June 22nd 2015

GDI Extraction Convoy

Outskirts of Tokyo 3


The last 48 hours had been a confusing mess for one Shinji Ikari.

For a start there had been the platoon of GDI infantry that had surrounded his Aunt and Uncles home complete with ground vehicle and air support that had sent the entire community of coastal villages that had once been rural hillsides deep within rural Japan.

Then had come the flurry of orders. The paperwork that consisted of a National Diet mass signed order, including signatures from the Prime Minister himself to hand the custodial order from his Aunt and Uncle back to Shinji's father with immediate effect.

Next had come the paperwork that placed that immediate effect order under GDI jurisdiction due to his father being assigned as the head of an entire "organ" of the United Nations under GDI control.

Which in effect had placed him as an internationally recognized asset of something that was currently deemed "classified" to him under the control of a sub-organisation known as NERV and something known as EVANGELION.

The whole thing was backed up with a "Deprivations of Liberty" act that had apparently been signed on his behalf by a dozen national leaders alongside well known international voices whom had turned their previous attitudes towards personal freedoms against the walls and signed the teenagers freedoms away.

The reams of paperwork combined with two dozen armed soldiers setting up a firebase practically outside his front door alongside the implication that his teenage freedom was about to be revoked combined into one futile action.

He slammed his bedroom door shut, put his weight of his back up against the closed door as he slumped against the floor and cried against the futility of it all.

His entire life was being turned upside down, he would have to leave his home for as long as he had known it, leave the few friends he had made over the years and leave the place he had managed to claw together and mark as his own because his father and his military goons had decided he suddenly had a use besides being the continuation of his fathers genes or whatever fucked up idea that his so called dad had for recalling him after sending him away for what was now over three quarters of his life.

Looking around the pieces of his life marked around the bedroom around him, posters of the few bands that survived his ancestral apocalypse alongside the bits and pieces of a life that had already been uprooted before he had even been born.

The simple fact of the matter was that the "home" he had known with his aunt and uncle was a pre-fabricated unit that was mostly made of titanium and insulation sheets because his carers had been forced from their marital home into a mass produced twin unit setup due to the rising sea levels from second impact, and then forced from whatever site they had been moved to because of that event due to the constant spread of Tiberium.

As a result, the few belongings that Shinji could call his own outweighed those of his carers by a ratio of at least three too one.

But somehow, it all seemed stupidly unfair.

As if, beyond all reason despite everything being dumped upon him he had somehow brought all of this own on him from on high either by thought or by action unknown.

Shinji had always felt as if his existence was some kind of stain on the universe as a whole, and what was happening in the here and now was some kind of proof of that assumption.

He knew, inside that he had no choice to accept the hand that been dealt to him but the simple fact that he had to play the role of the disenfranchised teenager would also be expected of him.

So he had to play that role as well.

He could hear the voices of his aunt and uncle in the unit beside his own, the kitchen and main living room was set alongside the second unit which contained the two bedrooms and shared bathroom – so even his action of locking his bedroom door was futile because he has forgotten to lock the adjoining bathroom doors.

Evidently one of his soon to be captors knew this as well – he looked up across the room to the almost hesitant knocking from the bathroom door.

"Shinji?"

The voice came through twice – the first was accented, and although he did not know enough English to know that the owner of the voice was American, the second voice which was overlaid at the same time was electronic and synthesized from some kind of handheld translation unit.

"May I come in?" the double overlaid but only half understood voice inquired.

"Do what you want" Shinji muttered in a tone that reflected his inner dissonance "Seems like you can do whatever you want anyway . . . "

The metallic door that separated the twinned bathroom slid open, and a young looking GDI trooper with a messy but short cut blonde haircut stood in the doorway with a sly grin on his face.

The man stood into the doorway and began to speak.

"Sorry about having to use the translator but I don't speak Japanese, I've never been able to get the hand of it." He began "The names Mike, Michael McNeil"

The smile was sly, but honest – the face of the man who wore it could not be much older than a decade than Shinji himself. Although Shinji was intelligent and coldly aware of the tricks that people played on themselves in the world, he found himself being brought to the point of being oddly unarmed by the look on the face of the soldier before him.

"May I come in Shinji?" The man questioned, adding on the assertion from before.

"Do what you want . . . " Shinji muttered in reply.

"You know, My room used to be a lot like this" McNeil said as he looked around the teenagers bedroom before squatting on his hands and knees within arms reach, but at the side of Shinji.

"I say it used to be like this, Nod bastards killed my parents and me and my brother Jake used to share a lot of rooms kind of like this with whatever we managed to take with us along the way"

"I'm sorry about your brother . . . " Shinji continued for politeness sake as he moved into the next line of the conversation " . . . and your parents" he finished.

"Don't worry about it man" McNeil went on with the dialogue, trying to open a truly equal level for the two too converse "I've come too terms with the truth . . . Nod wanted to turn me into a weapon when they took my parents hostage . . . and my brother too. When GDI stepped in they gave us a new life. Which is why I'm here to talk to you now"

The silence following this statement was physically audible, as if reality itself was stopping for just a moment to give sway to these few seconds to give dramatic sway to the moments that followed.

"I'm truly sorry for the pieces of paper in the other room – but if it helps, in any way at all – I have been through them myself"

"Really?" the apprehensive teen replied.

"When Solomon led the troops that attacked the compound me and my brother and a hundred of others had been kept in we had been left adrift after second impact, forced into mass orphanages without the hopes of being fostered. The only way we could see to pay back to those who had helped to free us was to join GDI and help those to needed to be freed in turn. Half a lifetime later here I am, and my brother is back in Hamburg somewhere helping to try and keep the yellow zones clear and look over those who had been hurt by them. We still talk. Sometimes"

McNeil's reaction was an utter surprise to Shinji – who was somehow expecting some kind of contrived or scripted call to arms.

"Look man, I'll break it down to you. One guy who's almost a kid to one who is" McNeil continued "I don't know fully why we're here beyond the shit that isn't redacted on the paperwork – but we've come down from the base just over the mountains behind your home to take you to Tokyo 3 to your dad and some NERV chick who outranks the shit out of all of us here called Kitsuragi"

"Really?" Shinji inquired, caught slightly off guard by the troopers sheer honesty.

"Completely true my friend – I will also admit my C.O asked me to talk to you here – but I sympathize man. I will try and make it easier . . . anything I can pack or anything I can do to help . . . but dude – You've been conscripted to come with us – what can I do to help?"

Shinji turned his head, while he still held some suspicion inside his head he at least wanted to know why he had been brought into the shitstorm that had been unleashed on his front door.

"Could you help me pack my things? And come with me?" Shinji asked, trying to return the hand of favour that had been extended to him.

Even with three times the personal belongings than his so called forced foster parents, it did not take long to pack his clothes, personal items, posters and loose belongings into the marked GDI crates for Tokyo 3.

His aunt had held him close, with tears at him being ripped away from what she perceived as a household she had built with a son she had never given birth too.

His uncle had shook his hand firmly – while he had taught him the virtues of being steadfast and the attempts to teach him to cling to external ideas of honor and the defense of those who could not defend themselves. Although Shinji felt a teenage burning towards these ideals he had never had a chance to actually practice them for himself.

He would never admit the fact that he did indeed secretly hope for the chance to practice these feelings.

With a final wave of farewell to his foster carers, he and his belongings where packed into the rear of an APC he did not know the official designation for, but was about as long as the unit he used to call him in length. Even including his belongings it could comfortably barrack a group of six troops inside it's body, or up too twenty soldiers for a short time.

Shinji laid sideways inside the drop down bed of the machine, close to the drivers cabin – his curiosity over-riding his bodies own directive for mere mortal sleep in the desire to learn more about those who would be his delivery drivers.

Listening through the unfiltered reports both from the commanding officers of the convoy of which McNeil was a member and the other members was the passing through of Tiberium fields somewhere between where he used to live and the almost mythical fields themselves to greet further methods of human built safety.

Even with these overheard reports of these travels, the almost Argonaut level voyage through what used to be mainland Japan, he almost did not believe it. Eventually however, the sheer levels of human attention combined with tiredness, hunger and attention caused him to fall asleep some time between the hand over between GDI and NERV handover was supposed to take place.

Shinji was snoring into the side of his barrack bunk, inside the amphibious APC when the Angelic life form known as Sachiel ripped it's way into the world – almost at an opposing direction to Shinji Ikari.

Almost as if the arrival of the teenager who had no idea of the events of the world around him had beget the reactions of god like entities of which he had no idea of their existence.

Cause and effect on a scale so far out of human understanding that only the gods themselves who rose to challenge the opponents that where being drawn towards the arena which they would be drawn into conflict would truly understand.

Far outside the armored cocoon of his APC, Sachiel began it's slow and lumbering walk towards Tokyo 3.

Orca fighters and bombers began their attack runs as the towering figure of black flesh and white bone continued to make its almost pedestrian stroll through the ruins of the old pre-Tiberium world which was utterly uninhabited by anyone who had half a sense of self, or at least a sense of self preservation.

As the fighters broke off – the Orca bombers began their last bombing run as the combined fire of a few hundred Titan walkers and Predator medium tanks combined their efforts on taking out the wandering god.

At this moment, Misato Kitsuragi was making her efforts to meet an armored convoy as the armored convoy made it's own plans to move around a sudden change of orders regarding a mountain range marked as being "REDACTED – NO ENTRY"

At the same time, a red phone in a base known simply as the Geofront want off with a blaring digital vibration and a flickering red LED as a GDI general Shinki would never meet replied "Understood. We'll deploy them according to plan."

The Orca fighters and bombers scattered.

In high orbit – no less than six Ion cannon satellites converged on the lower hemisphere to target the mountain region which Sachiel was wandering through.

Through all of this, Shinji Ikari slept.

The six magnetically charged channels met, somewhere between the feet of the youngling god.

Because the god itself had not been the channel of the attack, it chose not to pay attention to the flurry of ionic particles that combined between it's feet as the air around it proceeded to ignite at a temperature close to the surface of the star of Sol itself.

However, that did nothing to slow the slurry of ionic particles, nor the ignition of the atmosphere around the target, or the melting of the bedrock around the Angel as the sky burst into flames.

Within the Geofront base, several kilometres underground and with over two thousand levels of human built defensive measure between himself and the creature . . .

. . . Kozo Fuyutsuki felt a chill ride it's way down his spine. Which was not at all helped by the foolish GDI officer crying out loud "It seems you won't be needed this time!"

" . . . what's the target status?" One of the various GDI or NERV underlings questioned.

"With that explosion, it must be obliterated" another assumed.

"Restoring visual" another, more level headed technician reported as the static resolved itself into a vision of hell itself.

Sachiel, regardless of the square cube law, regardless of the law of thermodynamics and regardless of the laws of common fucking sense stood where six ion cannon blasts had stuck a wound into the exosphere of the planet itself, with newfound gills ripping through it's skin to tear through the atmosphere of the world whilst a second skull forced it's way through and underneath it's existing face with red, burning eyes.

"And those where our trump card . . . "The soon to be demoted GDI general muttered as he sank back into his seat defeated.

"How is this possible?!" another questioned, another puny human who had lost his nerve in front of an alien god questioned.

"Goddamn monster!" The last made as a futile statement as his fist thumped into the console – as if the actions of a mere human punching a statement of machine metal could pause the march of a godling creature.

All the while – The redirected GDI convoy and Misato Kitsuragi moved to make their inevitable meeting at the very outskirts of the third fortress city whist the logistical efforts around them moved to make sure the third child made sure his meeting with destiny.

The third child stirred as the APC rolled it's way through a river ford, and Mcneil watched as the teenager shifted in his sleep.

"Take it easy kid, we'll get you there on time" he said, before he turned his eye back to the screens inside their golden painted metallic shell.


A moment from Scythe himself.

Hokay – So in the last chapter I caught the eye of ArcAngela who proclaimed my work as being "fucking good" at that writing thing – she is a damned funny youtuber I have a lot of respect for and I am a member of her discord community. If you happen to like eldritch level shit in the world of Starbound with the addition of other memes then go ahead and search for her channel on youtube and enjoy the funnies.

As for this chapter and the one before it – I'm attempting to weave the two universes into each other on a base level in the hopes that something new comes out of that combination which is what I hope every crossover writer aims for (rather than character A meets character B and sexy times happen) so I'm hoping between this chapter and the next chapter I can do both the C&C and EVA settings justice to the point where people will enjoy reading this for BOTH the settings together.

No shitty blue Renault this time around however.

In the mean time, I'm about to watch Eva 1.11 and 2.22 and the series together whilst waiting for the C&C remaster to come out whilst I continue to whittle words to a page . . .

. . . so in the mean time, Tarrah for now.