0615 hrs.Undisclosed Date

Geofront Internal Cavern, Perimeter of NERV Headquarters

The thirteen members of N-FOG, plus two members of NERV security, are running laps around the NERV facility at MOPP-4, their chanted jodie distorted by the voice emitter on the mask, while they ran. Lampright stopped them at the HQ entrance after they complete their fifth mile.

"Dismissed." Lampright barked.

The two security personnel fell to their knees and removed their masks, gasping for air.

"See, that wasn't so bad, was it?" he asked the two as he removed his own mask and stripped out of his suit, turning it inside out.

The two men were still lying on the ground panting, and one had vomited.

The thirteen members of N-FOG walked past the two security personnel and loaded into the elevator.

"Make sure you hose that off." Carey added as he walked past, pointing at the puddle.

The elevator started it's journey down.

"Watching them try to keep up was like watchin' a monkey fuck a basketball." Maloy said with a grin.

"You got fifteen mikes to set your gear to dry and meet in the mess at 0700, hu-ah?" Lampright said.

The message was met with a chorus of affirmatives.

0708 hrs.Undisclosed Date

Cafeteria, NERV Headquarters

"Can't believe they don't have Spam and eggs." Cooper said.

"Yeah, they don't serve corn beef hash either." Lampright added.

"Uh-oh Lampright. Guess who just walked on, and they don't look happy." Larson said.

"Shit." Lampright said as he unobtrusively turned around and proved his suspicions.

"Captain Lampright! What the HELL did you do to Koriyama and Ogami?!"

"Nothin' I didn't do to my own troops, captain." Lampright said casually, taking a drink of his juice.

"Why the hell did you do that to them?! Was that the ONLY thing you could come up with to do for PT?!"

"Meh. We tried football once, but too many people got hurt. We get a little competitive."

"I will not stand for the mistreatment of security personnel."

"Look, I've had this scheduled for weeks. I'll send you my PT schedule."

"Really? I'd LIKE to see THAT. Fine." she said as she turned around and left.

"Hey Howard, if I would be to make a document now, could you make it look like it was, oh, say, three weeks old?"

"Sure."

"Alright. Good."

"Koriyama and Ogami?! Since when do they have names?!" Larson asked.

"Plenty of people name their pets." Howard said with a grin.

2109 hrs.Undisclosed Date

Cpt. Lampright's Quarters, NERV Headquarters

Lampright entered his room and sat down, contemplating inducing vomiting in the wake of Katsuragi's cooking, when there's a knock on his door.

"Come in!" he yelled.

"Wuzzup Shinji?" he said as the pilot walked in.

"Uh, hi."

"Whaddaya need?"

"Uh, you've had a girlfriend before, right captain?"

"Yeah, why? And out of uniform, call me Eric."

"Uh, ok. Well, you see...there's this girl and-"

"A girl? I knew it! I kept tellin' Maloy you weren't gay. Continue."

"Uh, thanks. I think. Anyway, there's this girl, and I-uh my friend likes her, but she just yells at him and hits him and says he's an idiot all the time."

"Has this girl ever indicated that she liked you-I mean 'your friend'?"

"He doesn't know. Sometimes he thinks she gives him a special smile when she thinks no one's looking. But I-my friend doesn't know what to do."

"And I'm guessing asking her is out of the question for some reason, correct?"

"Uh, does that really work?"

"Sometimes. Then again, 'your friend' could just continue to believe she hates him and be miserable."

"When you put it like that....."

"Hey man, I'm not gonna tell you what to do. You gotta make the decision for yourself. I mean, I'll give you info and stuff, but you gotta make the decision for yourself. Alright?"

"Uh, yeah." Shinji said.

"Cool. Anything else?"

Shinji shook his head no.

"Glad to help." Lampright said as he got up and walked the 14 year-old to the door.

Cooper's leaning against the wall as Lampright opens the door to let Shinji out. Lampright waits until Shinji's in his room before turning to Cooper.

"Yes?"

"I saw him enter, so I thought I'd wait. What was that all about?"

"He wanted girl advice."

"So he came to you?!"

"Yeah, I'm surprised too."

"You didn't give him any advice, did you? You could get him killed!"

"Go to bed."

"Is that an order?"

"It could be." Lampright responded.

Cooper smirked.

"Alright, alright."

1423 hrs.Undisclosed Date 1

N-FOG Offices, NERV Headquarters

The now familiar sound of klaxons filled the office just as they had sat down for a meal. The thirteen soldiers ran for the armoury at full-speed while Lampright called for information over the radio.

"Lampright to Major Katsuragi, situation?"

"Another Angel has appeared. Prepare your troops for recovery and report to the command center."

"Roger that."

Lampright turned and spoke to his men.

"Draw weapons and prepare for recovery. Denisovich, draw my weapon and Howard, do your little splicing trick again."

1425 hrs.Undisclosed Date 1

Command Center, NERV Headquarters

"Situation?" Lampright asked.

"The Angel has detached three pieces of itself, and is using it's AT offensively."

"AT fields?"

"Look." Katsuragi said, punching up the view from ObSat-6, revealing three very large craters."

"So it's.....bombing us?"

"In a manner." Dr. Akagi said.

"Looks like it's zeroing in. How long 'til it's next attack?"

"It's in a 119 minute orbit, so less than two hours. Any ideas?"

"Heh. Unless you got the world's largest catcher's mitt, no."

Major Katsuragi's eyes light-up.

"Wow. I don't want any part of THIS. Goodbye. I have a recovery to organize. Hopefully."

1621 hrs.Undisclosed Date 1

N-FOG Office, NERV Headquarters

"What's the situation, cap'n?" Cooper asked.

"We're playin' catch with a very big bomb." he said casually.

"Oh, alright."

"Howard, you get that hook-up yet?"

"Man, I been done with that for like, thirty minutes. We were waitin' on you."

"Then fuckin' turn it on!"

"Alright, alright. Calm down."

"Hey! It's starting!" Herford yelled.

"So this angel is......" Jackson said.

"It's a big bomb. It's gonna fall right on us. So they're gonna try to catch it."

"Try to catch a bomb?"

"Yep."

Jackson shrugged.

"Sounds good to me." he said.

"They really think this'll work?" Herford said.

"That's what I said." Lampright responded as he pulled up a chair and took a seat.

All the soldier's turn their attention to the screen. All three Evas are positioned to cover the estimated impact area. Lampright looks at his watch.

"Operation should begin............now." he said.

Evas 01 and 02 took off, Shinji's Eva still crouched at it's start point.

"What's Ikari's malfunction?! Get moving!" Howard yelled.

Several seconds passed before he moved. The Evas ran at full speed, Eva 00 caught the Angel, straining to hold it. The other Evas arrived and helped him support it. Suddenly the Angel detonated in a huge ball of fire.

"Wow. That was a BIG explosion." Howard said.

"That was uhh....that was kinda close." Sonoda said.

"Yeah, yeah it was. So what now?" Cooper asked.

"I say we get some food." Lampright said.

"Works for me." Montgomery said.

1719 hrs. Undisclosed Date 1

N-FOG Offices, NERV Headquarters

"So, I heard Katsuragi's a MAJOR now." Maloy said.

"And.....?" Lampright said as he took a bite of a rice cake.

"And.....that means that now she's your superior in position AND rank." Cooper said with a grin.

"That may be, but we all know who doesn't sleep when shit needs to be done, hu-ah?" Lampright said with a smirk.

"Hu-ah." the others responded.

The room suddenly becomes pitch black.

"This had better not be a bloody drill." Howard said.

"Don't you ever pay attention during the disaster drills? The emergency lighting would be on. Something's up. Everybody grab an NOD, then report to your alert station."

The sound of thirteen men fumbling in pitch darkness, tripping, cursing, et cetra filled the dark room. They all quickly manage to find the cabinet and get their night vision gear and head to their alert stations while Lampright tried continuously to raise someone on the radio.

"I can't believe internal comms is down to. This is bad." he muttered to himself as he flicked the safety off his pistol while he worked his way to the command center. Lampright counted his paces as he recalled from memory the distances and turns on the way to the command center, reaching it after several long minutes in the pitch darkness before reaching the command center.

"Situation?" Lampright asked from the darkness, startling Dr. Akagi.

"Please refrain from doing that, Captain."

"Situation?"

Dr. Akagi sighed.

Primary, auxiliary, and reserve power went down simultaneously."

"Alright. My men are moving to secure the perimeter. We'll at least have warning of a breach. Where's Major Katsuragi and pilots Ikari and Soryu?"

"Katsuragi hasn't reported in yet, and Ikari and Soryu went to look for him."

"Great. So you let them go in the dark?"

"I don't have time to control them, I need to restart our systems! Besides, they took a flashlight!"

"At least that'll make'em easier to find." Lampright said as he turned around.

"And where are you going?! Due to the Major's absence, you're the ranking officer in here!"

"This is neither my chain-of-command, nor my field of expertise. I'm sure you can manage without a grunt getting in the way." Lampright said as he walked into the darkness.

'Typical. They only want my kind around when they need something.'

1848 hrs.Undisclosed Date 1

Somewhere in NERV Headquarters

'I covered from the command center to their quarters and back again. I've just been wandering for the last hour or so. With no result. Fuckin' great.' Lampright thought as he walked aimlessly through the halls, having lost his sense of direction almost twenty minutes ago.

Suddenly his NOD went white and cut off, the lights had turned on, allowing Lampright to finally know exactly where in the facility he was as he pulled them off his face.

'Well, at least the pilots ought to be able to find their way to the command center. Hopefully the major will too.'

Lampright began making his way back to the command center.