Disclaimer: See Chapter 1

A/N: Well, guys, this chapter's a bit later in coming, mainly because of Shinji's bio. There's a whole bunch of technobabble there you don't have to read, but you might want to reference it just to keep stock of his weapons inventory. That said, I want to thank everyone who reviewed for contributing their time towards improving my writing! Reviewing only takes a second and makes my writing quality that much better, so please, for the love of Eva, REVIEW!

This chapter is mainly action past the biography; pieces of the plot lines that were cut off will filter through in later chapters.

Rei's inner monologue would consider the definition of school given to be very elementary – the point I'm trying to make is that even though she has an IQ of 216, she can't connect with people because of a lack of practical experience due to her early enlistment as a Child and staggering intellectual abilities.

Ghost in the Hells: Stand Alone Complex

Chapter V: Shadow and Flame

"The wrath of the lion is the wisdom of God"

-William Blake


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Ikari, Shinji (S level Clearance req.)

Sohryu, Asuka Langley (S level Clearance req.)

Ayanami, Rei (R+ level Clearance req.)

If 2501 had eyebrows, they would have shot straight up.

So easy…but "R+" Clearance? In all my years at NERV, I'd never encountered such a thing…

File Accessed:­­

Ikari, Shinji

Seraphim Clearance Acknowledged

Welcome, Kouzou Fuyutsuki

File Details:

Name: Shinji Ikari

Project Codename: ABADDON Keyword WRATH

Age: 14

Height: 5'6

Sex: M

Eyes, Hair: Blue/Black

Relations: DELETED

Status, Current: Attending Tokyo-3 Municipal Intermediate School

Abilities and Enhancements:

Proteus-III hybrid body configuration, custom layout. Deviances from standard Full War layout: Muscle Density increased 300 percent, Muscle mass decreased 150 percent, Aesthetic Grading improved to A (30,000), Neural-Trigger Reflexive Enhancements (Taken from Shock Trooper layout), sensitivity gradient increased to Peak, 163 nerves (Upgraded from 162 previous generation), shock compensators in soles of feet, palms; bone structural density reinforced 250 percent, Eyesight 20/1 (Convertible to 20/10 or 20/20), size decrease from 6'3, Eye color BLUE, Hair color BLACK.

Metabolic Activity: 3/1 Normal Human

Oversize Adrenal Glands: 2x Normal Human

Hybrid Ratio: 70/30 Cybernetic/Flesh

Notable Enhancements:

BURNSONG prototype arm-turret: Unique, 1-,2-,6-,8-, or 12- barrel convertible arm-cannon. Mounted on Right Arm, completely cybernetic. Ammo loadouts: II-2 "Hellsing" Rocket (1-), "Aramuss" Fragmentation Rocket-Propelled Grenade (1-), "Burnfire" Explosive Rocket-Propelled Grenade (1-), "Finisher" High-Spread Shotgun rounds (2-), "Varient Punisher" Assault/Grenade (2-), "Gatling" Six-round AP charge (6-), "Samyaza" Explosive Rounds (8-), "Gauss" Depleted-Uranium Impaler Shot (8-), "Strafe" High-Velocity Rounds (8-), "Slayer" Prototype Extremely High Velocity Rounds (12-)

Artificial Human Cybernetic Enforcement and Retaliation Evangelion Unit 01, referred to as the "Combat Plug": 29 History made ABADDON unreliable until the "discovery" of Ikari Shinji. Noted Multiple-Personality manifestation occurrence at synchronization rates exceeding 70 bear a strange resemblance to Gendo Ikari (See Relations) Capabilities: "Tanhausser" Force Multiplier, Highest Gradient (10x), "Abyss" Kinetic Absorption, Permanent Level 9 (+5/15), "Tarrasque" Amorphic Reinforcement and Metabolic Recycling Systems, "Celebrant" A-level Neural Uplink (Reaction time 1/37 of unjacked speed), Absolute Terror Field

Carries: 2x "Silencer" Pistol, Shoulder Holsters; 1x "Vajra" Combat Knife, Leg Holster; 12x "Azrael" Butterfly Knives (Penetration+7/12), Various Places; 3x "Punisher" Assault/Grenade Modus, Disassembled, Various Places; 2x "Maverick" Combat Gloves, Retractable "Shear" Mode, Friction-based "Flame" Mode.

Ammunition: 300-600 Zephyr Standard Rounds, Various Layouts (1/2 1-)(3/4 2-)(1 6-)(2x 8-)(30x 12-)

Arms, Standard Loadout: Noted Above.

Optional Configurations: In Development:

"Judgement" Ordnance-level Heavy Cannon

"Lance" Theoretical Melee Armament

"Fury" 36-Barrel Cannon

Guardian: Major Katsuragi Misato ("Misato," "The Major," "That Boozing Slut")

CNQ (Cyberbrain Neutralization Qualification): 7E

Specialization: Unlawful Cyberbrain Hacking, Heavy Enforcement, Physical Engagements, Close- and Medium- Quarters Combat, Tactical Operations (Rank 2)

Psychoanalysis, History: Discovered Age 9 in a bullet train accident (chances of survival: 2 percent) and subsequently transplanted (3 years following the Second and 6 years the First), reluctant to enter combat at first. Guardianship fell to Major Katsuragi one week after transfer. Accomplished Cyberbrain Hacker for his age, (though not compared to Asuka Langley Sohryu, Rank 9A, and Rei Ayanami, Rank 10E) currently ranked 23rd in his class. Intelligence Quotient: 146, foci: experiential learning, literal/visual/musical creativity, physical combat. Though enormously powerful, early signs of disinclination to participate in combat appeared when DELETED

Shinji drifted onto the top of a building, the sun slanting eerily into the prismatic glass. Below him lay the "abandoned" Medicure building, an attempt at architectural deviation in a city which brooked none. Needless to say, Medicure had gone out of business in Tokyo-3 very rapidly.

He frowned as the wooden pylons creaked under his footsteps, careful to avoid the clear glass interposed between the beams. Below, Asuka chattered relentlessly into his thought-stream while Rei brooded silently. Resisting the compulsion to yawn, the Third Child leaned carefully down to the translucent glass, peering for the telltale ripples that belied thermoptic camouflage. His foes were cyborgs, most likely black-market illegals that bent standard cybernetic restrictions.

Drug-pushing, neurostimuli engines, hit-jobs, the obligatory cyberhacking, and illegal de-ghosting: this gang did it all. Moving into Tokyo-3 would turn out to be a very unprofitable decision for the bastards.

Sync Ratio Steady at 81 Percent

Current Heart Rate: Stable

Metabolic Inconsistencies: Not Present

He dismissed the status screen with a thought as Asuka finally shut up. After nearly seven years of listening to her rants, he almost felt a void inside during the rare occasions when she finally ran out of steam – it was one of the constants of his life, just like Misato's boozing or Rei's brooding.

BAKA-SHINJI! Get over here!

The thunderous roar of live gunfire echoed over the neuro-com. Shinji started as he remembered the only other reason important enough to make Asuka stop talking: killing.

Now they came below him, retreating before the Children's relentless onslaught, black-clad figures bearing sophisticated cybernetic limbs. With hardly a rustle, they flitted down the hall, desperation lining footsteps imperceptible to the normal ear. One by one, they winked out of sight as light-bending thermoptic camouflage melted across their frames.

Shinji nodded to himself. They were professionals, old hand at the bloody quagmire euphemized as "urban warfare."

Craning his head to see down the hall, he noticed the faintest ripple of air, advancing with a merciless inexorability. Rei. They were finished.

Asuka's transmission had originated from the depths of the complex – he would move in on the other defensive position, where a large portion of their forces would most likely be stationed. If those were tied up, the Second Child could sweep in and capture their leader with only token resistance. Checkmate.

He pattered noiselessly across the roof, leaping to the other corridor as Rei's massacre began.

It really was a shame that such a…creative piece of architecture would be so tactlessly trampled upon during this operation. Rei would probably kill them slowly, just for having the impudence to inhabit this building.

In the dying light of the sun, he could see the cyborgs between his feet, weaving between each other as they checked and re-checked supply chains and fortifications. A particularly large one bellowed instructions to the milling peons, his bald pate shining artlessly against a starched black uniform.

Behind the tightly coiled figure on the roof, the last rays of sunlight bled over the horizon, defiantly arching in brilliant streams against an uncaring horizon.

Shinji grimaced. He hated sunsets.

From the back of his Combat Plug he extricated five butterfly knives, their lethal edges gripped between the fingers of his left hand. His right expanded and blurred in a flurry of mechanical evolutions as the glistening mouths of a six-barrel gun turret materialized from apparently innocuous flesh.

He jumped. Sparkling shards rained down into a soon-to-be graveyard.

The first man died, his lungs crushed, ribcage caved in by half a ton of shadow. The second fell limply to the ground, his face a punctured morass of blood. The third was snap-kicked into the wall, his rebound stark, his spine snapped evenly in two. The echo rang in Shinji's ears.

They reacted. He stopped counting.

Shinji ducked and spun in a tight roll through the swarming soldiers and down the hall, the defenses laid before him.

He raised his right arm.

An AP Charge 6-round volley could tear through the chassis of an armored tank and leave an exit wound the size of a human torso.

There was a sound of thunder, and the Third Child grimaced as his arm bucked back violently, disgorging flashes of lightning-blue in a deadly hail. His targets withered under the assault, blood spewing from a man's mouth in crimson bursts as round after round slammed into him, burrowing through flesh and spewing out in an explosion of gore. The sound of bone splintering cascaded morbidly through the hall, accompanied by the banshee shrieks of dying men. An arm erupted in blood, cracking hideously as the amputated victim flailed abound, his face gouged out by shrapnel. The makeshift blockade, formed of overturned office desks, disintegrated in a fine mist of grainy brown. The fresh smell of saw wood mingled with the scent of fresh blood. Shinji narrowed his eyes.

The weaving assassin charged down the hall, dispatching one survivor with a butterfly thrust, the next with a brutal elbow. All the while, a devastating stream of fire opened new craters in the pockmarked floor. Reinforced-glass walls spiderwebbed and shattered, pouring forth upon the decimated mass like a tide of slashing water. Night fell, and Shinji lashed out with a foot, ripping a man's head off of his spinal column.

Thirty-two.

Sange Goreslaw was fourty-four years old, a veteran of the Empire wars. He had prowled the streets of Tokyo-2 for sixteen years without losing a man. He knew sixty-four different ways to disembowel a victim without using a weapon.

But he had never seen anything like this. The…monster approaching him, laminate-clad feet thudding against the floor, was of a new breed. This beast went far beyond the conventions of man or cyborg.

Sange had not believed it, when the rumors circulated weeks before.

Thirty-two men dead. Three seconds.

There was proof, irrevocable proof. He squeezed off three shots and a prayer, then crouched with baited breath. Warily, he observed the curiously short figure jerk his head aside, step a little bit higher, shift an arm an inch to the left: split-second decisions impossible for a normal human – heck, even a cyborg – to consciously make. He should have known. After all, he was fighting Evangelion. His prayers never had a chance.

For the first and last time in his life, Sange knew despair.