Shinji woke up from his coma-like sleep.
'...Where am I…' The teenage boy turned his head to look out of the window, and flinched as a spike of pain shot down from his neck.
He curled into a ball as the memory of the massive monster's hand on his neck returned to his mind. The pain from it pulling and twisting his neck to it's breaking point… Before Shinji remembered that he wasn't EVA-unit, and was just a teenager. 'It… felt so real… That monster… Tried to kill me…'
He had no idea what had happened afterwards, but his chest hurt a lot, while his hand was bandaged.
Shinji narrowed his eyes a bit as he felt as if his right hand was a bit shorter than usual… and tried to move his fingers.
Nothing moved, and Shinji promptly panicked. "What- what- ow! Ow…"
"Shinji? Wake up, sleepyhead!" A female voice came from somewhere, and Shinji turned his head slowly towards the door leading out of what looked like a hospital room with a single bed.
The door opened and the woman, presumably who had spoken just now, stepped into the room.
Shinji recognized her as the one who had driven Shinji to Tokoy-3 and took him through Geofront into the pyramid-like Central Dogma… where he had met his father, and had been coerced to enter the massive EVA-unit.
"Heya, Shinji." Misato sighed as she looked at the teenager. "Try not to move your hand too much. All of your fingers were hit with a neural shock so potent that it fried a lot of nerves in your hand and forearm. Ritsuko did what she could, but a more long-term solution is still pending because she's a bit more preoccupied trying to fix Unit-01."
"That… What happened?" Shinji pulled his legs against his chest while sitting on the bed. "That thing, Angel, right? It beat me…"
"Yeah, but something happened. Your EVA took control and fought in your stead. We call that 'rampage', because we can't control the EVA after that point so it'll try to destroy everything- Be it Angels, the military, or civilian shelters. I felt like mentioning that before you start sulking harder about why we had to get you to pilot it." Misato had bunched her arms and was looking a bit angry, making Shinji flinch. "Ah, sorry… I didn't mean to put it like that. I'm just under a lot of stress right now. The commander told me to go and take a hike from the command bridge and get some sleep, although he used more cordial words. Big fat hypocrite, because he was in the CC as long as I was."
Shinji noticed that the woman had black bags under her eyes. "What happened? The Angel is around here, somewhere, right? I… Do I have to pilot that thing again?"
The feeling of the monstrous semi-intelligence against Shinji's mind was still causing him to shake in terror, and hoped against hope that the Angel would have just gone away or had been killed by the military…
"The Angel is dead, alright." Misato sighed again and sat down. Before she stood up again. "One second. I think there was one of those near here…"
The woman walked out of the door and returned a few uncertain and outright ominous minutes later with a pair of disposable cups in her hands. "Hooo, hot hot hot hot…"
She gave one of them to Shinji, and then sat back down.
Shinji stared at the cup of coffee, and felt a mixture of annoyance and relief that he had mistaken the woman's words for something more dangerous.
The uniformed woman sighed happily from the smell of caffeine and downed her cup in one go after blowing on it for a while. "Ahaa… that hits the spot… "
Shinji had put his cup to a table by the bedside. "The Angel is dead, right? So I don't have to go back into that thing, right? I can go back to school and never come here again?"
"Not quite." Misato told him while cradling the empty cup. "Just after the EVA unit rampaged, a second Angel entered the battle, and wrecked Unit-01. It pulled the EVA's engine out somehow, and Ritsuko is currently losing her hair over trying to manufacture something that could plug the gap, both literally and metaphorically, at least until another engine core could be constructed… made… invented. I'm actually not sure where they came from, and that's way above my level of clearance so I don't want to know either."
Shinji paled. "But… We're alive, right? Wait- what day is it?"
"We're more or less still alive… I feel like I am a walking corpse though." Misato sighed. "The second Angel killed the first Angel and took it's engine, heart, red-thing-magik, whatever the red thing is that makes them tick, and then broke right through the surface to Geofront. It wasn't even fazed by one hundred and eighty-seven simultaneous N2 mines that were dropped on Tokyo-3, although thankfully the mines came after we managed to extract the majority of the civilian population of the city."
Shinji had frozen absolutely still. "So… Did you defeat it somehow? You defeated it somehow, right?"
"It made its way through the Central Dogma, and headed straight to the elevators which would take it deeper. We tried to collapse bulkheads on it, but the walls would just fix themselves to allow it entry. We tried to flood the tunnels with LCL and concrete foam but it just walked through high-pressure LCL as if it was water, and the concrete-foam turned to dust when it touched it." Misato's eyes looked lifeless as she spoke, and Shinji got a feeling that he wasn't supposed to hear what she spoke about. "Rockets, missiles, rifles, anti-tank guns, nothing even fazed that skeleton-looking Angel. Not that it surprised any of us. It's AT-field was too strong. One of the soldiers even threw a carton of milk at it, and while it was momentarily… I hesitate to say 'amused', it didn't even pause. We lost over three hundred men and women just trying to slow it down. Three quarters of them soldiers, rest civilian subcontractors and civilian staff"
Shinji shook all over. "But it was defeated, right?"
"We're still trying to figure out what happened, but do you remember that blue-haired girl your father brought out to pilot Unit-01 when you refused? Rei Ayanami? Gendo Ikari then told you to, um 'get in the goddamn robot, Shinji'?"
"Yeah, I… do remember her… But I think it was you who said that 'get in the robot' thing…" Shinji remembered the broken, almost doll-like girl that looked so desolate and forgotten that the sight of her had burned itself permanently into his memory. "Dad brought her out to coerce me…"
"Well, at any rate since you were out of commission, we had to try to roll out Unit-00 as a last-ditch measure. But the skeletal Angel intercepted Rei midway through to the EVA pens…"
Shinji felt tears start to fall down his cheeks as he could see how the story would end, surprising him as he hadn't realized how close to death he had come- And that someone so broken already had been sent just to die, because Shinji had failed….
"...The skeleton paused next to Rei, and according to Ritsuko who was present, the Angel just… touched Rei, and, just like that, it was gone." Misato groaned into her hands. "It was somehow capable of masking it's signature so we can't track it properly when it entered Geofront, but Risato doesn't think it's dead… We've reinforced the security of both Central and Geofront to a ridiculous degree, not even a fly gets out without getting patted down for hidden Angels, and Ritsuko tells me that Terminal is safe…"
"What if it just went home?"
"Angels don't just 'go home'. It's got to be somewhere." Misato held her head with her hands.
"Um… You haven't told me how long it has been since that happened?" Shinji remembered something.
"I don't know for sure either… I haven't slept a wink since the first 'Blue-Alert' for an Angel… I think it's been like two days or something…" Misato sighed and leaned back.
She leaned even further back for a while and Shinji clapped his hands together as the woman had started to let out snoring sounds.
He then instantly lifted his hands up as Misato had snapped out of her doze to pull her service pistol and had dove for cover while scanning for threats. "Ah… Shinji-kun! Please don't scare me like that when the situation is still ongoing…"
"Please don't shoot me…"
"I'm sorry, alright?! I'm… Ugh…" Misato sighed and holstered her gun and looked at Shinji who was pale and shaking all over. "Listen, I…"
Her phone rang and she instantly snapped her folding cellphone open and put it to her ear. "Misato here! What happe- The Angel has returned?! Wait- You got Pattern Blue? Where?"
She paused and Shinji pulled his legs once against his chest, trying to make himself as small and as insignificant as he could. 'Not again, please, not again… Please go away…'
"The Blue signature is 'blurry'?! 'Somewhere in Kyoto'? What kind of answer is that?!" Misato was holding a finger against her other ear and screeching into the phone. "Get that mop hairdo blonde bimbo away from her sex toys and go tell her to get the EVA up ASAP! Have you already given a general emergency evacuation sign to Kyoto?! WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU HAVEN'T GIVEN THE EMERGENCY EVACUATION ORDER?! WHAT DO YOU MEAN THE SATELLITE YOU USED TO SPY ON THE ANGEL EXPLODED?! THAT THING WAS IN SPACE! SPAAACEEE!"
Misato screamed into the phone and Shinji had to put his pillow over his ears to block the noise, both of which was a bit difficult since he couldn't use the fingers of his dominant hand.
"The commander belayed the order to evacuate Kyoto? What the hell is Gendo doing? Where is he? 'Somewhere' is not a valid answer, Fuytsuki, you massive prick!" Misato fumed, and then calmed down, making Shinji fairly certain that the woman was more in control over her emotions than she let out. "Yea- yes, sorry, I apologize sir, yes, I know I am a captain, even if I am chief of operations, and you are the acting commander so your orders overwrite mine twice over, but what the hell would justify Gendo using millions of civilians as a meat shield for the Angel?!"
Misato paused as the answer came through the phone. And then she tossed the phone out of the window, right through the glass. "Classified?! Classified?! Classify my ass!"
The woman sighed deep and put her hands on her hips after adjusting her officer's cap and long bluish hair. She stayed like that for a while and finally turned towards Shinji and gave him a 'charming' smile that reeked fake cheer. "Shinji-kun, get out of bed. We're going."
"I don't want to."
"Too bad, we're going." Misato grabbed Shinji from the bed and stood him up, and put an outdoor-jacket on his shoulders.
"I really don't wanna…" Shinji sat back down.
"Do you want to disappoint everyone? If you dip out, then everyone will die. I will die. You will die. Rei will die." Misato's fake smile didn't waver.
Shjinji shook. "I… I… Fine… I guess…"
"Attamyboy!" Misato whacked Shinji in the back. "Now, let's go."
"...Where are we going?" Shinji asked carefully as he put his shoes on and Misato swirled around to put her hands on her hips, like a commander about to give an order to massive assault with an expectation for equally massive casualties.
"To search where my phone landed!"
.
.
Roughly half an hour ago.
'Right, so…' Momonga pondered as he contemplated his situation.
He had [Gate]'d to a fairly remote location, which had been his 'apartment' in Neo-Japan.
Or rather, where the building should have been, if such a building had existed. He had instead teleported into some sort of hilly forest, fourteen stories in the air, and had used [Fly] to get down with more grace than just falling flat on his face against the ground.
Momonga had then spent the next two days in a state of panic, which had been suppressed repeatedly, and then in a state of frenzy where he had repeatedly attempted to log out, send messages to devs, his guildmates, and just about everyone he could think of, and had gotten no reply.
He had then ambushed a passing-by jogger, who he had thought had been trying to ambush him in turn. Afterwards he had stripped her bare, and poked her breast to make sure his earlier result hadn't been a figment of imagination nor a one-in a million chance gone awry.
Momonga had not managed to log out, his messages had not been received or replied, the random woman had, in fact, been naked underneath her clothes, and she had unfortunately died from [Negative Energy Touch] in the process.
Momonga had then used the corpse to raise a Death Knight, and realized that the undead summons were much more capable in the… wherever he had found himself, than in YGGDRASIL.
'Right, so the undead can understand even complex orders…' Momonga thought while scratching his bony chin with his finger, staring at the sight of the Death Knight digging a hole in the soil using a shovel Momonga had made using [Create Item]. 'And a created item doesn't disappear even though I have not used a Data Crystal on it…'
Momonga waved his bony hand and the Death Knight stopped, slid the shovel into a scabbard of sorts, and then re-materialized it's massive black tower-shield and a flamberge.
"Alright, that concludes those tests… I can use my magic, but either this game is far beyond what the shitty devs could come up with, or would be willing to come up with, even if they had all the time and resources in the world, or… I'm no longer in Neo-Japan…" Momonga sighed to the air, even if the motion was just symbolic.
He tried to send a [Message] to his guildmates, just in case, but none of them responded. 'However I still have [Staff of Ainz Ooal Gown] so the guild hasn't disbanded… I'm not sure where Nazarick is though, if it's here at all… '
'So, I have limited resources, there are massive monsters and mechs in this world, and this world seems a bit… Uh, not exactly modern, but close…' Momonga looked at a hiking map he had found as he had rummaged through the deceased hiker's belongings.
There was an ancient-looking cellphone among the items, and Momonga had promptly broken it, well aware of the surveillance, remote detection, remote shutdown and pin-point locating features built into such devices. 'If she had bio-implants then those would have stopped working when I turned her into a Death Knight, but there might be a medical tracker in the phone as well… I really don't need a tactical medical unit charging me with their armored medical personnel carrier to recover the body, if she had bought that service… Assuming this world had companies providing that service…'
However, he wasn't sure if the local companies provided those services as he had seen the number '2015' on the phone alongside date and time, all written in Japanese, before he had broken the device. 'So, this is roughly a hundred years in the past… Ish.'
Momonga scratched his chin again. 'The landmarks match as well, alongside the language and rough shape of the countries from what I remember, at least before the nuclear wars and the corporate 'restructuring' of countries into massive global megacorporations… This kind of border-drawing nation-thing feels almost cute, honestly…'
However, he managed to snap out of his thoughts before the memory of 'Suzuki Satoru' inside him could get more reminiscent and/or afraid of the possibility of being 'logged off' and returning to the corporate dystopian hellscape.
'I bet Blue Planet-san would have enjoyed this sight…' Momonga sighed as he glanced at the lush vegetation around him and sat for a moment to look at the sky which was cloudy, but past those white clouds, light blue. 'Not having a miles-thick smog barrier between space and earth really makes the air clear to see through… I can almost see the stars, even though it's still morning…'
'Yeah, I think I can conclude that this world is, most likely, reality. But still obeys game-logic somewhat, at least in terms of my powers.' Momonga finalized his theory.
However, Momonga knew that he had to keep gathering more information about his surroundings before he could start to make his move. 'I think I've learned what I could from that woman's corpse, so onto the next thing… I could try experimenting with my spells more, but I should keep that for last, in case I am detected and get unwanted attention- It is fairly easy to conceal a Death Knight digging a hole or playing chess, but a fireball or lightning storm is harder to conceal…'
He thought about the two items he had looted, and figured that he should inspect the two 'mech engines' he had found.
"Right… [Scroll of Mute Presence], [Scroll of Hidden Life], [Scroll of Hidden Mana], [Scroll of…" Momonga tossed a bunch of anti-divination scrolls to target both himself and the area he was in, and also equipped his counter-divination ring that would send a [Fireball] at anyone who tried to spy on him through divination or gear like telescopes.
He then pulled the massive red 'higher rarity' S2 engine from his inventory.
.
.
"..." Gendo Ikari stared at the still-blank screens while sitting in the the commander-seat of NERV command center.
The man, while seemingly sleeping for a few hours at a time, had remained in his usual 'two elbows on table, chin leaned against hands, intimidating glint in eyes' pose for two days.
Maya, the second of the two chief technicians of NERV's command-bridge in Central Dogma, hadn't seen the commander go to a toilet or anything during the two-day vigil either. 'Does he have a waste extraction unit in that chair? Damn, I so need to get one of those…'
While she admitted to being a bit of a nerd, she didn't usually stay up for two days straight solely with help of adrenaline, coffee, and gaming 'supplements'.
Usually.
Specifically when she needed to stare at a single screen without anything interesting happening in it, outside a radar-like sweep going around and around again, representing the MAGI supercomputer located in the bowels of Central Dogma doing sensor sweeps for Angel-patterns.
Maya dozed while thinking about useless things, and straightened herself as she heard the 'Beep. Beep. Beep' of Pattern Blue in her radar.
"Magi detected a pulse! It is pattern Blue! We have Angel… s-somewhere?" Maya's speech turned to whimper as the 'pattern' was all sorts of erratic and barely visible, and seemed to be almost dispersed to the point it covered most of Kyoto.
Makoto sighed. "It's centered somewhere around Kyoyot… Kytotot… Kyoto."
The First Lieutenant and chief of technicians didn't seem to fare any better than Maya.
Gendo stared at the screen, and Maya realized that the commander must have fallen asleep with his eyes still open, stuck giving the 'Gendo-pattern murder glare #3' to a bible that he had propped on his desk.
Maya had whispered to Makoto during the vigil, wondering the the commander was starting to become religious, and had been rewarded with a biting remark to 'focus on her task' from Gendo who had apparently overheard the two.
"Should we go and wake him?" Makoto sounded quite conflicted, and it looked like the technician was seriously weighing the pros and cons of ignoring the Pattern Blue event, or waking the commander.
Fortunately for the technicians, an elevator came from behind the highest-level of the three-level 'command bridge', with 'regular technicians and observers' at the lowest level, not-present officers and very much present chief technicians on second, and Gendo on the highest.
Fuytsuki walked out from the elevator, took one look at Gendo, and coughed to his fist in a way that roughly came out as 'Ritsuko was in your room', at least as far as Maya heard it.
Gendo's murder-stare turned to 'Instant Death mark 4' and Maya was surprised the bible in front of him didn't disintegrate on the spot.
"Tell her to mind her own business, and that the room on the eighth level is not used by me even if it is in my name." Gendo voiced, before he seemingly woke up and turned to send his second-in-command a murder-glare. "Amusing."
The commander then turned towards the two technicians who resisted the urge to take cover. "Situation report."
"Pattern Blue somewhere in Kyoto! It's dispersed, we can't get a good lock!"
"Bring a satellite to scan the area." Gendo told the two Technicians.
"Right…" Maya grumbled a bit while she turned to start the process of using MAGI to hack into one of the imaging satellites passing the area, and using it's retrograde thrusters to bring it in line with the 'Pattern Blue', even if it would cause the satellite to fail to maintain its trajectory and fall from the sky in few months. "Let's just destroy a multi-billion yen piece of space technology like that, but not get a proper coffee machine in the rec-room…"
"Pot coffee builds character, and your remarks on our funding have been noted."
'Fuck, there goes the shitty coffee machine for even shittier solution…' Maya cursed, this time inside her head as she was fairly sure Gendo had installed a microphone into each level of the command deck.
Nonetheless, the satellite was soon in position above Kyoto and it could start scanning the area.
It took multiple scans until the satellite finally found something, which it wouldn't have been able to do if it wasn't for MAGI system piecing together an 'image' from various very slight distortions, illogical pixels, and unlikely topology.
"Bring it on screen." Gendo ordered as Maya got a response from MAGI, stating that it had pieced together an image.
A vaguely blurry creature with a red-ish orb in it's midsection of sorts was standing next to a massive blurry red orb-like object roughly the size of a small building.
"What is it doing?" Fuytsuki leaned against the command desk in the third deck, beside Gendo. "That orb… Is it making a new Angel?"
"Unlikely. We saw it steal Unit-01's engine as well as the Angel's S2 engine. Compare the patterns." Gendo's latter sentence was directed to Maya.
Maya scanned the Pattern Blue and overlaid it with the Angel from a few days ago, and the two matched… Mostly.
"The Pattern is changing constantly! It's… Mutating somehow!" Maya told the two.
"Keep observing." Gendo's orders were simple. "Bring another satellite if you have to."
The satellite kept taking more images, and MAGI kept piecing them together.
Suddenly the creature was no longer blurry, and the Satellite managed to take one more picture, showing the creature as clearly as it's camera allowed, which was then further sharpened to MAGI to the point it was almost as if someone had taken the photo from a low-flying drone.
And then the satellite-feed was cut off.
"The satellite stopped responding!" Maya announced.
"Bring in another one." Gendo didn't even flinch.
.
.
Momonga had been too engrossed in his observations of the 'mech-engine' that he hadn't realized the duration of his anti-divination scrolls had ran out, and only realized he was being spied on when his automatic anti-divination countermeasure activated and shot a fireball at some unknown observer. 'Well then. I suppose that cements the likelihood that I am being observed… But who…'
He looked at the red orb, and put it back in his inventory. '...Hm… I think I have enough information from that for now… Apparently it's a core for a… 'Angel' of sorts… I suppose that's not the same thing as YGGDRASIL's angels, but eh, I suppose that cements the fact that this world isn't a carbon copy of Neo-Japan, only hundred years back, but rather something from between YGGDRASIL and Neo-Japan, with both magic and technology present in same era to a limited degree…'
Momonga was quite interested by the advertised 'infinite energy' of the S2 engine, as he had analyzed it with [All Appraisal Magic Item] and had gotten a vague understanding of it. Vague, as he had absolutely zero idea about the math behind the whole 'organ's function, nor of it's biomechanical nature. 'Figured that dropping out of high-school to work would catch up with me eventually…'
He contemplated his options and came to the conclusion that he should probably try to establish some sort of contact with the locals, presumably, hopefully, with less violent results than what had happened the last time. 'I wonder if I should go back and apologize… Then again, I massacred quite a few people, so I don't think 'sorry, teehee' is going to cut it…'
Momonga sighed again and sat down. 'Hm, so someone is spying on me… However, that gives me a chance. I'll just sit here for a while, doing nothing, and start casting detection spells. That way when someone approaches, I'll just [Perfect Unknowable] turn the tables and interrogate whoever comes to confront me, and if they send missiles like last time, I'll just teleport out instead of 'going in a blaze of roleplaying glory'… There are strong enemies in this world, based on that 'Angel' I guess, but I'm fairly sure that a skyscraper-sized monster won't be able to creep on me to cut off my escape before I notice it first… Assuming, of course, that whoever was spying on me survived the [Fireball].'
And so, Momonga sat down while pulling the counter-kill ring from his finger… But before that, stored a [Undead Army], a tenth-tier spell to create a mass of various undead creatures to create havoc, into a [Greater Seal] that would allow him to unleash the distraction at a moment's notice.
The part of him that was Suzuki Satoru was starting to feel a bit queasy over the growing realization that what was around him was likely a 'real life' of sorts, and that he had casually massacred hundreds of people already.
But between the forcibly regulated emotions and the seriousness of the situation he had found himself in, the queasiness passed in a breeze.
'The blue sky is so pretty though…' Momonga looked up at the bright, blue sky...
.
.
"Second satellite is in position!" Maya announced and a MAGI-enhanced image returned to the massive screen in the front of the three-layer command center.
The skeletal angel was sitting on the ground, seemingly at peace, with it's back against a tree, and it was looking straight at the satellite high in the sky.
"Eh…" Maya felt more than a bit intimidated by the Angel's stare, even if it was just a still picture. "What… is it doing?"
"...Belay all evacuation and military deployment orders. Order everyone to stand down." Gendo stood up. "Fuytsuki. Take command."
The Commander of NERV exited the bridge, and Fuytsuki stared at the man for a brief moment before telling the technicians to carry out Gendo's orders and then left after the man for a 'brief debrief'.
.
.
"Sir…" Fuytsuki looked a bit uncertain as he caught up with the commander in a corridor. "Is this wise?"
"MAGI- Voice command. Delete voice records- Ten minutes, starting now." Gendo spoke to the air, and the MAGI system blinked one of the lights in the corridor to confirm the orders.
"The Angel has already shown it can pierce right through our defenses. It reached Rei, and showed in front of Ritsuko that it can initiate the Third Impact whenever it wants. Now it wants to talk." Gendo told his second-in-command. "Do you trust me, old friend?"
"I do. But this seems reckless."
"This Angel is either artificial, or outside what was described in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Yet we cannot rule out the possibility that this Angel is the one that SEELE has in their pocket, and they have altered it somehow. In that case this attack was a direct message to me, to humble me and teach me my place. In either case, we cannot ignore it, and we don't have the tools to fight it." Gendo explained while adjusting his overcoat and checking his service pistol while unloading an armor-piercing magazine and swapping it with hollow-points. "It wants to talk… So let's talk. Send a helicopter to meet me above, and a squad of soldiers to cover me it if things go awry."
"A helicopter? A VTOL-jet transport would be faster..."
"Faster and more quiet. But if we make the Angel think we're trying to sneak up on it..."
"Understood, sir." Fuytsuki bowed slightly and returned to the command center to give the orders.
Gendo was feeling uncertain for the first time in a long while, but he always knew that making concrete plans was utter foolishness when dealing with SEELE- Either as their subordinate, or as their opponent.
And if the Angel wasn't from SEELE…
Gendo's lips gained the slightest smirk that would have likely caused Fuytsuki to reconsider his friendship, had he been present to see it.