority. Whether it
be an Emperor, or..." Shinji trailed off diplomatically. "... someone else."

Yang sniffed. "Perhaps it doesn't really matter by what name we call a society. People
need symbols. Again and again, it comes out, that a human symbol sets the moral tone
for a nation. I have no direct distaste for a constitutional monarchy, as such."

"... that's a dangerous thought for a communist to have." It boggled the boy. But for
a man who practically defined what post-Impact China was, could anything he said be
considered treason?

Yang might have had the chance to become a new conqueror, and let it pass by. The
nations of the world still feared he might decide to take a stab at it. The boy saw in
from of him the potential that others feared he might be.

And yet, already, the boy could see that the finest lesson there was that power, all
power, had its price. There were those who might enjoy that existence; both were not
of that temperament.

"I did what I did not for my government, but for my people." He stared off into the
distance. "Did you ever have the feeling, sometimes, that you were born in the wrong
time?" That sensation of unreality had plagued him all his life. "I distrust the 'Great Man'
theory of history. Alexander may have been known under a different name."

It took Shinji a long time to answer. "... sometimes." he admitted. "But regardless, it
is now, perhaps, that you were needed most." He chuckled lightly. "Maybe someday,
another Yang Wen-li will be fighting for democracy." He look sharpened as he clawed
for a random date. "Maybe... in three thousand years."

Yang stared back. "Maybe. And likely find it as convoluted and far from ideal. Mankind
flowers into golden ages, then sinks back into despair. All things, and even people,
change." As a historian, he saw the fascination that the world had for Alexanders. Yet
perhaps the most horrible thing would be for more than one actual Alexander to live in
the same era.

He had to journey to Tokyo-3. He had to wait. He had to see. He was not too old to
train a protege. Perhaps, someday, a true Alexander worthy of that name.

"Yang-sensei... a question."

"Yes, student Ikari?"

"Is this really it? Mankind doomed to cyclic ambitions, the essential badness? Must so
many suffer for the ambitions of the few?"

"Simply speaking, there are three basic forms of government: monarchy, aristocracy
and democracy... with their debased forms: tyranny, oligarchy, and mobocracy." He
sighed heavily. "It might still work, you know. The problem is that every system ever
devised by man always ends up with a few ruling over the many. Even mobs can be
driven by demagogues." He groaned. "Yes, mister Ikari. Always, even in revolutions,
the power tends to concentrate upon the few... or the one. That is the sad reality,
that people tend to just in the end want to be left well enough alone to live their lives,
and so have ranges of tolerance. The ideal so far is have every person accountable for
their actions. Power MUST have its price, mister Ikari."

"The Mandate of Heaven... can be withdrawn from a monarch if it shows that he fails
to rule his people well. I've read it's the first in tradition." However, past the lens of
nostalgia, Shinji Ikari had seen that the life of the ruled, all over the world, lingered
between horrible to tolerable. At the same time, that few overall much really cared in
the end about the doings of princes, chairmen, pharaohs, generals and priests. It was
all the folly of Ozymandias. It was the fate of history to be dead.

"It's strange being here, Japan. Even Second Impact couldn't really erase the hundreds
of years of mutual antagonism, even when our people are so dependent upon each
other." He sighed. "Mister Ikari... you must understand, what the Japanese call ancient
would be at best only half of what China had already seen. We've been ruled, from
within and without, good emperors and bad, advances and declines in science, religion
and free thought... wars, oh so many wars... and in the end... I think my China needs
a new symbol. We can't be trapped by the past, but we need not destroy it to free
ourselves from it. We are part of the world, and part of its glory."

Shinji blinked. "... what are you saying?"

Yang put his hands together, under his chin, and grinned. "What about it, Mister Ikari?
The largest, most vigorous army in the world at your disposal."

"ARE! YOU! HIGH?"

The man's unmitigated cheer proved his absolute sincerity.

Shinji groaned and palmed his face. "It's not my fault! They keep throwing this stuff at
me." he said to no one in particular. "They keep thinking I'm some sort of mastermind
so they end up making complicated plots that trip each other up and leave me holding
the bag...! And then it gets even worse!"

It was Yang's turn to laugh. "Now you're starting to get the point." The boy's face was
a mask of utter frustration. Ah, it was well worth the wait.

"Why is this happening? Does fate hate me or something?"

"Huh. Ordinarily, such good luck would be a sign to the contrary."

"You and I know better, Yang-sensei." Shinji huffed. "Those who give silver expect to
get gold in return." He gave a measured gaze to the still amused older man. "Why do
they do this? You know as much as I do that there's really no great and mysterious
all-powerful organization behind me."

"Apart from what they are building for you, out of fear of that. It's amazing, really,
that sometimes.."

"... sometimes the best plan is to have no plan? Sometimes the smartest thing to do is
to allow others be stupid, be greedy, be fearful, be conniving, be as self-promoting to
their furthest desires?" He let his forehead drop to the table. There were then repeated
thumps, and white-hot flashes of pain from his injuries.

'Or, to be human as they are, with all the good or ill as far as that could be, my lord.'
He made some sound similar to 'mnghrghfuckit'. "Yang-sensei, I need a favor."

"Take the army, first."

"No!"

"But I want a vacation too!"

He looked up, squinting. "Shove off, you're not taking my blessed return to obscurity!"

Yang looked distinctly displeased, then sighed. "All right. All right. Remember you owe
me, if I ever have any paperwork that needs to be done."

"Two inches thick, bond paper, and no natural disasters."

"Who's been training you?" Yang shouted, aggrieved.

'I trained myself would be accurate, but at the same time horribly, horribly wrong.' Not
to mention egotistical. He still did not quite understand how things managed to work
out somehow. Luck should really be only useful so far. He had not really done anything
more impressive than just applied psychology. "Someone very old and very wise and
very nasty when she needs to be."

"Huh." said Yang. "Sounds like my aunt."

It was well that the office had thick walls and a stout door, for they looked like two
snarling animals about to tear into each other rather than the demons of strategy they
were supposed to be. Their breaking laughter afterwards was likewise held in.

-o-

-o-

Two days later he was at the Tibetan border, speaking very fast to convince the local
commander he needed no escort in, thank you very much. He thanked them for all
their help so far, but no matter how polite his men were... being around so many males
for so long had made the lady with him very uncomfortable to the point she was
starting to break out into hiccups. He would report very favorably of their dedication
to Yang. Shinji in the end had no choice but to at least accept part of the army; just
for a taste, he was told.

'Dammit, Yang! If you turn Tokyo-3 into like this for me, all the damn time, I'll never
forgive you!'

And thus began Shinji Ikari's real journey.

-o-

-o-
-o-

End Timeskip Troubles part one

-o-
-o-

OMAKE:

'What? Hurhhur smell the stink of dis-cri-mi-na-tion. Hah! Huhhur able to speak in
mul-ti-ple syl-la-bles if speak slowly enough.' the half-orc Fighter said with a belch
of his mighty, air-fogging breath. 'Hurhhur not stupid. Hurhhur bash for dia-lec-tic.'

'Can I burn the haughty bourgeoisie now?' asked Teirung the Red Mage.

'No, dammit. Not until they give us quest XP and the filthy, yet immensely useful
reward money.' Yang the Wise and Immensely Flammable Wizard groaned out. "In fact,
hold off on the burning. For some reason, I always end up part of it.'

'I, having no ability to break the Fourth Wall, am equally as mystified, able to offer no
reason other than that, if I could be capable of Breaking the Fourth Wall (a spell far
beyond my Level), I might possibly be annoyed at you sleeping with my former wife-
to-be.'

Yang the Wise and Immensely Flammable just sighed. 'I should have stuck to SimCity'.

-o-