OCTOBER 12TH

3:25 PM JST

TOKYO-III FIRST MUNICIPAL SCHOOL GATES

"So you guys had to jump in a volcano?! That's wicked!"

Kensuke was practically jumping up and down, his excitement obvious.

"Calm down, Kensuke. It wasn't that much, and I can't tell you much else."

Shinji said, trying to get his friend to settle down. It had been an odd few days and he didn't need Kensuke giving him more of a headache.

"Sorry!"

Shinji sighed. His mind was racing with the events of that night. He knew that would lead to a series of events where she would soon move out.

He kept thinking until he walked face first into the school gates.

"Gnah-"

He then promptly fell on his ass.

"Are you ok?"

A voice said from behind. Said voice also produced a hand to help Shinji up. Grabbing it, Shinji hoisted himself up. Helping him was the new gray haired student in school.

Kaworu Nagisa.

He had seen him at NERV, but hadn't had an actual chance to talk with him.

"Oh. Thanks, Nagisa."

Kaworu simply smiled brightly as Shinji. His friends were slightly unnerved at the smile.

"It's no big deal. And please, call me Kaworu."

. . .

"Sure… Listen, we're heading out to the arcade now, do you want to come with us- Gah!"

Shinji was immediately grabbed by both Kensuke and Toji and spun around to face them.

"Wha-"

Toji quickly covered Shinji's mouth.

"Listen… He's been staring at ya all day in class…"

Kensuke butted in.

"He's also been asking around about you… Ignoring all the girls who talk to him about anything else…"

Toji pushed Kensuke back.

"He's creepy! Obsessed! Look, I ain't got no problem with he being gay or sumthin… But… He gives me the fuckin creeps!"

Shinji shoved the two boys back, each of them taking a stumble back.

"I'll see that for myself."

Shinji then turned to face the rather oblivious Kaworu. He still had that damned smile on his face. It also kinda looked like he didn't have much going on in there either…

"Do you want to come with us?"

. . .

"Sure! I would love to!"

MATERNAL PROGRAMMING

EPISODE 18

"The Mind Electric"

4:23 PM JST

NERV HQ

PRIMARY COMMAND BRIDGE

BALTHAZAR COLUMN

"Alright Tokita, Just get the buffers ready and we can begin."

"Gotcha."

Plugging things in, Shiro made sure to set each connector to the right port on the small blue box.

"I didn't know the MAGI used Firewire…"

Ritsuko chuckled and sat up, setting down the small tablet next to her.

"The MAGI has a lot of data being processed every second, and a lot of these files are huge…"

"I see."

"Well, we can also use Melchior to diagnose Balthazar. Hand me that other tablet."

"Here you go."

"Thanks."

"About the other day…"

"Yeah?. . ."

"Thanks for… Going out with a hag like me…"

"No problem… Thanks for taking a chance with me, even if it was to calm me down…"

. . .

"No problem."

OCTOBER 13TH

NERV HQ

WAR ROOM

3:43 PM JST

"So it's a giant spider with crying acid eyes all over it?"

"Seems that way, Either way it's registering as a pattern blue. Its AT Field is very low on the Katsuragi Scale, marking at a 2.3. It'll be like it's not even there."

Makoto concluded his report, leaving Misato to contemplate her next move. They could essentially just send Jet Alone to take care of it, but in the event it had a stronger AT field it would need to be backed up with an Evangelion.

"I trust you have a plan, Captain Katsuragi. If allowed, this Angel may try and free its captured brethren underneath."

Commander LeBlanc stepped in the room with the door closing behind him.

While he had a small smile, she could tell he was in a serious mood. He walked over to the table and examined the data presented before them.

"The city is already in fortress mode, so we might try and use some defense towers to test it. And according to this report it may just be enough to kill it. What does the MAGI say?"

Ritsuko pulled up a tablet and began tapping away. Inputting data at an abnormal rate.

"Casper is giving a conditional Yes, And Melchior is still diagnosing Balthazar, but gives a go ahead. Either idea would work, they say."

Misato huffed and crossed her arms, still perplexed at how easy this seemed. This is too good to be true…

"Well, we'll keep the Evangelion on standby just in case. Unit 3 hasn't come in yet so the Fourth Child isn't needed here."

"Shinji is already on the launchpad, awaiting orders."

"Fire a rocket tower at it."

Misato turned to face Jacques who had given the order.

. . .

"Alright sir. Launch a barrage at the angel."

"Rodger, launching."

The towers above opened their bay doors to let out the dozens of explosive-filled rockets fly into the air.

The monitors showed the swarm of missiles on its path to the angel.

KABOOM

The rockets hit its target with direct precision.

. . .

Bloody chunks spewed everywhere, coating the surrounding buildings in gore and guts. Silence rolled over the normally noisy room, allowing everyone to hear the sounds of the computers and fans.

No one here had expected this to happen.

At all.

The newly appointed commander stood there almost slack jawed that his plan worked so well. Misato had an exasperated look on her face. The last angel was captured without any resistance, and now this one with one strike!

"What the actual fuck…"

. . .

"P-Pattern blue neutralized…" Makoto hesitantly said, knowing that the rest of the staff already knew.

Silence.

"I guess… We call off the lockdown… And turn it back to City mode…"

Misato said, her voice still in awe at the Angel's non-existent defense.

Ritsuko snapped out of her thoughts and began walking towards the exit.

"I'm… going to go work on Balthazar with Tokita… Call me if.. you need me…"

As Ritsuko was about to leave, Jacques quickly stopped her.

"I don't believe I've given you or Tokita authorization to work on MAGI Balthazar…"

Ritsuko halted.

"In the event that Dr Naoko Akagi is not available to do her duties, anyone that is qualified to repair and diagnose issues on the MAGI are required to step up and work on the issue. Since Maya Ibuki is on sick leave, I have asked Mr Tokita to step up due to his field in Computer Sciences."

. . .

"Is that all Commander LeBlanc?"

She had an expressionless look on her face, not showing any weakness to the SEELE member turned NERV Commander.

"Yes… That is all. Continue."

"Thank you sir."

. . .

Suddenly a voice came over TacNet.

"I'm still here… Is the Angel still there?... Hello?..."

3:56 PM JST

MAGI BALTHAZAR COLUMN

"Alright Shiro, time for a quick isolation test. We will keep her isolated from the rest of the facility, so she doesn't do anything to us, like release a toxic gas or something."

That last part made Shiro shudder. He was not in the mood to be gassed by a rogue AI.

"Time for the moment of truth… Hit the switch."

Shiro complied and flipped the temporary breaker switch. The switch made a loud thud and began to hum. Fans and pumps began to turn on as the SuperComputer came to life.

A terminal connected to a port on the MAGI beeped as it began its serial connection to one another.

Bootloader readouts began crawling up the screen at breakneck speed. Billions of instructions per second ran through the MAGI's artificial brain, telling it what to do, how to do it, and when to do it. Hard drives, Flash memory and RAM all being reading and written to a million times a second.

Then an error appeared.

"Error 00x1A4?..."

Shiro murmured as he read the error message while startup messages kept zipping by.

"What?! Let me see that!"

Ritsuko quickly took the terminal from him, examining the contents of the screen.

"Fuck…"

Shiro's face turned concerned.

"What's that?"

Her face soured.

"Someone outside tampered with it…"

Sorry guys for the short chapter, it was very hard writing it. And Yes i think Matariel is a fucking joke.

Laugh.

Anyways, Thanks for reading this chapter!

-DerpymanMT

Deus.

Also, I am no longer on the AsuShin discord server, so if you want to be in a server with me, head over to Evangelion Inc, real chill place.