I do not own the rights to Neon Genesis Evangelion, or any of the characters, equipment, or locations written in this fanfiction. The purpose of this fanfiction is merely for the non-profit enjoyment of other readers. If requested by Gainax, Hideki Anno, or other parties which represent aforementioned objects in this story, I will remove it promptly.

Chapter XXX:

What transpired next is hard to describe. I knew in the back of my mind that there was nothing left to lose by trying something stupid or heroic, but one would expect fear to overcome me and prevent such action from being taken. I suppose the fact I had two Angels sharing the same body reassured me that I would somehow survive. Still, all of my actions were the result of fear inducing the excess flow of adrenaline.

The first hitman made his way to me as I walked towards him. I didn't yet have a plan, but I figured the further I could keep the first man away from the second, who still held Misato, I would at least increase the response time necessary for the second thug to do anything. The man drew the gun he had stolen from me, and pointed it directly between my eyes. "Where do you think you are going?"

I refused to answer, and just kept walking.

"Hey, I'm talking to you!" he shouted again, cocking the hammer. I kept stumbling towards the barrel of the gun, all the time my voice screaming in my head, "What, are you nuts?" But I was beyond nuts at this point. I had spent a few months in this hell, beaten, assaulted, tortured, invaded by creatures which would shortly take over my consciousness if I couldn't somehow block them out. But with all that rage, I had a plan, or rather, the rage was the plan. As long as I stayed angry, the Angels would have difficulty taking control.

"Hulk smash!" I growled, shoving the gun out of my way, and striking up at the man's nose with the palm of my right hand. It was a crude delivery of such a beautiful, cunning attack, but it was effective. The man's nose compressed, followed by a sickening cracking sound which made my stomach churn. The man's eyes rolled up to whites as his brain began to shut down, the two hemispheres now severed by the cranial ridge bone. I started to smell the mix of urine and feces as his bowels gave out from the lack of neuromuscular control, but his body remained upright a few seconds more, feet locked underneath him. Then, he simply collapsed into himself, falling to the ground in a neat little pile.

I flinched after the strike, looking at the man, then back at my hand. There should have been some soreness, maybe even some bruising on my palm, but there was none. It also occurred to me that the blow was delivered with far more strength than I could have normally delivered. It was at that point I realized what the Angels and I had were a symbiotic relationship. I didn't just receive some of their powers, but the longer we were joined, we were both adding up to an average that was less than the strongest of us, but more than the weakest of us. As much as I wanted to block them out, they gave me advantages that I could not survive without. Perhaps letting them take over for a little while is what I needed.

Then I heard the shots, two of them coming from behind. I knew the hitmen were using high velocity loads, and both of these men were professionals, so I would have felt some kind of pain if the second had been shooting at me. But I was not the target, and I knew what to expect when I turned to face the fresh corpse of Misato Katsuragi. However, expecting to see the body of a friend who's life you took indirectly, and seeing it, letting the idea really sink in, are two different things.

My feet again carried me in slow, deliberate steps towards the second man. I could hear the men of the Committee shout and bark orders. "You are supposed to be professionals!" one yelped, while another grumbled. "Don't kill him! We need information!" The American's comment was the most entertaining, although in the minority. "Quit screwing around and shoot him!"

Misato's eyes were blank, glazed over, with two intersecting small caliber holes burrowed into forehead. The hitman wasn't able to get a clean shot off, missing her temple entirely. Katsuragi must have struggled at the last moment, forcing him to push her back with the barrel of the gun while he squeezed off the two rounds. It was not a good way to die, and it just made me angry. The rest of what happened in that room, I don't want to talk about.

•••••••••••••

There were a lot of shocked looks when I arrived on the bridge. Perhaps it was the fact I was carrying Misato's naked corpse. I did my best to try and wrap her remains in one of the hitmen's shirts, but she was too tall to cover everything, and somehow, dressing a corpse didn't come off quite right in my opinion. I wasn't going to disturb the body needlessly, and some part of me, I am ashamed to say, wanted everyone to see her like that. That part of me wanted to scream out, "You see what we're up against? Do you get it now?"

"What is the meaning of this?" Gendo barked. It would figure, he would be the least affected by a dead woman's corpse on the bridge. It must have brought back a feeling of nostalgia. "Pilot, answer me! Why did you murder Major Katsuragi?" Of course he would figure I would do it, though I couldn't blame him. Perhaps it was the pistol I took from the armory.

I set my former superior on the floor, then stared up at the top tier of the command deck. "Doctor Akagi is also dead, tortured and shot by two men hired by Seele," I shouted loud enough to make sure everyone could hear. "Had I known you were setting me up, I would have made things a bit more interesting." Ikari started to protest, while Fuyutsuki backed away slowly. "Oh, you're claiming you didn't arrange this? Well, I guess that means you didn't, since you usually go quiet when caught red-handed, and Fuyutsuki doesn't seem to know anything about it, either."

"What do you want?"

I walked over to the three lieutenants slowly. Maya was starting to cry, while Maktoto and Aoba just sat there, trying to avoid eye contact. I chose Shigeru, as he was the least useful of the three command staff. The barrel of the pistol was square against the back of his head, even after the lieutenant tensed up. "I want Seele," I churned out through clenched teeth. "I want Unit-04, two palette rifles, a positron rifle with the adapter umbilical, and a fully fueled transport craft to take me there."

"If I refuse?"

Why do people always ask such stupid questions? I mean, I had a gun pointed at the back of Aoba's head, and the commander has to ask me what's going to happen if he doesn't comply? Is that just a required stall tactic all administrative personnel have to recite to make their investors and insurance providers happy, or did Ikari miss the first few days of Hostage Negotiation 101?

Needless to say, I pulled the trigger. I felt some pity for the man, but not much. He did nothing in the series except supply the witty comebacks, Earthly wisdom, and filler dialogue. As far as I know, he didn't even have a real job on that bridge, or at least nothing the Magi couldn't do.

Then came the expected high-pitched screaming from Maya, the vomiting, the cries of "how could you be so cruel?" in English and Japanese. Even Hyuga got into the act, starting to whimper and shout like he actually could make a significant difference in the sequence of events to come. I simply stared down at Aoba, then turned the gun to Hyuga. "There is a reason this bridge is constructed the way it is," I replied. "Lieutenant Aoba Shigeru was the most useless of the three here. The other two, you cannot afford to lose, especially Lieutenant Maya Ibuki." I stared into Gendo's eyes. "So, how long are you going to keep screwing around?"

"You try my patience, Pilot!" he snapped back in anger. So, I pulled the trigger again. Hyuga's face smacked into the terminal before him, the sound of plastic paneling cracking under the impact. My blazer was pattered with small chunks of flesh, brain matter, and human skull. Maya wasn't vomiting anymore, but now just sat frozen in her chair, too numb to cry. You only need two points to form a line, and with only one person left within my reach, it wasn't that hard to connect the dots.

"Susan... please!" she started sobbing. "Please! Please!" That's all she kept saying, was "please!" Though her strategy was working, and Gendo saw it. My feet turned to lead, my palms started to sweat, and I had the distinct impression the headache was subsiding. I was wrong. Anger was not the key to defeating the Angels. It was only strengthening their control over me.

"Ikari!" Fuyutsuki gasped from above. Gendo simply kept staring me down, as if that would somehow stop me. "He wants what we want! Just give it to him!" Ikari, however, didn't consider it.

"I refuse to negotiate with terrorists," the commander answered firmly. I nodded simply, then looked back to Maya. Ibuki was still pleading with me, now trying to offer me money, information, anything to get me to spare her life. "You would not kill Lieutenant Ibuki, anyway. You need her to operate Unit-04."

"Yeah," I grunted, and turned the gun on Ikari instead. This time, there was no delay. I jerked the trigger back three times, my accuracy slipping to a degree, but still managing to be fatal. The first went square into his chest, as that was the most carefully aimed. The two remaining shots drifted down and to the left a ways, probably grazing the kidney on their way out.

Kouzou ducked behind the top tier of the bridge, but I wasn't going to shoot him. It was a waste of perfectly good ammunition to drop someone who wouldn't put up much of a fight. Besides, I had plenty of guards to go through before I reached Unit-04. "Okay, change of plans," I said. "Load the coordinates of the Self Defense Forces' installations into the navigational computer of Unit-04."

"W-which ones?" Maya stuttered, trying to keep the bile down as Hyuga gurgled. Apparently he wasn't dead after all.

"All of them!" I grumbled as I felt the A.T. Field strengthen below my feet, propelling me upward.

•••••••••••••

It amazes me sometimes how much better the world would have turned out had Britain and America finished what Germany started in 1939. If you think about all the cultural and international impacts which have resulted from the Second World War, you have to wonder why we didn't just keep going?

General Patton believed the Russians were our next, greatest threat after the Nazis had surrendered, and he was right. But rather than fighting them as he suggested, everyone else wanted peace. They sacrificed fixing a future problem when the men and the equipment were in the right place at the right time, all in exchange for a hasty and temporary peace. I often think about it like junkies. They want the quick fix to the pain of withdrawal by getting high again, even though getting off the stuff costs more initially, but more than pays for itself in the long run.

The United Nations in my time was not only trying to take away the Second Amendment rights of all Americans, but remove all sovereignty of the United States, forcing international law on us, which would be dictated by the most corrupt and murderous batch of cutthroats you could possibly imagine in the Third World. The terrorists which struck us on September 11th were the result of an already warring Middle East further aggravated by America trying to prevent the Domino Effect as the Soviets fought for control of Afghanistan. Even the nation of Japan still tried to dictate foreign policy to America and insulted us at every turn before I wound up in this warped version of a possible future for mankind.

But while I had the power, and I knew what was coming, I was not going to allow any of that to happen. The Second Impact had prevented some of the problems, by returning the Third World to it's constant state of warring savages killing each other with Kalishnikovs or sharp, pointy sticks, whichever was more widely available. The surviving First World nations struggled to out-maneuver the oppression from the United Nations, but even they had to comply to avoid outright war with the others. Sovereignty was close to being stripped away when I arrived, all thanks to Seele.

It seemed sickening to me that NERV could be used for good, but it was only an afterthought. My primary concern was stopping Seele. I knew the mass-production units were on their way. A killing blow to some hidden bunker or bunkers where the holograms of the men in suits originated, however, was far too costly. It would take too long and too many resources from the theater of war. This upcoming battle, after all, was with the Eighteenth Angel, and could be considered the end of the Angel War.

However, a quick, decisive victory to crush the JSSDF, the primary military force used during the last battle, would prove far more effective. I would be closer to Tokyo-3 if the mass-production units arrived early, and eliminate the primary invasion force, both things that I couldn't do if I cut off the head of the snake.

To my surprise, the Angels agreed. While they could obtain their victory simply by initiating the true Third Impact, the Self Defense Forces and Seele presented an unnecessary threat to their objective. I was not much of a force to counter them, but surely bypassing all of NERV's means of defense would be hard enough, especially considering how long it had been known I was possessed. We both understood Clausewitz.

They really did think too much like me.

End of Chapter XXX

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Yes, the chapters are getting shorter, but it's hard to keep writing to the length I used to. For those who've wondered, I've always shot for a file size of approximately 20 to 24 kB for each chapter, so there actually IS a numerical, consistent means I use to keep the chapters short. It's long enough to form 8 to 9 pages of text in a word processor (who really wants to read more in a fanfic chapter, really?), but even that gets long after a while.

Out of curiosity, what is the mode average length of your typical K-M rated Eva fanfic chapter(and I mean a GOOD one, like some of RandomL337's works)? I know with "New Perspective Evangelion", I skip a lot of the paragraphs until I get to the mech battles or some of the more entertaining dialogue.

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