Disclaimer: I don't own Neon Genesis Evangelion or anything associated with it. Gainax created this world, I just play in it.

Back when the OC's I'm using first appeared , I warned that they would appear again. After Gendo got his deserved reward I got an anonymous review from a troll crying that I had ruined the story by having the OC's take over.

Poor stupid troll, evidently he has never actually read a story where the OC's really did take over. (Had other trolls actually questioning my characterizations early on. Too bad they were so mesmerized by the bright colours and big explosions when they watched the series that they paid no attention to the characters themselves and had no clue what they were bitching about)

So to all the trolls, here's a hearty screw you, and I will continue to otherwise ignore you for being the waste of genetic materials that you are...all while a couple of my friends on the site here and I continue to laugh at the ridiculousness and total inaccuracy of your reviews when I share them with them.

With that said, the OC's will be playing a prominent role over the next couple of chapters and then again close to the end. If you don't like that then go read something else and save your complaints for someone who actually cares. Valid questions and true constructive criticism I accept, stupidity I don't since I have a very low tolerance for fools.

If you are okay with it, then read and enjoy. It's been a while since I wrote action scenes but I think they came out alright.

Transposed

Chapter 28

NERV Recreation Deck

Until his lessons with Misato and Lilith and his time spent floating with Rei in her mindscape, Shinji had never given much thought to swimming. Up until then he had been convinced that humans were not meant to float and had done his best to avoid the water. However since those two happenings he had grown to rather enjoy it. Over the last week he'd had the opportunity to swim here with Rei during breaks in their training and he had really enjoyed it. And he could not deny that she looked really good in the two tone blue, one piece racing suit she wore. Though he strongly suspected that she would rather swim in the nude.

As such, as he swam he found himself thinking about how things had been with Rei recently. With their training they had been spending a great deal of time around each other and with their hand to hand training in particular there had been a great deal of physical contact between them. Not to mention her forays into the shower with him which Misato just could not restrain herself from mercilessly teasing him about, as if her commentary about Rei's bathing suit weren't enough. Not to mention her explanation as to what kind of bathing suit she would wear. Her descriptions alone damn near gave him a nosebleed.

The first time Rei joined him in the shower he had chalked it up to her seeming lack of care about modesty and propriety and she had needed his help to get out of her plug suit. The second time was pretty much as shocking as the first. All she had really said was that the hug, and their naked contact in general, was both pleasant and desirable. Her straightforward and bold curiosity was sledgehammer like when explained in her quiet manner of speaking. The two things were so much of an opposite. By the third or fourth time he just kind of stopped thinking so much about it and almost expected it from then on. He was ever so slowly getting used to all of that intimate contact and was realizing that it was actually kind of nice. If only he could do something about becoming so aroused by it. Damn late blooming teen hormones.

He was somewhat blown away by her when they first swam together. He was still very new to it and was slow and steady as he gained confidence, but Rei swam like she belonged in the water. He supposed that wasn't far from the truth really. She had begun life floating in liquid, even if it wasn't water, and had spent a great deal of time floating in a tube of LCL as her memories and experiences were downloaded for the dummy plugs. Water or liquid was probably as much or more of a natural environment for her than it was for any one else on the planet and watching the way she moved and cut through the water was something that amazed him.

He stopped his laps and just let himself float in the middle of the pool, wondering how it was going with her visit to Asuka. It was kind of hard for him to understand how Rei was neither angry with Asuka over what she had done nor fearful because of it. Even with her evolving emotional state she seemed rather neutral about it. Rei's situation was so unique that he supposed it wasn't strange for him to not be able to comprehend it. Based upon his own visit he knew Asuka was going to be nervous and afraid and probably expecting the same kind of reactions he had thought Rei would have. One thing that they both had in common right now was a struggle with who they really were.

In his own way he supposed that he was struggling with the same thing himself. He was not the same person he was when he first arrived in Tokyo 3, not even the same as he was just a few weeks ago before his mother came out of Unit 01's core and he began to learn the truth of what was really going on. His ordeal against the 15th Angel had changed him yet again and had seemed to make things even more confusing for him. Confronted once again by the familiar pains of his own life, confronted with the pains and the terror of Misato's life as if all those memories and experiences were his own, and the revelation of how they both truly felt about each other. That fact that he had strong feelings for several of the females in his life when he had been afraid to even contemplate his feelings for even just one of them.

He felt a little like he was being tossed around in a typhoon and he had no idea where he was going to land let alone if he was going to survive the landing. Having his mother back, interacting more with Rei and with Misato, even if it was just in his head right now for the most part, these were all good things but he was afraid that at any moment he would discover it was all a lie and everything would come crashing down around him. That old self loathing and lack of confidence was a hard thing to escape, especially when you had known little else for most of your life.

As it was he knew he was barely holding himself together. In a short period of time so much had happened and none of it had been small and insignificant. The return of his mother had given his life and his abused psyche a much needed second wind, a bit of a reset that allowed him to pull himself together a little bit. Even through the truths revealed to him by his mother and Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki he had kept it together. It was both equal parts terrifying and as he had recently figured out, oddly settling. Certain truths had given him answers he had needed, others gave him a much needed perspective on what was going on and why. As terrible as some truths were, knowing them had forced him to think instead of react hysterically or in ways that would only further damage him.

Then there was discovering the truth of how he really felt for some of the people around him, principally Misato, Lilith and Rei. As for Asuka, it was like she was an entirely different person now, one he barely knew but it was still encouraging that she seemed inclined to want to get along now that the angry side of her seemed to be gone. Again, as with the other revelations this too was a double edged sword for him. He was grateful to know how they felt about him, that those feelings synced with his own rather than being in opposition to them. He had thought that he was someone who was incapable of being loved but they were proving him wrong and it was going a long way to keeping him together.

That didn't mean that he still wasn't close to being overwhelmed and that he wasn't still scared half to death. The ordeal with the Fifteenth had nearly destroyed him and if it hadn't been for Misato and Lilith and later Rei, he would have completely lost himself to the pain and agony that has permeated his soul. He could still feel it, he still wasn't right or even the same as he had been before that ordeal and it was the constant reassurance of Lilith and Misato in his head, the closeness and support of his mother, and his increased interactions with Rei that were keeping him upright and moving. In all of them he had found new reasons and strength to keep going and he had a growing determination to do just that and see this all through to the end so that they could all finally know peace. Still, it was a struggle and wasn't easy. He supposed nothing ever truly worth anything ever was.

The sound of the alert sirens going off startled him, causing him to thrash about and end up under water. He came up coughing and spitting but immediately made his was to the side and climbed out. He had kept his clothes and his plug suit ready at a poolside table rather than inside the pool complex change rooms in case he needed to change quickly. He was halfway into his plug suit when the main door opened. A man dressed in the tan uniform of NERV's internal security staff stepped in, pistol in hand. A feeling of dread landed in the pit of his stomach. There was only one person who should be coming through that door to get him and it wasn't this guy.

"Well, that was almost too easy," the guy said through a sneering grin.

"You're right, it was," a woman's voice said, right before a pair of hands grabbed the guy around the head and face and violently yanked him back out the door.

A lot of people would have balked at playing bodyguard while someone swam at the pool, but Melissa Lake didn't mind. Ever since the base and the city had went into battle configuration and lock down members of the SIS team had taken turns shadowing the pilots and senior staff and today was her turn to shadow Shinji. She found him to be a pleasant young man and she had enjoyed being a part of his training team, but he did make her think of the little brother she had lost and that was always a painful thing for her.

She knew Shinji was looking for some quiet time to swim and think so she left him to it and patrolled the hallways between the main entrance and the entrances on the far side of the pool complex that led to and from the change rooms. As required, just in case, she was dressed in her full battle gear. Combat vest, her two pistols, one strapped to either thigh, a knife across the small of her back, her HK 416 A5 in hand and extra ammo clips scattered about her person wherever she could secure them. A tactical radio was in a chest pouch on her vest and the earpiece was secured in her left ear. She had been about halfway back to the main entrance when she heard a quiet call over her tactical radio from her partner.

"Zero-Three...Snake Eyes."

Zero-Three was his call sign, hers being Zero-Two. Snake Eyes was the alert code for hostiles in the area. They had hostiles in the hospital ward. She took off for the main entrance to the pool and just before she got there the alert sirens went off. In her ear she heard a report from up top that the armoured unit of the Japanese military that had been sent help them out and form a perimeter around the base had turned the turrets on their tanks towards the entrances and opened fire.

She slowed at the corner in the hall just before the doors to the pool. Peeking around she saw a tan uniformed NERV internal security agent enter the door.

"Well, that was almost too easy," he said to Shinji, his pistol more or less pointed in the Third Child's direction. Slinging her rifle over her back, she crept up on him while he was distracted.

"You're right, it was," she told him as she grabbed him around the head and face and yanked him back out the door. She pivoted and threw him down, the pistol flying from his hand and clattering across the floor. She immediately came down on him with her right knee between his shoulder blades. Grabbing him by the chin with both hands she yanked back sharply and to one side. There was a sickening snap-crunch and the man went still.

"Zero-Two," she called into her radio. "Found a rat at the pool. Took care of it. No damage on our end. We'll be making our way to the cages now."

"Zero-One roger that," Colonel McKinnley answered. "Attacks suggest that we have had hostiles hiding in the Geo-front waiting."

"Copy that," she responded as she picked up the rat's gun and dropped it in the trash can by the door. Unslinging her carbine she let the assault weapon lead the way she kicked the door open and scanned the area. All she saw was a startled Shinji halfway dressed in his plug suit.

"I appreciate the show Shinji but you're a little young for me and now isn't the time." she said with a smirk. She just couldn't resist.

"Gah!" he exclaimed as he turned red and hurriedly finished donning the suit. "S-Sorry."

She waved off his concerns. "Not the first time I've been flashed," she grinned.

"H-has the attack really started?" he asked nervously.

"Afraid so," she confirmed. "But don't worry Shinji, we're not unprepared and we have some people here defending that are really good at what they do. Stick close to me and I'll get you where you need to be and Matt will do the same for Rei and Asuka. You can count us, we won't fail you."

The conviction that he saw in her vivid blue eyes was absolute. The type of conviction that didn't suggest that she thought they would win this fight, but that she knew they would and that there was no other possible outcome. Even as nervous and scared as he was he couldn't help but want to believe it too.

"We'll do the same Captain Lake," he said bravely. "We won't let you down either."

"That's the spirit Shinji," she smiled. "And call me Mel, we're friends and comrades in arms here after all. Now, let's go kick some ass and put an end to this shit."

With a resolve he didn't know he had he readily followed her out the door and into whatever awaited.


NERV Medical, Psychiatric Ward

Matt Riker was just down the hall from the visitors area in order to give them their privacy. He could keep an easy eye on the area by checking the convex mirror affixed to the ceiling at the intersecting hallway in front of the nurse's station just beyond the visitor area. The moment he heard the windows being shot out he took a peek around the corner and saw everyone hitting the floor. Pulling back and keeping his eye on the mirror he keyed his radio.

"Zero-Three, Snake Eyes." Flipping the safety off on his Benelli M5 shotgun, he looked up at the mirror again and waited until he saw the overconfident shooters step in.

"Look's like luck is on our side boys," he heard one of the men say. "Two of the three pilots right off the bat."

The response the guy got was a large blur stepping around the corner and firing a 12 gauge round of '00' buckshot into his face and neck. They were caught flat footed and the quick boom-boom-boom of three more shots took the rest of them down.

"Stay down!" he yelled as he passed the two girls and the doctor, keeping the shotgun trained on the enemy and taking quick glances outside to make sure no more hostiles were about to show themselves. The men he shot were down for the count, but all the same he disarmed them and tossed the weapons outside the shattered windows. Sidearms were a mix denoted by personal taste but the assault rifles they carried were Sig 716's, all looking close to new. He paused to take another look around but didn't see any signs of anyone else in the area. Until he looked up. He grinned.

"She owes me fifty bucks," he smirked. "I told her someone would try it."

Above and away from the side of the NERV pyramid where he was, he saw at least half a dozen parachutists gliding down and more or less toward him. He keyed his radio. "Zero-Three, we have para's." They had either jumped from one of the buildings hanging from the ceiling or somewhere up in the roof structure.

"Zero-Nine, we see them."

He picked up one of the discarded Sig's, flipped the fire selector to single shot and banged through the thirty round magazine at the ones closest to him. He tagged one for sure and possibly a second, it was hard to tell at this distance. Finished, he dropped the rifle and went back inside, reloading his shotgun from a pouch of shells on his hip.

"Everyone all right?" he asked.

"We are fine," Rei answered, getting to her feet and pulling Asuka up with her. "But Dr. Tokita has been wounded."

"It's not serious," the doctor said as he stood and removed his coat to inspect the wound. "A deep graze. I had worse in training." Riker raised an eyebrow. "I spent four years in the Army to help pay for my education."

Riker nodded. "You have a safe spot for you and the remaining hospital staff?"

"We have a storage room set up along a monitored hallway," the doctor answered. "I can access the security cameras there with my phone."

"Good," Riker said. "Feel free to help yourself to the discarded weapons, just in case. These ladies and I have someplace we need to be."

"Right," Tokita responded. "Good luck to you."

"And you doctor." With that they separated, Riker and the pilots going up the hallway where he had been waiting before the shooting started.

"Where are we going?" Asuka asked.

"To the Eva's," Rei answered as she helped the other girl along as she hobbled on her booted, broken foot.

"B-but I don't know if I can still pilot," she stammered.

"If you cannot then at least you will be safe from these invaders," Rei told her. "The pilots are one of their primary targets."

"What?" But why?" This was making no sense to her. Who would be invading the base and why were the pilots being targeted? Why would other humans attack the one place that was their best and nearly only defence against the Angels?

The man leading them stopped and turned to look down at her. She suddenly realized just how big and thus intimidating he was. "I know you have questions and that this is all very confusing," he began. "Believe me, I get that. But we really don't have time right now for a lesson in history or current events. The short hard version is this. NERV is controlled by a group called SEELE. SEELE's goal has always been to create a Third Impact under their own control for some hair brained idea of kicking what they see as mankind's stagnant evolution in the ass and turning us all into one big blob of souls that approximates a higher being free of the pains of our human lives." He wasn't about to drop the truth about Kiel and mankind's origins on her. What he had said was probably too much already but they didn't have time to tell the whole story anyway. "And free of any of the good stuff either," he continued. "It's shit and it's stupid but there it is. Bottom line, we win or else, just as it was when fighting the Angels."

"They have seven mass production Evangelion units at their disposal and possibly the 17th Angel," Rei added, dropping another few tons of TNT on the poor girl. "Shinji and I will fight them. If you can pilot your help would be appreciated. If not, you will be safe within Unit 02."

Evidently even that small amount of information was a little much for Asuka to handle right now. She was shaking and her mouth opened and closed like a fish gasping for air. That short explanation had just turned on its head everything she had known and believed when it came to her role as a pilot for NERV. Worse, she knew that it wasn't then entire story. She wasn't stupid.

"Okay, take a minute to calm down," he said. He could give her that much, as little as it was. "I need to take a look up ahead anyway but we can't delay for long."

He pulled the 9mm HK USP from the holster strapped to his right thigh and handed it to Rei. She had a rudimentary knowledge of how to handle a gun prior to the recent training she and Shinji underwent and she become fairly proficient in short order under his tutelage and was willing to carry and use a gun if the need arose.

"If we get separated or you see something not friendly coming up on us don't be afraid to use it," he told her.

She nodded and he pulled a spare magazine from a slotted pouch on the right side of his vest and handed it to her. She looked at it for a moment before unzipping her plug suit and stuffing it between her breasts.

"I have no pockets," she said simply.

He blinked. "Should of thought of that. Nice improvised solution though." He grinned. "Maybe I should suggest that to Mel as an extra place to carry more ammo."

"She would throw something at you and call you bad names," Rei deadpanned, having seen the battle partners interact. It had been fascinating as well as entertaining.

"Yeah, she probably would," he agreed. "Totally worth it though." He turned serious again. "Hold tight here, I'm going to go check the next hallway."

As he left he heard Asuka quietly and shakily asking who he was. In all of the excitement he hadn't introduced himself, but a little lost etiquette was the least of their worries and Rei could fill her in while he checked ahead. He would have to trust the quiet girl to keep Asuka moving, not fair he realized since Ayanami had baggage enough of her own and Asuka was already a big bag of uncertainty even without the quick rundown he had given her. But, she needed to know at least a little of the truth, enough to let her know that this was a serious situation. As serious or even more so than any of the Angel attacks. She also deserved to know as someone who had been an active combatant in all of this. Too bad the timing royally sucked ass.

The doors at the end of the hall, like all doors in this ward, were electronically locked at all times with entry and exit being gained by being buzzed in from the nurse's station and reception area or with an access card. He had been given a card just as all of the SIS people on site had that gave them access to any location in the base. His plan was to get them from here to the ICU ward where Ayanami had been kept when recovering from Asuka's beating and take the emergency elevator there that led directly to the Evangelion cages. To get there they had to go through these doors and hang a right, go down that hall past two more intersecting hallways and then go left and proceed down a long corridor with one connecting hall on the right. Problem was it was entirely possible that there would be hostiles elsewhere in the hospital complex. He doubted that the ones he had already dealt with would be all.

The doors each had a small steel mesh reinforced window in them which would afford him little visibility into the hallway without sticking his face right in front of one of them, which he wasn't about to do. As it was he kept his eyes on the windows as he crossed to the right side of the hall, the reader for the security card was situated on the wall just beyond the swing reach of the right door when it opened. He stopped and listened for a moment before sliding the card through the reader and quickly taking a few steps back along the wall.

The doors swung inward automatically and were halfway open when a burst of gunfire chewed into the right hand door. He went into a crouch with his shotgun ready to take out anyone who showed themselves. A hand holding a pistol appeared around the corner, firing immediately. It spit out two rounds that struck the wall above and well behind him before he fired. The gunner screamed as his pistol and part of his hand were blown away along with a chunk of the corner in a splash of blood and plaster dust.

He stood and charged the door, firing another round out into the hall to keep their heads down. Whipping to his left he took in the scene in an instant. The wounded man was on the floor just around the corner, screaming and clutching his mangled hand. Two men were stacked up behind him along the wall and a fourth was directly opposite them across the hall. In the natural course of his pivoting turn he fired at the guy across the hall first, his head exploding like an overripe melon. The weapons held by the other two were coming up on target when he fired again, over rotating a bit and having the mass of buckshot slam into the wall right next to the first guy's face. Half the shot sent up a shower of plaster dust and debris, the other half took out the right side of his face.

Screaming, he was launched back into the guy behind him who had been trying to step around him to get a clear shot. Stumbling, he had no hope of saving himself as he was left wide open, a shot to the chest pulverizing his heart and lungs and slamming him to the floor. A quick look up and down the hall showed him no more immediate threats. The guy with the mangled hand was clawing at the sub machine gun that was slung over his chest, all while cursing at him in a mixture of English and some language he didn't understand. Holding the shotgun up and away in his left hand, he drew the .45 from under his arm with his right and put a bullet through the man's head. Shifting his aim he put the other wounded man out of his misery as well.

Holstering the pistol he moved back to the doors. "Heads up Ayanami!" he called out.

He peeked around the corner to see her down on one knee and aiming his pistol down the hall toward him. Asuka was crouched close behind her. Seeing things were alright he came around the corner, reloading the shotgun as he went. They stood and and met him halfway.

"Seems like they've made a concerted effort to gain entry through the ground floor here so we're bound to run into more of them," he said. "Not too surprising since it is a weak point but we thought we had accounted for it better than this." He looked to the redhead. "You doing okay Asuka?"

She nodded hesitantly. "I-I think I'll be alright. I don't get any of this, but like you said, we don't have time right now." It looked like her military training from her time in NERV Berlin was kicking in, as sick as it sounded for a fourteen year old girl to have to rely on that.

He gave her a slight smile and a nod. "Good. You stick close to Ayanami and both of you stick close to me. We'll get there safe and sound."

"What about Shinji?" she asked worriedly.

"He's with my partner so he's in good hands," he assured her. He went to his radio. "Zero-Three, ran into a few more hostiles but we're on the move now."

"Any damage Zero-Three?" the Colonel asked.

"Negative," he responded. "But it looks like they planned multiple entries to this level. They way they're dressed tells me they may have been camped out in the Geo-front forests."

"Affirmative Zero-Three," the Colonel said. "We have reports of multiple entries all around the ground level of the pyramid. It's looking like most of our raiders were already inside or coming from the hidden entrances we were worried about. Very few seem to have been coming in from topside. I'm trying to direct as many resources to the pyramid as I can."

"If they show tell them to holler loud," he said. "I'm shooting first until we reach the cages."

"Roger that Zero-Three. At the moment anything you run across will be hostile. Your tracker is the only friendly in hospital wing."

Each SIS member had a tracker on them that the MAGI could track around the base. "Roger. Moving out." He turned to his charges. "Alright ladies, lets go."


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