Blood Red
Episode 1
Hospitality
A/N: Hey there! Sorry for the double upload, but the first version of the chapter had some problems that I only noticed later, so I took it down and now it should be the right one.
I also have another thing to say, that, just like in my other story, I won't be following the Doom lore at 100%, especially the one of the second dlc.
Anyway that is all, have a good read and leave a review!
Chapter 3: Redheads and Railguns
Fortress of Doom, main deck
"What is your experience with rifles?"
Samuel asked and Asuka replied:
"We've all had training with the weapons for our units, so we can manage, but nothing with man-sized weapons."
"I see, still, it's worth giving it a shot, even if the Slayer is very efficient at his job, I don't want to leave you defenseless."
"That seems like the correct assumption." Rei added and Samuel said:
"Alright, follow me, let's see what you can use from our inventory."
They nodded and began walking downwards, then, after reaching the two bridges that led to the airlock, Samuel led them towards the room he had previously prevented them from entering.
Once they were right in front of the door, they heard the Slayer close his fists so hard that his armor seemed to be cracking.
Samuel noticed this and said:
"We are about to enter the Slayer's personal quarters, it's the only way to get to the armory, so please don't touch anything."
The door opened, immediately greeting the pilots with a tall chair full of various books with quite original names, while next to it various shelves held toy versions of each demon the Slayer had encountered in his journey.
They were each assigned their own place and kept well distanced just like a very well organized collection.
To the right of this, a frame in the wall held three different electric guitars, each with their own style.
Finally, on the left they could see a large painting of the Slayer holding a brown bunny and a shotgun in his other hand and under it, the door that led to the armory.
As they walked towards it, the children could only admire in pure awe at the man's extremely personalized room, which also sported an enormous window on the outside, a triple monitor computer and a cabinet for repairing and storing his other suits.
Under the desk of the computer, Shinji also noticed a small cage with some animal food next to it and given the painting from earlier he asked:
"Do you have a bunny Slayer? I haven't seen it around the ship."
The large man turned his head just enough to look Shinji in the eyes, freezing his brain with the terrifying glare he could make.
Then VEGA said:
"The Slayer's bunny is called Daisy and unfortunately it was killed by the demons before he arrived in Argent d'nur, the things you see are memorials he likes to keep in its honor."
"Oh…"
"Let's never ask about that one again." Kaworu added.
Shinji lowered his gaze as they kept walking forward and finally entered the room, which gave them a full view of the Slayer's arsenal and more.
Included in it there were: a heavy cannon, a plasma rifle, a minigun, the ballista, the rocket launcher, the shotgun, the super shotgun, the BFG, the unmaykr and finally the handle of the deactivated crucible.
All the children looked curiously at the weapons, trying to figure out how each one of them worked and what they did, until Samuel directed their gaze elsewhere and said:
"Now, I doubt that you have the strength to carry the larger weapon, even you Shinji, your exoskeleton has limits after all.
Why don't we start with something simple, I'll give Asuka and Rei a plasma rifle and a heavy cannon to shinji, hm?"
"Hey! What makes you think that I can't carry one of these things?!"
Asuka shouted while putting one of her feet forward, trying to impose some sort of superiority over the cyborg which was twice her height.
Samuel would have grinned if he had a mouth and said while grabbing a heavy cannon:
"Alright, here you go, try to prove your point."
"Pfffft child's play, I don't need a damn exoskeleton to oof!-"
As soon as Samuel let go of the weapon, she almost fell to the ground as the air in her lungs was violently pushed out.
To avoid any risk of Asuka's face getting too funny to look at from the struggle she was doing, Samuel grabbed the weapon from her hands and she immediately began breathing heavily.
Then she said between breaths:
"Fuck…ah… you… "
"Don't say I didn't warn you.
Now, the weight of the plasma rifle is around half of that of the heavy cannon, so you should have no problems with it. I designed it myself to be lightweight after all."
They nodded and so Samuel took the weapons from another frame and handed them to the pilots.
The Slayer then got closer and helped them adjust like moving their hands to have a better grip, making sure the safety was on, showing them what the various buttons did and how to reload them.
Once that was done, he grabbed some silencing headsets before bringing them outside so that they could practice.
On the right frontal tower of the ship
"Ugh come on, how long does it take to make some targets appear? I want to shoot stuff!"
Asuka thought as they climbed the staircase which led them to that tower's balcony.
Once there, they noticed a lever on the left side of it and as the Slayer pulled it, an hologram over the tower was activated, creating ten interactive floating and ground targets.
Five of them were standing still, three were moving back and forth while the last two were moving more quickly and with random patterns.
Then VEGA said:
"At the moment it's set on easy difficulty so that you can get adjusted to the weapons.
Your objective here is to turn all the targets red by hitting them enough, three shots for the heavy cannon and six for the plasma rifle.
We will deal with the secondary mods later tonight, for now watch the Slayer as he gives you a demonstration.
Starting in three, two, one…"
*Ding*
Immediately the Slayer aimed his plasma rifle at the randomly moving targets, landing all the six shots on each of them with short, controlled bursts and perfect lead.
Then he passed at the ones going back and forth with inhuman speed and reflexes and took them out within seconds.
Before aiming for the final five targets, the Slayer did a demonstrative reload with half of the clip left. He did it pretty slowly so that they could understand each move that needed to be performed and in which order.
In actual combat he didn't need to reload as the weapon teleporter on his back did that for him, but the pilots didn't have such luxury so they needed to be taught how.
Once that was done he cleared the rest of the targets and VEGA stopped the timer at ten seconds, most of which had been occupied by the reload demonstration.
Then he passed to the heavy cannon and did the same, this time with less lead than before given the increase in the bullets' velocity.
It seemed that time had been skipped by the time he was over,yet the timer was the same as before, since the heavy cannon took longer to reload.
He then stepped back and VEGA said as he resetted the targets:
"Alright, who wants to begin?"
"I'll show these two how it's done, give me some space."
"Okay Asuka, tell me when you're ready."
"Alright… concentrate… it's just like all those years ago, in the simulator and the cold room and the uncomfortable suit and-
I'm Asuka Langley Shikinami. And I'm the best at everything."
"I'm ready." Asuka replied with a much more serious tone than before, something that the Slayer clearly noticed.
"She's not ready." He thought, remembering what his military instructors taught him when he was still a normal space marine.
"Alright, starting in, 3...2...1...Go!"
She immediately took aim and went for the still targets first, not having much trouble at hitting all the shots before they turned red.
Then she went to the targets that moved on a set line and she had no trouble with those too, however her accuracy worsened a bit due to her having issues with leading and having only one eye.
Finally she went for the most difficult targets, where the lack of depth perception truly showed as a couple of shots flew away and into the energy shield.
Still, with years of experience under her belt, she finished with a time of twenty two seconds point five.
Proud of her results, she stepped down and allowed Rei to take position.
"Starting in three, two, one… Go!"
Rei finished thirty seconds later, having shown quite some issues with hitting moving targets without the evangelion's help.
Finally it was Shinji's turn.
"Pfft as if this Brat could ever be able to match my time, he's probably going to miss all his shots and have to reload. He has never held a gun outside of his unit."
"Shinji, as long as we are together we can do this" Kaworu said as VEGA began the countdown one final time.
"Remember your training, target in centre, pull the trigger, target in centre, pull the trigger, target in centre, pull the trigger.
Let's do this Shinji"
"-Go!"
The first targets were gone in ten seconds.
Then came the moving ones and to Asuka's surprise, he was able to track them perfectly, so that even despite his slower reflexes, he gained on her and finished with a time of nineteen seconds flat.
"Wait.
No, this is a joke right? There's no way he just… I mean I'm the one with more experience… I'm the one who fought for fourteen years in this hell hole while he was sleeping in space!
He didn't have to suffer from having an angel inside of him and not aging! I had to! While he was sitting in space doing fucking nothing! I hate him! Why is he so good!
Why can't I be as good as him!
Why can't I be the best at something for once…
I should be better, I know that I'm better, I was just distracted by the others…
I hate this…"
And so she left, going back to the guest room, but before she crossed the door to reenter in the fortress, Samuel asked her:
"Wait Asuka where are you going? We aren't done with training yet."
"I… I'm not feeling very well, I'll go back to the room for a while."
"Alright, no one is forcing you to remain, we can resume this whenever you want, rest well Shikinami."
"I- thanks."
And so the airlock closed, making her disappear from sight.
"It seems that my plan worked. Perfect."
Kaworu thought without saying anything to Shinji, but he was surprised when the Slayer placed a hand on the boy's shoulder.
"Huh? Slayer what i-"
The man was looking at Shinji right in the eyes, yet despite the menacing pose, he radiated only confidence and determination.
Then he pointed to Shinji by placing a finger on his shoulder and indicated to him to go after her, without uttering a single word.
Shinji was still able to understand and despite his fear of facing Asuka, there was something about the way in which the Slayer had grabbed his shoulder and looked at him that muted any kind of interference from his mind.
As the airlock closed again, Samuel said in a mocking tone:
"I thought that you were done with being a father."
In that instant the Slayer turned to face the camera, staring into it with such a glare that Samuel was sure he just lost seven years of his life.
Thankfully there was VEGA to break up the ice:
"Anyway,would you like to try again, Rei?"
"Yes please."
"Okay, starting in three, two- wait.
Are you going to check up on them, Slayer?"
The man turned around for a moment and nodded before leaving.
Corridor
Shinji had just stopped on a wall after running all around the fortress to get back to the room, panting heavily after the great number of stairs he had to cross.
Once he was back up again, he slowly walked towards the door, expecting it to open by itself just like every other metal door in the ship.
But as he approached it, a large red hologram saying 'locked' appeared and the door didn't move.
So instead he knocked, waiting for what seemed like an eternity before getting a response.
"Who is it?" Asuka asked.
"It's me A- Captain, I wanted to know if everything was okay."
A long silence followed his answer before Asuka replied:
"Go- away Brat."
"Did… did her voice crack for a moment?"
"You don't sound ok Cap-"
"I said that I'm okay! Now go away!"
Shinji looked at the floor defeated and turned around, but as he did so he bumped into the Slayer and looked at him.
Then he said:
"It's no use Slayer… she hates me… I'm surprised she hasn't shot me yet…"
The man walked past him, almost as if he hadn't heard anything and suddenly the door opened.
The Slayer entered while Shinji remained outside as he began walking towards the kitchen to stop his thirst.
As he was walking there, he saw Rei and Samuel taking the elevator towards the wrecked mark 09.
Guest room
Both of them were aware of each other's presence, but the tension was so high that the air could have been cut with a knife.
Asuka was currently playing with her Wonderswan on the bed, facing away from the door while her hat rested on the nightstand behind her.
He walked closer to it and grabbed it to have a better look.
It was a pretty old dark brown cap with two sort of cat ears added to it and two small roundels in the front.
One showed a white skull with an eyepatch on a red background, while the smaller one was a combination of three differently colored circles, blue, white and red.
"Hmm… She had something like this for the two of us too, that scarf… maybe it's the same situation with Shikinami? Her long hair and her attitude do remind me of Her after all…
I could try talking with her, but then there's the issue that she might get too close to me… and if that was to happen then…
Still, I can't leave her like this, if I can't change her attitude before tomorrow morning then she'll die in battle for sure.
I saw her face, how she stopped before starting her trial… she was… Reassuring herself, just like I did so many times during my training…
Maybe that's what she needs, for someone to be there for her… dammit for a bunch of fourteen year-olds they sure have a lot of problems."
He sat on the bed and shook her shoulder, making her stop playing for a while and turn to look at him.
He looked back at her, noticing that her eyes were shining quite a bit.
"She's… holding back… she's not letting herself cry.
Her eyepatch is glowing blue too, must be from that angel she has told us about…"
The Slayer put some pressure on her arm, almost to caress her, getting a strange reaction from the girl.
She was in fact asking herself why he was letting him touch her like that, why she wasn't running away from him.
The answer was in his eyes, his face, in him. He was emanating an aura of safety for her, just by being there, with a simple touch.
In the end though she tried to push him away and he removed his arm, but it didn't take long before VEGA said:
"Ayanami has finished her firing trials and Ikari is in the kitchen, you could try again without any distraction now."
Her eyes widened for a moment before she said:
"I'm coming, time to show the Brat who's the best one out of all of us."
And not even five seconds later she was already walking back to the tower.
The Slayer stood up too and grabbed her hat, looking at it for a moment before following her. And as he was walking through the corridors and stairways, VEGA told him:
"Slayer, I know that you don't want to talk because you don't want others to get close to you in case something happens.
But this time the world isn't ending, actually it has already ended, there aren't any demons to hunt or coming after us.
For now there are only three teens with psychological problems and mute actions can only get you so far.
You can still keep it up for now, but I'd say that once or twice you should give it a try."
"... I'll consider that."
Right tower, a long time later
"Finish, new personal best of 19.5 seconds."
VEGA announced once Asuka dropped her rifle, tired from thirty minutes of constantly trying to get a faster time than Shinji.
Once she saw her new time, she slammed both of her hands on the railing in protest, she didn't care if it was a new personal best, because it was still higher than Shinji.
Sick of hearing her rants, the Slayer approached her and placed the gun in her hands. Then, before she could protest, he began adjusting her posture and how she held the gun once more.
In fact, even though her accuracy had increased as she understood how to compensate for the lack of depth perception, the precision of her movements and her posture had worsened in her pursuit of a faster time.
Seeing Asuka's puzzled expression, VEGA said:
"Shikinami, right now the Slayer is trying to help you get a better time by correcting some of the mistakes that arose as your frustration increased.
It's like learning a difficult piece with an instrument, you might be more focused by getting angrier at your failures, but it is inevitable that you leave something behind, making it impossible to perform at your best.
Now, try to calm down for a moment and concentrate at the same time, forget about Shinji's time and simply try to go as fast as you can.
I'll start the countdown when you are ready."
A couple of seconds later, the Slayer had finished fixing her posture and so she simply stood there for a while, taking deep breaths.
While this was happening, VEGA detected those strange signals again, this time coming directly from her blue tinted eyepatch.
The Slayer saw this too and grinned under his helmet.
"I'm ready."
"Starting in three…
Two…
One…
Go!"
Plasma rounds immediately began flying towards the hardest targets, with both of them being hit with no problems whatsoever, then came the medium targets and even those fell under the red head's fire.
Finally, there were the stationary targets which she was able to clear almost without thinking.
And as the final target turned red and the timer stopped, she immediately looked up at the camera, waiting for VEGA to announce her time.
"You completed the course in…
Fifteen point five seconds, congratulations Shikinami."
Her face beamed with joy as she heard those words, but not before she shouted:
"See! I told you that I was the best! I've been doing this for more than fourteen years! Now let's go eat something because I'm hungry!"
"Affirmative, it is technically lunchtime after all."
Kitchen
"Ehhhh!? What's all of this!?" Asuka shouted as she saw the enormous amount of food on the table and from behind a door came Shinji who said:
"Oh, ehm… I was feeling a bit down and so I started cooking, then I got carried away after I saw the time…
So, shall we eat?"
"You're lucky I'm very hungry."
Asuka replied as she sat down at the table and began eating, followed by Rei and Shinji himself.
Meanwhile behind the door Samuel asked the Slayer:
"Why don't you go eat too? It would be a good opportunity to show them your face."
The man's reply was placing the tip of his super shotgun right under his chin, but then Samuel said:
"What? You can't tell me I'm wrong. Plus it would make you seem a bit more human to them.
But can you actually grab the silverware with the gauntlets on? I think that you'll have to remove them too."
The two of them stood perfectly still for almost twenty seconds before the Slayer put the gun away and walked towards the table.
Meanwhile Samuel thought:
"We three truly are the most dysfunctional set of roommates ever, heh."
Behind the metal barrier, the Slayer had already sat down after taking a chair while the pilots eyed him strangely.
Then, to their surprise, they saw him move his hands near his head and remove the helmet, revealing what he truly looked like.
His face was very defined, almost small in proportion to the rest of his body. His dark brown hair was cut short and any sort of facial hair was missing.
Various small scars could be seen dottered around it while his brown eyes shone with all the determination that drove the Hellwalker through his lone crusade against hell.
Once he placed down the helmet on the ground near him, he moved one hand closer to the other and pressed three buttons simultaneously.
This made the gauntlet snap open a bit and from there he did the same on the other arm.
As he placed the pieces of armor away, the pilots noticed just how much his hands seemed to be consumed, yet they were cleaner than what someone would expect from a man like him.
Apart from that, his hands were really big, probably two times the size of the pilots' along with his forearms, larger than those of professional bodybuilders.
Finally, he moved his chair a bit to have a better seat and grabbed the silverware as if no one was around him.
Then he gave in to the food, cutting a piece of meat and putting it into his mouth.
There were a few things that Doomguy had really enjoyed at that point in his life, things that made him feel truly alive and at peace with the world.
And now Shinji's food was one of them.
He immediately looked back at the boy and gave him the biggest thumbs up he could manage before going back to what could be considered heaven's food as he had not eaten anything for a couple of millennia now.
Shinji couldn't stop a small laugh from coming out when seeing the large and serious man devour his food like he had been starving for a couple of years.
And unknown to him, there was also another person who was greatly enjoying it, while remembering that time that they visited the water purification facility.
Even Rei seemed to like it, intrigued by the new tastes she was feeling for the first time.
Ten minutes later everyone was done, so Samuel took this as an opportunity to enter and discuss a couple of things.
And as he sat down he said:
"Since you all have finished I wanted to talk to you about some developments that were made in these days.
First of all, your escape will start tomorrow morning at 6 am. We could have gone during the night, but the heat in the desert will partially hide you from the drones' thermal cameras, making it a better option.
Second, today Ayanami and I went to check on the wreck of the evangelion and we discovered that we could use it's material to also fabricate ammunition, giving the fortress basically unlimited supplies.
The repairs to the Atlan are going to start soon too and we expect them to be finished after you have reached the village.
However we wouldn't be able to send it to you because it would take the Slayer too long to bring it there and VEGA can only remotely control it up to a distance of around three kilometers."
"Well I mean, we can manage on our own for a while right?" Asuka asked and Samuel replied:
"That's true. However after your escape NERV will surely send drones to search for you in all of the closest villages to the L barrier and given that yours is the closest they might decide to attack you there.
That's why I want the Slayer to remain with you at all times as I doubt that these villages have the capacity to defend themselves against a full blown assault."
"Oh...alright."
"And last but not least, we are about to do an engine and weapons test very soon, so I would like you to follow me to the bridge."
Main deck
"Alright, we are all here. Now VEGA, let's start with the engine test. It's only the vertical thrust, but let's give it a nice push anyway.
But before that let me ask you: how well do you take extreme G forces?"
And Asuka replied:
"We got used to them with the eva launch catapults in the old Tokyo 3,so it's okay i guess, but why exactly? I mean we'd have to worry about them only if we went to spac-...
Don't tell me that's what you meant with 'nice push'."
"Grab onto something, we are about to start." VEGA announced while a control panel opened up at the centre of the room while some metal poles came out of the two columns.
All of them grabbed them as hard as they could except for the Slayer and Samuel, who walked closer to the controls.
And as the robot gripped them, Asuka realized that they weren't all that different from the ones on a VTOL given how the ship moved.
Suddenly though the ground beneath them almost started shaking while the Argent energy building up in the engines was becoming louder and louder.
Then VEGA announced again:
Play:[Dark Defender] Evangelion 3.0 ost (oh yeah it's back)
"Liftoff in ten, nine, eight, seven…
Safety disengaged, five, four, three, two, one, ignition!"
NERV
"Why is the Earth shaking so much Fuyutsuki?! Is it an earthquake?"
Gendo asked as he calmly walked inside the man's office, which had been turned into the hub for controlling the drones.
"Worse, come look at thi-"
And in that moment they heard the loudest rocket engine ever, emanating so much power that the entire wrecked pyramid shook for a moment.
Finally, Kozo was able to get a camera on the target, but all they saw were buildings being utterly obliterated by the exhaust cloud of the Fortress as it rose up in the sky glowing like a comet.
Clouds were pushed away by the ship's enormous speeds as it got past mach 7 after crossing the mesosphere.
And as it slowed down, the engines finally came to a stop, without letting it achieve a stable orbit.
Still what it had just done was incredible to say the least as both men were left surprised beyond belief. But as always, Gendo said:
"This does not impact the scenario, they weren't able to achieve a stable orbit, so we still have them trapped in here."
Fortress of Doom, main deck
[Song starts fading away]
"And there goes all of our thrust, I thought that we would have been at least able to get out of the atmosphere."
Samuel said as he gestured the controls to prepare them for the re entry and VEGA replied:
"We would have had enough, but unfortunately some parts of the engines gave out during our ascent, limiting the amount of Argent that they received.
Still, they work fine, we just can't use them to get in orbit for now, but I'd say that we have an operational altitude between fifteen and thirty kilometers."
"Oh, oka-..." Shinji began saying before his stomach decided it didn't want to keep functioning anymore.
"Are you alright Ikari?" Rei asked without understanding what her companion was doing, but soon she stepped backwards as Shinji threw up on the floor, much to the disgust of everyone else.
Except for Asuka, who was struggling to not do the same thing.
The ship kept descending until it reached an altitude of five thousand meters, where it stopped and began levitating in place.
"Hey, why did we stop?" Asuka asked and VEGA replied:
"We are in this position to conduct a weapon test, also because this might cause Gendo to move the drones to another altitude.
By conducting the test at the wrong altitude we are making sure that nothing can hinder our plan.
Now please tell me, is there any target in Tokyo 3 that you would like to see obliterated?"
The pilots looked at each other for a while as a drone kept cleaning up Shinji's vomit and after a bit Asuka said:
"Do you have a visual on NERV? It's a large steel pyramid under the hole at the centre of the city."
Hearing this Samuel replied with an evil laughter as he searched for the building.
"There it is, this one right?" he asked and as Asuka nodded, VEGA began preparing the railguns.
"Wait… why are the frontal towers moving away?" Rei asked as the two pillars of rock and metal floated out of sight while the bridges that supported them retreated inside the structure.
Then the AI said:
"The rock hides them pretty well, but inside of each tower there is a two thousand millimeter caliber long range railgun that can fire rounds up to a velocity of mach ten with a rate of fire of ten shells per minute.
Unfortunately this reload speed is not available at the moment due to difficulties in repairing the mechanism, limiting us to only a shot every ten hours.
Their official designation is BFR."
Seeing the children's confused faces, Samuel said:
"Big F. Railgun."
"Oh." Asuka replied as the tips of the towers were now visible again.
The two monoliths had in fact attached themselves to the sides of the ship with their cupolas and turned by ninety degrees to aim forward.
VEGA turned the ship around and Samuel aimed the guns at the building through the thick clouds. All thanks to the sonar at the bottom of the Fortress.
Then VEGA spoke again:
"Firing sequence starting…
Shells loaded… safety disengaged… circuits have been opened…
Charging railguns… 10%, 25%, 50%, 90%,100%.
Ready to fire Hayden."
The robot smiled with an invisible grin as he pressed the trigger and the two weapons shattered the thick clouds with their powerful rounds and traveled towards their target.
Not even a second later two huge explosions came out of the NERV pyramid as the slugs made of an unknown metal penetrated meter after meter of armor.
As the dust settled, the pilots watched the two large holes that had been left by the railguns as Samuel said surprised:
"Huh, no casualties, we still detect the two life signals from before. They might have gone into a bunker that was missed by the shots."
A silent 'dammit' was uttered by Asuka as the two towers returned to their original position in front of the descending ship.
In the end the fortress rested on its original position and the controls returned hidden under the centre of the main deck.
Then Samuel checked the time and said:
"Well, we have nothing else to do for a while, you can go do whatever you want, I'll be down there at the bottom of the ship.
After dining we'll do one final run at the firing range and then I'll leave you be.
Just don't go to bed too late, we're going right as the sun rises tomorrow."
And with that Samuel left the deck, followed by the pilots who were headed to their room.
"Wait Asuka, could you remain for a moment? There's something I would like to ask you."
Hearing VEGA's voice, she stopped right in front of the door as it closed a moment later.
"What is it?"
"Why did you not sleep at all during the night?"
She really wanted to leave in that moment, however her gut told her that VEGA had been smart enough to lock the door behind her, so after a sigh of defeat she said:
"It's this thing in my eye, it doesn't let me sleep, I can't taste most stuff, I don't have to do basically anything as this angel keeps me alive… for some reason."
"Huh?"
"You see, shortly after they put this special eyepatch on me, the sub commander of the Wunder, Akagi, told me that it was the angel who was keeping me alive and that if it stopped giving me energy my system would collapse and kill me.
So for fourteen years I've been at the mercy of this thing in my eye and there has been nothing I could ever do about it."
"Interesting… so it basically blocks most of your hormones and subconscious brain functions right?"
"Sort of, yes."
"Okay, I asked you this because you three have been radiating a strange signal since I started monitoring you and I needed more information about it."
"Oh, I think I understand, what you're seeing is the blue blood pattern that angels emit, I do that too when the eyepatch glows.
Ayanami is a human angel hybrid so that doesn't surprise me, but what about Shin- the Brat?"
"That I do not know, however it seems to come from his brain and is emitted at random intervals.
However two such occasions where this signal manifested were last night when he tried to strangle you and during the first firing trials."
Asuka's eye widened at the mention of the events of the previous night and so she asked:
"Wait, does that mean that… he might have something controlling him?"
"It's an option… however we don't have enough information to go that way, it could be a myriad of other things for all we know."
"So… what are you going to do?"
"Nothing for the moment, except keeping an eye on him and his brainwaves, especially when he's alone."
Asuka almost let out a sigh of relief, but she stopped herself. Unfortunately both the Slayer and VEGA had noticed this and so he asked:
"You thought that we were going to kill him?"
"... For a moment… yes."
"What could have led her to think that? I know that they are forced to survive with few resources so they have to leave their emotions behind…
But this goes deeper than that, and the Slayer has noticed this too…"
"Say Asuka…
How well do your allies treat you?"
Now the girl really wanted to leave, because she knew the answer to this question, but it hurt so much to remind herself of it.
Still, she somehow found the strength to answer him and said:
"I have Mari and our commander Misato who treat me well, although the latter…
She has to hide behind her role most of the time to keep things going…
For the others… apart from a couple of people at the village… they…
They see me as strange… they don't consider me human at times… And they are kind of… right, I mean-"
She was suddenly stopped by the Slayer putting his arm on her shoulder and kneeling to look at her from the same height.
He moved a hand behind his suit and her cap materialized right in front of her.
Then he gently placed it on her head as VEGA said:
"I think that's enough Shikinami, you should go rest for later."
"...Alright, I'll… go take a shower."
And as the door closed behind her, VEGA asked the Slayer who had remained still:
"You're starting to care about them, right?"
The man replied with a neutral look.
"Maybe you could consider this a fresh start. They all need some help and you can give them that Slayer.
And who knows, you might even learn something from them…
Do you think that she'll see the message you left her?"
A very small, but noticeable grin appeared on the man's face before he left towards his room.
"She definitely will and despite the initial reaction… I think that she'll like it.
God dammit Shikinami it almost feels like my first times with Her again when I see you act like that… Especially with Shinji.
Shinji… that boy knows more than what he's telling us, but I'll leave him be for now, he looks too fragile to have that kind of conversation."
Guest room, 22:30
Nothing much had happened for the rest of the day and at night they had a delicious dinner prepared by Shinji and one final run at the shooting range.
Around an hour and a half later the pilots had already entered their room and were getting ready to go to bed for the big day.
The Slayer wasn't there this time, or at least, not yet after Asuka had asked him to enter once they were all already 'asleep'.
So for now she was simply passing the time on her Wonderswan as she waited for the other two to go silent.
This however, wasn't what Rei wanted to do that night.
"Captain, may I ask you something?"
"Huh?"
"What is that device you are using at the moment?"
"Oh right,her memory goes back only a couple of months… I guess it can't hurt to tell her."
"It's called 'Wonderswan', an old game console that I use from time to time."
"...what is a game console?"
"I can already see this going on forever… oh well, I mean I don't think that she has to rest too much, plus the Brat is already asleep, it's unlikely that she'll do anything with this information anyway,
Here we go Shikinami, let's teach an Ayanami series how to play games."
Twenty minutes later
"-anyway after you pass the checkpoint you are going to load the next section of the level which is underground, where you have to run away from a Boulder while collecting coins."
"Interesting, I believe that there are going to be obstacles and enemies along the way as well right?"
"Yes, but you can take a shortcut at the middle of the course which has a lot more coins and very few enemies.
It's tricky to get in there, but you've made good progress so far."
"Thank you captain."
"Whatever you say…"
Asuka then moved her eyes to the clock on the wall, noticing that it was saying 22:50
"Damn, is it already this late? Ten minutes and the Slayer is going to come inside as his time limit…
Ugh sometimes I really wish I could actually fall asleep for once."
Suddenly her left eye got colder and she generally felt a bit sadder, so she thought:
"Hey! You're the one who's causing this, but we're stuck in this situation, so there's nothing we can do about it."
The glow from her eyepatch went away and after a bit she heard the door open.
It was the Slayer who was gesturing to her to come out and she did, after taking her cap, leaving Ayanami to play with her Wonderswan.
"She better not dry out the battery."
She began walking next to the Slayer and It was clear that he wanted to show her something, but she wasn't sure exactly what.
"If he could have the decency to talk sometimes it would be easier to understand if he's about to kill us or just show us something."
She felt her eyepatch get warmer for a moment as she kept going.
"I mean what if one of us needs help in the future and he just doesn't say anything? Does he really think that he can resolve every problem by himself?
… Maybe since he won't talk… I can ask him about that message…
No. What kind of answer am I going to get from him anyway?
I mean he asked me to stay by his side tomorrow and that I wasn't alone! What the hell, does he not know that I don't need anyone to succeed!?
Even though he helped me at the firing-
No! That was another thing, nothing like the true battlefield! Where I show my true best qualities.
I was born to fight and even without an evangelion, I can manage, after all the enemies are going to be smaller too!
Or at least I hope so."
Her internal monologue over, Asuka raised her head and saw that he had brought her to his room.
They entered, walking towards the lit triple monitor computer which held VEGA's symbol at its centre.
"I'm glad you came, Shikinami." VEGA said from the pc.
"What's the reason for all this?"
"Oh nothing, I just noticed how eager you were in talking with Ayanami about your Wonderswan and we thought that you would enjoy playing on the Slayer's personal computer since your device is occupied."
"Well on second thought, making her play wasn't all that good of an idea… still I accept."
"Perfect, the Slayer will go back to the guest room to keep an eye on Shinji and if you have any questions I'm here. Have fun Shikinami."
"Hmm, this might be an opportunity to learn more about him… let's see if he has anything interesting about his history."
Samuel's office
"Dr. Hayden, your plan is working, she has started searching for information about the Slayer."
"See,I told you that they are somewhat predictable, it's a valid tactic anyway, to predict your opponents at least two or three moves ahead."
"Do you believe that Gendo could be doing the same thing?"
"There's a chance, although we have no way of telling right now. Still, if that was the case, then I'd like to know what he thinks of us, what pieces we are on his pawns."
NERV
"Three pawns? Really? Gendo they almost killed us a while ago and put two giant holes in the pyramid!" Fuyutsuki said as the man illustrated to him his 'plan' on a chessboard.
"These are not normal pawns however Fuyutsuki, they are fluid, in constant change, that's what makes my scenario elegant. Whatever they do, I'll be able to adapt accordingly and come out on top."
Hearing this the elder thought:
"I really don't want to be in the same layer of hell as you when we eventually get there Gendo, you're really starting to get on my nerves."
AAA Wunder, on a route towards Europe
*Knock* *Knock* *Knock*
"Come in."
"Commander, I am here to give the daily status report."
"Please proceed, oh and call me Katsuragi since we are in my office."
"Understood, Katsuragi.
Ahem, repairs of the ship are going swiftly and almost all crew members that had been injured in the incident have now recovered, we expect to be fully combat ready by the time we reach Paris.
On the other hand, we have not been able to fully restore unit 08's arms, so we attached to it the XJ4 module in preparation for the operation to ensure that it could provide enough cover."
"What about… the newcomers?"
"Oh, well, our observation team at village 2 has been able to send us some photos of the vessel during its ascent and subsequent weapon firing.
I'll leave them on your back desk now before I add one final thing."
And as the commander looked at the large papers, she said:
"Go on."
"A rumor has spread among the crew that the second and third children might be aboard the vessel, as well as the Ayanami series we were fighting against.
This theory was initially proposed by Pilot Makinami after she personally reviewed the photos, stating that 'her gut felt their presence upon that ship'."
"Hmm,alright. Tell village 2 to focus on the vessel and send us reports of its activity, as at the moment we need to focus on the mission ahead.
Once that is done however, we resupply as fast as possible and head back to Tokyo 3 to search for them."
"Understood, I must warn you however that our weather team has detected that red storms might start forming soon after the change in global air pressure that the fourth impact brought.
And given that our usual route will be blocked, it will take us longer to return this time."
"I'll see what we can do, dismissed."
The man made a formal salute and left the captain's quarters, then after a while of looking at the photos, Katsuragi thought:
"That small ship seems to be just as powerful as the Wunder and we still don't even know if it has other tricks up its sleeve…
I really hope you are okay there Asuka...
You too Shinji."
TO BE CONTINUED