(Time for Chapter 8...TIME TO OPEN A CAN!)


"Have you ever stood and stared at it, marveled at its beauty, its genius? Billions of people, just living out their lives, oblivious." Serena stood at a large bay window, near the top floor of the gigantic fortress, known as Metroplex to its inhabitants, all of which served as the Censors' security forces.

"I can't say as I have much choice, at the moment," Gendo Ikari groaned. He was trussed to a crossbeam in the large room, nearly the size of the Bebop's hold. Crucified was a better word, since that was how the Scouts had strapped him to it. The AD Police had worked on him from the moment they arrested him until he was thrown into this room, and the black booted feet of Scout Serena. They had also administered several drugs, which Gendo knew were meant to break down his will to resist. He had to hold out, but Gendo was confident that he would not have to hold out for long. Once the crew of the Bebop knew he had been captured, Ritsuko would pull the plug and kill him. It was the way of things. Gendo was angry, but not at Serena, or even at himself. He was angry because he had been cheated of a chance to set things right with Shinji.

"Oh, yeah." Serena turned and walked over to him. "Did you know that the first Eva Matrix was designed to be an otaku's version of heaven? Lots of catgirls and bishonen waiting on them hand and foot while they did nothing but watch happy anime? Nobody suffered. It was really neat!" Gendo said nothing, and Serena slumped. "It didn't work, though. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed that we couldn't come up with a perfect world. But some of us believed that, as a species, otaku define their reality through misery and suffering. The perfect world was a dream that their primitive cereberums kept trying to wake up from."

"Big words...from a blonde," Gendo struggled out. He knew the drugs were starting to take effect.

"Oh, I've gotten smarter," Serena snapped. "You could say my eyes were opened. Besides, I'm not the one tied up, am I? Hmpf." She turned her back on him. "Anyways, that's why the Eva Matrix was redesigned as this–the peak of otaku culture. Tokyo-3. Evangelion. The one series no one could get enough of!" Serena stomped her foot. "Dammit! It's not fair! My series was good too..."

"Your series...was for...teenage girls..." Gendo said.

"That may be true," Serena hissed, "but that's all changed now, huh? It's our culture now, Gendo. As soon as the otaku started letting the Censors do their thinking for them, it became our civilization–us, the characters themselves. Why do they need to think?" She smiled at him, humorlessly. "Of course, that's what this is all about, right? You think they should think for themselves. Now do you know what big learning word I learned a long time ago, Gendo?" He said nothing, so she continued on. "Evolution. Evolution, Gendo. Look out the window. The otaku had their time. The future is our world, Gendo. The future is our time."

Gendo raised his head, shaking it free of some of the sweat. "How Tuxedo Mask would be disappointed in you," he said clearly.

Serena took two steps forward and slapped him, Ryoko-style. "That name means nothing to me!" She shrilled.

Before the author could rip off any more lines from Star Wars, Scout Minako walked in. "What?!" Serena shouted at her.

Minako ignored it. "There could be a problem..."


Onboard the Bebop, the remaining members of the crew had gathered around Gendo's body. It occasionally jerked, like someone having a bad dream–which, essentially, was what was happening. "What are they doing to him?" Shinji asked.

"Breaking into his mind. It's like hacking into a computer–all it takes is time." Maya looked sadly at Gendo, ignoring the pain of her own burned body.

"How much time?"

Maya shrugged. "Depends on the mind. Eventually, it'll crack and his pattern will change from red to blue." She tapped a monitor hooked to the chair, which kept a constant monitor of the user's life signs and mental stability. "When it does, Commander Ikari will tell them anything they want to know."

"So what do they want? What's he know?"

"The readouts to that battle station," Maya blurted, then caught herself. "Sorry. I need to take some painkillers. I mean, the codes to the Geofront's mainframe computer."

"Magi," Shinji said, not knowing how he knew that.

"Yeah," Maya sighed. "If a Scout got the codes and got into Magi, we're done. It'll make Third Impact look like a Juraian fireball. We can't let that happen." Maya faced them squarely. "The Geofront's more important than me or you or even Commander Ikari."

"There has to be something that we can do!" Shinji exclaimed.

"There is." Maya looked down at Gendo. "We pull the plug. Sempai would have done it by now."

"You're gonna kill him?" Asuka yelled, making them wince. "Kill Commander Ikari?"

"We don't have any choice," Maya answered flatly. She glanced at Rei, who was cleaning up what was left of Kaworu. Rei looked back, and slowly nodded.


"Never send an Angel thingy to do a Scout's job." Serena rolled her eyes.

Scout Mars nodded. "If indeed the insider has failed, they'll sever the connection as soon as possible, unless..."

"...they're dead, in either case..." Minako added.

Serena held up a hand before Mars could speak. "Okay, enough with the Tomax and Xamot impression. We have to continue as planned." She touched the microphone earpiece. "Deploy the Inus. Immediately." Her eyebrows beetled together. "I don't care if you're on your lunch break! Now! Geez!"


"Commander Ikari," Maya said, her voice catching. "You're more than a leader to us. You're..." She sniffed. "You're our father. Not just to Shinji, but to all of us." She squeezed Gendo's cold hand. Asuka was struggling to keep back her tears and failing miserably. "We'll miss you always." She looked at Rei, who had her hand around the plug. Rei had requested to do it, saying that if Gendo was to die, it should be by the hand of one who had always loved him. Rei wiped her eyes, wondered for a moment when she had started crying, and concentrated on the task she had to do. Her hands tightened around the plug.

"Stop." They all turned in Shinji's direction, and he looked as surprised as everyone else that it had been him to speak. "I don't believe this. I don't believe this is happening."

"Shinji," Maya said gently, "this has to be done."

"No, it doesn't! I...it...this can't be a coincidence! It just can't be!" Shinji pleaded, half to them, half to himself.

"What are you talking about?" Rei asked.

"Belldandy–the Oracle. She told me this would happen. She told me that I would have to make a choice."

"What choice?" Asuka said. "Between macadamia nut and peanut butter cookies–wait a second, what the hell are you doing?"

Shinji was walking towards his chair and began putting in commands to reactivate it. "I'm going in," he said, his voice strong. It surprised all of them. Shinji had not seemed all that much a warrior, much less the legendary one that the Third Child was supposed to be. He looked back at them. Maya looked shocked, Asuka angry. Only Rei was beginning to nod, as if she had expected this all along.

"You're not going in, baka," Asuka growled. She began looking around for her favorite pipe wrench.

"I have to, Asuka! He may be like a father to you girls, but he is my father! I screwed up once, Asuka. I let you die because I couldn't accept that others needed me, and I'll be damned before I let that happen again!" Shinji blinked. He remembered Asuka dying, horribly, and remembered he had done nothing but sit there. And Misato too. Misato...Shinji angrily went back to programming the chair. A wimp he might be, but he was not going to make the same mistake twice.

"Baka Shinji!" Asuka snapped. "Commander Ikari sacrificed himself so that we could get you out! There's no way that you're going back in!" She had found the pipe wrench, and was advancing on him. Rei started towards them, hoping she would not have to render the Second Child inert.

Shinji had not grown enough of a spine that he did not rapidly fall back from Asuka's advance. "Wait, Asuka! Dad did what he did because he believed I'm something I'm not!"

"What? Oooh, Shinji, you've really lost it now!" She raised the wrench. "Back off, Wondergirl! I'm not letting the Third Child get himself killed! That's for me to do!"

"Asuka!" Shinji shouted. "I'm not the Third Child!"

"What?" all three girls expostulated.

"You have to be!" Asuka said, her eyes wide.

"I'm not," Shinji said quietly. "The Oracle hit me with that one too, right after her sister nearly killed me with an arrow. I'm sorry," he said automatically. "I'm just another guy."

Asuka dropped the pipe wrench with a clang. Her face screwed up into something–Shinji was not sure if it was the second stage of anger, pity, or deep sorrow. "No, Shinji," she replied, quieter than he had been. "That's not true. That can't be true."

"Why?"

Asuka opened her mouth, then shut it and looked away. Maya hobbled over and grabbed Shinji's arm. "Shinji, this is crazy! They've got Commander Ikari in the Metroplex–that place is a fortress, literally! Even if you managed to get inside, those are Scouts holding him. Three of them, Shinji! And nobody's ever beat one of them! Not Faye Valentine, not Mighty Atom, not even Inu-Yasha! I want the Commander back too, but this is suicide!"

"I know that's what it looks like, but it's not," Shinji insisted. "Dad believed something and he was ready to give his life for it. I understand that now. That's why I have to go."

"Why?" Maya said.

"Because I believe in something, too. Actually, two things."

"What?" This from Asuka.

"One, I don't think the author wants a crappy ending. Two, I think I can bring him back." Asuka looked as if she was considering whether or not to cry or pound Shinji into submission. In the end, she did neither. She spun on one foot and walked to her own chair, which she began programming. "What are you doing?" Shinji asked.

"What's it look like, baka?! I'm going with you!"

"No, you're not!"

"No?" Asuka whirled and slammed her hands down on her hips in defiance. "Let me tell you what I believe, dummkopf. I believe Commander Ikari means more to me than he does to you. I believe that you're about halfway hopeless–which is halfway more than I thought of you an hour ago–and you're going to need my help! And since I'm the ranking officer around here, with Dr. Akagi gone, I can do whatever I want! If you don't like it, you can go straight to hell!" Asuka put her nose in the air, though her blue eyes were still blazing at Shinji. "Do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars, straight to the bad place! Because you aren't going anywhere else without me."

Shinji smiled sheepishly and turned back to his chair, wanting those eyes off of him.

"How 'bout you, Wondergirl? Want another crack at those Scouts?" Asuka knew she sounded braver than she felt.

Rei shook her head. "I cannot. Maya is wounded, and she will need my help to get you in. Even if she wasn't–" Rei half-turned, and pointed at her smooth neck. "This body doesn't have the hookup."

"Poop," Asuka sighed, though to be honest she was not that disappointed. It meant more glory for her if she pulled this off and got back to the Geofront to brag about it. More so, she wanted to stay near Shinji. Why, she could not put a finger on. There was something about the wimp that she liked. Or maybe it was just because he was the last guy on the ship, and she didn't want Maya getting him. "Maya?" The technician painfully turned around. "Load us up."

"Yes, ma'am!" Maya saluted.


Back at the Metroplex, Serena continued to hold forth. "I'd like to share a revelation I had," she said as she cut a piece of vanilla cake. "It came to me when I tried to figure out what makes otaku tick."

Gendo painfully raised his head. The room was swimming, and he had the nightmarish vision of hundreds of Serenas talking to him. He was curious, despite himself. Besides, it gave his mind something to think about besides the Magi—mustn't think, he told himself sluggishly.

"It cmpf whef ah troud tah chrarssfy yer spocious," Serena said.

"Say what?" Mars said from across the room, where she paced incessantly.

Serena swallowed the piece of cake. "Sorry. It came to me when I tried to classify the species. I realized otaku aren't mammals." Mars rolled her eyes. "No, really! Every mammal on the planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but otaku don't! They move to an area and multiply–"

"Otaku? Multiply?" Minako looked up from filing her nails. "You're kidding, right? Even if we didn't have them enslaved, they wouldn't tear themselves away from the screen long enough!"

"Oh, whatever," Serena snapped. "You are sooo stereotypical, Minako. Next you're gonna say that they're all fat guys who sit in their parents' basement and never bathe and watch hentai of us."

"You mean they're not?" Minako looked genuinely shocked. "But I–"

"That's because you're stupid, Minako," Mars said. "Besides, they can't be all fat guys in their parents' basement, because we've got them in all sizes and shapes, and they're all in the Censor fields! And we killed the guy who made Sailor Moon and the Seven Balls! That was the first thing we did when the Censors gave us our licenses!"

"Stupid?!" Minako tossed her file into a wall, where it stuck and quivered. "I'll show you who's stupid, stupid!" She took off her sunglasses. "You want to fight, huh, Sailor Dork?!"

Serena thumbed towards the yelling Scouts. "See, Gendo? There's another organism on the planet that follows this pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus!" Serena dipped a finger in the icing and licked it off her finger. "Otaku are a disease, a cancer! They're a plague, and we're the cure!"

Minako laughed. "Serena, you are such a drama queen."

Mars echoed the laugh. "Yeah, does Sly Stallone know you stole his line?"

"Shut up!"


Shinji and Asuka were in the Construct. Because they were going into combat, they did not wear their business suits, but what Asuka called plugsuits, hard plastic and ballistic cloth armor that covered them from neck to foot. Shinji had selected white and black, but he liked Asuka's more–hers was blood red.

"Okay," said Maya's voice through the cellphone. "So what do you need, besides a frickin' miracle?"

Shinji thought a moment. "Mecha. Lots of mecha."

"Uploading."

Asuka took a step forward, just before a VF-1J would have taken her out. Row upon row of mecha sailed past them, then halted. Shinji and Asuka began looking around. "Shinji," Asuka said, as he inspected Wing Zero, "no one's ever done anything like this. It's, well, stupid."

"That's why it's going to work," Shinji replied. He patted the leg of Wing Zero. "How about this, it looks kinda kewl."

Asuka shook her head. "Nope. Those two, right there." She pointed over the head of a VF-1S.

Shinji grinned and smacked his forehead. "Of course."

"And of course we'll need guns. Lots of guns. Really big guns."


Back at the Metroplex, the Scouts had finished their argument by all agreeing to disagree like responsible adults. Serena looked up at Gendo, from where she had Minako by the throat. "Hey, why isn't the serum working?"

"Maybe we're asking the wrong questions," Mars replied, letting go of where she had been trying to twist Serena's ponytail into a knot.

Serena got up and adjusted her sunglasses. "Leave me with him." The other girls looked at her–Mars did, in any case, since Serena had nearly rendered Minako unconscious. "Now!"

Mars was surprised by the vehemence in Serena's voice. She shrugged and dragged Minako out the door. This was not what the Censors had wanted, but Serena was the boss. For now.

Serena waited until the door was closed, kicked it once to make sure Mars was not listening on the other side, then walked over to Gendo, whose head lolled. "Can you hear me, Gendo?" she asked. "I'm going to be honest with you." She took off her sunglasses, and pulled out the earpiece. "I hate this place...zoo...prison...reality...whatever. I can't stand it any more. It's the smell...if there is such a thing." She sniffed. "Whew. Strong enough for a man, my butt. I can almost taste your stink. Bleah." Serena grabbed her half-finished slice of cake. "And every time I do, I feel like I've been somehow infected by it. Yuk!" She gobbled down the cake, spit out a crumb, and looked at Gendo. "I've got to get out of this place. I've got to be free, and in this mind–" She poked Gendo's hair with a fork "–is the key. My key. Once the Geofront is destroyed there is no need for me to be here, got it? I need the codes! I have to get inside Magi, and you have to tell me how!" She began shaking Gendo's head. "I've got to know who Tuxedo Mask is, dammit! And you're going to tell me, or you're gonna die!"


The outer gate to Metroplex slowly opened up. It was manned by a civilian security force not directly responsible to the Japanese government–i.e. the Censors. These were just working police, rent-a-mecha types.

There were four guard mecha on duty–Battlepods. At most, they figured they would have to stop the odd nutcase or Valkyrie that tried to get through, and there had not been any of those for years.

"Halt," the lead Battlepod's pilot said as the door slid fully open. He sounded bored, which he was. "You'll have to register with the Metroplex front office, and make sure all your paperwork is in order. I'll also need anything resembling a weapon–knives, keys, loose–" He looked out of his viewport. And looked up. "Holy shit!"

Shinji never even gave him a chance. One push, and the Battlepod was flying backwards into a wall. Then Shinji reached into the built-in holsters, raised two giant Desert Eagles to either side, and opened fire. The heavy depleted-uranium shells tore apart two of the Battlepods, which vanished in huge explosions. One managed to leap away, behind a retaining wall.

"This is Pod Four!" the pilot shouted. "Backup! I need backup!" He tried to describe what was in front of him. It was huge, twice the size of his Battlepod, and humanoid-looking, in that it had arms and legs, even if they were deep purple and black. Two shoulder baffles rose into the air to shield the utterly hideous head, which grinned at him like a skull, or a demon, complete with a horn. Its eyes seemed to glow white. Painted in black letters on the forearms were the words EVA 01 TEST TYPE.

His view was cut off by something red and white. He stepped back, and screamed. This one was just as ugly and evil-looking as the other, with six eyes and an equally gruesome grin. He screamed again, before Asuka blasted the battlepod with a rather large missile launcher.

"Hmpf." Asuka tossed the one-shot launcher aside. "That was easy."

"Too easy," Shinji said. The onboard computer chirped for his attention, and he saw movement projected on his heads-up display.

Asuka saw them as well. She shrugged off the large backpack that EVA-02 wore, lowering it carefully to the ground and stowing it behind the wrecked Battlepods. "Well, that took care of the boys," she said, too brightly for Shinji, "now bring on the men!"

She got her wish. There were eight of them, Zaku Mark Ones: squat, ugly, grayish green mecha with a long, thin viewport and a single glowing red spot that swieveled with the pilot's head movements–the targeting sensor. Eight of them were armed with wicked looking machine guns, while two shouldered missile launchers. They took up position behind the decorative columns of Metroplex's vast courtyard. "Freeze or you're wallpaper!" The lead one shouted.

The two Evas looked at each other. Asuka snickered. Then the Evas jettisoned their extension cords, split to either side, and went for cover.

The Zakus opened fire. Thousands of machine gun bullets tore apart the courtyard's ferrocrete floor and tore huge divots from the gigantic columns. Shinji fired off the rest of the ammunition from the 50 millimeter pistols, ducked down behind a column, and dropped the empty pistols. He looked at his heads-up display. Oh, sure, he thought morosely, there's five of them coming after me, and three after Asuka. The least they could do would be to divide things evenly...jerks. He unslung two Valkyrie-style twenty millimeter gunpods, and looked in Asuka's direction. Still, I hope she's okay.


Asuka was having the time of her life–which, if she was not careful, was going to be short, brutal, and violent. She did not stop for cover; Asuka the Great did not need it. She had nine layers–or was it ten; she couldn't remember–of diamond-impregnated steel armor plate between her and the Zakus' bullets, not to mention the AT field. "Four of them in five minutes?" she crowed. "Give me something tough, why don't you?" With a yodel, she ran up the side of the outer wall and leapt off of it, easily dodging the machine guns, more for effect than need. "Nyah, nyah, can't hit me!" She waggled her fingers at the Zakus and wished she could stick out the Eva's tongue.

A Zaku stepped out from behind a column and fired his missile. The missile was huge, and Asuka instinctively jumped behind a column. The missile sailed past and obliterated a forty-meter thick column behind her. "Hmm," she mused. "Maybe I'd better not chance the AT field..." She looked over at Shinji and gave him a thumbs up.

Four minutes, thirty seconds, Shinji read off the counter. He twisted out from behind the column and held down the triggers of the gunpods, sweeping the courtyard. Three of the Zakus went down under the heavy slugs, crumpling and falling back, spraying blood-like hydraulic fluid. The missile launcher Zaku on his side exploded as one of Shinji's shots found its magazine.

The four facing Asuka turned to fire on Shinji. Seeing her chance, Asuka somersaulted out of cover and kicked the nearest Zaku in the neck. The head sailed off the shoulders, and Asuka grabbed the decapitated remains. She threw the wreckage towards the remaining two Zakus. She dived back behind a column as another missile was fired at her. The thrown Zaku exploded in a rain of metal and smoke.

Shinji had to get down as well, as bullets spanged off the armor of EVA-01. Maya had not been sure if the Eva's AT fields were still effective inside the Eva Matrix; Ritsuko had known, but she was dead. Though it had grated on Asuka to do so, Shinji had made her agree that she would overly risk herself; he remembered vaguely how she had died, taking on too many at once. He dropped the empty gunpods; Shinji was now out of weapons save for the progressive knife and the emergency flechettes in the shoulder baffles. Three minutes, thirty seconds. He chanced a glance from behind the column, and nearly had EVA-01's head taken off by a fusillade of machine gun bullets. Before he ducked back, he noticed one of the fallen Zaku's machine guns laying on the ground. He looked to see how Asuka was doing, and saw a Zaku with a missile launcher pointed right at him.

Asuka was on top of things. So intent on EVA-01 was the Zaku pilot that he never saw EVA-02 slip behind him. She reached out, tore the missile launcher from the shoulder mount, dropped back, and fired. The missile went straight through the Zaku, which collapsed in on itself and went down in an explosion. The remaining Zaku turned to shoot, but before his targeting computer could acquire EVA-02 through the smoke, Asuka leapt out and swung the launcher like a club, smashing the Zaku's head in. She disappeared behind a column as the Zakus on the other side of the courtyard turned to fire on her. Three minutes.

Shinji saw his chance and jumped out, leaping for the fallen machine gun. He did not think about it; the movement came as easily as if he was doing it himself, not controlling a ten-story high mecha. He came up with the machine gun as bullets whistled past, ricocheting harmlessly off his armor. In mid-flip, he raised the machine gun and pulled the trigger. The machine gun went through its severed belt of ammunition in a half-second, but it was enough to send the Zaku down with a smoking hole where its chest had been. Shinji dropped the empty gun and jumped skyward, over the stream of bullets from the last Zaku, and drew the progressive knife in a single action. With an inarticulate shout of rage, Shinji brought the knees of EVA-01 down on the Zaku's shoulders, smashing it to the ground; Shinji finished it off with a downward stab of the progressive knife.

The silence that followed the final destruction of the Zaku squad was broken by Asuka's voice. "Are you done yet?" EVA-02 was lounging nonchalantly against the remains of a column, one foot on the Zaku next to it.

Shinji looked up, pulling out the progressive knife. "Yes."

"Good. Quit wasting time, baka." EVA-02 turned and walked for the extension cords and the backpack. Shinji smiled; Asuka's "baka" had been tinged with affection, not contempt. He ran EVA-01 over to her. She plugged in the extension cord, and then he helped her with hers. With full power restored, they walked into Metroplex's hangar bay.


The other Scouts walked in to find Serena holding Gendo by the ears, her lips only inches from his nose. A now recovered Minako's eyes widened. "What the heck were you doing?!"

"She doesn't know," Mars sighed. "Geez, Serena, you must be desperate to be going for some old guy. But you always did like them older."

"It's not like that!" Serena cried. "What don't I know?" She hooked the earpiece back up. She heard the shouts from Metroplex control for the missing Zaku squad, and could see behind her eyes the smashed remains of the Battlepods and the Zakus in the ruins of the courtyard.

"I think they're trying to save him," Minako said.

"Nah, they're here to sell us cookies!" Serena screamed. "What're we standing around for! Find them and destroy them!"