Welcome to chapter 5. This chapter has been rewritten for the Third Impact Trilogy.
NOTE: Please excuse any inconsistencies and vagueness between the rewritten chapters and the un-rewritten chapters. They will be dealt with as each new rewrite is finished.
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"Got it." The codec turned off, and before stepping out of the storage room he was hiding in, Snake checked his soliton device. Snake checked the map for the green dots, representing secondary computer control rooms in the facility, then checked his local radar for any soldiers that might be patrolling in the area. Satisfied with what he saw, he stepped out of the room and started for the nearest control room.
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Seeing that Shinji was not in his room, Rei concluded that he might be at Asuka's. When she opened the door to room 407, it was there where she found him, holding a quiet vigil over Asuka's unconscious form.
Shinji never looked up at Rei once. He might have reacted differently if the Rei behind him was the Rei that he knew... but she was lost to him for good. "What is it, Ayanami?" he said coldly, rivaling even Rei's demeanor.
"We are to return to our own sleeping quarters now, Pilot Ikari," Rei replied in an equally distant voice.
Shinji did not acknowledge Rei's answer, and both pilots stood in the room in silence for a long time.
Pilot Ikari was not always like this, Rei thought to herself. She "remembered" a different kind of Shinji, if the word "remember" is the right one to use here...
But I've only met him recently, and he's never talked to me much...
Sometimes at night, she would get hazy, indistinct images in her dreams; dreams of being submerged in a strange liquid, of sitting in a cockpit filled with the same substance, and of her fellow pilots, especially Shinji. Sometimes, during these nights, Rei would wake up in a cold sweat, as she tried to place some kind of meaning to what she just saw, but couldn't, as if these images were submerged in liquid, and they would not resurface so they could become clearer.
However, at that moment, Rei felt something new, yet oddly familiar... it felt very heavy in her chest. She placed her hand on her chest as she tried to pair this emotion with a word.
Is this... sadness? Well, yes, but it's something else. I think it's called "sympathy..."
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11-41 Studios presents - -
Evangelion : The Third Impact Trilogy
A new Evangelion fan fiction saga in three parts.
Part 1: Apocalypse
Evangelion/Metal Gear Crossover
Chapter 5: Remember
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Four guards were stationed inside the hallway; one next to each of the three doors in the hall, and one extra guard.
"Man, that Kawamoto guy is an idiot," one guard mused. "He's always screwing around, never doing his work."
"I know what you mean, man," another guard added. "One day, I could have sworn that he was playing 'soldier-boy' like a little kid, waving his gun around and pretending to shoot shit."
"Somebody needs to report him; he'll be out of our skin, and made to do cleanup duty or something in the cafeteria."
"Like that would do any good! We lost a good deal of guards just a couple of hours ago! This place needs whatever soldiers they can find."
"That retard will probably be the first to go if we ever get attacked."
As that last guard was in the middle of starting another sentence, they could hear the door leading out of the hallway open and close, signifying their cue to stop talking about Kawamoto.
"Shut up, here he comes," one of the guards said quietly. "Hey Kawamoto, what do you need now?" he said, turning his head in the direction of the door.
At the exact moment after finishing his question, blood gushed from his chest and back, as if a high-speed projectile just entered and exited his body.
"Holy shit!" Two of the guards came to the fallen guard's side, while the third remaining guard covered them with his P90 sub-machine gun.
"What the hell? There's no one there!" the guard with the readied gun exclaimed. He turned around quickly as if to anticipate a rear attack, but all he saw was a metal object stuck to the wall. He walked up to it, and upon closer inspection, he saw that it was a bloody throwing Kunai.
Shit...
"Hey- -" Another deftly thrown kunai found its target; the guard made an odd gurgling noise from his throat and fell to the floor in a heap.
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Shinji turned his head around towards the direction of the room's door.
"What was that?"
Rei did not need Shinji's forewarning to notice that something was wrong. Terribly wrong. Rei narrowed her eyes at the door, as she felt a strong, dread presence that she could not explain.
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"I-Iwata?" While one guard kept attending to the first fallen guard, the other remaining guard dashed over to the other casualty. Soon, he was lying beside him, with a throwing blade stuck on his back.
The last guard was terrified. He stood up and pointed his gun everywhere frantically. Then, he saw it. It was difficult to make out, but he could perceive a shimmering, almost-invisible female form. It was something out of a movie, like that old pre-Second Impact anime the guard saw a few years ago. Half out of fear, and half out of vengeance for his friends, he fired a long burst at the figure.
The female ninja's sword flew from the scabbard on her back, and she successfully changed the course of each bullet, letting her remain unscathed. The last two bullets she deflected made its way through the left arm and right leg of the guard, consecutively.
The guard let out a high-pitched shriek of pain, as he dropped his gun, and went down on his left knee. The ninja, now uncloaked, made her way towards the guard.
The guard was wide-eyed. The ninja bore an uncanny resemblance to - -
"The First Child?"
She stopped in front of him, and crouched down, her head very close to his ear. She whispered to him - -
"You scream like a girl."
- - before stabbing him with her sword.
No word could express the anguish the guard felt as the unexpectedly hot metal slid into his thoracic cavity. He could feel the sword, as if it was vibrating at high speeds, cut through major organs. The ninja stood up while still holding onto the blade, resulting in the sword slicing upwards through the guard's body, from his chest to his head, effectively splitting the guard nearly in two. With a final quick, downward stroke to cleanse the sword of gore, the assassin sheathed her sword on her back scabbard, and walked towards the door on the end of the hallway.
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"There appears to be another attack by that ninja!" Shigeru Aoba reported. "There's no response from the guards that were stationed outside Asuka's room!"
Misato stood there wide-eyed at the news. "No..."
"Sending two squadrons to the area now - - they should arrive in 1.3 minutes."
Aoba was suddenly hoisted up from his seat by his uniform collar. He was now only inches away from Misato's angry face.
"They will be dead by then!" Misato said through clenched teeth. "Find a way to get someone there quicker!"
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The klaxons that went off in the area caught Snake by surprise.
Damn, have I been spotted? No, my radar is still operational. It must be that other intruder...
Snake heard a large number of footsteps headed his way. Checking his soliton again, he could see that it was a group of at least ten guards running towards him.
Damn! Snake knew that those were terrible odds. He searched his area desperately for some kind of hiding spot, yet all he could find was a pair of cardboard boxes lying on a corner.
Boxes...
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"Hurry! We have to get to the Children!" The squadron of soldiers quickened their pace to a full sprint, and ran to the area being attacked, never noticing a cardboard box mysteriously moving away from them...
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The door literally flew from its hinges, and crashed into the wall across from it.
"Ikari, watch out!" Placing her body in front of Shinji's, she pushed him onto the bed where the unconscious Asuka still lay. The ninja walked in just as she was taking an orange light into herself.
"An AT-field..." Rei said silently, as the ninja faced in their direction.
Shinji, on the other hand, was not wondering about the AT-field.
"She...she looks like you, Ayanami..."
Rei could only gasp with shock at this realization, as the ninja smiled, and took a step towards the Children. With the same surprised expression on her face, Rei stood up, and took one step forward, towards her lethal doppelganger.
"Ayanami!!" Shinji exclaimed, tears welling up in his eyes. "Ayanami! Rei! What are you doing?!? Rei!!!!!!"
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"Ayanami," Shinji cried out as he opened the hatch to the entry plug. "Ayanami! Are you all right?!? Ayanami!"
Rei shook her head into consciousness as best as she could, and looked up at Shinji's worried face.
"I...Ikari," she managed to mutter softly.
Shinji's voice sounded like he was on the verge of tears. "Ayanami, don't say that you have nothing else... and don't say 'good bye' every time we launch. It's too sad!" Shinji could not hold it in anymore, and he broke down crying in front of a confused Rei.
"I... I'm sorry," replied Rei. "I don't know what to do at times like this..."
Shinji looked up, with tears streaming down his cheeks… and a smile on his face.
"Why don't you try smiling?"
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Rei gasped back into reality, just in time to see the ninja jumping towards her, with sword fully drawn...
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Maya reported her findings to the Captain. "There are not one, but two AT-fields in the area where the Children are!"
"Two of them? Are there two attackers there?"
"One AT-field seems to be trying to neutralize the other!"
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The ninja was seemingly stopped in her tracks in mid-air, a wide-eyed look of surprise on her face. Rei, with her arms extended in front of her, seemed to push at the ninja without ever touching her; the would-be attacker slammed into one of the room's walls, leaving a large indentation on it.
Rei looked exhausted, but determined.
"Pilot Ikari," she said between gasps of breath. "Are you unhurt?"
Shinji did not respond, as an orange light surrounded Rei, who now inched closer to the dazed ninja. The ninja pounced forward in desperation, but the orange light around Rei intensified in brightness as she held her arms out again, and the ninja was hurled towards another wall, this time crashing right through it.
"Ikari, please stay here and protect Pilot Soryu," Rei ordered, "as I will be here to protect you."
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Snake saw a nearby yellow cone on his radar.
A surveillance camera? He thought. There's no way to avoid it… I'll have to use chaff.
From a pocket, he procured a grenade with a yellow stripe, pulled the pin out and tossed it out on the hallway. In seconds, the hallway was covered in tiny pieces of metal that disrupt electrical signals. Snake's Soliton radar went into its "jammed" mode.
Good. It's working. As he walked out onto the hallway and into the next room, he did not see the camera following his every step…
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"Lieutenant, one of our security cameras reports an intruder near our vicinity."
"Is it a ninja?"
"No sir."
He looked at the playback on the monitor. "Chaff? Haha, he should know better - - chaff is useless against our state-of-the-art monitor system." He chuckled to himself. "He might be a distraction so the ninja can get his job done around here... take him out. Don't bother to report it to Major Katsuragi, they've got enough problems of their own with that damn ninja attacking the Children."
"Are you sure? Who are we - -"
"Tell Shirou to get his gear and intercept this bothersome mosquito."
"Wh - - I see... good plan sir."
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The ninja was not winning this fight. Every time she would hit Rei with her extended AT-field, Rei would hit back just as hard. In this manner, they took the fight all across the hallway, leaving cracks and dents in the walls, floor, and ceiling, and leaving bruises on both fighters' bodies.
She managed to get a lucky hit, though. When Rei managed to deal the ninja a hard blow, slamming her into the ground, Shinji stepped out of the room to get a better view of what's happening. Rei turned around, as she dropped her AT-field for just a second.
"Ikari!"
This was the ninja's opportunity. Using the palm of her hand, she struck Rei hard in the chest, sending her sliding down the floor.
"Ayanami!" Shinji exclaimed, as he rushed towards Rei's side. Taking advantage of the distraction, the ninja made a hasty retreat. Letting down her AT-field, and activating her thermoptic camouflage, she ran down the end of the hallway, through the door, and was soon nowhere to be seen.
Shinji cradled Rei's head in his arms, as he pleaded for her to return to consciousness.
"Ayanami! Ayanami! Rei!! Please, wake up!!" he cried, hot tears flooding his eyes and running down his cheeks.
Rei slowly blinked her eyes, as she painfully lifted a hand to gently touch Shinji's cheek.
"Shi… Shinji…" she whispered softly, before sinking back into unconsciousness.
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As Snake entered the next area, the jamming cleared up, and he was able to read his soliton radar again. What he saw on it caught him off guard.
On the other side of the door at the other end of the area, there was a green cone - - an unusually large green cone.
Shit, Snake thought, as he removed his Five-seveN from his hip holster, and aimed it at the door. With a field of vision that big, that must mean that he's a - -
The door opened abruptly in the middle of his thoughts, to reveal an unusual guard. He was not dressed in the brown uniform that most of the other guards wore, but instead, his garb consisted of a black, bulky, BDU (battle dress uniform). Its bulkiness gave a hint that he might have been wearing some seriously heavy armor. To complete the look was a completely black riot helmet with tinted visor, and what Snake recognized as a SAW (Squad Automatic Weapon) in each hand.
Snake did not give it a second thought. Almost instinctively, he double-tapped the trigger on his pistol, sending two armor-piercing rounds towards his target, aiming for the chest and head. The bullets simply bounced off the chest and head.
"…big bastard," he muttered out loud, finishing his thoughts.
The guard smiled under his helmet, and pointed both barrels of his guns directly at Snake. He spoke in Japanese.
"My turn," he said, as he sent a rain of bullets towards Snake's direction.
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Story (c) 2003 11-41 Studios. All characters used in this story belong to their respective owners.
Updated 3.12.2003