I don't own anything. (My new idiot-proof disclaimer.)

Lycanthrope

-Chapter Four: Stripped of Humanity

Shinji looked around his entry plug and rubbed the scars on his stomach through his plug suit. "I am not going to quietly suffocate," he growled as he reached back and stroked the controls that would destroy the Eva. He would give NERV until the Eva was down to its last few minutes of power and then he would end it himself. He tapped a few buttons on the back of his left hand and watched, as the internal clock's alarm was set. "Nothing to do now," he said aloud. "Well, nap time!" He lie back in his seat and let his exhaustion claim him.

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"Did the Commander approve your plan?" Misato asked angrily as Ritsuko walked into the command center.

"Yes he did," the blond doctor said as she sat down. "We'll launch our attack ten minutes after Eva Unit Zero-One has run out of power."

"Well then you don't need me for this," Misato said, still refusing to even look at the other woman.

"This is our only other option!" Ritsuko snapped angrily.

"There is always another way," Misato said quietly.

"Do you have another plan?" Ritsuko demanded. "Because no one else does. Even Shinji knew there wasn't another way."

"Shinji's just a child," Misato said. Ritsuko fell quiet and stared at the black and white Angel. "Why do we make children fight for humanity?"

"Because they are the only ones who can do it," Ritsuko said. "They knew the risks."

"We didn't exactly give them a way to back out," Misato said sadly.

"Well hind sight is always twenty-twenty," Ritsuko said simply.

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"Well this is unexpected," Shinji said as he looked around the maglev train.

"Yeah," a voice said. "I was hoping that our subconscious would put us up somewhere cooler." Shinji turned to the other boy in the train and recoiled in horror. Next to a perfect clone of himself sat the mangled body of a young boy with brown hair. Shinji's clone glanced at the corpse and wiped his mouth. "He was too introspective," he explained, his golden eyes glinting brightly.

"So you killed him," Shinji said. The clone grinned and flashed a mouthful of long sharp fangs. "Am I dead?"

"Are we dead," the clone corrected. "Not yet."

"So you're me?" Shinji asked.

"I am every facet of your personality that you've repressed," the clone said. "I am self confident, courageous, arrogant, strong, and open in all the ways you aren't."

"You're also a killer," Shinji accused. The clone glanced at the young boy and used his boot to shove the body off of the seat.

"Well you suppressed that little personality trait, didn't you?" the clone asked, his golden eyes flashing wickedly. "I'm also the embodiment of our change."

"You mean this curse," Shinji spat.

"Or this gift," the clone argued. "It all depends of how you look at it."

"Well I choose to look at it as a curse," Shinji said angrily.

"Are you getting angry?" the clone asked mockingly. His smirk dropped away and he leaned back in his seat. "In the past twenty-four hours things have been better."

"What do you mean?" Shinji asked. "I almost killed three people!"

"Well you are a lycan," the clone said.

"I don't want to be!" Shinji snapped.

"Then you should have put a bullet through your head," the clone said. "But you didn't."

"I was afraid," Shinji said.

"No you weren't," the other boy said. "Lycans refuse to die easy. You're too far gone to be able to put yourself out of your misery."

"I don't want to kill people," Shinji said simply.

"If you don't pull your act together then you'll end up killing us," the clone said.

"That's just fine by me," Shinji said. "You've already made me act different."

"That wasn't me," the clone said. "We're almost completely separate people. You did that on your own." Shinji glared at the other boy. "It made me so proud," the clone said, wiping away an imaginary tear from his eye. "Look man, almost all your life you've avoided standing out. Doing that created me. The one thing you never thought about was being proud of standing out. Fitting in is easy, but it's lame."

"Lame?" Shinji asked tiredly. "Are you sure you're me?" The other boy grinned and laughed.

"I am you, we're just different personality traits. That means that right now neither of us is truly whole." He held out his hand. "Truce?"

"Truce," Shinji said as he reached out to shake his clone's hand. His hand closed on nothing. His clone had disappeared in the blink of an eye, leaving only his laughter echoing through the empty train car. Shinji looked out of the window and felt something well up inside him. He bit back a chuckle and finally he laughed. He laughed until tears were streaming down his face.

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"That's it," Ritsuko said quietly. "Eva Unit Zero-One has been out of power for ten minutes. Commence operations." The command center was almost completely silent as Makoto reported that the planes carrying the world's remaining N-2 mines were approaching the target. On the screen Units Zero and Zero-Two stood on either side of the Angel's shadow, ready to try to contain the blast. Ritsuko glanced at Misato and sighed. The woman had been sitting off to the side, refusing to talk to anyone.

"Abnormal readings from the angel!"

"What?" Ritsuko demanded. On the screens a small spot of red suddenly appeared in the center of the black circle. In the blink of an eye jagged red cracks shot from the center and spread across the surface of the shadow. "Call off the planes!"

"I'm on it," Makoto said. Ritsuko watched as a massive, bloodied hand burst from the angel and scrabbled desperately for traction. It found something to hold on to and another hand appeared.

"Oh my God," Maya said quietly. Eva Unit Zero-One pulled itself slowly out of the Angel in a spray of blood and howled wildly, throwing its head back like a wild animal.

"The blue signal has been terminated," Shigeru said, his voice wavering slightly. "I'd be shocked if it didn't after that." On the screen the Eva sank to its knees and slumped against one of the buildings.

"It's out of power," Makoto said.

"Wasn't it out of power before?" Shigeru asked.

"Don't ask me man," Makoto said, "I just work here." Ritsuko glanced back and Misato. The raven-haired Major was watching the screen with a mix of horror and joy.

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Shinji opened one eye slowly and glanced around his hospital room. "So you're finally awake," Bob said happily. "You've been unconscious for nearly two days."

"What are you doing here?" Shinji asked, opening both eyes and sitting up in his hospital bed.

"I was worried about you," Bob said simply. "I sired you. In a sense you're kind of like my son."

"Were you this worried about all you kids Pops?" Shinji asked mockingly as he tore the IV needles from his arms.

"Well you are special," Bob said. "You are the first lycan I have sired in several hundred years and you're probably the last lycan I'll ever sire."

"Fair enough," Shinji said as he stood up. "You have any clothes?" Bob pointed towards a pile of cloth and leather in one corner and turned while Shinji changed.

"So you have finally accepted what you are?" Bob asked.

"I didn't have much of a choice," Shinji said as he smoothed his blue jeans. He picked up a worn, brown leather jacket and pulled it on over his T-shirt. "You have no fashion sense."

"I prefer function over fashion," Bob said. "Welcome to the Fenrir pack."

"A wolf god?" Shinji asked as he opened the door. "Somewhat appropriate."

"I am the reason there is a Fenrir," Bob said as he stepped into the hall with Shinji.

"You are to remain in your room Third Child." Shinji glanced up and noticed a Section-2 agent walking towards him. It wasn't Marvin. Shinji pulled back his hand and backhanded the agent. The large man flew violently into the nearest wall and slid to the floor.

"Now then," Shinji said cheerfully. "I have some questions."

"Ask away," Bob said, prodding the unconscious agent with the toe of his boot.

"Not here," Shinji said. "The walls have ears."

"Were you insane before or is this a recent development?" Bob asked.

"Why are you asking me?"

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"I like this place," Shinji said as he looked around the restaurant. "Who's your friend?"

"Pardon?" Bob asked.

"Her," Shinji said, pointing to Angel.

"That's my mate. Her name's Angel," Bob said. "So what about your questions?"

"What else is out there?" Shinji asked.

"I don't understand," Bob said.

"Out there," Shinji said, emphasizing his words with bizarre hand motions, "other so called mythical monsters."

"Oh," Bob said. "There are thousands of creatures like us living just below human notice. The ones you need to watch out for are vampires and other lycans. Why are you asking?"

"Tokyo-3 is my hunting ground," Shinji said simply. "I need to know what I might have to kill."

"Territoriality is strong in you," Angel commented as she sat down. "You want a tip?" Shinji nodded. "Rip off the head. Nothing survives without its head."

"That is rather hard to do anymore," Bob argued. "Things used to be civilized. A vampire would intrude on a lycan's territory and they would be killed. Nowadays those damned parasites use firearms."

"Silver bullets?" Shinji asked.

"Yeah," Angel said. "Lycans can heal extremely fast, but wounds caused by silver remain open and extremely painful for months."

"On that topic," Bob began. "You should remember this, just because you don't age, doesn't mean you can't die."

"So how do you kill a lycan?" Shinji asked.

"Silver to the heart or brain works," Bob began. "Enough silver anywhere will kill though. You can also die from damage to either your brain or heart. Drowning and hanging work fine."

"And vampires?" Shinji asked.

"They have the same kind of extreme allergy to sunlight and garlic as we do to silver," Angel said. "Everything else is pretty much the same."

"These might come in handy," Bob added. He reached into his coat and drew several pistol magazines. "These are silver and these are semi-jacketed hollow points filled with liquefied garlic."

"Thanks Pops," Shinji said as he tucked the magazines into his coat.

"Are you going to keep calling me that?" Bob asked. Shinji nodded and stood up.

"Well it was nice meeting you m. . ."

"Call me Mom or anything like that and I will cut them off," Angel said, letting him guess at what 'them' was.

"I was going to say Ms. Angel," Shinji said, "really."

"A male lycan with manners," Angel said, sounding impressed. "Now I've seen everything."

"And just what is that supposed to mean?" Bob demanded. Shinji chuckled and walked out of the restaurant.

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"There's something really different about him," Angel said as she watched the young lycan leave. "I mean he's different then before."

"He has no humanity in him," Bob said as she took a sip from his bottle. "Whatever happened in that angel stripped it away."

"That's good," Angel said "right?"

"Humanity does limit the way a lycan acts," Bob conceded. "But he has lost it completely. I'm starting to worry about what he will do without it."

"What do you mean?" Angel asked.

"I mean even if he has managed to retain any inhibitions at all," Bob began. "They would be severely weakened. I just hope he's smart enough to not go on a rampage."

"We may have to kill him if he does," Angel said sadly. "God damn it. He never asked for this shit."

"Did you?" Bob asked. Angel shook her head slowly. "Besides, I'm not sure we could kill him."

"What do you mean?" Angel asked.

"You didn't see what I saw," Bob said. "Two days ago he tore his way out of that angel."

"Wasn't the Eva doing it?" Angel asked. Bob shook his head.

"Shinji controlled it and it drew strength from him," Bob explained. "That's about as far as I understand it myself."

"Oh great," Angel said. "We have a complete sociopath with more power then either of us running around."

"Yeah," Bob said. "Let's just hope no one pisses him off."

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Ritsuko stared at the microscope in front of her and rubbed her eyes. "Just what the hell is going on?"

"What is it?" Maya asked.

"It's a slide of Shinji's blood," Ritsuko said. "It changed."

"What do you mean?" Maya asked as she took a look. "Are you sure that's human?"

"I took this sample myself," Ritsuko said. Maya's phone rang and the young woman quickly picked it up and spoke quietly for a minute. "Is there a problem?" Ritsuko asked

"Shinji left the hospital," Maya said as she closed her phone.

"What about the Section-2 agent?" Ritsuko demanded.

"He's in the hospital with a broken collar bone," Maya said.

"What the hell happened to him?"

"Shinji hit him," Maya said simply. "He broke a full grown man's collar bone with one hit." Ritsuko quickly pulled out her own phone. "Who are you calling?"

"An old professor I had in college," Ritsuko said. "He's an expert on rare blood types and diseases." The phone continued to ring and a machine finally picked up.

"You have reached the office of Marcus Van Hellsing," the machine chanted. "He is currently on vacation in India and will not be available until sometime next month." Ritsuko cursed and flipped her phone shut.

-End

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-Author's notes. I managed to finish this chapter a week ahead of schedule, so here it is.