Disclaimer: Evangelion me owns not. Fic not for profit is. Remove immediately if so wish the producers. Learn grammar must do.
Ok, I just can't keep writing non-stop action, so interspersed is some random stuff, some fluffy stuff, some cold hearted stuff, some stuff stuff and some secretive stuff. There's a lot of stuff.
I'm sorry for not posting in a while, but I've been busy as hell, and ... well, it's here now. I promise to get the next chapter out faster. Or at least within two months. Before the end of the year.
....
Stop looking at me like that!
Chapter 5
Black-clad men darted around the now silent command bunker. The last screams of the dying had been finally silenced by a quick burst of rifle fire. There had been surprisingly little resistance after the bunker door. It appeared that it was not just Nerv that had its defense budget slashed. The poor bastards never stood a chance against the elite soldiers.
However, the only Nerv personnel were the officers. The regular infantry men had been borrowed from a variety of US troop formations. Although, if asked they would hastily cover up their stars and stripe patch and defiantly deny this. Already the Nerv officers were starting to get annoyed at their gung ho attitude to the interior warfare. Instead of taking prudent action, they were far happier to use explosives and to simply fill corridors with a hail of lead.
One particular Nerv officer was pacing up and down behind the primary command console for the factories defenses... Watch him. He is looking for something. His eyes are never in the same spot twice, and they keep scanning computer screens. Unlike the other Nerv officers his sidearm was not in a ready position, it was still in the holster. But this particular officer had made his living by only using his gun when all of his other option had run dry.
Eventually his eyes came to rest over a series of switches. Above each of the switches was bold red lettering, declaring this to be the launch panel for the factory's major product. And all of them, it appeared, had been flipped.
The officer shook his head slightly, and ordered one of his men to radio base ops with this information, and went back to his search, his squad looking at him with the same apprehension of people who are trapped in a cage with a tiger.. Which has not been fed. In two weeks.
-----------------------------------
"Major! Reports from the ground troops indicate that-"
"New targets! Readings suggest that-"
"Major! We have reports from the front lines-"
"One at a time damn it!"
-------------------------------
"Cooper, multiple contacts surrounding your area, be on the look out for some Jet Alones."
Art stared blankly at the small 'audio only' window that was barking orders at him. "Major, what the hell is a Jet Alone?"
His question was answered by huge human-like figures rising from the ground around him, probably from underground launch tubes. He shrugged, "Never mind. They're here now, what do you want me to do?"
"Neutralize the threat, Command out."
Art sighed, "That easy huh?" He moved the Eva back to the armoury box, refreshing the magazine for his assault rifle and taking out the hefty broadsword. It glinted in the sunlight, a true testament to the lengths some people will go to, to compensate for their shortcomings.
Then the human-like figures attacked.
----------------------------
"Asuka, watch your back, they're sending up-"
"Jet Alones?" She asked through clenched teeth.
The com was silent for a few seconds. "How'd you know?" Misato hesitantly asked.
"Oh just women's intuition," she responded, commanding her Eva to push the broken robot off her axe.
---------------------------
"Rei?"
"Yes major, I know of the new threat." Rei gently squeezed the trigger, blasting apart another of the constructs as it lumbered towards her.
"Well... good. If it gets too hot I want you to retreat. Your Eva's still unpredictable from the regeneration."
---------------------------
"Hey new kid! She said run!"
Shinji ignored the two behind him as they jostled his shoulders, trying to force him to comply with the order. But he just sat there, in his entry plug seat, eyes focused on the glowing red emblem in the centre of what for all the world looked like a giant lobster. He was entranced by the strange feeling of inevitability as he repeated his mantra of not running away. The dagger hummed in his Eva's hand, and he could feel the vibrations right through the interface. It tickled slightly.
Touji gave him one final shove, before giving up. Kensuke kept jostling him for a while before following suite, his pleas for him to run fading out slowly as though someone applied a muffler. The world seemed to slow into a warm, dark, liquidy stillness.
There was silence for a while, the pressure of the knife in the Eva's hand still very clear to Shinji. He was feeling nothing but an odd curiosity at this point, nothing like the absolute fear of failure that was the hallmark of his previous experience. The intimate knowledge of knowing that it was no longer just your life on the line was strong enough to push him into disobeying a direct order.
But then again, it was not that.
"So why didn't you run away?" Kensuke asked. His voice seemed bright and fairly jovial, as though it was just another meaningless conversation about TV or Touji's latest caper in his never ending quest to annoy the class rep.
Shinji did not respond. This world just seemed too surreal to take seriously, so why should he answer this figment of his imagination. His mind threw up a few reasons, that one; he was your friend, two; it's really you asking, and three; I don't know about you, but I'd like to wake up soon.
Shinji idly wondered when his mind had gotten so out-spoken.
"C'mon Shinji, you can tell us," said his minds picture of Touji, a hand coming to rest on his shoulder in a reassuring way. In the way he always wished would happen in his own life. Just a simple gesture that meant that the person who owned the hand was his friend.
But he could still not answer. Not because he did not want to. But because he did not know himself.
"All-right," said Kensuke lightly, "We'll guess for a while."
"Sounds cool to me. So confess Ikari, you didn't run away because you wanted to impress the girls, right?"
Shinji heard Kensuke smack Touji around the back of the head, an action that probably took quite some effort in the LCL environment, "Idiot, Shinji's only got his eyes on Ayanami, you know that!"
"Well, to impress Ayanami then," Touji countered defensively, rubbing the back of his head, more through habit than real pain. Which was really stupid, as Shinji had never observed this habit before.
"I don't know, Shinji was never the voyeuristic type. Besides, I thought it was because he wanted to prove himself to his father-"
"Oh come on! Shinji hates this Eva stuff, and his father by extension. Why in God's name would he want to prove himself to that bastard."
"Well, this is Shinji we're talking about."
"Yeah, but even Shinji has a small amount of pride."
"How'd you figure?"
"... You got a point there-"
"Okay, so it's not to impress girls, or to prove himself to Ikari senior." Shinji wondered when Kensuke had ever even met his father, before realizing that it was not really Kensuke, just the anthropomorphic projection of his most Kensuke-like aspect.
Both Kensuke and Touji looked at him. "Since when did you know about psychology?" Kensuke asked.
"Remember those books Asuka got for a joke?" Touji replied.
"Dear god man."
"He only skim-read, anyway, we're off the point. I think it might've been to prove that he could do it on his own, without the scary shit of the Eva going nuts."
"Nah, he doesn't like confrontation, why would he want to prove he could do it?"
"Argh! Shinji just tell us damn it!"
"Yeah, come on. We can't keep taking shots at your inner psyche forever you know."
Shinji mumbled out a response. "Er... a bit louder for those of us not using hearing aids."
"No reason..." Shinji said, quite clearly.
"Well there's gotta be a reason, otherwise what's the point in doing anything?!" Touji exclaimed.
"Well..." He could not explain it. Or he could, but it would take an eon... How can you fully describe the feeling? It was something you felt, and acted upon. Reasons and excuses are something you add later when you report to other people, so that you don't look like a complete fool. But the feeling is the thing that makes you act.
He smiled. He had his answer. "It just felt right."
He could feel the smiles of his two friends behind him.
"Good answer."
----------------------------
Art rammed his broadsword into the Jet alone in front of him, sparks flying from the wound as the ultrasonic weapon bit deep into the metallic flesh. He pressed the barrel of his rifle to the monstrosity's chest and fired a hail of bolts into the thing at point blank range. A large hole appeared in the jet alones back as the heavy lead flung it's way clean through the body.
With a grunt of perceived exertion Art brought the Eva's foot up, and kicked the stricken robot a short way from the Eva, dragging the broadsword out with a stylized flourish. He swung the sword around again slicing the upper torso off, accompanied by a satisfying explosion as the fuel cells lost containment.
He twisted his head to see a scarlet streak of light lance out at him. He hit a combination on his arm pad controls, sending the command to dodge to the Eva... The beam passed within a few feet of the flinching giant, a pale green welt appearing across the darker armour from the extreme temperature of the shot. Art swung around the rifle, losing a volley at the firer, a jet alone with a large gun like extension for one arm. The other arm was a bulky targeting system, weighted for balance rather than actual usefulness in combat.
However, a weak spot is a weak spot, especially for a remote drone. Art fired a burst at the targeting matrix, the box like structure disintegrating under the barrage. The robot staggered a little to the heavier side with the gun. Before it could recover Art was already hurtling his Eva through the air, using the broadsword in a strong overhead stroke, bisecting the giant from head to groin.
It seemed to fall apart in two halves, before fuel cells were ignited by shattered electronics. The two halves became a raging inferno, with Art's Eva still in the middle with the broad sword digging into the ground.
A robotic foot bounced off his AT field on his back. Art grinned, "Backstabber, eh?" he said, swinging the sword from the ground trailing dirt and engine oil, sending it in a tight arc around his head. There was a good, satisfying slinky sound as it sliced the jet alone behind him in two. It fell apart, and Art was vaguely disappointed when it did not explode like the others.
Art almost laughed as another group appeared on his radar. Despite the life threatening situation, and the guilt he felt over killing the squaddies barely ten minutes before, it was still one of the better ways to spend away from school.
-------(flash back- yeah i know this looks lame)-------------------------
iThe lunch room was pretty noisy, Art decided. He grinned, it was just like back home. On his red plastic tray was what looked a lot like a sandwich, but the cling film had deformed it into something vaguely shaped like a mole, bits of ham and salad caught in between numerous folds of the cellophane. He smiled at that too, another reminder that things were basically the same even half way around the world...
He stopped off at a vending machine to feed his caffeine addiction, catching sight of a pissed Hikari in the corner of his eye. Grabbing his can of coke, he walked into the main part of the cafeteria, a large hall like room, with a few groups dotted around on the tables. He guessed the majority of the students ate elsewhere, but he did not know where. Despite being fairly fluent in the language he had no idea about Japanese customs, so he basically stuck with his British ones. Hopefully someone would point it out to him when he was doing something insulting.
As he scanned the room he spotted the only person he knew, apart from the brown haired girl with a look of murder in her eyes. Rei was seated around a table in the corner of the room next to a window, a look of concentration on her face as she poked the sandwich on her tray. Art looked down at his own cellophane wrapped molewhich, wondering why she was doing that.
As he passed Hikari's table he noticed her and the red head pilot. Hikari was shooting him with the same death glare as she had done from the beginning of her 'tour', but the red head just seemed to look on with an air of annoyed amusement. He grinned, and winked at Hikari, and was rewarded with wild gesticulating, which he caught in the corner of his eye as he passed.
Chuckling lightly, he headed towards Rei, aware of at least two sets of eyes on him. He sat down, Rei giving him an odd look, to which he only smiled at. Holding the smile he whispered to Rei, "Are they still looking?"
Rei's expression formed again into its usually blank face. "No."
Art sighed, "Good, can't really eat when people are paying close attention to me." 'So genius why'd you sit here? You know she's going to give you that blank stare.' Art mentally frowned, 'You know I can't turn down a challenge.' His alter psyche seemed to grin back, 'Oh, and the fact that you're interested in her has nothing to do with it?' "Oh shut up."
Rei looked up from the sandwich she was carefully unwrapping, a questioning look on her face. Art smiled nervously, "Er, not you..."
Rei went back to the task at hand. 'You're losing it kid,' Art thought to himself./i
------(end flashback - once again, I apologise for the lameness)--------------------------
"Damn it Hikari why did you let him out?!"
"I didn't he escaped!"
"Well why'd you drag me into it?!?"
"What else would you be doing?! Sitting in front of your monitor reading creepy fan fiction?!"
"Hey, some of that stuff is good!"
Hikari was angry. That damned penguin had slipped out of her backdoor when her little sister was taking out the trash. Why she had agreed to look after the little perverted waterfowl was beyond her.
She ranted in the confines of her head about too much pressure and the penguin being a damn pain anyway etc. The usual for someone who has realised they are in quite a lot of trouble and looking for someone to blame. The problem was she could not see how this could be anyone's fault except her own. Which was infuriating.
Hikari sat down on a nearby bench in disgust. Hunching over, she rested her chin in her hands, knees on her elbows, glaring moodily at a street lamp across the road. Kensuke, noticing the change in pace, sat down next to her, leaving a fair amount of space between them. He leant back, his arm falling across the backrest. They sat in silence for a while.
"If you don't want to you don't have to stick around. Just go home."
"And leave my only friend alone?"
Hikari smiled at the boy's casual remark. He was looking out across the street, just staring at things that were not there. Hikari took this time to really notice Kensuke. It was funny how someone could just turn into a cardboard image, especially when they seemed permanently attached to the boy she was really interested in. She had always seen him as the annoying hanger on to Touji.
Recently, that image started to shift. He was still annoying, always making wisecracks about something she did, but she started to see his other side. The side of him that he did not present to people, that part of a person you only found out about when they put down their barriers. He was the annoying stooge, but he was also the boy who had dragged himself from bed at midnight to help her find a lost penguin.
She looked at him, noting the blank expression. He always hid what he really felt. Oh sometimes he would be mopy and sometimes you could not stop him grinning, like you would expect from any other normal person, but when there was something on his mind he never burdened anyone with it. At least, never bothered her.
Kensuke felt her eyes on him, and turned his head, catching her smile and returning it, before resuming his blank stare.
"So how's things?" Hikari asked, hoping that a conversation would forestall the on coming blush.
"Well, school currently sucks. The fact that a lot of my friends are gone sucks. The shows on TV all suck. I was thinking of taking up drugs, but I have a feeling that they are gonna suck too. You?"
Hikari suppressed a laugh, "Well, pretty much the same. Except school has been better. Less people in our class means less work as class rep."
"Aww, come on, you love the power."
"You'd think that, but when I have to deal with the likes of you three stooges; I wish I was just one of the girls giggling in the background."
"Yeah I guess we rode you pretty hard." He looked confused for a moment, "You? Giggle?"
"Hey, I giggle!" she said shortly, "Occasionally," she added after some thought.
"Never thought you'd be the type to giggle."
"Not around you obviously, I had to shout at you guys most of the time."
"Well, in the absence of the other stooges I would like to extend an official apology from our organization of idiocy," Kensuke said grinning.
"Well, you weren't all that bad. At least you didn't have," Hikari shivered, "Issues."
"Issues?"
"You know, things like bad grades, bad relationships, personal stuff. And a few other things which you really don't want to know about."
"Oh... issues... nope, never had any of them. Yep, I'm completely issue free, not a care in the world, couldn't be happier."
"Oh no..."
"Well... maybe just a few..."
"Damn you Aida."
"Oh come on."
"All right," she sighed, "Tell me your problems."
"You're a well of compassion you know that?" Kensuke responded sarcastically.
There was a long, uncomfortable silence. Hikari fidgeted whilst Kensuke glared at the opposite street lamp.
"I'm... sorry..."
"Oh don't be," he said wearily.
"It's just, there's been so much going on recently..."
"I know. The angels really messed things up didn't they?"
"Not that..."
"Huh?"
"Well, it's related to that, I guess."
"Whaddya mean?"
"You remember how Touji's sister got hurt in the first angel attack?"
Kensuke nodded.
"Stuff like that happened a lot. Families got torn apart. Some just couldn't take the pressure and broke apart. When that happens, the people you look to in your family to talk to about your problems are in no condition to help you."
"So they turn to their class rep?"
"They say it's because they trust me, but really it's because they think I'm a complete stranger who just doesn't care about their problems. They treat me like a wall they can hurl their hurt at."
Kensuke could not offer any response, beyond that of 'Gee that sucks.' He did not think it was appropriate right now, so he wisely kept his mouth shut.
"Well, when they all talk to me about their problems, I empathize with them. It's just so... depressing sometimes. And you can't turn it back on them, tell them how you feel. Not when you still have the family you grew up with around you."
Pause.
"And, with Asuka gone, it was really hard for me to get by. Now she's back she's so fragile, I can't just unload on her..."
"I guess."
"So now look at me, all bent out of shape over a lost bird and telling my problems to a friend who has problems of his own, when I should have been asking him about what was bugging him,
and ..."
"Hey! Easy. You're going through a lot of stuff. You don't have to be the ever smiling wall to lean on."
Hikari sighed, "I know. But it's nice to hear someone else say it so I don't sound like a cry-baby."
"No problem. But..."
"What?"
"..." Kensuke was about to say something when movement caught his eye. A squat figure waddling down the street. "It's Penpen!"
"Huh?"
Kensuke was up and off the bench, hurtling towards the waterfowl, who had turned when he heard his name shouted. He quickened his pace; cursing the fact he was not born an ostrich.
Hikari stood, rather more sedately from the bench, dusting off her coat, before following the boy in his bird hunt.
--------------------------------------
Rei let her breath go out slowly, as she depressed the trigger, sending another scarlet beam of death towards the lumbering robots. The Jet Alone was skewered by the beam, secondary explosions bulging out the armour before the primary fuel cells ignited, shattering her target form the inside out.
She quickly tapped a command for a new target. The three targeting circles came together almost instantly; the cobalt Eva moving the merest fraction to aim at the giant Mecha. A shrill sound emitted in her ear, indicating the positron rifle had a good lock. Again she depressed the trigger, and another bolt flew forth, piercing the giant robots armour, simply destroying vital connections in the spinal column. The bot fell forward, a lifeless metallic corpse.
Rei was slightly worried. The rifle was not designed for this kind of multiple firing, and was fast becoming less effective. Worse still, the fuses that needed to be replaced after every fifth shot or so were running low. And the generator for the rifle was operating at dangerously high heat and power levels.
And to make matters more disconcerting, the shambling horde of Mecha was getting closer.
------------------------------------
It was an odd feeling for the grey haired man, as he hobbled down a catwalk. It was a feeing that you never encountered much when you regularly spent the lives of thousands of people, often at the same time.
But it was definitely there. A faint feeling of regret. He scarcely imagined it possible; the parts of him that had been replaced with the latest in robotics to lengthen his life had taken away all but the necessary glands and organs necessary to produce the appropriate chemical for emotion. Consequently he felt no anger, no jealousy, and no lust. The only feelings that he was aware of was his sense of self preservation and his duty to mankind.
But the regret was still there. Was it because he had left that fresh-faced lieutenant to face the faceless Nerv soldiers alone? No, the lieutenant was a fool, and insignificant to the grander picture. Nerv was almost doing the world a favour by removing him from existence. So why... ah. He had left his favourite mug behind. You could not buy that mug any more; the company that had produced it had winked off the face of the earth during the second impact.
Oh well, when making an escape sacrifices had to be made. And he owed much of his life to perfecting the art of running away. He always planned an escape route, and this particular one started with the monorail system that ran the length of the factory.
He rounded a corner, to see the monorail car resting in pieces under a pile of rubble. He sighed, and began the long walk down the factory. It was a few miles, and would take several hours at his top speed. That did not matter, the vehicle he had procured for his discrete exit was one of the finest stealth craft of the day. He could take his leave when he wanted.
The sounds of the battle far overhead seemed insignificant to the click of a cane on the factory floor.
-----------------------------------
Asuka swung her axe around slicing a pair of the giant robots across the waist. There was a small animalistic glint in her eye, along with the smug smirk that had blossomed on her face.
It was not that she was happy with the delightful slaughter of the remote operated jokes, but it was more like she was proud of doing something useful at least. And besides, it was just like sparring against Shinji in the simulators, way back when the angels were regarded as the major threat. It was a chance to dust the cobwebs off of her melee skills, instead of all this stupid shooting at people running away.
The look in her eye as she decapitated the nearest bot was almost joyful. She swung the axe down again, slicing it in two. Casting the Eva's hand out to her left she sent elongated octagonal lines from her arm, slamming the jet alone to her left into the air, an octagonal shaped dent crunching it's way into the frame.
Ok, maybe the slaughter of the robots was a big factor in the happy feeling.
----------------------------------
Maya looked in confusion at her radar window, in the upper left hand corner of her screen. It showed two new contacts, moving in at high speeds towards the combat zone. She assumed that they were aircraft, since the altitude was the same as a low flying strike fighter, but the contacts were much too large to be fighters. Something of that size would be an Eva Hauler, the nickname for one of the huge carrier craft that shipped the Eva's. But planes of that size were never that close to the ground.
"Major, I have two new contacts, moving inbound at a speed and altitude comparable to aircraft."
"Bombers?"
"No ma'am, signature suggests something much bigger."
"Where are they heading?"
"Into Unit 02's combat zone."
Misato frowned, "More Jet Alones? Did they make airborne versions?"
--------------------------------
As warning systems popped up around the command bunker, the lone Nerv officer found what he was looking for. He had finally given up on his gawking squad, splitting them up to bolster some of the other squads who were below strength from the vicious close quarter gun fight. Besides, they were getting on his nerves.
But that did not matter now. He had found the small, near impossible to find door. This was the way he had come. His target. Usually he did not go in for this kind of mission, but there was more at stake than just his principles.
He did not even bother to find the mechanism for opening the door, merely producing some plastic explosive from one of his pouches. This was not standard equipment, but this particular officer was not a standard soldier. Technically, he was not even part of Nerv.
He sighed, and set to work, applying the explosive to where he thought the hidden door was.
TO BE CONTINUED....
Pre-read by Monkey-san (although it took you long enough... hey who am I to judge)
Pre-read by spriteh (who was a damn sight quicker)
Looked over by Non-believer (shorter still)
Glanced at by my dog when he was begging to be fed (fastest to date). I should probably go feed him now...
Ok, I just can't keep writing non-stop action, so interspersed is some random stuff, some fluffy stuff, some cold hearted stuff, some stuff stuff and some secretive stuff. There's a lot of stuff.
I'm sorry for not posting in a while, but I've been busy as hell, and ... well, it's here now. I promise to get the next chapter out faster. Or at least within two months. Before the end of the year.
....
Stop looking at me like that!
Chapter 5
Black-clad men darted around the now silent command bunker. The last screams of the dying had been finally silenced by a quick burst of rifle fire. There had been surprisingly little resistance after the bunker door. It appeared that it was not just Nerv that had its defense budget slashed. The poor bastards never stood a chance against the elite soldiers.
However, the only Nerv personnel were the officers. The regular infantry men had been borrowed from a variety of US troop formations. Although, if asked they would hastily cover up their stars and stripe patch and defiantly deny this. Already the Nerv officers were starting to get annoyed at their gung ho attitude to the interior warfare. Instead of taking prudent action, they were far happier to use explosives and to simply fill corridors with a hail of lead.
One particular Nerv officer was pacing up and down behind the primary command console for the factories defenses... Watch him. He is looking for something. His eyes are never in the same spot twice, and they keep scanning computer screens. Unlike the other Nerv officers his sidearm was not in a ready position, it was still in the holster. But this particular officer had made his living by only using his gun when all of his other option had run dry.
Eventually his eyes came to rest over a series of switches. Above each of the switches was bold red lettering, declaring this to be the launch panel for the factory's major product. And all of them, it appeared, had been flipped.
The officer shook his head slightly, and ordered one of his men to radio base ops with this information, and went back to his search, his squad looking at him with the same apprehension of people who are trapped in a cage with a tiger.. Which has not been fed. In two weeks.
-----------------------------------
"Major! Reports from the ground troops indicate that-"
"New targets! Readings suggest that-"
"Major! We have reports from the front lines-"
"One at a time damn it!"
-------------------------------
"Cooper, multiple contacts surrounding your area, be on the look out for some Jet Alones."
Art stared blankly at the small 'audio only' window that was barking orders at him. "Major, what the hell is a Jet Alone?"
His question was answered by huge human-like figures rising from the ground around him, probably from underground launch tubes. He shrugged, "Never mind. They're here now, what do you want me to do?"
"Neutralize the threat, Command out."
Art sighed, "That easy huh?" He moved the Eva back to the armoury box, refreshing the magazine for his assault rifle and taking out the hefty broadsword. It glinted in the sunlight, a true testament to the lengths some people will go to, to compensate for their shortcomings.
Then the human-like figures attacked.
----------------------------
"Asuka, watch your back, they're sending up-"
"Jet Alones?" She asked through clenched teeth.
The com was silent for a few seconds. "How'd you know?" Misato hesitantly asked.
"Oh just women's intuition," she responded, commanding her Eva to push the broken robot off her axe.
---------------------------
"Rei?"
"Yes major, I know of the new threat." Rei gently squeezed the trigger, blasting apart another of the constructs as it lumbered towards her.
"Well... good. If it gets too hot I want you to retreat. Your Eva's still unpredictable from the regeneration."
---------------------------
"Hey new kid! She said run!"
Shinji ignored the two behind him as they jostled his shoulders, trying to force him to comply with the order. But he just sat there, in his entry plug seat, eyes focused on the glowing red emblem in the centre of what for all the world looked like a giant lobster. He was entranced by the strange feeling of inevitability as he repeated his mantra of not running away. The dagger hummed in his Eva's hand, and he could feel the vibrations right through the interface. It tickled slightly.
Touji gave him one final shove, before giving up. Kensuke kept jostling him for a while before following suite, his pleas for him to run fading out slowly as though someone applied a muffler. The world seemed to slow into a warm, dark, liquidy stillness.
There was silence for a while, the pressure of the knife in the Eva's hand still very clear to Shinji. He was feeling nothing but an odd curiosity at this point, nothing like the absolute fear of failure that was the hallmark of his previous experience. The intimate knowledge of knowing that it was no longer just your life on the line was strong enough to push him into disobeying a direct order.
But then again, it was not that.
"So why didn't you run away?" Kensuke asked. His voice seemed bright and fairly jovial, as though it was just another meaningless conversation about TV or Touji's latest caper in his never ending quest to annoy the class rep.
Shinji did not respond. This world just seemed too surreal to take seriously, so why should he answer this figment of his imagination. His mind threw up a few reasons, that one; he was your friend, two; it's really you asking, and three; I don't know about you, but I'd like to wake up soon.
Shinji idly wondered when his mind had gotten so out-spoken.
"C'mon Shinji, you can tell us," said his minds picture of Touji, a hand coming to rest on his shoulder in a reassuring way. In the way he always wished would happen in his own life. Just a simple gesture that meant that the person who owned the hand was his friend.
But he could still not answer. Not because he did not want to. But because he did not know himself.
"All-right," said Kensuke lightly, "We'll guess for a while."
"Sounds cool to me. So confess Ikari, you didn't run away because you wanted to impress the girls, right?"
Shinji heard Kensuke smack Touji around the back of the head, an action that probably took quite some effort in the LCL environment, "Idiot, Shinji's only got his eyes on Ayanami, you know that!"
"Well, to impress Ayanami then," Touji countered defensively, rubbing the back of his head, more through habit than real pain. Which was really stupid, as Shinji had never observed this habit before.
"I don't know, Shinji was never the voyeuristic type. Besides, I thought it was because he wanted to prove himself to his father-"
"Oh come on! Shinji hates this Eva stuff, and his father by extension. Why in God's name would he want to prove himself to that bastard."
"Well, this is Shinji we're talking about."
"Yeah, but even Shinji has a small amount of pride."
"How'd you figure?"
"... You got a point there-"
"Okay, so it's not to impress girls, or to prove himself to Ikari senior." Shinji wondered when Kensuke had ever even met his father, before realizing that it was not really Kensuke, just the anthropomorphic projection of his most Kensuke-like aspect.
Both Kensuke and Touji looked at him. "Since when did you know about psychology?" Kensuke asked.
"Remember those books Asuka got for a joke?" Touji replied.
"Dear god man."
"He only skim-read, anyway, we're off the point. I think it might've been to prove that he could do it on his own, without the scary shit of the Eva going nuts."
"Nah, he doesn't like confrontation, why would he want to prove he could do it?"
"Argh! Shinji just tell us damn it!"
"Yeah, come on. We can't keep taking shots at your inner psyche forever you know."
Shinji mumbled out a response. "Er... a bit louder for those of us not using hearing aids."
"No reason..." Shinji said, quite clearly.
"Well there's gotta be a reason, otherwise what's the point in doing anything?!" Touji exclaimed.
"Well..." He could not explain it. Or he could, but it would take an eon... How can you fully describe the feeling? It was something you felt, and acted upon. Reasons and excuses are something you add later when you report to other people, so that you don't look like a complete fool. But the feeling is the thing that makes you act.
He smiled. He had his answer. "It just felt right."
He could feel the smiles of his two friends behind him.
"Good answer."
----------------------------
Art rammed his broadsword into the Jet alone in front of him, sparks flying from the wound as the ultrasonic weapon bit deep into the metallic flesh. He pressed the barrel of his rifle to the monstrosity's chest and fired a hail of bolts into the thing at point blank range. A large hole appeared in the jet alones back as the heavy lead flung it's way clean through the body.
With a grunt of perceived exertion Art brought the Eva's foot up, and kicked the stricken robot a short way from the Eva, dragging the broadsword out with a stylized flourish. He swung the sword around again slicing the upper torso off, accompanied by a satisfying explosion as the fuel cells lost containment.
He twisted his head to see a scarlet streak of light lance out at him. He hit a combination on his arm pad controls, sending the command to dodge to the Eva... The beam passed within a few feet of the flinching giant, a pale green welt appearing across the darker armour from the extreme temperature of the shot. Art swung around the rifle, losing a volley at the firer, a jet alone with a large gun like extension for one arm. The other arm was a bulky targeting system, weighted for balance rather than actual usefulness in combat.
However, a weak spot is a weak spot, especially for a remote drone. Art fired a burst at the targeting matrix, the box like structure disintegrating under the barrage. The robot staggered a little to the heavier side with the gun. Before it could recover Art was already hurtling his Eva through the air, using the broadsword in a strong overhead stroke, bisecting the giant from head to groin.
It seemed to fall apart in two halves, before fuel cells were ignited by shattered electronics. The two halves became a raging inferno, with Art's Eva still in the middle with the broad sword digging into the ground.
A robotic foot bounced off his AT field on his back. Art grinned, "Backstabber, eh?" he said, swinging the sword from the ground trailing dirt and engine oil, sending it in a tight arc around his head. There was a good, satisfying slinky sound as it sliced the jet alone behind him in two. It fell apart, and Art was vaguely disappointed when it did not explode like the others.
Art almost laughed as another group appeared on his radar. Despite the life threatening situation, and the guilt he felt over killing the squaddies barely ten minutes before, it was still one of the better ways to spend away from school.
-------(flash back- yeah i know this looks lame)-------------------------
iThe lunch room was pretty noisy, Art decided. He grinned, it was just like back home. On his red plastic tray was what looked a lot like a sandwich, but the cling film had deformed it into something vaguely shaped like a mole, bits of ham and salad caught in between numerous folds of the cellophane. He smiled at that too, another reminder that things were basically the same even half way around the world...
He stopped off at a vending machine to feed his caffeine addiction, catching sight of a pissed Hikari in the corner of his eye. Grabbing his can of coke, he walked into the main part of the cafeteria, a large hall like room, with a few groups dotted around on the tables. He guessed the majority of the students ate elsewhere, but he did not know where. Despite being fairly fluent in the language he had no idea about Japanese customs, so he basically stuck with his British ones. Hopefully someone would point it out to him when he was doing something insulting.
As he scanned the room he spotted the only person he knew, apart from the brown haired girl with a look of murder in her eyes. Rei was seated around a table in the corner of the room next to a window, a look of concentration on her face as she poked the sandwich on her tray. Art looked down at his own cellophane wrapped molewhich, wondering why she was doing that.
As he passed Hikari's table he noticed her and the red head pilot. Hikari was shooting him with the same death glare as she had done from the beginning of her 'tour', but the red head just seemed to look on with an air of annoyed amusement. He grinned, and winked at Hikari, and was rewarded with wild gesticulating, which he caught in the corner of his eye as he passed.
Chuckling lightly, he headed towards Rei, aware of at least two sets of eyes on him. He sat down, Rei giving him an odd look, to which he only smiled at. Holding the smile he whispered to Rei, "Are they still looking?"
Rei's expression formed again into its usually blank face. "No."
Art sighed, "Good, can't really eat when people are paying close attention to me." 'So genius why'd you sit here? You know she's going to give you that blank stare.' Art mentally frowned, 'You know I can't turn down a challenge.' His alter psyche seemed to grin back, 'Oh, and the fact that you're interested in her has nothing to do with it?' "Oh shut up."
Rei looked up from the sandwich she was carefully unwrapping, a questioning look on her face. Art smiled nervously, "Er, not you..."
Rei went back to the task at hand. 'You're losing it kid,' Art thought to himself./i
------(end flashback - once again, I apologise for the lameness)--------------------------
"Damn it Hikari why did you let him out?!"
"I didn't he escaped!"
"Well why'd you drag me into it?!?"
"What else would you be doing?! Sitting in front of your monitor reading creepy fan fiction?!"
"Hey, some of that stuff is good!"
Hikari was angry. That damned penguin had slipped out of her backdoor when her little sister was taking out the trash. Why she had agreed to look after the little perverted waterfowl was beyond her.
She ranted in the confines of her head about too much pressure and the penguin being a damn pain anyway etc. The usual for someone who has realised they are in quite a lot of trouble and looking for someone to blame. The problem was she could not see how this could be anyone's fault except her own. Which was infuriating.
Hikari sat down on a nearby bench in disgust. Hunching over, she rested her chin in her hands, knees on her elbows, glaring moodily at a street lamp across the road. Kensuke, noticing the change in pace, sat down next to her, leaving a fair amount of space between them. He leant back, his arm falling across the backrest. They sat in silence for a while.
"If you don't want to you don't have to stick around. Just go home."
"And leave my only friend alone?"
Hikari smiled at the boy's casual remark. He was looking out across the street, just staring at things that were not there. Hikari took this time to really notice Kensuke. It was funny how someone could just turn into a cardboard image, especially when they seemed permanently attached to the boy she was really interested in. She had always seen him as the annoying hanger on to Touji.
Recently, that image started to shift. He was still annoying, always making wisecracks about something she did, but she started to see his other side. The side of him that he did not present to people, that part of a person you only found out about when they put down their barriers. He was the annoying stooge, but he was also the boy who had dragged himself from bed at midnight to help her find a lost penguin.
She looked at him, noting the blank expression. He always hid what he really felt. Oh sometimes he would be mopy and sometimes you could not stop him grinning, like you would expect from any other normal person, but when there was something on his mind he never burdened anyone with it. At least, never bothered her.
Kensuke felt her eyes on him, and turned his head, catching her smile and returning it, before resuming his blank stare.
"So how's things?" Hikari asked, hoping that a conversation would forestall the on coming blush.
"Well, school currently sucks. The fact that a lot of my friends are gone sucks. The shows on TV all suck. I was thinking of taking up drugs, but I have a feeling that they are gonna suck too. You?"
Hikari suppressed a laugh, "Well, pretty much the same. Except school has been better. Less people in our class means less work as class rep."
"Aww, come on, you love the power."
"You'd think that, but when I have to deal with the likes of you three stooges; I wish I was just one of the girls giggling in the background."
"Yeah I guess we rode you pretty hard." He looked confused for a moment, "You? Giggle?"
"Hey, I giggle!" she said shortly, "Occasionally," she added after some thought.
"Never thought you'd be the type to giggle."
"Not around you obviously, I had to shout at you guys most of the time."
"Well, in the absence of the other stooges I would like to extend an official apology from our organization of idiocy," Kensuke said grinning.
"Well, you weren't all that bad. At least you didn't have," Hikari shivered, "Issues."
"Issues?"
"You know, things like bad grades, bad relationships, personal stuff. And a few other things which you really don't want to know about."
"Oh... issues... nope, never had any of them. Yep, I'm completely issue free, not a care in the world, couldn't be happier."
"Oh no..."
"Well... maybe just a few..."
"Damn you Aida."
"Oh come on."
"All right," she sighed, "Tell me your problems."
"You're a well of compassion you know that?" Kensuke responded sarcastically.
There was a long, uncomfortable silence. Hikari fidgeted whilst Kensuke glared at the opposite street lamp.
"I'm... sorry..."
"Oh don't be," he said wearily.
"It's just, there's been so much going on recently..."
"I know. The angels really messed things up didn't they?"
"Not that..."
"Huh?"
"Well, it's related to that, I guess."
"Whaddya mean?"
"You remember how Touji's sister got hurt in the first angel attack?"
Kensuke nodded.
"Stuff like that happened a lot. Families got torn apart. Some just couldn't take the pressure and broke apart. When that happens, the people you look to in your family to talk to about your problems are in no condition to help you."
"So they turn to their class rep?"
"They say it's because they trust me, but really it's because they think I'm a complete stranger who just doesn't care about their problems. They treat me like a wall they can hurl their hurt at."
Kensuke could not offer any response, beyond that of 'Gee that sucks.' He did not think it was appropriate right now, so he wisely kept his mouth shut.
"Well, when they all talk to me about their problems, I empathize with them. It's just so... depressing sometimes. And you can't turn it back on them, tell them how you feel. Not when you still have the family you grew up with around you."
Pause.
"And, with Asuka gone, it was really hard for me to get by. Now she's back she's so fragile, I can't just unload on her..."
"I guess."
"So now look at me, all bent out of shape over a lost bird and telling my problems to a friend who has problems of his own, when I should have been asking him about what was bugging him,
and ..."
"Hey! Easy. You're going through a lot of stuff. You don't have to be the ever smiling wall to lean on."
Hikari sighed, "I know. But it's nice to hear someone else say it so I don't sound like a cry-baby."
"No problem. But..."
"What?"
"..." Kensuke was about to say something when movement caught his eye. A squat figure waddling down the street. "It's Penpen!"
"Huh?"
Kensuke was up and off the bench, hurtling towards the waterfowl, who had turned when he heard his name shouted. He quickened his pace; cursing the fact he was not born an ostrich.
Hikari stood, rather more sedately from the bench, dusting off her coat, before following the boy in his bird hunt.
--------------------------------------
Rei let her breath go out slowly, as she depressed the trigger, sending another scarlet beam of death towards the lumbering robots. The Jet Alone was skewered by the beam, secondary explosions bulging out the armour before the primary fuel cells ignited, shattering her target form the inside out.
She quickly tapped a command for a new target. The three targeting circles came together almost instantly; the cobalt Eva moving the merest fraction to aim at the giant Mecha. A shrill sound emitted in her ear, indicating the positron rifle had a good lock. Again she depressed the trigger, and another bolt flew forth, piercing the giant robots armour, simply destroying vital connections in the spinal column. The bot fell forward, a lifeless metallic corpse.
Rei was slightly worried. The rifle was not designed for this kind of multiple firing, and was fast becoming less effective. Worse still, the fuses that needed to be replaced after every fifth shot or so were running low. And the generator for the rifle was operating at dangerously high heat and power levels.
And to make matters more disconcerting, the shambling horde of Mecha was getting closer.
------------------------------------
It was an odd feeling for the grey haired man, as he hobbled down a catwalk. It was a feeing that you never encountered much when you regularly spent the lives of thousands of people, often at the same time.
But it was definitely there. A faint feeling of regret. He scarcely imagined it possible; the parts of him that had been replaced with the latest in robotics to lengthen his life had taken away all but the necessary glands and organs necessary to produce the appropriate chemical for emotion. Consequently he felt no anger, no jealousy, and no lust. The only feelings that he was aware of was his sense of self preservation and his duty to mankind.
But the regret was still there. Was it because he had left that fresh-faced lieutenant to face the faceless Nerv soldiers alone? No, the lieutenant was a fool, and insignificant to the grander picture. Nerv was almost doing the world a favour by removing him from existence. So why... ah. He had left his favourite mug behind. You could not buy that mug any more; the company that had produced it had winked off the face of the earth during the second impact.
Oh well, when making an escape sacrifices had to be made. And he owed much of his life to perfecting the art of running away. He always planned an escape route, and this particular one started with the monorail system that ran the length of the factory.
He rounded a corner, to see the monorail car resting in pieces under a pile of rubble. He sighed, and began the long walk down the factory. It was a few miles, and would take several hours at his top speed. That did not matter, the vehicle he had procured for his discrete exit was one of the finest stealth craft of the day. He could take his leave when he wanted.
The sounds of the battle far overhead seemed insignificant to the click of a cane on the factory floor.
-----------------------------------
Asuka swung her axe around slicing a pair of the giant robots across the waist. There was a small animalistic glint in her eye, along with the smug smirk that had blossomed on her face.
It was not that she was happy with the delightful slaughter of the remote operated jokes, but it was more like she was proud of doing something useful at least. And besides, it was just like sparring against Shinji in the simulators, way back when the angels were regarded as the major threat. It was a chance to dust the cobwebs off of her melee skills, instead of all this stupid shooting at people running away.
The look in her eye as she decapitated the nearest bot was almost joyful. She swung the axe down again, slicing it in two. Casting the Eva's hand out to her left she sent elongated octagonal lines from her arm, slamming the jet alone to her left into the air, an octagonal shaped dent crunching it's way into the frame.
Ok, maybe the slaughter of the robots was a big factor in the happy feeling.
----------------------------------
Maya looked in confusion at her radar window, in the upper left hand corner of her screen. It showed two new contacts, moving in at high speeds towards the combat zone. She assumed that they were aircraft, since the altitude was the same as a low flying strike fighter, but the contacts were much too large to be fighters. Something of that size would be an Eva Hauler, the nickname for one of the huge carrier craft that shipped the Eva's. But planes of that size were never that close to the ground.
"Major, I have two new contacts, moving inbound at a speed and altitude comparable to aircraft."
"Bombers?"
"No ma'am, signature suggests something much bigger."
"Where are they heading?"
"Into Unit 02's combat zone."
Misato frowned, "More Jet Alones? Did they make airborne versions?"
--------------------------------
As warning systems popped up around the command bunker, the lone Nerv officer found what he was looking for. He had finally given up on his gawking squad, splitting them up to bolster some of the other squads who were below strength from the vicious close quarter gun fight. Besides, they were getting on his nerves.
But that did not matter now. He had found the small, near impossible to find door. This was the way he had come. His target. Usually he did not go in for this kind of mission, but there was more at stake than just his principles.
He did not even bother to find the mechanism for opening the door, merely producing some plastic explosive from one of his pouches. This was not standard equipment, but this particular officer was not a standard soldier. Technically, he was not even part of Nerv.
He sighed, and set to work, applying the explosive to where he thought the hidden door was.
TO BE CONTINUED....
Pre-read by Monkey-san (although it took you long enough... hey who am I to judge)
Pre-read by spriteh (who was a damn sight quicker)
Looked over by Non-believer (shorter still)
Glanced at by my dog when he was begging to be fed (fastest to date). I should probably go feed him now...
