Chapter One: So This Is Tokyo-3 . . . NERV Doesn't Stand a Chance
"Have we found anything else in the data?" Commander Gendo Ikari asked as he looked off into space. Rei floated nude in the LCL performing another harmonics test with her 'sisters' in front of him. Most people would have seen this as some perverted tendency of an old man, but Gendo Ikari really didn't feel anything looking at the girl. Perhaps a slight feeble hint of maternal warmth that went beyond merely guaranteeing her loyalty, but that was it. He had long ago stopped feeling most things at all.
"Well, we do have something." Doctor Ritsuko Akagi replied frowning. "Their are some discrepancies in Rei's brain patterns." She removed a few sheets of paper from a file near the consol she was using to monitor Rei.
"See this . . ."
The Commander studied the document for several seconds. He didn't like what he was seeing. "The discrepancies are growing greater." He observed.
"True", Doctor Akagi replied.
"Would you advise terminating the second and activating the third?" The Commander asked.
Ritsuko looked at Rei, she was being kept in the dark at the moment, in a state similar to meditation, she was barely conscious of the world around her. A small chill went down her spine when she realized that would happen if she recommended a replacement be used. Rei would stand unflinching, naked and still dripping LCL while the Commander put a bullet in her head. The third would never know what had happened.
Fortunately it went against not only her conscience, as much as she hated Rei. But her professional opinion as well.
"I wouldn't Advise it. These discrepancies seem to be building, but they are not so far causing trouble. In fact I fear they may be a bigger problem if we activate the third."
She flipped the pages in a note book and showed Gendo another chart. The Cerebral activity of a dummy plug. It appeared to have altered much the same way as Rei.
"For all we know we would be making it worse." Doctor Akagi muttered.
Gendo stared at Rei for few more moments. "Very well, keep me informed of any further developments . . . And Ritsuko, tonight, my office."
With that the man turned on his heel and was gone. Doctor Akagi concentrated on her work, but now she was more than a little distracted. She cold hardly wait.
"So this is Tokyo-3 huh?" Naota asked. It was still a little cool as he and his companions stood at the lookout. The early morning sun had just risen, and a fine mist clung close to the ground, giving the world an almost dreamlike sense of surrealism. Buildings stood in the distance.
"Yup, it's a fortress designed to stop the so called Angels that have come to end humanity. But don't let the outer layers fool you. These people are planning an Armageddon of their own."
"Huh?" Naota asked, his usual line it seemed when he learned something new.
"Its complicated, I don't even know the whole story. But apparently this NERV organization that runs the defenses is being controlled from behind the scene's by another group called SEELE. Their planning to initiate Armageddon and use it to remake the world to their own image. Reducing everyone to tang in the process."
Amarao said matter of factly.
"And we're not going to stop them?" Naota asked surprised.
"Not our job, the GPSB is keeping tabs on it for us though. If they really carry through, we should be able to stop them with twenty four hours warning. Its not much of a threat to anyone off this planet anyway."
Naota nodded and his eyes became bored again. After glimpsing the power of the Medical Mechanica in his final battle over Mabase, an organization that could destroy only a single world was rather unimpressive.
"So, what is our job then?" Naota asked, shifting the wait of his guitar on his back.
"Damage control", Amarao replied simply.
"Uh damage control?" He had a rather unhappy flashback. "You mean like the satellite bomb over Mabase?"
Amarao shook his head. "No, that was a political control. It sat up their and if the Medical Mechanica got to out of hand we took them with us. Damage control means the Medical Mechanica has gotten really out of hand and we're going to have to take most of the country with us. Mabase had one satellite bomb locked on it. Tokyo-3 has forty."
Naota's face paled. He'd had trouble repelling just one back into orbit and that was with Haruko's help. Forty of them hitting simultaneously would wipe away most of Japan. Especially if they carried those Matter Conversion bombs Amarao had told him about.
He pulled the GPSB manual from his backpack and began reading from it again, mostly to pass time. It was rather interesting object. On the outside it looked like a normal if old, leather bound book, but each page had dozens of tiny rectangles on them. Tapping one turned the entire notebook into a textbook about just that subject. Double tapping returned it to its original unremarkable format. He found some of the entries rather interesting. Especially under the Medical Mechanica section. A list of the most common weapons in the MM arsenal stood out, especially after he had faced several of them. Blue Driver MKI, Tripod Scout, Shock trooper, and even the article about the High Performance Infantry Robot.
His robotic friend Canti was from among these ranks, an unfortunate amnesiac who once given free will had immediately stuffed his loyalty programming into a cannon and fired it at the sun for more adequate destruction.
Now he looked under the Foreign Embassy weapons.
'Type VII Satellite Bomb'
Description- Special deployment satellite with a Mark V Matter Conversion Warhead. Estimated yield six hundred megatons. Designed for use against the Medical Mechanica, as such is designed with a depleting outer hull designed to penetrate MM orbital barriers. Once within the atmosphere the depleted outer shell is used to redirect the bomb to its target.
Effective Counter Measures- None.
Their was an audible Gulp. If that thing had hit Mabase their wouldn't have been enough left of the area to stick in a matchbox. And it had almost detonated in his face.
"You guys really don't play around." Naota muttered.
"No . . . No we don't." Amarao replied never taking his eyes off the vista of the early morning city.
"So . . . How do you get all of these toys anyways?" Naota asked. Things with Matter Conversion stuck to the front sounded just a bit beyond modern technology even to his untrained ears.
"Mostly our contacts with the Galaxy Police Space Brotherhood. Despite what Haruko may have had you think we're on mostly good terms with them, but a lot of our technology was reverse engineered from the Medical Mechanica if you'd believe it."
Naota nodded. He looked over to Canti who stood collecting dew on his hard blue surface. 'Canti is just like them. I wonder if all the MM robots would choose to be good if they were given the choice.'
Thinking back to the ferocity of the massive Blue Driver, he doubted it.
"So where do we start." Lieutenant Kitsurubami asked as she came up from the VW Rabbit. She'd fallen asleep in the passenger seat on the drive. Amarao had told her she should have had a cup of his coffee before they'd hit the road.
Kitsurubami had declined. She didn't want to remember anything about the Commander's coffee. She was suspicious that it would suffice to kill a MM Planetary Battle Walker.
"We start where we start." Was all Amarao said for a moment. "The Foreign Embassy has snagged us a pretty good apartment in the residential district. Three bedrooms and a bath, everything we'll need for a long stay."
"How long?" Naota, asked. Not that he cared. He'd told his father he was taking off and may never return. His father for his part was not surprised he just told him he would leave his room as is, so clean out any perishables.
He knew his father was serious. The man was weird. Well, weird people made this world interesting. Naota decided.
"As long as it take." Amarao replied. "As for starting, just walk around. I imagine we'll get where we want soon enough. Especially with our friend over there." Amarao's finger was hooked over his back at Canti.
Naota just shrugged, "Okay so we want to be seen is what your saying. Well, you and Katurabami stand out as it is. So me and Canti will head for one district and you guys take another." Naota suggested.
"I don't know if that's such a good idea Naota, dividing your forces isn't the wisest strategy . . ." Kitsurubami protested.
"I don't think we'll be in any danger." Amarao observed dryly. He opened the breast of his over shirt revealing enough compact firepower to make most arsenals feel inadequate.
He then noted Kitsurubami who's baggy camo pants and vest were packed with weapons as well. Mostly of the more discrete kind. Derringers hidden in pockets, a .325 caliber hand gun tucked into a fanny pack, smoke and flash bangs in larger pockets, the unremarkable black rectangles of butterfly knives just barely visible on the inside of her vest. You get the picture these two could single handedly storm Normandy.
The Lieutenant blushed slightly. "Errr, yes sir."
"Ok then folks, we'll meet at the apartment in four hours. He tossed Naota a balled up piece of paper. It was heavier then it looked.
He unfolded it. The address to the new apartment, and in bad handwriting a note.
'My Contact also told me to give you this. I supposed I should hold onto it until your sixteen, but they wouldn't be giving it to you if they didn't think you deserved it. Lucky bastard.
-Commander Amarao
P.S, take it slow while you get the hang of it. I'd hate to have to scrape you off a wall.'
Naota looked up in surprise. The thing that had weighted the paper were a pair of keys on a key chain, with a Chibi giant robot attached.
Amarao was already pulling the tarp off the trunk of his rabbit revealing something that took Naota's breath away. It wasn't the same model, and it was a cherry red rather then sun yellow. But it was unmistakably a Vespa scooter.
He starred at it with aw in his eyes.
Amarao's voice was grave as he spoke. "The one thing that proves the eccentricity of the GPSB, they think the Vespa is the greatest invention earth has ever come up with. Each year the Foreign Embassy gets an extremely limited supply of these. And one is being given, not just lent to you. The GPSB is pretty much giving you the ability to go wherever you want. Don't misuse it.
Naota slowly placed his palm on the seat. It felt right, he pulled himself on and turned the keys in the ignition. The engine started up, purring smoothly, his instincts took over from their. Its unfortunate that his instincts had developed in the presence of a woman like Haruko.
"Take good care of this Naota." Amarao reminded him.
He didn't get an answer as Naota hit the gas, and blasted down the road accelerating all the way. By the time he got onto the slowly filling main streets he was generating a shockwave powerful enough to flip smaller cars in his passing.
Canti watched his companion shoot away. Their was only one way for the blue robot to keep up with his partner. It extended its arms, tilting them slightly to provide a good lifting angle. The vernier thrusters along Canti's back and arms deployed, assisting the main retro's in lifting the half ton mass from the ground. He shot off after Naota.
"Well . . . I'm sure Haruko would be proud." Amarao said dryly, his eyebrows twitched. He slid his sunglasses on and looked back to his assistant.
She was breathing slowly. "Eyebrows . . ." She whispered, twitching.
"WHAT, about eyebrows?" Her Commander asked slowly.
"Uh nothing, nothing sir." Kitsurubami replied quickly.
"Hmmm, I thought not."
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Rei woke fitfully. It was odd to her, to wake tired. Her S2 core could easily keep her on her feet and functioning under circumstances that would leave a mere human long dead. Of course she could never use it to its full potential anyplace within Japan. She would trigger every blue light alarm from here to Kyoto.
Still she slowly came to realize that this was an exhaustion of the mind and soul, and not of the body. The dreams had been strongest the night before. She had seen the boy sitting in a the backseat of a car, crammed tight against the side of a robot which must have been putting no small amount of strain on the vehicles suspension.
She had so many question she wanted answers to. What was the Medical Mechanica, what was the Ano gateway, who was the Pirate King Atomsk, and what was the Galaxy Police Space Brotherhood. Her dream felt too strange to be real. Yet she knew it was. And in context to fighting messengers of God in giant robots with advanced weaponry it was not all that unbelievable.
Most frightening though had been the man in the front seat. The one who called himself Commander Amarao of the Foreign Embassy. Speaking of Matter Conversion warheads. The theories he had spoken of came very close the principles of an S2 engine.
'I will have to endeavor to discover these things . . .' The most frustrating thing was that she could not seem to get a good grip on where these people were. Someplace in Japan, and they had been in Mabase, but that was all she could remember. Their destination was blurry. Perhaps here, perhaps Tokyo-2, or Kyoto. She did not know.
She went through her morning rituals. It was a school day, and to keep up appearances she had to go at least a reasonable number of days. She pulled on her school clothes wondering again why people insisted so much to wearing clothing on a perfectly acceptable day like the one outside. She understood the answer in concept. It was to avoid unnecessary sexual stimulation. Humans worked best when they were comfortable but not overly distracted. Shrugging in the course fabric of her blouse she did not see how people could be comfortable wearing something like this.
She failed to note the fact that she always purchased shirts with an extremely low thread count.
She didn't bother locking her door as she left. She never had before. Despite everything she did in her duty to EVA, and NERV she felt nothing odd had ever happened in her life. She of course didn't know, or need to know, that that was thanks to the efforts of Section Two. Many a boy and even a few girls had been trash canned by NERV's MIBs for daring to cross paths with Ayanami. Gendo would not tolerate excess interference with the scenario. He barely tolerated his son's interaction with Rei.
The walk to school remained unchanged until she was halfway there. Then for the first time in Rei's life, something totally unexpected out of EVA happened.
She heard the distant thunder of an engine revving. It was apparent it was approaching very fast. She turned to face the disturbance . . . And froze. Not a good idea. Naota froze as well when he saw the girl. Also Not a good idea. Mostly on Naota's part, a Vespa does not like it's rider when they are not paying attention.
He lost his balance, the Vespa flew off one way. He another, and by some freakish trick of physiques, speed, angle, probability, and trajectory. His guitar continued on, sailing majestically through the air. Rei watched it in slow motion approach closer, and closer. The world went white, then black . . . Then white again. Her whole head ached as she came to. As if it had split open. She probed carefully with her fingers, already braced for the pain. It didn't come. Her head felt fine, as in it didn't hurt anymore when she touched it. She turned her body, which had somehow ended up on the ground, to face a puddle of water on the ground. She could see her reflection in the water.
She looked fine. No obvious injuries other then a sour red spot on her forehead. That, was a rather nasty bruise. She herd a groaning from not too far away. The boy lay their for a few minutes before slowly rising. 'That should have killed me!' He decided as he looked at the slight dent his body's impact had left in a brick wall. When he thought about it, he had been in several accidents in the last two years that should have hospitalized him. 'Does this have something to do with the Ano gate?'
He was tempted to pull GPSB manual out and look through it again. He was sure it had something about Ano gates. And he knew Haruko had been able to survive outstanding punishment.
He paused though as he saw the girl slowly standing up and brushing her self off. She finally saw him clearly. They starred, the stare must have lasted several minutes before about three dozen guns being drawn broke him from the realization that he had found the girl of his dreams, 'LITTERALY'.
He found himself surrounded by MIBs sort of like the foreign embassy agents. 'Not good'.
"Your coming with us kid, please don't resis-".
The man was cut off as he was blasted back by Canti's shockwave. The robots landing sent Naota several feet through the air, landing closer to the girl. The Section Two agents opened up on Canti. They didn't stand a chance in hell. Canti was a Medical Mechanica robotic infantryman, even in his battles against his brethren he had never used every weapon at his disposal . . . Well he didn't now either.
Section two agent were thrown off their feet, landing hard, some of them badly wounded or dead. Canti wasn't going for kills, but he wasn't going to be gentle just because these guys couldn't take the hits.
In the ensuing Chaos, Naota grabbed his Vespa, picking it up off the ground and pulling it along as he grabbed his guitar still sitting next to the girl.
He paused as he picked it up, looking the girl in the face. "My names Naota, what's yours", he had to shout over the gunfire and several small explosions as Canti finally figured 'screw it' and deployed a rotary rocket launcher.
The girl had to shout hard and it was obvious it made her throat sore as she rubbed her vocal cords.
"WELL, I'LL SEE YOU AROUND REI, THAT'S A PROMISE!" The boy hopped on his Vespa, kicked the break up and hit the ignition. His partner seeing that he was safe pulsed a massive blinding light through his face/screen, blinding the four remaining Section Two agents and making good his escape.
Rei was left staring confused and in disbelief amongst the bodies of the Section Two squad that had failed miserably in their assigned duty.
The boy from her dream had just appeared in her life. She had met him in a moment of explosions and death, just like she had met Pilot Ikari, but this time she had been able to hear and understand. Well she guessed she could hear, she only barely had made out his name. Naota, in the dreams his name had always gone hazy. Now she knew it. Then the boy had been gone just as fast.
Meeting him had gained her a headache for her troubles but it was worth it. She felt contentment knowing that he was somewhere near here, she would find him soon enough. If any of the Section Two agents had been in any condition to observe Pilot Ayanami they would have noted the tiniest up curve at the corner of her lips.
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Naota didn't let up on the gas until he was a good half a mile from the mess he had left, fortunately riding the Vespa came almost by instinct even though he had never driven it before. Canti dropped from the sky close behind him, much more softly this time. He breathed heavily. He'd seen her. The girl who had haunted his dreams for the last month. She'd been HERE, and all he had managed to do was give her his name?
"Guess I'm not that good with girls, huh?"
Canti paused for a second as he went through his database. Since starting to live with Naota, Canti had been his loyal partner in crime as it were. And in all his many observations Naota in fact, was not good with girls. They always managed to make him lose his cool. Haruko most of all.
Canti nodded. A large YES appearing on his face/screen.
Naota sat down on the side of the curb, feeling the warming concrete beneath the palm of his hand. It was good that he had come here. If nothing else some of his questions had been put to rest. And he felt he could get answers to the others soon enough.
Unfortunately it would probably lead to more questions if he knew anything about this stuff. Still at least he knew her name. Rei. It sounded like a pretty good name to Naota. "What do you think about Rei, Canti?"
The robots face screen lit, asking a question.
"Of course the girl I was talking to."
Their was another pause. Canti's screen flashed through a dozen different articles and languages. As a Medical Mechanica robot Canti was as over engineered as they came. Tough, and as long as he wasn't totally destroyed, able to self repair.
The screen stopped flashing as Canti finished composing the Article. An image search had revealed the girls full name. With that Canti was able to hack the wireless phone network and patch into the registration system of the schools.
Those big computers that seemed to be monitoring everything in the city probably knew more, but Canti was weary. They smelled too much like the Medical Mechanica strategic computers for his liking. And they were VERY heavily defended. He had the processing power to hack them, but the bandwidth was too limited, they would have an overwhelming home field advantage and they probably had their own hidden defenses.
Canti took the school computers instead and backtracked the information to the public records section of the Japanese Government. This was an easy one, the Japanese computers were old and slow compared to Canti and they were never designed to stop a one robot army.
He found what he was looking for. Very little it appeared and got out. He was suspicious those big computers probably kept watch on those files too.
The screen filled with text and an image of Rei Ayanami, lips curved slightly downwards, filled the screens upper left corner.
Subject: Rei Ayanami
Sex: Female
Eyes: Red
Hair: Blue
Blood type: O
Age: Fourteen. -Estimated
Date of Birth: Unknown, not given. -Estimated July-October, 2001
Nationality: Japanese. -Unconfirmed due to albinism. Genetic testing required.
Attendance: Tokyo-3 Regional Junior High School, 8th grade. Attended since 6th grade, previous attendance unknown.
Place of Residence: Southern district, building 12G, room 402.
Employment: Pilot status, NERV.
Further information is unavailable . . .
A printout spat itself from Canti's chest. The pale blue robot handed his companion a hardcopy of the information shown on the screen.
Naota blinked. "How come you never did that when I wanted to know about the girls at my old school?"
A message blinked across the screen.
"What do you mean I didn't seem sincere? What did you think I was going to go to their houses and take pictures of them in the shower?"
Their was a pause. That was dead on the money, Canti didn't want to see his Partner end up like grandpa.
Naota though about this for a moment. He could go to her apartment, but that would just be weird and would probably call those MIBs on him again. He needed to talk to her, and the only place he would be able to approach her without looking like a freak was . . .
He gulped. 'I cant believe I'm going to ask this.' He closed his eyes.
"Canti . . . Would you please . . ." He took a deep breath. "Enrollmeinthatschool", he said as quickly as he could. His partner froze for a second. Then gave him a slight nod.
He could understand what Naota was asking. Unfortunately this was going to take some work. The Schools enrollment went through those big computers, and Canti had already decided he couldn't go through those without some serious back up.
He would have to ask Commander Amarao for access to the Foreign Embassy's True Thought super computer. He promised Naota then and their though that he would be enrolled by the next day.
Naota groaned as he accepted that he had just condemned himself to the same existence he had been trying to escape.
He looked down at the picture on that printout. 'I just hope your worth it Rei'.
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Shinji Ikari paused on his walk to school, his friends, Kensuke Aida, and Touji Suzuhara stopped right beside him. In front of them was a platoon worth of Section Two agents with enough firepower to kick a lot of ass. Unfortunately it looked like it was them who had gotten their asses kicked.
"Pilot Ikari", one of the agents coughed.
"Wha- what HAPPENED HERE!" Kensuke asked dumbstruck. He could faithfully identify every weapon on the ground, including a pair of Anti Material rifles that would have blown clear through a light AFV. What could stand up to this kind of firepower!
"We got taken out . . ." The agent coughed.
"By what?" Shinji asked in shock.
"Robot, some walking TV. Took us all out. Gah, it had ROCKETS!" He coughed again. "Pilot Ayanami is she okay?" The man asked worried.
"Ayanami!" Shinji asked. This wasn't good, had Rei been hurt?
"Don't worry, she's already heading for school." A roughed up Section Two agent still on his feet replied as he checked the unmoving body of yet another agent. "I called in a second team to keep an eye on her and medics are on their way now."
"You kids should hurry along", the second man muttered.
Shinji and Touji nodded dumbly. Kensuke wanted to stay and look at the guns. It took the other two boys to bodily drag him away. Shinji shuddered as he looked back at the destruction that had taken place close to his school. And it wasn't even the side affects of an angel. Or at least if it was the Angel was extremely small. 'What the heck happened there?'
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On a rather unremarkable planetoid, in a system almost a thousand light years from earth. Their sat a massive construct shaped like an Iron. It had been programmed to keep an eye out for certain fluctuations in the Ano gates.
Such a fluctuation had just occurred. A gateway that had been slowly rising in power for some weeks now suddenly spiked and opened. It was an order of magnitude less powerful then the last natural gateway on this world, but it would serve the purposes of the Medical Mechanica admirably.
The gate would need to be widened, which meant sending a scout through first, just in case though other precautions would be taken, an opportunity like this could not be wasted. The machinery within the plant came to life. In a matter of minutes a fully readied High performance infantry robot MK.II sat over the Ano Gateway inlet.
MM had never been able to generate a fully independent Ano Gate. Unlike the damned Galaxy Police Space Brotherhood, and the Pirate King they were forced to either use existing gates, or force one at the expense of a tremendous amount of power.
Fortunately this gateway had opened, and so conveniently where it was needed. The Medical Mechanica would soon have what they needed to tip the scales against the Incarnate being Atomsk and the damned Galaxy Police, even that damned free agent GPSB traitor Haru Haru Haruko could not stand against them this time. Soon the entire universe would be thinking flat.