The P.E.A.C.E. Project.
It would have been a nice day, if not for the rain. The sudden downpour had come out of nowhere, and the meteorologists hadn't predicted it. Shinji pulled his raincoat on tighter, and wished he had brought a sweater.
"Hey Shinji, you gonna cross or not?" Asuka asked, yelling from the other side of the street. Shinji shrugged and crossed the street. A passing car hit a pothole swollen with rain in the half flooded street, throwing up a splash that soaked Shinji's pants.
"Not again..." Shinji sighed, looking down at his wet clothing.
"Hurry up third child! We're going to be late for school!" yelled Asuka, as she grabbed Shinji by the arm and pulled him down the road.
Shinji plopped down in his seat, the teacher too senile to notice him come in over a half hour late. Rei glanced up briefly, and then resumed staring out the window. Yet another boring day of school.
Suddenly there came a rapping, as of someone gently tapping, tapping on the classroom door. When the teacher failed to get the door, whomever it was let himself in.
The class fell silent.
An American had walked in, with uncombed brown hair, a tan vest covered in pockets, and a UN surplus peacekeeping uniform. He nodded to the class, raised his hand in the form of a greeting, and then walked over to the teacher. The American waved his hand in front of the teacher's eyes, trying to get his attention. When that failed, the American wrote his name on the classroom's blackboard-
Nicholas Rivers.
Nick waltzed over to a desk, sat down, and pulled out a pocketknife. Shinji moved up a desk to get a better look at the new student. Nick, whoever he was, seemed to be trying desperately to get into trouble. He had used the pocketknife to unscrew the top of the desk, revealing the innards of the integrated computer.
"Hey, what do you think you're doing?" Shinji demanded, already angry with Nick. The American looked him in the eyes, and gave him a smile that chilled Shinji to the bones. Nick went back to what he had been doing, and took a small box out of one of his vest's many pockets. He hooked it up to the computer, and then replaced the cover onto the desk. The class rep stood up, and watched over Nick's shoulder.
He brought up the computer's web browser, and somehow managed to sign on. The desks didn't have a cable connection. Shinji guessed this meant the American had plugged a cellular modem into the computer. Nick carefully typed in an address, and a blurry picture appeared on the screen. At first, it was impossible to make out. When the picture resolved, Shinji saw something that both shocked and amazed him. Rivers had somehow managed to break into the NERV database.
The cafeteria was as busy as it ever was, which meant it was almost empty. Kensuke sat down beside Shinji and Asuka, the three of them watching the new student.
"What do you think? He seems pretty suspicious." Kensuke said.
"I'm not sure. During class he managed to hack into the NERV computers, and then-"
"WHAT?" Asuka screamed, "That's impossible! No one could do that without the proper security codes!"
"Well, that's what I thought..." Shinji said.
"Then I'll just go ask him." Asuka started to get up, but Toji, who had been sitting next to her, stopped her.
"Don't even bother. I tried talking to him and he acted like I wasn't even there..." Toji warned.
"You don't have my charm, so sit down and shut up." Asuka strolled over to Nick's table, and sat down in the seat next to him. "Hello! I'm Asuka, how's it going?" Nick looked at her, emotionless. He then reached down into his vest, and produced a small paper envelope. Nick handed the envelope to her, and then calmly walked away. Asuka sat back down next to Shinji. She looked at the plain white envelope a moment more, and then opened it. Inside was a color photo of Asuka in her heat-resistant entry plug suit.
Asuka's screams were heard for miles around.
Toji's fist slammed into Nick's jaw with a resounding crack. Remembering how Shinji had been shoved back several feet by that punch, Toji was rather surprised when all Nick did was flinch a bit, spit some blood onto the ground, and smile. Nick pointed to the tip of his chin, and waited. Toji punched him again. Nick grunted this time, and almost had to take a step back from the momentum on the blow, but stopped himself. Instead, he used the turning motion to deliver a right hook to Toji's gut. Shinji's friend grunted, then crumpled to the ground, feeling like a sledgehammer had been driven into his stomach.
"Not too shabby. You actually managed to hurt me." Nick said, in a voice that sounded far too soft and gentle for what he had just done, the person he seemed to be.
"Toji, are you all right?" asked Kensuke, kneeling down by his best friend.
"I will be..." He said, trying to gain his feet. He couldn't stand, vertigo gripping him and pulling him down. "But I'll feel a lot better when Asuka kicks his sorry ass in."
"Asuka, I'm home!" Shinji called, as he walked in the door to his apartment. Shinji walked into the living room, where Asuka was flipping through channels angrily.
"Hello third child." She said, a hard edge to her voice.
"I heard about what happened-"
"Drop it. You're expected back at NERV HQ."
"What?"
"Someone should be along to pick you up any moment now." The doorbell rang, as if on cue. Shinji opened the door. Nick was there; the last person either Shinji or Asuka had expected to see. Shinji backed up a step. Nick looked at him.
"Let's go. I'm to bring you to the geofront."
"WHAT?! No, there must be some mistake you can't-" Nick handed Shinji a card. It was a NERV ID card, issued to Nick, and still good for another year.
"I was told to bring the second child as well." Asuka suddenly appeared, like an avenging valkyre.
"Well well well... if it isn't Mr. Rivers..." She lashed out with a sudden shin kick, still furious about the picture. All she got for her efforts was a stubbed toe.
"Are you sure his ID was real?" asked Asuka.
"Yes. It was one of the new temporary IDs we give to some people," whispered Shinji. They were in an elevator, descending into the geofront. Nick stood apart from the two, watching the numbers on the display as they moved downward.
"Um... why are you here, Mr. Rivers?" asked Shinji
"There are no stupid questions, just stupid people," responded Nick, as the elevator came to rest. The door slid open, revealing Misato.
"Commander Ikari is expecting you three." Misato said, looking directly at Nick. "Although I'm not sure why he wants to see YOU. We haven't had any problems with unit 02." Nick smiled, and walked past her.
"Hello Nicholas." said Commander Ikari, "I believe you will be a great help to our cause."
"We'll know soon enough. How's cage 7 holding up?" responded the American.
"The restraints have been taken away, and the LCL has been drained."
"More equipment should be here by the end of the week." Gendo nodded, then turned to his son and Asuka
"You will follow Nick to cage 7. He will explain everything on the way."
"Well?" Asuka said, impatiently.
"Well what?" Nick was already halfway to the cage, and hadn't said anything the whole way there.
"Ikari said you'd explain everything. Are you going to or not?"
"Fine. I run a private mecha construction company. It's name is P.E.A.C.E.; (P)aradox (E)vangelion/anti-(A)ngel (C)ombat (E)ngeneers."
"You're the ones who built my Eva!"
"Yes. Anyway, while we were building the Evangelion, we got to wondering why you didn't include more internal weaponry, or at least a half- decent control system. I sat down with a few of my better designers -" Nick opened the door to the cage. "-And built this." In the cage was an Eva, yet it didn't look the least bit like the ones Shinji was used to piloting. It was ebony black, with neon blue details. It lacked the two vertical fins that were on the other Evas, and instead had two immense steel wings on it's back. The Eva had large boxes on several places of its body, and a strange symbol on its chest plate, a circle with a vertical bar through it. "It is Evangelion unit Theta, one designed for unsupported combat."
"Unsupported?" Asked Shinji, confused.
"No external power needed, for one thing. I don't know why you people used batteries, of all things, to power mecha. The current fusion reactors we use are safe enough to be used."
"You said it had weaponry built into it. Is that true?"
"Of course. We couldn't reverse engineer the AT field generator you folks at NERV sent us, so we fell back on a more... radical idea. It's an inertia-dampening field, and it works by repelling solid matter. I'm wearing a smaller version." Nick unbuttoned his UN over shirt, revealing what looked like a tank top woven from thick-gauged wire. The wire pulsed in a black light, like a dark mist. "In the way of offensive weaponry, Theta's got the usual load out; two auto cannons and a set of plasma claws."
"That's the usual load out? It's far more than an Eva should carry!"
"And what about the wings?" asked Asuka.
"The wing binders - binders are extra limbs - allow Theta to jump. With the extra equipment, Theta's quite a bit heavier than your Evas. If I had been privy to the construction on some of the Eva's components, maybe I would have been able to make something a bit better. However, for now, it's good enough. See, Even the sensors can-" Nick started, when an alarm blared, cutting him off.
"Warning, Angel approaching! Report to your battle stations!" came Misato's voice, over the loudspeaker. Shinji and Asuka ran out the door, while Nick just smiled and stood there.
"Launch the Evas!" yelled Gendo, while watching the main screen. The Angel had come out of the water with no warning, as it had taken the shape of a giant amoeba, and was as transparent as glass. It was now entering Tokyo-Three, spearing buildings with semi-solid limbs as it came.
The Eva wanted to slow the rapid ascent provided by the elevator. Shinji always ran into this problem, the Eva wanting to grab at the sides of the vertical shaft. He had always been able to control it, though, and today was no exception. Suddenly, what looked like drops of water started dripping into the shaft, splashing on and around the Eva. Something heavy hit the Eva on the head, sending a vibration through the entire mecha. Shinji looked up. It had been a red orb a few dozen feet in diameter, and the scale size of a basketball to the Eva. Then the third child had a breakthrough that made nearly as much sense as soup.
"It's an Angel! And I'm trapped in a small tube with it... oh no." The last thing Shinji saw before his monitors dissolved into a rainbow blur of static was a wave of clear gel looming over him.
"What's taking those two so long? Are Shinji and the Angel both trying to keep me from getting any glory?" asked Asuka, directing the question at the universe in general. Suddenly, the door to a vertical shaft opened up behind her. She turned, expecting to see Unit One rise up on its elevator platform. Instead, nothing came out of the shaft, and Asuka found herself staring into pitch-blackness. A small window opened up on her view screen, showing Nick sitting in an almost unidentifiably warped entry plug.
"Asuka, I'll be up there in two minutes. The elevators aren't designed to handle the weight of unit Theta."
"Then how do you think you're going to get here? Are you going to climb up?"
"Nope. I'll take a minute and a half to release the wing binders' thrust limiter. The other thirty seconds are talking to you." Nick shut off the link. Asuka started to curse at him in German, but stopped when an Eva elevator rose into place from the empty shaft. She was ready to yell at Shinji for being so late, but stopped when she noticed the elevator was empty, with the locks still in place.
"But... where's unit one?"
Nick was busy ripping out the limiters when a heavy crash sounded from the shaft behind his Eva. Unit one was there, crouched and looking at him with glowing red eyes. He waved to the Eva, and then went back to his work. The Eva walked closer, and for the first time, Nick noticed the red orb buried in the Eva's chest plate. A half transparent limb shot from Unit one's back, sealing off the exit with a pile of smoking rubble.
"Oh my. I'll just walk over here then..." Nick slowly stepped towards the open hatch in Theta's abdomen.
"Asuka, the plan's changed!" Yelled Nick, over the comm. "The Angel has taken over Shinji's Eva, and I'm going to have to 'subdue' it. You stay up there in case it tries to get back through the shaft. Contact Gendo, tell him what's happening." In the corner of his comm screen, Asuka could just make out the purple and black Eva that was wreaking havoc.
"Okay. But if you run into trouble, call R-"
"Rei is already here. Stay there, I'll be okay." Asuka wasn't so sure. She had already fought her share of Angels, and they had all been much tougher than she had assumed.
"Nicholas, you will allow me to defeat this Angel." Rei said, in her usual monotone.
"In that thing? No way. Unit Zero may be powerful, but it is a prototype. Just fire on it from a distance with the positron rifle. I can take an Eva easily." As if to prove it, Nick activated the plasma claws on Theta, and three magnetic bottles formed around each hand, then rapidly filled with plasma. In less then a second, six curved swords made of plasma had been created. The Angel smashed a bank of equipment, and then threw a chunk of debris at Nick.
"Nicholas, you will stop this at once!" yelled Gendo, angry with Nick for usurping his command and engaging the Angel in combat. Nick dodged the piece of metal and circuitry thrown by the possessed Eva, then fired a burst of auto cannon at it. The shells exploded on the Angel's AT field, and only managed to scorch the things armor.
"Gendo, I have something more important to do than argue with someone that listens as much as a gnat. Just tell your pet Rei to stay out of my way, or something very bad could happen to her."
"What are you going to do?"
"Activate the Psychic Communicator."
"No! You fool! It cou-" Nick shut off the line, then took a deep breath. He typed in the word PSYCOMMU, and the world collapsed into a bright blur.
Shinji woke up in a now all too familiar place, a hospital bed. He sat up, and looked to his left to find Rei.
"What happened?" he asked, weakly.
"An angel took over Unit One." she responded.
"Is it okay?" Shinji stood up, his hospital gown crinkling as he did.
"No. Nicholas nearly destroyed it in the process of killing the Angel."
"And you didn't try to stop him?"
"I did. He blew off Unit Zero's head."
"You were far out of line. I have taken custody of Unit Theta. You are officially ordered to leave Tokyo-Three." Gendo dropped the written order into Nicks lap. Nick laughed at Gendo, and then got up.
"And what do you plan on doing with it?"
"My son will pilot it until Unit One has been repaired." Gendo started to leave the room.
"He won't be able to handle it. You already know that though, don't you?" Gendo glared at him and left.
Shinji looked up nervously at Theta's bulk.
"Do I have to pilot it?" He asked, somewhat scared of the Eva. Misato sighed. She had been over this a million times with Shinji already.
"Unless you absolutely cannot pilot it. If your sinc rate is too low, then I guess Asuka will have to fight the angels alone until Units Zero and One are repaired..." Shinji looked worried for a moment, then nodded reluctantly. Misato signaled for the tests to begin.
"80%...82%... It's even larger than the sinc rate he had with Unit one!" exclaimed Maya. Ritsuko looked worried.
"94%...97%...98%... we're getting some weird effects..." Suddenly, the somewhat normal readings leaped off the scale, and Shinji's life signs vanished.
"Shinji!" Asuka yelled, who had been watching the trials. The life signs came back as abruptly as they appeared, then started to oscillate between being there and not. Ritsuko slammed on the emergency shutdown button, and the room went dark as the power was cut to Theta.
"Get Shinji out of that thing!"
"So? He lived, didn't he?" stated Nick, still in the hospital. Asuka and Rei had gone to see him, and to yell at him about his Eva.
"It doesn't matter! You should have warned someone!" Asuka screamed.
"I did. Gendo didn't care as long as he could get another toy to play with." Rei slapped Nick, then left the room. Asuka shook her head.
"You know, I'm starting to respect you a bit more. Anyone who can make wondergirl freak out like that is quite some guy." Asuka smiled and followed Rei out.
TO BE CONTINUED
It would have been a nice day, if not for the rain. The sudden downpour had come out of nowhere, and the meteorologists hadn't predicted it. Shinji pulled his raincoat on tighter, and wished he had brought a sweater.
"Hey Shinji, you gonna cross or not?" Asuka asked, yelling from the other side of the street. Shinji shrugged and crossed the street. A passing car hit a pothole swollen with rain in the half flooded street, throwing up a splash that soaked Shinji's pants.
"Not again..." Shinji sighed, looking down at his wet clothing.
"Hurry up third child! We're going to be late for school!" yelled Asuka, as she grabbed Shinji by the arm and pulled him down the road.
Shinji plopped down in his seat, the teacher too senile to notice him come in over a half hour late. Rei glanced up briefly, and then resumed staring out the window. Yet another boring day of school.
Suddenly there came a rapping, as of someone gently tapping, tapping on the classroom door. When the teacher failed to get the door, whomever it was let himself in.
The class fell silent.
An American had walked in, with uncombed brown hair, a tan vest covered in pockets, and a UN surplus peacekeeping uniform. He nodded to the class, raised his hand in the form of a greeting, and then walked over to the teacher. The American waved his hand in front of the teacher's eyes, trying to get his attention. When that failed, the American wrote his name on the classroom's blackboard-
Nicholas Rivers.
Nick waltzed over to a desk, sat down, and pulled out a pocketknife. Shinji moved up a desk to get a better look at the new student. Nick, whoever he was, seemed to be trying desperately to get into trouble. He had used the pocketknife to unscrew the top of the desk, revealing the innards of the integrated computer.
"Hey, what do you think you're doing?" Shinji demanded, already angry with Nick. The American looked him in the eyes, and gave him a smile that chilled Shinji to the bones. Nick went back to what he had been doing, and took a small box out of one of his vest's many pockets. He hooked it up to the computer, and then replaced the cover onto the desk. The class rep stood up, and watched over Nick's shoulder.
He brought up the computer's web browser, and somehow managed to sign on. The desks didn't have a cable connection. Shinji guessed this meant the American had plugged a cellular modem into the computer. Nick carefully typed in an address, and a blurry picture appeared on the screen. At first, it was impossible to make out. When the picture resolved, Shinji saw something that both shocked and amazed him. Rivers had somehow managed to break into the NERV database.
The cafeteria was as busy as it ever was, which meant it was almost empty. Kensuke sat down beside Shinji and Asuka, the three of them watching the new student.
"What do you think? He seems pretty suspicious." Kensuke said.
"I'm not sure. During class he managed to hack into the NERV computers, and then-"
"WHAT?" Asuka screamed, "That's impossible! No one could do that without the proper security codes!"
"Well, that's what I thought..." Shinji said.
"Then I'll just go ask him." Asuka started to get up, but Toji, who had been sitting next to her, stopped her.
"Don't even bother. I tried talking to him and he acted like I wasn't even there..." Toji warned.
"You don't have my charm, so sit down and shut up." Asuka strolled over to Nick's table, and sat down in the seat next to him. "Hello! I'm Asuka, how's it going?" Nick looked at her, emotionless. He then reached down into his vest, and produced a small paper envelope. Nick handed the envelope to her, and then calmly walked away. Asuka sat back down next to Shinji. She looked at the plain white envelope a moment more, and then opened it. Inside was a color photo of Asuka in her heat-resistant entry plug suit.
Asuka's screams were heard for miles around.
Toji's fist slammed into Nick's jaw with a resounding crack. Remembering how Shinji had been shoved back several feet by that punch, Toji was rather surprised when all Nick did was flinch a bit, spit some blood onto the ground, and smile. Nick pointed to the tip of his chin, and waited. Toji punched him again. Nick grunted this time, and almost had to take a step back from the momentum on the blow, but stopped himself. Instead, he used the turning motion to deliver a right hook to Toji's gut. Shinji's friend grunted, then crumpled to the ground, feeling like a sledgehammer had been driven into his stomach.
"Not too shabby. You actually managed to hurt me." Nick said, in a voice that sounded far too soft and gentle for what he had just done, the person he seemed to be.
"Toji, are you all right?" asked Kensuke, kneeling down by his best friend.
"I will be..." He said, trying to gain his feet. He couldn't stand, vertigo gripping him and pulling him down. "But I'll feel a lot better when Asuka kicks his sorry ass in."
"Asuka, I'm home!" Shinji called, as he walked in the door to his apartment. Shinji walked into the living room, where Asuka was flipping through channels angrily.
"Hello third child." She said, a hard edge to her voice.
"I heard about what happened-"
"Drop it. You're expected back at NERV HQ."
"What?"
"Someone should be along to pick you up any moment now." The doorbell rang, as if on cue. Shinji opened the door. Nick was there; the last person either Shinji or Asuka had expected to see. Shinji backed up a step. Nick looked at him.
"Let's go. I'm to bring you to the geofront."
"WHAT?! No, there must be some mistake you can't-" Nick handed Shinji a card. It was a NERV ID card, issued to Nick, and still good for another year.
"I was told to bring the second child as well." Asuka suddenly appeared, like an avenging valkyre.
"Well well well... if it isn't Mr. Rivers..." She lashed out with a sudden shin kick, still furious about the picture. All she got for her efforts was a stubbed toe.
"Are you sure his ID was real?" asked Asuka.
"Yes. It was one of the new temporary IDs we give to some people," whispered Shinji. They were in an elevator, descending into the geofront. Nick stood apart from the two, watching the numbers on the display as they moved downward.
"Um... why are you here, Mr. Rivers?" asked Shinji
"There are no stupid questions, just stupid people," responded Nick, as the elevator came to rest. The door slid open, revealing Misato.
"Commander Ikari is expecting you three." Misato said, looking directly at Nick. "Although I'm not sure why he wants to see YOU. We haven't had any problems with unit 02." Nick smiled, and walked past her.
"Hello Nicholas." said Commander Ikari, "I believe you will be a great help to our cause."
"We'll know soon enough. How's cage 7 holding up?" responded the American.
"The restraints have been taken away, and the LCL has been drained."
"More equipment should be here by the end of the week." Gendo nodded, then turned to his son and Asuka
"You will follow Nick to cage 7. He will explain everything on the way."
"Well?" Asuka said, impatiently.
"Well what?" Nick was already halfway to the cage, and hadn't said anything the whole way there.
"Ikari said you'd explain everything. Are you going to or not?"
"Fine. I run a private mecha construction company. It's name is P.E.A.C.E.; (P)aradox (E)vangelion/anti-(A)ngel (C)ombat (E)ngeneers."
"You're the ones who built my Eva!"
"Yes. Anyway, while we were building the Evangelion, we got to wondering why you didn't include more internal weaponry, or at least a half- decent control system. I sat down with a few of my better designers -" Nick opened the door to the cage. "-And built this." In the cage was an Eva, yet it didn't look the least bit like the ones Shinji was used to piloting. It was ebony black, with neon blue details. It lacked the two vertical fins that were on the other Evas, and instead had two immense steel wings on it's back. The Eva had large boxes on several places of its body, and a strange symbol on its chest plate, a circle with a vertical bar through it. "It is Evangelion unit Theta, one designed for unsupported combat."
"Unsupported?" Asked Shinji, confused.
"No external power needed, for one thing. I don't know why you people used batteries, of all things, to power mecha. The current fusion reactors we use are safe enough to be used."
"You said it had weaponry built into it. Is that true?"
"Of course. We couldn't reverse engineer the AT field generator you folks at NERV sent us, so we fell back on a more... radical idea. It's an inertia-dampening field, and it works by repelling solid matter. I'm wearing a smaller version." Nick unbuttoned his UN over shirt, revealing what looked like a tank top woven from thick-gauged wire. The wire pulsed in a black light, like a dark mist. "In the way of offensive weaponry, Theta's got the usual load out; two auto cannons and a set of plasma claws."
"That's the usual load out? It's far more than an Eva should carry!"
"And what about the wings?" asked Asuka.
"The wing binders - binders are extra limbs - allow Theta to jump. With the extra equipment, Theta's quite a bit heavier than your Evas. If I had been privy to the construction on some of the Eva's components, maybe I would have been able to make something a bit better. However, for now, it's good enough. See, Even the sensors can-" Nick started, when an alarm blared, cutting him off.
"Warning, Angel approaching! Report to your battle stations!" came Misato's voice, over the loudspeaker. Shinji and Asuka ran out the door, while Nick just smiled and stood there.
"Launch the Evas!" yelled Gendo, while watching the main screen. The Angel had come out of the water with no warning, as it had taken the shape of a giant amoeba, and was as transparent as glass. It was now entering Tokyo-Three, spearing buildings with semi-solid limbs as it came.
The Eva wanted to slow the rapid ascent provided by the elevator. Shinji always ran into this problem, the Eva wanting to grab at the sides of the vertical shaft. He had always been able to control it, though, and today was no exception. Suddenly, what looked like drops of water started dripping into the shaft, splashing on and around the Eva. Something heavy hit the Eva on the head, sending a vibration through the entire mecha. Shinji looked up. It had been a red orb a few dozen feet in diameter, and the scale size of a basketball to the Eva. Then the third child had a breakthrough that made nearly as much sense as soup.
"It's an Angel! And I'm trapped in a small tube with it... oh no." The last thing Shinji saw before his monitors dissolved into a rainbow blur of static was a wave of clear gel looming over him.
"What's taking those two so long? Are Shinji and the Angel both trying to keep me from getting any glory?" asked Asuka, directing the question at the universe in general. Suddenly, the door to a vertical shaft opened up behind her. She turned, expecting to see Unit One rise up on its elevator platform. Instead, nothing came out of the shaft, and Asuka found herself staring into pitch-blackness. A small window opened up on her view screen, showing Nick sitting in an almost unidentifiably warped entry plug.
"Asuka, I'll be up there in two minutes. The elevators aren't designed to handle the weight of unit Theta."
"Then how do you think you're going to get here? Are you going to climb up?"
"Nope. I'll take a minute and a half to release the wing binders' thrust limiter. The other thirty seconds are talking to you." Nick shut off the link. Asuka started to curse at him in German, but stopped when an Eva elevator rose into place from the empty shaft. She was ready to yell at Shinji for being so late, but stopped when she noticed the elevator was empty, with the locks still in place.
"But... where's unit one?"
Nick was busy ripping out the limiters when a heavy crash sounded from the shaft behind his Eva. Unit one was there, crouched and looking at him with glowing red eyes. He waved to the Eva, and then went back to his work. The Eva walked closer, and for the first time, Nick noticed the red orb buried in the Eva's chest plate. A half transparent limb shot from Unit one's back, sealing off the exit with a pile of smoking rubble.
"Oh my. I'll just walk over here then..." Nick slowly stepped towards the open hatch in Theta's abdomen.
"Asuka, the plan's changed!" Yelled Nick, over the comm. "The Angel has taken over Shinji's Eva, and I'm going to have to 'subdue' it. You stay up there in case it tries to get back through the shaft. Contact Gendo, tell him what's happening." In the corner of his comm screen, Asuka could just make out the purple and black Eva that was wreaking havoc.
"Okay. But if you run into trouble, call R-"
"Rei is already here. Stay there, I'll be okay." Asuka wasn't so sure. She had already fought her share of Angels, and they had all been much tougher than she had assumed.
"Nicholas, you will allow me to defeat this Angel." Rei said, in her usual monotone.
"In that thing? No way. Unit Zero may be powerful, but it is a prototype. Just fire on it from a distance with the positron rifle. I can take an Eva easily." As if to prove it, Nick activated the plasma claws on Theta, and three magnetic bottles formed around each hand, then rapidly filled with plasma. In less then a second, six curved swords made of plasma had been created. The Angel smashed a bank of equipment, and then threw a chunk of debris at Nick.
"Nicholas, you will stop this at once!" yelled Gendo, angry with Nick for usurping his command and engaging the Angel in combat. Nick dodged the piece of metal and circuitry thrown by the possessed Eva, then fired a burst of auto cannon at it. The shells exploded on the Angel's AT field, and only managed to scorch the things armor.
"Gendo, I have something more important to do than argue with someone that listens as much as a gnat. Just tell your pet Rei to stay out of my way, or something very bad could happen to her."
"What are you going to do?"
"Activate the Psychic Communicator."
"No! You fool! It cou-" Nick shut off the line, then took a deep breath. He typed in the word PSYCOMMU, and the world collapsed into a bright blur.
Shinji woke up in a now all too familiar place, a hospital bed. He sat up, and looked to his left to find Rei.
"What happened?" he asked, weakly.
"An angel took over Unit One." she responded.
"Is it okay?" Shinji stood up, his hospital gown crinkling as he did.
"No. Nicholas nearly destroyed it in the process of killing the Angel."
"And you didn't try to stop him?"
"I did. He blew off Unit Zero's head."
"You were far out of line. I have taken custody of Unit Theta. You are officially ordered to leave Tokyo-Three." Gendo dropped the written order into Nicks lap. Nick laughed at Gendo, and then got up.
"And what do you plan on doing with it?"
"My son will pilot it until Unit One has been repaired." Gendo started to leave the room.
"He won't be able to handle it. You already know that though, don't you?" Gendo glared at him and left.
Shinji looked up nervously at Theta's bulk.
"Do I have to pilot it?" He asked, somewhat scared of the Eva. Misato sighed. She had been over this a million times with Shinji already.
"Unless you absolutely cannot pilot it. If your sinc rate is too low, then I guess Asuka will have to fight the angels alone until Units Zero and One are repaired..." Shinji looked worried for a moment, then nodded reluctantly. Misato signaled for the tests to begin.
"80%...82%... It's even larger than the sinc rate he had with Unit one!" exclaimed Maya. Ritsuko looked worried.
"94%...97%...98%... we're getting some weird effects..." Suddenly, the somewhat normal readings leaped off the scale, and Shinji's life signs vanished.
"Shinji!" Asuka yelled, who had been watching the trials. The life signs came back as abruptly as they appeared, then started to oscillate between being there and not. Ritsuko slammed on the emergency shutdown button, and the room went dark as the power was cut to Theta.
"Get Shinji out of that thing!"
"So? He lived, didn't he?" stated Nick, still in the hospital. Asuka and Rei had gone to see him, and to yell at him about his Eva.
"It doesn't matter! You should have warned someone!" Asuka screamed.
"I did. Gendo didn't care as long as he could get another toy to play with." Rei slapped Nick, then left the room. Asuka shook her head.
"You know, I'm starting to respect you a bit more. Anyone who can make wondergirl freak out like that is quite some guy." Asuka smiled and followed Rei out.
TO BE CONTINUED
