Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.
Disclaimer: Danny Phantom is the creation of Butch Hartman and Nickelodeon. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.
Ghost in the Machine
"Good morning, Toji," Kensuke greeted his friend with a yawn as he stumbled into the classroom, glad to have still comfortably beaten their teacher by several minutes.
"Morning," the jock replied. "You heard from Shinji today? I haven't seen him around this morning."
"He mentioned something about some tests today at NERV," Kensuke reminded him. "I assume he's going to be there all day."
Toji grunted. "Lucky guy, gets to miss out on today's boring classes."
The otaku shook his head. "Were you even listening to him when he mentioned he'd be out today? The dude looked miserable," he chuckled. "Whatever that test is, he expected it to be awful."
"Huh," the jock grunted thoughtfully. "I guess there have to be some drawbacks to being a mecha pilot hero and a superhero."
"Guess so," Kensuke agreed. "Speaking of the superhero stuff, I was thinking that maybe we could do the ghost hunting thing professionally after we graduate."
Not too long ago, Toji would've dismissed the idea out of hand as the latest goofy fantasy from his friend. After their successful defeat of Spectra, however, he was feeling good enough about their ability to combat ghosts to at least hear Kensuke out.
"You have an actual plan for that?" he asked.
"I was thinking we could start a business," Kensuke replied.
"Seems like it wouldn't have much chance without Shinji onboard, and he doesn't want to reveal that he's the Ikiryo," Toji pointed out, rapidly growing more skeptical of his friend's plan.
"That's only because of his kooky uncle," Kensuke countered. "Once he's old enough that he doesn't need to worry about the guy anymore, he might be more willing to drop the secret."
"Seems like this whole idea is built on a pretty big maybe, but even if Shinji is okay revealing that he's the Ikiryo later on, you know that basically all the gear we use came from that kooky uncle of his, right?" the jock replied. "Pretty sure Shinji can't totally cut ties with the guy the moment he's an adult and also keep that stuff."
"We can probably make our own versions!" Kensuke said.
Toji scoffed. "Get real."
"I'm serious," the bespectacled boy protested. "All that stuff was made by one guy working out of his house. How complicated could it really be?"
The debate that followed was sharp but not very long, since neither of the two really knew all that much about mechanics in general, let alone the engineering behind ectoplasm-based, anti-ghost weapons.
Refusing to allow the discussion to end in a stalemate that would effectively kill his idea, Kensuke had proposed opening up one of the weapons to prove how straightforward it was inside. Toji had protested, fearing he'd break it, but Kensuke had insisted he'd be careful and was already undoing the screws holding together one of the ecto pistols by then.
Despite himself and his desire to quash what he was now sure was a harebrained idea, Toji couldn't help but be interested in seeing the innards of the thing.
Which was how they ended up with the bulk of their anti-ghost arsenal spread across Kensuke's desk when the class rep walked in.
"Aida, Suzuhara, what is all that junk?" she demanded, causing the two boys to jump.
"It's nothing important, class rep," Kensuke said at once.
"Yeah!" Toji agreed, with a little too much volume. "This is just…uh…"
Hikari huffed in annoyance. "Honestly, you both should know better than to bring toys into class."
Toji and Kensuke shared a look, both of them realizing two things at once.
The class rep believing the anti-ghost weapons were toys was much better than her realizing they were actual weapons. However, this was still a very bad situation.
"I'm going to have to confiscate all this stuff," she said when neither of them offered up a decent explanation or excuse.
"No, please don't!" Kensuke exclaimed, knowing all too well what happened to personal belongings that got confiscated on school grounds.
They would go into the closet of their elderly teacher or some other employee of the school and not be returned until the end of the school year, if they weren't lost or thrown away well before then.
"If you didn't want it taken, you shouldn't have brought it into school," Hikari lectured them as she gathered it all up.
The two watched helplessly as the class rep walked off with the precious anti-ghost weapons.
"Dude, why didn't you stop her?" Kensuke hissed the moment she was out of earshot.
"Me?!" Toji demanded indignantly. "What was I supposed to do?!"
"Maybe turn on the charm a little?" Kensuke said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "C'mon, we both know the class rep likes you."
Toji responded to that with a punch to the smaller boy's arm, hard enough to make Kensuke hiss in pain.
After that, they sat there in silence for a couple of moments, the last few minutes before class began slowly ticking down.
"Well, this sucks," Kensuke said eventually.
"Yup." Toji agreed.
"And Shinji's gonna be furious."
"Yup."
It was indeed true that Shinji would not be pleased when he found out that his friends had gotten nearly all their ghost weapons confiscated at school. However, even if he'd known it at that moment, he probably couldn't have mustered too much emotion about it.
Mainly because of the latest indignity that NERV was subjecting the pilots to.
"Well, here we are, stripped naked and sent through the wash cycle sixteen times," Asuka remarked acerbically as the doors to the respective booths the pilots were in opened up.
The redhead's description was more apt than he would've liked. Ritsuko and the other NERV scientists had gone on about decontamination and a clean room environment, making the whole thing seem very modern and high tech. The reality of it, though, had more resembled a carwash, except less gentle.
No windows to worry about putting a crack into, he thought.
Not for the first time, the Third Child mused that for all NERV talked a lot about how the pilots were incredibly important—vital to the survival of mankind!—in their day to day operations, the organization treated them more like machine parts than people, let alone essential ones.
"There was no avoiding it," Dr. Akagi's voice came through unseen speakers in the room, tone cool and professional. "These tests for the dummy system require an absolutely clean environment. Just changing your clothes and showering isn't enough. Now, please proceed to the dummy plugs."
Three doors at the end of the hallway before them slid open. Shinji immediately noted just how long and free of diving barriers that hallway was.
"What?!" Asuka exclaimed. "You want us all to just walk out there stark naked?! What kind of unthinking deviant are you?!"
"We've already turned off the cameras viewing that hallway," Ritsuko said. "We do respect your privacy."
"That's not the only issue here!" Asuka snapped hotly.
"Asuka—" the bottle blonde began, sound impatient and annoyed.
"We realize this is unpleasant," Misato's voice interrupted her, likely staving off a shouting match between the scientist and the EVA pilot. "If we need to perform a test like this in future, we'll put up dividers in this hallway. But for now we really need to get this done today."
Though Shinji didn't like the whole situation either, he knew there was no getting out of this.
"Asuka, Rei, if you like, I can go first, then once I'm inside the plug, you two can go," he offered.
There was a brief pause, and he suspected he'd caught the Second Child by surprise.
"That's very gentlemanly of you, Shinji, we accept," Asuka said. "First Child, close your eyes."
"Very well," Rei agreed in her usual quiet voice.
Taking a deep breath, he pressed the button to open the doors and started down the hallway. Somehow he managed to make it to his test plug without either breaking into a run or turning around to look at the girls.
"Well, that was a hassle," Ritsuko grumbled as the tests finally got underway. "Honestly, sometimes it feels like we're dealing with toddlers instead of teenagers here."
Misato frowned. "That's not fair, Rits," she said. "We ask so much of these kids, we have no right to bristle when they get annoyed at something, especially at something like this."
Ritsuko just grunted in response. "In any case, they're finally all inside," she said. "Maya, how's the data recording going?"
"Everything is nominal," the petite brunette answered.
"Good," the Project-E Chairperson nodded, before flipping a switch to open the intercom between the Pribnow Box control room and the test plugs. "Pilots, how does it feel?"
"Strange," Rei responded at once. "Unclear."
"Yeah, the right arm feels normal, but everything else is fuzzy," Asuka agreed.
"The dummy bodies are remotely connected to your regular Evangelion units, so some loss of clarity is only to be expected," Ritsuko responded. "For now, continue with the test. We're getting good data from this."
The pilots gave their unenthusiastic agreements, and the scientist cut the line.
For a few minutes, everything was calm and utterly ordinary. If not for everyone being in the Pribnow box, the whole thing would've been indistinguishable from one of the ordinary sync tests they were always having the pilots undergo.
Then the ominous sound of creaking metal came from somewhere nearby.
"Is there another water leak?" Ritsuko asked, exasperation tinting her voice.
Honestly, NERV headquarters wasn't twenty years old yet, but half the time the place seemed to be on the verge of falling apart. Setting up the Pribnow Box and the Dummy Bodies contained within had been an administrative nightmare, and if the test had to be aborted now, Ritsuko would scream.
"No," Maya answered after briefly tapping at her keyboard. "There's corrosion in the 87th protein wall."
"Will it interrupt this test?" Ritsuko asked.
"Not at present, no," Maya answered.
"Good," Ritsuko said. "Let's proceed, then. Ikari will chew my ass off if I don't get this data on schedule."
Satisfied that everything was fine, at least for the moment, the bottle blonde turned back to the main screen.
Just before klaxons and warning messages began blaring everywhere.
"What's happening?!" the blond scientist demanded.
"A contamination alert has gone off for Sigma Unit!" Maya announced, her voice betraying more than a hint of fear.
The Pribnow box was inside Sigma Unit, after all.
"The 87th protein wall has degraded," another technician announced. "Temperature is increasing rapidly."
"There's a problem in the number six pipeline," Maya added. "The corroded area's expanding rapidly!"
"Abort the experiment!" Misato barked. "Disconnect the number six pipeline!"
"Right!" Maya replied at once, practically punching the appropriate buttons.
They could hear the heavy machinery around them working to isolate the contaminated area. Everyone looked anxiously at Maya, wanting to know whether or not it had worked.
"Contamination is still spreading!" the brunette exclaimed. "It's moving from wall to wall!"
"Ready the polysome," Ritsuko commanded. "Set the lasers at maximum. Fire as soon as the contaminant reaches here."
"Right."
Several small doors inside the Pribnow opened, allowing robots that looked almost like miniature versions of the VTOLs that the JSSDF used to enter. The swarm of machines swam over to where the corrosion was likely to first appear and waited, looking as predatory as a faceless robot possibly could.
Then there was nothing to do but wait.
"It's coming," Maya said as she anxiously stared at her screen.
A small, dark smile made its way onto Misato's face as she remembered a line from an old horror movie she'd seen once. They're here…
A scream suddenly split the tense silence in the control room, as if the universe itself had picked up on Misato's frame of mind. The Ops Director scowled.
"Rei," Ritsuko breathed.
"The First Child's simulation body is moving by itself!" Maya exclaimed.
"Impossible!" Ritsuko said.
Yet impossible or not, it was happening. Rei's Dummy Body, which was bolted to the wall of the Pribnow Box like all the others, looked like it was trying to pull itself free. Fortunately, the thick bolts holding it had been drilled into several of the very vertebrae of the body, and it failed to liberate itself from its restraints. Giving up, it lifted one arm and reached out toward the control room.
Maya smashed the thin layer of glass in front of a large switch marked "forced shutdown" and pulled it. Small but powerful explosive charges located in the dummy body's elbow exploded, blowing the headless beast's forearm off and stopping its assault before it could begin.
"What about Rei?" Ritsuko asked.
"She's alive," Maya replied.
"Eject all the plugs!" Misato commanded. "Now!"
"On it!"
While the brunette was frantically typing away to enter the ejection commands, another technician shouted above the general din in the room. "Pilot Ikari's body temperature just took a sudden, sharp drop!"
Misato cursed. It was the same phenomena that had occurred during the battle against the Third Angel. She had been always been concerned about the possibility of it happening again, and its implications for both Shinji's health and his ability to pilot Unit One. Unfortunately, they had no time worry about it now, let alone look into it.
Maya slammed down on the enter key on her keyboard almost hard enough to break it, and small rockets inside the test plugs fire, sending them shooting out of the Pribnow box and into the Geofront outside.
"They're clear!" Ritsuko said. "Fire the lasers, now!"
The little robots they'd deployed opened fire, but their beams were stopped cold by a multitude of tiny, hexagonal shields of orange light.
"That's an AT field!" Ritsuko exclaimed.
"Pattern blue! It's definitely an Angel!" Maya added.
The glass that separated the control room from the rest of the Pribnow box began to crack, little spurts of water shooting through.
"We need to evacuate the Box, now!" Misato barked.
Most everyone there didn't need to be told twice, eagerly springing out of chairs and rushing for the exit. Only Ritsuko hesitated, staring at the cracking window with a vacant, shocked expression.
"Rits, we need to move!" Misato yelled, grabbing her friend and half dragging her away.
They made it out just before the window shattered and the armored doors to the control room slammed shut to stop the resulting tidal wave of water.
Of all the things that Shinji would've expected from him become an Evangelion pilot in addition to a half-ghost ghost hunter, having to debate whether to venture out a giant metal tube while stark naked or risk transforming inside of it wasn't one of them.
He didn't think that NERV would still have any active monitoring going in the plug, but he wasn't sure. On the other hand, he really didn't want to get out of the plug while naked. Shinji would be shocked if NERV already had some people en route to retrieve him, Asuka, and Rei, let alone that they'd already be there, but stranger things had happened.
And he could only imagine how Asuka would react if she was also emerging from her plug and he got out and saw her naked.
At the same time, he couldn't just sit here. Even with all the chaos of those last moments before their test plugs had been ejected into the Geofront, there was no mistaking his ghost sense going off.
Shinji supposed it was possible that the mysterious but apparently harmless ghost that haunted NERV was what had set his ghost sense off, but he doubted it. So far it seemed like that ghost avoided heavily populated rooms.
His internal debate came to an end when he heard a loud sound he couldn't identify coming from outside. Springing into action, he quickly opened the hatch and stuck his head outside the plug, expelling the LCL from his lungs with now practiced ease.
Shinji did a double take at what he saw. Unit One was standing inside the Geofront, the purple titan currently motionless and silent. A moment later, Unit Two and then Unit Zero joined it, both of them equally lifeless.
"What the hell?" he muttered to himself, wondering why in the world NERV would launch the Evangelions without pilots.
Either NERV—Father—wants us to board the EVAs out here, or he wants them out of the base for some reason, he eventually concluded.
He didn't see any good reason for wanting the pilots to board their Evangelions outside of the cages, unless the cages were threatened or already damaged in some way.
With a sigh, he climbed outside of the plug, keeping an eye out for any movement from either of the girls' plugs.
"Going ghost!" he muttered.
The familiar white rings of light swept over his form, changing his eyes and hair and, thankfully, causing the black jumpsuit to materialize on his body. Once he'd transformed, he quickly created a duplicate of himself, who changed back into human form and quickly retreated back into the entry plug.
Okay, time to try and find out what's going on with that ghost, he told himself as he flew off.
He really hoped that he didn't take any hard knocks that caused him to revert back to his human form.
"All the Evangelion Units have been deployed into the Geofront," Makoto announced.
"We've also stopped all the alarms and informed the UN and the JSDF that it was an error with the system rather than a real attack," Aoba added.
The unspoken question of why the Commander had ordered they do that hung on the air. They could all understand being embarrassed about allowing an Angel into the heart of NERV, but trying to keep that a secret was too reckless and extreme for just that to explain why he was doing it.
Gendo Ikari clearly felt no need to explain himself, however.
"Now that the pilots are out of harm's way, we need to focus on the Angel," Misato said, directing a scowl at the live feed from one of the remaining cameras inside the Pribnow box, which currently displayed the softly glowing red infection of the Angel on a piece of one of the dummy bodies.
"It would take forever to get even one of the Evangelions down there, and even then, trying to kill that Angel with an EVA would be like trying to kill a housefly with a hand grenade," Ritsuko said.
"What do you suggest then, Dr. Akagi?" Misato asked.
The bottle blonde hit a few keys on a nearby terminal, bringing up a diagram of the inside of the Pribnow Box, the Angel, and the various substances inside.
"Ozone appears to severely curtail the Angel's expansion," she said. "If we flood the Box with it, that should kill the Angel."
"Do it," Gendo ordered at once.
Misato stood back and watched as the scientist and her underlings scurried around. It felt vaguely surreal to watch Technical Division One combat an Angel while she and the rest of the operations department were sidelined.
Mostly, though, she just hoped this worked. The simplicity of the plan appealed to her, but she couldn't help but feel skeptical that something as simple as dousing it with a substance that was poisonous to it could really kill an Angel.
"Releasing ozone now," Maya announced.
Everyone the command center held their breath, waiting for the verdict.
Ritsuko smiled. "It looks like the Angel's dying off!" she said. "The MAGI detect that its AT field is shrinking, and the overall volume of Angelic biomass is also declining."
God, I don't think she could have come up with a more elaborate way to say "the Angel's getting smaller" if she'd tried, Misato thought with exasperation. She was in no way ready to celebrate until it was confirmed that the thing was dead.
As it turned out, this was a good move on her part.
"Sempai! The Angel's suddenly started growing again!" Maya reported, alarmed. "Its cells are multiplying exponentially!"
"What?!" Ritsuko hissed.
"How could that be possible?" Aoba demanded of no one in particular.
"Evolution," Ritsuko breathed, looking shocked, horrified, and awed at once. "We changed its environment, so it changed itself to thrive in it! Stop the ozone flow, now!"
Maya quickly complied, but it was obvious that the damage had already been done. The glowing mass of the Angel covered more of the dummy bodies than ever.
"This is a problem," Ritsuko muttered to herself. "If the Angel can adapt to anything we throw at it, killing it will be nearly impossible."
"Also, if it can evolve at such an incredible pace, who's to say it won't adapt to become more effective offensively, rather than just defensively?" Maya asked.
Just then, alarms started to blare.
"You just had to ask," Misato muttered, careful to keep her voice low enough that the petite lieutenant wouldn't actually hear her.
"The Angel's transforming itself!" Aoba exclaimed.
"The MAGI are detecting a cyberattack being launched against it!" Makoto said at the same time.
Misato scowled incredulously. Was a hacker really trying his luck now, of all times?
Then Aoba brought up a close up view of the Angel, and it was suddenly clear that the attack on the MAGI was no coincidence.
"It looks like a circuit board," Maya gasped.
"The Angel's effectively turned itself into a computer," Ritsuko said. "And it's trying to breach the—"
"The cyberattack has stopped!" Makoto said.
Ritsuko did a double take. "What? Why?!"
A loud, crazed cackling suddenly erupted from all the speakers on the command center. "Bwa ha ha ha ha ha!"
"What the hell is that?!" Fuyutsuki demanded. "Turn that racket off!"
"We're trying, but the commands to shut off or mute the speakers are being ignored!" Makoto shouted above the din.
"Oh no," Misato said, eyes wide. "I know that laugh."
Every single screen present in the command center either snapped on or changed its display, showing the face of a man with bright green skin, white hair, and black, square glasses.
"Why has the Angel stopped attacking the MAGI you ask? Why, it's all because of the ghost in the machine! The ghost into the machine the Angel turned itself into, that is!" he cackled. "And that ghost is me! Nicolai Technus, the greatest genius of all time!"
On the highest level of the command center, Gendo gripped the arms of his chair hard enough to make the plastic creak. Fuyutsuki looked like he dearly wanted to say something but was too afraid to utter a word.
"I've been biding my time, waiting for the perfect chance to claim NERV's wonderful technology all for myself, and the Angel transforming itself into a living supercomputer was a better opportunity than I ever could've hoped for!" Technus exalted. "Now that I've overshadowed this wonderful being, all the technology in this city of tomorrow will be mine! Mwa ha ha ha ha ha!"
The screens all suddenly went dead, save for the main one, which showed the Pribnow Box. As they watched, electric green energy crackled over the golden circuits the Angel had made itself into, and broken up parts of the dummy bodies began to come together until they were roughly in the correct alignment again.
Misato felt the floor trembling beneath her feet. "What's that?!" she demanded.
On the screen, massive chunks of metal suddenly went flying toward the dummy body, creating a storm of bubbles in the water it was still immersed in. Just before the camera feed turned to static, everyone on the bridge was able to see the metal and bits of the base conforming around the dummy body, creating a crude sort of armor.
The rumbling of the base only intensified after that.
"Structural integrity failures are occurring in the areas all around the Pribnow Box!" Aoba reported. "That thing is somehow pulling in more and more parts of the base to add to its…body? Armor?"
"That's no ordinary hacker," Ritsuko said.
"Obviously," Misato said. "I don't suppose you have any ideas on how to stop that thing, Doctor?"
She was unsurprised when all she got was a blank, nervous look from the scientist.
The Ops Director turned back to the rest of the staff in the command center. "How quickly can we can at least one of the Evangelions deployed to fight that thing?"
Makoto swallowed. "With all the damage that Technus has already caused to the base, plus the fact that both the pilots and the EVA Units are all sitting out in the Geofront and need to be retrieved, it's going to be…a while."
Misato grimaced. She'd feared as much, but the knowledge that Technus would have free rein for several minutes, if not longer, still wasn't good news.
"Then we'd better get to work."
"Dang, I wish I had the specter detector with me," Shinji grumbled to no one in particular. "Finding Technus in NERV headquarters is going to take forever…"
As if on cue, a deep rumble came from the direction of headquarters, and then a huge chunk of one of the pyramid's walls exploded outwards, sending pieces of broken glass, twisted metal, and concrete fragments flying everywhere.
When the dust settled, something that was the same size and rough shape of an Evangelion emerged, but it definitely wasn't an Evangelion. For one, it appeared to have no head. Even more strikingly, its body was covered by a mishmash of different metal plates and pieces of machinery, from enormous instruments used exclusively with the EVAs all the way to relatively tiny laptop computers.
Fumio probably would've referred to its appearance as scrapyard punk. Shinji just thought it looked like one huge, moving mess, and he was pretty sure he knew what—or rather who—was at the center of it.
"Bwa ha ha ha ha! All shall fear the genius and power of Technus 3.0!" Boomed from the many speakers incorporated into the walking trash heap, dispelling any lingering doubt.
"You know, all of a sudden, a hunt for a needle in a haystack doesn't seem too bad," Shinji muttered to himself.
"And with this invincible cyborg body, there's nothing to stop me from helping myself to all the technology of this great city of tomorrow!" Technus cackled.
Shinji belatedly realized that Technus was heading for the nearest Evangelion launch catapult that linked the exterior Geofront to the city above. Even worse, the city was already transforming, with Misato no doubt having raised the alarm. The defense grid would be out and exposed by the time Technus made it up there.
Not on my watch, Shinji decided, flying forwards, firing off ghost rays.
"Oh, what's that? A little gnat that thinks he can stop me?" Technus mocked, not even slowing down. "Face it, Ikiryo, I've become too powerful for you to stop!"
Scowling, Shinji duplicated himself until there were three of him attacking Technus.
"Okay, seriously, just because I compared you to a gnat is no reason to mimic them and try to become a whole cloud of little pests! That's just annoying!" Technus growled, swatting at the air in an attempt to smack his foe out of the sky.
Grinning, Shinji went invisible and intangible while his two duplicates continued to harry the giant.
If he could get inside the behemoth, he might just have a chance. Technus no doubt assumed that no one would be able to challenge him for control of the monstrosity he'd created because of how much technological parts were in it.
Shinji knew he could never hope to win a battle over control of a machine with Technus, but that thing had no small amount of Evangelion components in it, and probably Angelic parts, too, if he'd understood all the shouting in the Pribnow Bow just before NERV had ejected the test plugs.
So hopefully, he could—
Pzztz!
Shinji let out a cry of pain as he suddenly slammed into an invisible barrier, which flashed briefly with orange light before vanishing again. Hitting it felt like running headlong into a brick wall and sticking his hand into a bug zapper at once.
At the same time, Technus succeeded in swatting his duplicates out of the sky, destroying them, and Shinji only barely managed to retreat quickly enough to avoid the same fate himself.
"Oh, is the poor, dumb little ghost boy finally realizing that he can't hope to challenge the might of Technus 3.0?" the machine ghost mocked.
Shinji scowled, flying backwards and putting still more distance between himself and Technus.
"That's right, little Ikiryo. Run away and don't come back!" Technus cackled.
As much as he hated to admit, Technus was right about one thing. Shinji knew he couldn't hope to do any real damage to Technus so long as he was protected by his own AT field.
As an Evangelion pilot, he knew quite well that he couldn't hope to overcome Technus's AT field with sheer force, and that the only thing that could neutralize an AT field was another powerful AT field.
He looked to where the three normal Evangelions that stood at the far side of the Geofront, still as statues.
Shinji sighed. "This is a really bad idea," he said to himself as he took off toward them at top speed.
He didn't give himself enough time to think twice about what he was doing. As he drew near to his target, he went intangible, then flew right into and through Unit One's armor, right between the eyes.
As soon as he penetrated the flesh beneath the EVA's armor, the half ghost found himself inside an inky dark void, one that appeared to go on forever in every direction. He wasn't at all sure he could exit the way he'd come in.
"Well, this is something that never happened before when I tried to overshadow someone," he muttered. "Guess EVAs are just…different."
Shinji almost didn't hear it over the sound of his voice, but thanks the pristine silence all around him aside him from that, he just managed to hear what he thought was a whisper from somewhere nearby, too soft for him to distinguish any words.
Immediately, he went completely still and as quiet as possible, breathing slowly and softly through his mouth.
He had spent too much time pursuing ghosts to ignore his instincts, so as soon as he saw a flicker of movement in his peripheral vision, he was certain that wasn't alone here.
Wherever "here" was.
"I know you're there. Show yourself," he called, carefully making sure his tone was firm but not angry or overtly hostile.
The response was a little more abrupt and dramatic than he'd expected.
White light flared in front of him, blindingly bright in the absolute blackness all around them. Shinji winced and held up a hand to shield his eyes.
"As you wish," a woman spoke. Her voice was at once achingly familiar and one he knew he couldn't put a name to.
Squinting, he saw that, yes, the figure of a woman hovered before him, blazing nearly as bright as the sun. He thought she might be naked, but it was impossible to get a good enough look at her to tell. He couldn't even really make out any of her features, beyond being able to confirm she was indeed female.
"Why have you come here?" she asked him. "You…shouldn't be here. Not…not like this."
She sounded like she certain about what she was saying but wasn't sure about why. Shinji probably would've asked about that if he'd had the luxury of time.
"There's a…monster on the loose," he tried to explained. "A ghost has overshadowed—taken control of—an Angel. The only way to stop it is if I overshadow Unit One. Will you help me do that?"
He didn't know who this luminous woman was, but he had a strong hunch that he wouldn't be overshadowing Unit One without her help, or at the very least, her consent.
"It will be dangerous," she warned him. "The mind and essence of an Evangelion is very different from that of a human. More powerful. More feral."
"I have to try," Shinji said. "Please, will you help me?" he asked again.
Even though he couldn't see it, he could tell from the tone of her next words that she was smiling now. "Anything for you."
Back on the command center, the scene was one of barely restrained chaos.
Misato was frantically trying to coordinate the tasks of getting at least one Evangelion back into its cage and getting someone to bring the pilots back to base while a huge chunk of headquarters was destroyed and a lot of the surrounding area was structurally unsound. This resulted in a ton of exits and entrances being unusable, including most of the ones needed for the kinds of heavy vehicles required to move an EVA anywhere.
She also had to deal with the fallout from the fact that the base had a huge hole in it all of a sudden.
All of this while a possessed, mechanical Angel-EVA hybrid was going on a rampage.
Not a great situation all around, and it definitely wasn't helped by the way the Commander had practically been apoplectic since the Ikiryo had flown inside Unit One.
"Sir, I keep telling you, there's no signs of anything unusual occurring inside the EVA," Ritsuko informed the Commander, exasperation clear in her voice. "I'm not able to get complete readings from it right now, but what I can see is exactly what I'd expect with it fully shut down. Nothing strange is—"
On one of the view screens in the command center, Unit One's eyes suddenly flashed, not with the usual, unholy white light, but with electric green luminescence.
"Unit One is activating!" Maya announced, rather unnecessarily.
On the screen, the purple colossus took off running towards Technus at a full sprint, rivaling the speed it had demonstrated when rushing to catch the Tenth Angel.
"Shut it down," Gendo hissed. "Now."
"Sir," Misato pulled herself away from the multiple conversations she was having to address the Commander. "Is it really the best move to put a stop to this? From everything we know, the Ikiryo is on our side and—"
"I will not permit Unit One to be hijacked by an outside actor. Especially not one pretending to be some kind of ghost," he nearly snarled the last word.
"Sir, the shut down command is being refused," Maya reported, the petite technician curling in on herself as she said it, clearly afraid that Gendo would bite her head off for being the bearer of bad news.
"Sever the connection to the internal battery," he snapped.
"That's…not working either, sir," Maya squeaked.
Gendo said nothing, only turned to stare at the viewer that showed Unit One, the light from it reflecting off his glasses. As he watched, Unit One tackled Technus just as the monstrosity the ghost had taken control over made it to the Evangelion launch catapult, and both giants went rocketing to the surface of Tokyo-3 together.
"Yui," he breathed, too softly for anyone else to hear him. "Are you really going along with this?"
Overshadowing an Evangelion was very different from overshadowing a person.
When Shinji took control of a human, it was basically as if he was wearing their body like a suit. There were differences, of course, most of which he'd have been hard pressed to put into words, and he could usually feel the consciousness of the person he was overshadowing at the back of his mind. But for the most part, it was just that simple.
Overshadowing Unit One was more like piloting it. He could control it, but he was also still aware of himself. Unlike when he synced and piloted from the entry plug, however, Shinji felt like he was in the middle of a rushing river, clutching desperately onto a rock as he tried not to be swept away by the nearly overpowering current of the Evangelion's being.
It was pretty terrifying, frankly.
Still, he had a job to do.
"Honestly, Ikiryo, you're like a cockroach!" Technus raged. "Every time I think I've finally taken care of you, you come back, more annoying than—"
He didn't get any further before Unit One's fist slammed into the center of his torso, sending him staggering.
Technus growled and spread his arms. Several of the nearby weapons turrets crackled with green lighting then went flying towards him, soon coating his hijacked dummy body with another layer of machine parts.
"Take this, Ikiryo!" Technus roared as missiles erupted out of his newly acquired parts.
Unit One was too close to Technus for its AT field to do any good, but its armor was more than up to the job of dealing with the heavy ordnance. The missiles exploded harmlessly against the violet giant.
Shinji responded with another punch that sent Technus reeling. The EVA-Angel monstrosity the ghost had hijacked went tumbling, crashing onto the remains of one of the faux buildings Technus had just cannibalized.
He's not very good at this, Shinji thought, realizing that Technus had only seemed unstoppable when he was the only colossus on the battlefield.
"Dang it, Ikiryo, stop it with punching me in the face over and over!"
If he'd been able to retort, Shinji would've pointed out that Technus's stolen body didn't have a head, and therefore had no face, either. Instead, he deployed Unit One's progressive knife.
"Wait, no, I didn't mean it like that!"
Unit One lunged forward, easily thwarting its bulky foe's attempt to dodge and slashed with the knife, cutting off Technus's right arm.
"Oh, well now that's just rude!"
Shinji kicked Technus in the chest, sending the opposing giant crashing onto its rear.
"Enough!" Technus roared with such rage and ferocity that Shinji stopped short, despite know how much worse the technology ghost's bark was than his bite.
"I thought I'd already taken all the best technology in this city," Technus growled. "But now I realize that the most advanced tech is staring me right in the face!"
Green energy crackled around Unit One, and Shinji felt something being ripped off of the Evangelion, just before he was completely swept away by the current of its mind and maintaining control of the EVA became the least of his worries.
"My God," Ritsuko breathed.
Up on the command center's main screen, Unit One's armor was being torn off of its body as if by some invisible hand, exposing much of the giant's dark flesh and leaving gaping, bleeding wounds in the many places where the violet plates were physically bolted to the Evangelion.
Technus laughed triumphantly as the armor was added to the hodgepodge of parts he'd already stolen, but everyone's gaze was fixed on Unit One. The ghost had no idea what he'd done.
The Evangelion threw its head back and roared, a bestial, thunderous explosion of sound that shook the entire city.
"Berserker," Maya breathed.
Howling in fury, Unit One rushed toward Technus, moving on all fours, and tackled its foe to the ground.
"Ah! Ikiryo! Get off me! What are you doing?!" Technus yelped. "Ikiryo!"
If the ghost hero was still in there, he either couldn't or wouldn't respond in any way. The frenzied Evangelion was relentless in its attack, alternating between raining down blows on its enemy and clawing at it, ripping away layers of metal and tech. It didn't hesitate to use its teeth as well, acting a lion consuming its prey as its crunched pieces of its own armor in its jaws.
Technus screamed in protest for the first few moments, then went silent.
"The MAGI are no longer detecting a blue pattern," Makoto said. "The Angel has been destroyed."
"Well, I suppose that's one problem out of the way," Misato remarked.
"Something tells me that we're not going to have to worry about that Technus weirdo, either," Aoba said dryly, observing how the EVA-Angel hybrid was now more a pile of broken machinery and grisly, bloody body parts than any sort of coherent thing any longer.
"Why isn't it stopping?" a horrified Maya asked as Unit One continued to shove handfuls of what remained of the hijacked body into its mouth, teeth crunching down on metal parts and flesh alike. "It's obviously dead."
Only the two men at the highest tier of the command center knew the answer.
"It's looking for an S2 organ, isn't it?" Fuyutsuki spoke quietly, so only Gendo could hear him.
"It must be," the commander agreed, just as quiet. "But there isn't one there for it to find. At least, none large enough to make any difference to it."
"And thank goodness for that," Fuyutsuki muttered.
Gendo just grunted in response.
On the main viewer, Unit One abruptly went still halfway through the process of taking another bite out of its victim, its eyes dimming and then sliding shut.
The following silence was nothing short of deafening.
"Unit One's internal battery has finally run dry," Maya said a moment later, half the staff present jumping at the sound of her voice in the sudden quiet. "The EVA has deactivated."
"Let's abandon the efforts to scramble an Evangelion," Misato announced. "Priority is now on assessing the damage to headquarters."
"Make sure that Unit One undergoes extensive checks and decontamination once it's retrieved," Gendo ordered.
"Yes, sir," Misato agreed, privately relieved he hadn't countermanded her order and commanded that they prioritize the return of the test type Evangelion.
"I leave the rest to you," Gendo said, rising from his chair to leave.
Of course you do, Misato thought.
"Yes, sir," she said.
This was going to be a long day. She just hoped that not too many people had been hurt when Technus had torn his way out of the building, and that the Ikiryo was all right.
"Oh…" Shinji groaned, pressing a hand to his head as he emerged from Unit One's skull. "I am never doing that again!"
Somehow, despite his ability to fly, he went tumbling as soon as he'd fully emerged from the EVA, eventually landing on the street. He wasn't even surprised at it.
Allowing himself a moment to just lay on the street, he pressed his hand to his head again.
This was what he imagined a particularly intense hangover felt like, and Shinji had a sneaking suspicion that he'd gotten off lightly.
Just was is EVA, really? He wondered.
His musing were interrupted by someone else's groan from nearby. He looked up to see Technus staggering about, the ghost looking even more bruised and dazed than Shinji felt.
He got to his feet, head spinning only a little as he did so, and took out an Ikari thermos. "Hey, Technus," he called.
The ghost looked up just in time to see the capture beam from the thermos about to hit him in the face.
"Curse you, Ikiryo," he called as he was pulled into the thermos, though the yell sounded more than a little perfunctory.
Sighing with relief at how easily that had gone, Shinji took off to rejoin with his other self and hopefully have a long nap while he waited for someone from NERV to finally remember to pick up the pilots.
Meanwhile, in the Geofront, a certain other pilot wanted anything but more forced downtime.
"What in Gott's name happened out there?!" Asuka shouted. "What was all that noise?! And when is someone going to come out here and bring us some Gott damned clothes?!"
Author's Notes: And we're back. Technus overshadowing this Angel and then going on a rampage is something I've wanted to write for a long time. Of course, such a big change from canon is going to have some consequences. Consequences that will be unpleasant for Gendo...and Shinji, to a lesser extent. You'll see next chapter.
I'd like to say that I'll try for faster updates going forward, but at this point I think we all know where that would go.
In any case, thanks as always to my readers and reviewers.