+++++ Sea of Dirac, Every/Any/Nowhere.

'The' end, as Shinji had believed he had been rapidly approaching, was in fact only 'an' end. There was a definite sensation of drifting. A continuous progression towards a point. Whether that point was 'down' or 'ahead' or even 'back-leftwards' wasn't entirely clear to him, only the sense of motion that was relayed to his nerves. He could hardly see anything, and every time he tried to touch his face, or his body, or anything that might give him a concrete sense of presence or permanence, all he felt was something akin to soft, leathery, gel.

The reddish-black void stretching out in every direction was without form or ambient glow. How he was able to see enough to even understand the coloration was a mystery, and he eventually reasoned that he was probably hallucinating it as a way to cling to sanity in an insane situation. That reasoning was swiftly proven false when he noticed a…something floating his way. Moving on a course directly for him. Without success, Shinji attempted to alter his trajectory. Tried to urge Unit-01 mentally to pull out the progressive knife. Tried to do hundreds of different things that only managed to increase the 'wrongness' of his present situation.

After ten minutes, a vague outline became visible. It was, he believed, humanoid. He could almost see what he believed to be legs, and arms. After another five minutes his suspicions were confirmed, and he could see a human, wearing mostly black, drifting upwards towards him in the position known as 'Dead Man's Float'. Orbiting listlessly, was…something. A pair of somethings. One rather white, the other as black as the man's, he believed at least that it was a man, clothing.

From that point, the approach became progressively more uncomfortable. Whoever it was, was very clearly dead. They weren't moving, weren't struggling, and were…bluish white, though their normal complexion seemed much closer to his own if he had to guess based on features. Black hair floated around his head with the lazy motion of whatever fluidic space they both occupied and, he noted, the man was missing a shoe.

Revulsion climbed up his throat as the dead man approached, reaching its zenith when the corpse collided with him. Making a warding motion showed, via contrast, that his arms were…covered. Part of him thought to grab hold of the man, but both of their trajectories had been altered according to the commensurate physical laws, and Shinji hadn't prepared himself to act fast enough. From his perspective he was now certainly falling. The corpse rising past him steadily at the same rate of speed. The memory of a dead pair of blue eyes adorning a Japanese face gave him the haunting sensation that someone, somewhere, was mocking him.

He knew that his blue eyes were a rarity, amongst his race. Black hair, much more common, but the shade was a nearly perfect match. Was this a sign? Something else? It seemed too strange to be a total coincidence, but there was no rationale that came up to support it being intentional. The man was clearly older than Shinji, by at least a year or two if not more. His face was different, as…distorted as it was by his clearly having suffocated in whatever they had both been floating in. Not once had he been more thankful for the LCL than at that moment. Death by suffocation ranked as one of Shinji's least desirable ways to die.

Watching as the man drifted back out of sight, Shinji wondered if that was his eventual fate. After all, if he was moving it was more likely that any rescue attempt would involve something along the lines of Asuka's dive into Mount Asama. Bouncing the idea around in his mind, he decided he truly didn't want that. He didn't really understand black holes, but he was almost certain that what he knew of an 'event horizon' was what described the boundary of the Angel. His legs wouldn't lift a millimeter, every time he applied all of the force he could muster, he might as well have been attempting to lift the planet itself. Now that he was inside he could move with apparent ease, but he couldn't steer himself in the…well, it clearly wasn't zero gravity. He was moving somewhere, and the corpse was too. The laws regarding attraction between bodies indicated they were both moving…well, no, they'd both be moving towards the same body if gravity had any say….

Suddenly the corpse began falling upwards at a much faster rate. It took a second for him to recognize that he too was moving downwards at a much, much faster rate. The area surrounding him began to brighten, a subtle blue mixing in with the reds and blacks. When he realized that it appeared to be approaching 'dawn', were he standing on the surface of the Earth, he looked 'down' and saw that he was rapidly approaching some form of exit to the Angel.

An exit that was several kilometers above the surface of a city he didn't recognize.

+++++ Unknown City, Unknown Nation, Unknown Planet.

The transition from fluidic gravity to atmospheric gravity was rough on Shinji. Starting with the fact that he no longer seemed to be in Unit-01, so much as he was wearing Unit-01. Tumbling ass over teakettle a few times before flattening himself out and trying to slow down what was likely to be his second 'I'm going to die' experience of the day, he cast about for any possible way he could save himself. Friction from the air being compressed as he passed through it did little, and he felt as if he were much heavier than he ought to be.

Perspective became an issue again, his mental cognition of Unit-01 being as tall as many buildings didn't align with the buildings on the ground that he was approaching. Quick math based on what he could see placed him as about as tall as he had been himself. Which, of course, shouldn't be possible. Unit-01 couldn't shrink. That string of thought was put on the back burner as he passed the top floor of a nearby skyscraper. Below him were flashes of light and flame, bouncing off of…. An A.T. Field?! Now halfway down the building, he recognized the first Angel he'd ever fought, only shrunk down to about a third of its normal height. Attempting to fight it were five astonishingly beautiful women wearing stylized school uniforms, none of which were having any luck at piercing what he knew as the ultimate defense.

He decided, with only a quarter of the building left to fall, that if he was going to hit the ground he might as well do it by landing on his feet. Dead was dead, it didn't matter how it happened. If he lived, somehow, magically, at least he'd be in position to run in and try and help. The final second of free fall accounted for him suddenly remembering something Hikari had mentioned during dinner about physics, how you measured the force of an impact by dividing the kinetic energy by the deformation caused upon the object when the object has struck a hardened surface. His rough calculation put the impact around Dead Shinji total Newtons. An actual analysis would put his impact force at around two point one seven times ten to the nineteenth Newtons, or slightly higher than a two-megaton atomic bomb.

Aside from buckling the street slightly, and creating a fairly dramatic scene as the windows around him exploded via air displacement, one honestly couldn't be blamed for believing that he weighed little more than a bowling ball and hadn't fallen further than a few dozen meters. The moment of hesitation as he waited for either the agonizing pain or explanation for the lack thereof was interpreted by onlookers as a 'dramatic pose'.

Recalling himself as the fight continued down the broad boulevard, Shinji ran towards the conflict, needing to explain what he could regarding fighting Angels. With the benefit of hindsight, he would likely have admitted that this wasn't the wisest possible decision on his part. Unit-01 looked akin to a mad artist's fever dream of a demon from the depths of the darkest abyss. A colossal god of death and pain made manifest. In short, it was not the sort of object a 'good guy' would wish to see barreling down the street at near super-sonic speed towards them.

One of the warriors, a woman with dark blue hair and piercing eyes, reacted to his approach by shouting with a flourish, "Shine Snow Illusion!"

The resulting wall of snow and ice hit him like a dump truck, the now icy surface causing him to lose traction and stumble forward. It slowed his forward progress, and reminded him that he couldn't be terribly certain who was friend and who was foe. Angels are foes. Angels are always foes. Since he was within shouting distance, he hurried to his feet as the bluenette was preparing another attack and pointed to the downsized Third Angel. "You can't beat him unless you reduce his A.T. Field! Let me help!" What issued forth from his mouth was a series of mumbled roars, the restraints on Unit-01's…his helmet preventing him from saying anything intelligible.

The young warrior seemed taken aback. She didn't understand his words, clearly, but she could easily see that he wasn't hostile and wanted to assist them in destroying the Angel. Touching a strange visor on her face, her frown grew confused.

"How many times must I remind you that losing focus is fatal, Mercury?" A slender woman with long, raven-colored, hair and red stylizing on her uniform drew back an arrow of pure flame on a bow that was nearly as tall as she was, loosing it directly at Shinji's head just as the first woman cried for her to wait.

Acting reflexively, Shinji raised his own A.T. Field to ward off the attack. Instead of surrounding him in a hemisphere, his Field encased his armor in a protective layer. When the projectile narrowly missed his head, all he felt was the burn of the flame, as if he'd grabbed a pot without a mitt. Doing no damage otherwise, it sailed back behind him before guttering out. My Field is conforming to my armor? "I'm not an enemy!" Gesturing repeatedly towards the Angel, he willed them to understand him, "You need to take down its A.T. Field! Let me help!"

Before the archer could send off another round, the woman identified as Mercury stepped between them with her arms spread. "Mars, I think he's trying to tell us something. If he were as hostile as he looks, he would have charged at me after I hit him with my Snow Illusion. I might be abstracted because I'm thinking of too many things, but at least I'm thinking!"

"If you two are done screwing around," a woman who was as tall as either Misato or Ritsuko called over, "we could use a hand with the actual fight!" Her long auburn-brown hair tied back in a simple ponytail floated about her like a pennon as she dodged several attacks. "If the robot wants to help, let it!"

Taking his chance, hoping that between the one known as Mercury and the tallest of the warriors he had enough support to throw his lot in with those fighting against an Angel, Shinji changed his course to give the one known as Mars a wide berth. The way she glared fiery hatred at him was both familiar and uncomfortable at the same time. His angle took him towards two blondes, one with a cascade of hair held back by a simple red bow, the other with twin tails in what he recognized as an odango, or bun, style. Both were giving the Third Angel everything they had, but nothing either did penetrated his Field.

As Shinji raced between them, the bun-style warrior gasped and the other made a sound of disbelief. When he made impact with Sachiel's shin, punching it out from under him to drop the Angel to his knee, both saw their chance to strike. His momentum carried him behind his foe, and so he turned himself around and leapt up to wrap his arms around what little neck the Angel had. "Go for the red orb!"

Neither of the warriors close enough to hear him, understood him. Those further afield used ranged attacks that scarred and damaged the Angel, but did nothing to permanently end the threat. He could see the skin re-growing as fast as they were damaging it, just as their strength was waning for all the work they were doing.

"We can hurt it now," the red bow announced, "but it's regenerating as fast as we hit it! We're just spinning our car."

"It's spinning our wheels," Mercury shouted, clearly frustrated. "Your version doesn't even make sense!"

These…are fighters? Shinji's sudden inattention to the battle cost him dearly.

Reaching back behind him, Sachiel grabbed the Unit-01-clad Eva Pilot and pulled him off violently. In the same motion, he threw the only person capable of allowing him to come to harm directly at the auburn-tinged brunette. Shinji attempted to correct in mid-air, managing to turn himself so that he collided with her belly-to-belly across her midsection rather than impaling her with any of the protrusions on what he was beginning to feel was either armor or his new skin. Tucking into a ball, he twisted her around so that he took the brunt of the impact with the rough asphalt. A horrendous screech followed as his metal plating ground against stone and tar.

When they came to a stop, well out of the fight, the tall warrior popped up and offered him a hand, "Good body control. Thanks for the-"

With her back to the Angel, Shinji saw that she didn't see the bus the Angel had launched after them. If I can take a hundred-kilometer fall, and I can take the damage from being run across the ground, I can take the impact of a school bus. I doubt she can. He kept failing to save anyone. He kept failing period. He was not going to allow another person to suffer while he had anything to say about it. Accepting her grip and jerking her towards him, he turned his back on the bus and flexed his A.T. Field while hugging her to his body.

Her eyes widened as she saw what had prompted his sudden aggression. "Oh shi-" She huddled herself as close in as she could just as the bus struck him, but otherwise didn't cry out in fear or distress.

Metallic shrapnel and debris surrounded them both, the bus splitting into two misshapen pieces as it impacted his back. It hurt. It hurt far more than the impact with the ground, but he grit his teeth and accepted that he was wearing armor. She, however, was wearing cloth. Suddenly, apropos of nothing, he remembered that he was holding an extremely attractive, slightly redheaded, young lady close. Springing back, he made motions to apologize, "I-I'm sorry, I-I just s-saw that…." He trailed off as he remembered none of them could hear him.

"Don't worry," she could tell that he was apologetic, assuming that because he couldn't seem to speak, he thought she wouldn't understand that he wasn't trying to get fresh with her, "I appreciate both saves. Let's talk later, it's fighting time now." Jogging around him and dashing back to her colleagues, she broke the deadlock that had overtaken his mind.

Don't worry…. Setting himself to sprinting back, he readied to continue the fight. I guess not everyone with that kind of hair has a split-second temper. He was quickly beside her, pacing himself to her lower speed.

"Ok, Tin Man," she wasn't winded in the slightest, seeming to have energy for days, "I'm going to blind him with my Flower Hurricane. You seem to be able to hurt him, so while he's disoriented you go for the kill."

He was quite well accustomed to taking orders from a confident woman, and so he had no problem with her plan. "Roger."

Accepting his grunt as an affirmative, she prepped him for the downside, "This attack requires me to stand still, so watch my back, yeah?" A feral grin crossed her face as he nodded once. "Good, I'm glad you can understand me." Jumping up into the air and landing on an as-yet unmolested lamppost, she twirled twice and called out, "Flower Hurricane!"

Do they have to speak the attacks like some kind of spell? Shinji was, by this point, almost entirely positive that he was either dreaming or nowhere near where he'd left. He would have seen this…odd group on the news. He very nearly lost all of his momentum as the woman identified as Mars disregarded her surroundings and stepped into his path to shoot another arrow. Twisting around her in mid stride, he took two more heavy steps and ignored her cry of anger, jumping towards the Angel's core while it was focused on one of the blondes and the one known as Mercury.

As he sailed towards his goal, the auburn-brunette's cloud of razor-sharp death caught up with him and engulfed him. The Angel roared in frustration, its A.T. Field losing ground to Shinji's A.T. Field allowing thousands of flower petals to rake along its mask and body. "Aim for the core!" If they couldn't understand what he was saying, he would say it as he did it. At the apex of his jump he rolled forward into a front flip past a blind grab by Sachiel, dropping his foot down in a falling axe kick directly on the orb adorning the central mass of his enemy. Unable to see himself properly, he missed the fact that Unit-01 changed from purple to a grassy green as the petals from his backup collided with him accidentally. Landing in a crouch, he corkscrewed his body to add torque to an uppercut against the weak point, sending Sachiel up off the ground and falling backwards in a heap.

Blocking Shinji from moving in for the kill, Mercury jumped in front of him and began to ask rapid fire questions, "Where did you come from? Are you really a robot? Does your color change based on heat, like thermochromic elements, or is it based on need? Does it-"

Unable to stem the tide of queries, and unable to warn the small bluenette that there was still a fight happening, Shinji was forced to take the most direct course of action available to stop her from being flattened by an enraged Angel's fist. Grabbing the front of her shirt, he leapt back and tossed her behind him. It wasn't gentle, but he figured it would hurt a hell of a lot less than seventeen tons of alien anger. Once more, and unfortunately, the woman known as Mars moved into the wrong place at the wrong time, and was knocked down and back by the human projectile named Mercury. The sound of the collision, and the pained cries it inspired, distracted Shinji for a crucial second and caused him to turn to see what he'd done. It was his turn to be unprepared, as the bun-style blonde collided with him to knock him out of the way of an uprooted telephone pole that had been thrown at his back.

Landing atop him roughly, the determined, if peppy, blonde blew out a sigh, "Thanks. We need to focus on that red ball, right?" When he nodded vigorously, her lip quirked off to the side. "Wish you could talk, Mister Robot Man, but I'm at least glad you're friendly." Helping him stand up, she waved over the auburn-haired warrior while the other blonde and remaining two tried different combinations. "Jupiter, whatever you did with him seemed to work. I don't know what's wrong with Mars today, but she's off her game. How'd you combine your flower thingy with him?"

"I didn't," the statuesque warrior shrugged. "I used the Flower Hurricane, he attacked. When they hit him, and I'm sorry they hit you sir," she ducked a quick bow in apology, "he changed color and did a really awesome combo attack."

Shinji looked down at his arms, noting that Unit-01 was laced with green but fading back to the normal purple. "Weird." Nothing that was happening was making sense. He wasn't stammering like an idiot as often. He felt…more confident. Like there was…. Like there was something here that wasn't where he had been. Shaking it off, he pointed back to the Angel, then to his own chest where the core was. "I'll grab it again," he pointed to the two of them, then back to the Angel, and back to his chest, "you two aim here."

Jupiter, as she was named, tilted her head trying to puzzle the meaning out, and it was the twin-tailed blonde who snapped her fingers and announced, "You'll rush in, we attack the core while you're keeping it busy."

Relief flooded Shinji as he gave two enthusiastic thumbs up.

"Then there's our plan," Jupiter added with a clap. "Let's finish this guy."

The three other women hadn't had any luck, and were being tossed about as Shinji charged in faster than both Jupiter and the Bun-girl could keep up. His task was to distract the monster, to keep it off balance enough for them to strike the center. He wasn't sure what they had that might do damage, but nothing he had done himself had even cracked the surface of their target. Attempts to split open the pylon on his shoulder hadn't amounted to anything, and so he assumed his prog-knife was out of the question. If his fists wouldn't manage it, maybe their magics would.

Plans continued to go awry for him, though. On approach he could see a tragedy unfolding. The one known as Mercury was down and dizzy, Mars and the other blonde unable to reach her in time to stop Sachiel from stomping on her. He could continue his charge, hoping that momentum and misdirection would prevent harm, or he could take the hit and hope that it would distract the enemy enough for whatever Jupiter and the Bun-girl would do. Being who he was, he chose the latter option.

Setting himself astride her, one foot in front of her supine form and the other behind, his shoulders in a line with her head and navel, he crossed his arms above his head and braced for impact. Below him a startled 'eep' preceded a blast of water washing up around him just as Sachiel's foot came down. Her attack did no visible damage to the Angel, but it did cause his arms to shift to blue. He felt stronger, denser. The person he'd wanted to protect took her chance to scramble out of the way.

"Moon Tiara Boomerang/Jupiter Thunderbolt!" The oddity that was his new temporary allies shouted out twin attacks. Both projectiles struck Sachiel's core at the same time. The tiara had turned into a sharpened disc, burying itself inside the red core while still spinning like a circular saw. The lightning bolt, however, followed natural laws. Striking the core, conducting through the water that had gushed up around him, through Shinji, and into the ground beneath him.

Pain was what he expected, feeling the thrill of charged electrons coursing around him. Instead, he felt as if he could run forever as his arms changed to yellow. Faster than the eye could follow, he threw the Angel's foot away, causing it to topple forward towards him. Bending down for another uppercut, he aimed the blow for the Bun-girl's tiara. When armored gauntlet struck spinning crown, he felt a wash of something he'd never known. Radiating through his body, now glowing silver, he felt unbeatable. Roaring his wordless declaration that he would not allow another to die while he lived, Shinji Ikari finished his first foe for the second time.

The backwash of power that blasted outwards and upwards from the Angel as it died sent cars, warriors, and anything else that wasn't firmly tied to the ground scattering away like leaves. Alone in the center of a cruciform vortex of phenomenal power was a terror unlike the world he stood upon had ever known. Unit-01 cried out to the heavens above, a challenge to any who would threaten another. Death itself had come to their planet. The Pale Rider now strode the Earth.

Eventually physics reasserted its hold on the scene and air rushed back in to fill the void left by the vacuum the explosion had created. As hundreds of tons of atmosphere crushed against him in a grip he did not feel, Unit-01 collapsed, falling to its knee and leaving Shinji gasping for air that he couldn't find through his prison. I…I've never felt…. "What the hell was that?!"

A low whistle sounded behind him. "Wow", stretching out the word, Jupiter walked around before him with her hands clasped behind her head. Inspecting the inanimate, fleshy, corpse of the Angel, she grunted in disgust, "Don't they…you know, normally turn to dust or something?"

Dust? Wobbling as he stood, he found an unexpected support on his side in the form of the Bun-girl. Looking down at the much shorter woman that had her arm wrapped around his side, he tilted his head. "Uhm…thanks." I'm being touched by a girl. Why aren't I freaking out?

"Grunt grunt to you too Mister Robot Man." The broad smile took any possible sting out of her retort. "Are you ok? You were changing to all sorts of colors there, and Jupiter accidentally hit you with her lightning bolt thingy."

Was he ok? He wasn't sure where he was. He wasn't sure what was happening back home. He'd arrived just in time to fight a miniaturized version of the first Angel he'd ever fought, the one that kicked his ass that first time. He was surrounded by women who shouted strange magic phrases as they used energy attacks while dressed up as…glittery high school girls. He was encased in Unit-01, instead of sitting inside of Unit-01. Unit-01, furthermore, was now around one hundred and eighty-eight centimeters tall, which meant that by extension, he was around one hundred and eighty-eight centimeters tall. Looking down at the ground, he shook his head, "No. No, I'm not ok."

"Do you run on power cells?" Once more, Mercury appeared before him, undaunted by the fact that she was scraped and bruised. "Do we need to find a way to plug you in somewhere?" Dashing around him, looking at everything she could find, she kept up the barrage, "What planet are you from? I don't recognize the metallurgy report my visor showed, so you can't be from here. Are there others? Can we meet them?"

"Hey, Space Case," the blonde that wasn't supporting him clapped her hands loudly to interrupt the enthusiastic young woman, "he can't talk. How do you expect him to say anything when the dog's got his tongue?"

"Cat," Mars corrected with irritation. "It's the 'Cat' has his tongue, and he doesn't need to answer because he needs to leave before he causes any more problems." Making a flipping motion with her hand, she tried to urge him away like a stray animal, "Shoo. Shoo! Away with you."

"Whoa, hey," Jupiter turned around, an angry frown on her face, "he just risked his circuitry for us. I think we need to take him somewhere and find out if we can communicate. You know, help the one who just fought by our side?"

"Despite the fact that someone shot first and asked questions never," Bun-girl added with a matching frown. "Come on Mister Robot Man. Let's get back to the Command Center. I'm sure Luna can help us figure out how to talk to you."

The Raven-haired warrior crossed her arms before her in an 'x', "No. We are not taking someone we don't know back to where we go when we need to not be noticed by anyone. Have you forgotten that we're still searching for Tuxedo Mask?"

"No," Bun-girl huffed. "But I don't think we're going to have any luck. We just spent an hour and a half fighting whatever that stinky thing is. Whatever that weird portal he pushed me away from was, I doubt we can just recreate it ourselves! We'll go ask Luna and Artemis to help us talk to Mister Robot Man, and when we can talk to him, we can ask if he has seen Tuxedo Mask. Our lead might be right here," she gave his side a squeeze.

Tuxedo Mask? The corpse that had passed Shinji suddenly came to mind. Scowling, he tried to remember whether the man's clothing had been a tuxedo. The white object could very easily have been a mask of some kind, but he mostly remembered a long black cape. Worry crept in, Did their friend…trade places with me? Freeing himself from Bun-girl, he moved to where all five women could see him. Making an exaggerated motion indicating a hat, he asked, "A hat, like this?" Then made a motion as if he were wearing the odd style of mask itself, adding, "And a mask?"

"See, he understands us!" Mercury's declaration was twined with her pointing at Shinji, "He's indicating a hat and a mask. He's probably seen him; we need to figure out a way to talk to him!"

Frustration boiled in his gut; he was stuck playing charades because for whatever reason Unit-01's speakers weren't working properly. Turning to who he thought was the friendliest of the five, he faced Jupiter and motioned for the hat and mask again, and shook his head while slicing his thumb across his throat. Their friend, if that's who he saw, was dead. They deserved to know that for truth.

"We're not taking him to the Command Center." Mars' tone darkened, drawing everyone's attention away from his gestures before he could complete them, "I won't risk our security for some modern abomination, especially not a male one!"

"Then where are we going?" The red-bow blonde was clearly tired of the bickering. "I think Moon's right, we need to talk to this guy and figure out his part in all of this."

Glaring at Shinji, Mars huffed, "We'll take him to the Shrine."

"Fine, let's go." Walking over and grabbing his arm, Jupiter started him in motion and gestured with the other hand towards their destination, "Hope you don't mind a walk, Tin Man. We're generally left alone anymore, after everyone realized we weren't just random cosplayers."

So there is some rhyme and reason…. Or this is just a really elaborate dying dream. Looking around, he continued to occasionally feel sparks of that strange sensation. It felt…painfully good.

+++++ Hikawa Shrine, Azabu-Juban, Japan.

Walking up the steps to a shrine he'd never seen before, Shinji could sense that he was being judged. It wasn't the inquisitive admiration of Mercury, nor the ire of Mars. Both Moon, as he learned Bun-girl was named, and Jupiter remained far too friendly to really be judging him, and Venus, the other blonde, seemed bored more than judgmental for the moment. He hadn't been ready for them all to transform from glamourized school uniforms into…somewhat anachronistic fashion. He didn't know much about what ladies wore, but he was almost positive that their style was very out of date. What he most certainly wasn't prepared for was a pair of large ravens landing on the twin pylons adorning his shoulders. "Oh! Uhm…hello, Raven-san…both, uhm, both Raven-sans."

"Don't growl at my friends!" Mars thwacked him in the back, causing him to stumble forward and land on his hands and knees as he missed the last step.

Both of the birds cawed in irritation as they recovered from their sudden displacement. One, the larger of the two, landed before him, eyeing him curiously. The other landed to his side, calling out in anger that his friend was quite out of line. Shinji couldn't make heads or tails of either's words, but he knew that ravens were smart enough to mimic a wide variety of sounds…and also smart enough to hold grudges. "It's ok, Raven-san." Carefully getting back to his feet, Moon and Jupiter helping him, he made a motion asking everyone to remain calm, "They don't understand me."

"Stop being mean to Mister Robot Man," Moon demanded. "He has been nothing but nice to us, he helped us against that monster, and he doesn't deserve to put up with your blatant hatred of machines."

Mercury, clearly uncomfortable with confrontations, curled inwards. The motion drew Shinji's eye, as it was one he himself had made far too often. While Mars and Moon bickered, he reached over and gently patted the bluenette's shoulder. Where he had found this confidence was beyond him, but it felt necessary that he offer comfort to her. "I don't like it when people fight either." He doubted even his tone got through, but he had to try. "Where I live, people fight like this all the time."

Her eyes softened, "Thanks." A small smile crept out through the gloom, "I get the feeling you're telling me that it will be ok."

"Close enough." He liked her smile far more than her frown. All of them were beautiful, and it remained a sticking point in his mind that panic and anxiety hadn't caused hilarious confusion to dominate his actions. He knew, logically, that it was crawling around the edges of everything he did. He'd even had a minor flash of it when he'd clutched Jupiter close. But it wasn't coloring everything at the moment.

"Ladies, ladies," the sound of an elderly male voice was accompanied by clapping designed to draw attention, "what's all this fighting about?" Finally spying Shinji, he tilted his head, "Did you bring one of your cosplaying friends to visit?"

"He's…stuck," Mercury burst out in front of Shinji and announced to cover for everything. "Rei-chan said that she had some tools here we could use to help him, and so here we are!"

Hearing the name 'Rei' caused physical pain in Shinji, who groaned and dropped to one knee. He didn't know anything about home, he couldn't communicate with anyone…and there was still an Angel attacking Tokyo-3. How did I become distracted from the fact that I wasn't-

"Come on, Tin Man," Jupiter hefted him up, putting his arm around her shoulders and eyeing him sidelong, "let's get you into the shade. You've got to be boiling in that suit, right?"

Nodding, understanding from the context that it was clear the grandpa did not know about their moonlighting as monster slayers, he lifted a hand and fanned himself. His energy had plummeted, the mention of his bluenette washing away almost all of the positive feelings that had been buoying him since the fight. In truth, he didn't feel the heat at all. It felt to be at least ten degrees cooler than it had been back home, which made little sense owing to the fact that several of the signs put him just a ways south and west of Tokyo-1. At least, that's what he assumed the signs meant as none of them added the numeral.

"Don't let me keep you, then. Rei-chan, please make certain to take good care of your guest." Turning around to walk away, he waved farewell, "It's always nice to see you girls. I'll be in the main temple if anyone needs me."

Venus giggled, "Well, that was closer than it usually is. Nice going, Rei-chan. Almost tipped your grandfather off. Sure am glad we didn't just go to the Command Center."

"Shut up, Minako-san." Mars, apparently also known as Rei, pointed to both Jupiter and Shinji, "You, move. Let's get this over with."

He was tired. Beyond tired. The kind of bone tired that follows after adrenaline has finished its duty and abandoned the station. Barely dragging himself onwards, leaning more and more heavily into the tallest woman present, he wound up being carried by four of the five women present towards his destination. For all of a meter before they were forced to drop him.

"Does he suddenly weigh a ton, or did I have more taken out of me than I thought?" Jupiter worked her hand over her biceps, looking at the other ladies. "I'm not wrong, right? I mean…he became heavy."

Moon knelt down by his head, fanning her hands over his face. "What's wrong, Mister Robot Man? Is Ami-chan right? Did your batteries run low?"

"He's made of organic metals, somehow," Mercury, apparently named Ami, joined Moon on his opposing side. "I mean…at least, that's what the visor tells me. It's possible that it's misreading his signatures, I…I just don't know."

"Huh," Venus considered Shinji with sudden interest again. "It's rare that you don't know the answer to something. If he's organic, maybe he needs food."

He wasn't hungry, at least not that he could tell. He just…had no energy. Rolling himself over to his belly took more out of him, and crawling over to the nearby concrete wall that would hide him from prying eyes took even more. Seating himself with his knees bent and his forearms laying heavily atop them, he could scarcely keep his eyes open. "S-sorry." They might not be able to understand him, but he had to apologize for causing them troubles. With the last word spoken, his head fell forward as unconsciousness claimed him.

+++++ Every/Any/Nowhere.

"What do you mean 'Failed'?" Toneless, the voice seemed to have little interest in the person it questioned.

Kneeling in penitence, the messenger expounded, "The interdimensional portal latched onto a being of immense power on the other end. That being, acting as the driving force for locating a suitable subject…failed to locate a suitable female subject. Instead of Princess Serenity being banished to the other dimension, Prince Endymion was taken. It seems, from observation, that more than just this mechanical weapon arrived, however. Our knowledge of Equivalent Exchange must have been flawed, or the Prince must have had a much more powerful impact on the future than we knew. Regardless, the animal the Sailors just fought with the help of that weapon is one of many such beasts. We may still have a chance to overpower her, to kill her."

"We do not deal in chance." Turning away, they shifted their attention to other priorities. "Should you tire of continued existence, return a failure again."

+++++ Somewhere.

"…nji." A pale, soft voice caressed his thoughts, "Shinji…."

Feeling incredibly weak, despite feeling as if he'd slept for ages, Shinji managed to haul his eyelids open enough to see a glowing figure standing before him. Wincing at the unexpected brightness, he shielded his face with what he was surprised to find was a human hand. Pulling his hand off his face in shock to look at it, he was once more blasted with light in the eyes. "W-what?"

"You need to get up," the woman's tone was loving, gentle. "You can't die here, there are people that need you."

He wasn't even certain where he was. Everything he could see was a prismatic riot of light and color, crystalline sounds echoing off of fractured dreams. "Wh-who are y-you?"

"You need to get up!" Urgency began to override comfort, "You need to get up!"

A tidal wave of water blasted him in the face, unexpectedly, and this time a different voice sounded in the first's stead, "Hey, you need to get up! This isn't a place for drunken vagrants to-"

Unit-01 seemed to slam into place around his body. For a split-second he had been able to feel the wind chilling him with the water from the wash bucket that had just been emptied into his face. The fresh air in his lungs. Then, for whatever reason, the status quo had returned. Soaked and dry at the same time, Shinji stood up unsteadily, "I-I'm sorry."

Mars, he tried extremely hard not to think of her as 'Rei', blinked rapidly. Her face demonstrated that she had most certainly not anticipated what she had just witnessed. "You…are you human?"

The sound of the woman's voice that had been speaking to him in his dreams lingered on, but the strength and confidence from the day before had all but vanished. He knew it was a new day, the sun barely peeking over the horizon, the sky was brightening, not darkening. I…I'm still not home. Looking around, he began to realize that nothing around him was 'fake'. It was all too real. He'd fought the Third Angel again, with the help of magicians. He'd been reading street signs which placed him near Tokyo. Not Tokyo-3, Tokyo. He once had wanted to run away from everything. He didn't want to be forced to fight. And just as he'd possibly been given something to fight for…. "Life ripped it away. Life always rips it away." Turning away from the still silent Mars, he walked towards the exit. He wasn't wanted here. He was stuck inside Unit-01. It was entirely probable that everyone he knew was dead.

He didn't know where he was going, but he knew he couldn't stay here.

+++++ Hikawa Shrine, Azabu-Juban, Japan.

"You just let him walk away?!" Ami Mizuno, surprising everyone, was furious. "You didn't bother to follow him? Besides the fact that he was likely a walking treasure trove of knowledge, he was our only lead on finding Tuxedo Mask other than this shoe!" Holding out the bag containing said item, she shook it furiously at Rei Hino, "Take this and do your foretelling. I'm going to use the scanner and try to find the cyborg."

"Wow," Minako Aino was ogling the polaroid Rei had taken of Shinji while he was human in appearance, the Shrine Maiden having intended it to be evidence in case the police needed to be summoned, "he's kinda cute, in an understated way. That weird outfit of his definitely flaunts that delicious figure. Wonder if that black eye is from our fight."

"Ami-chan, wait up," Makoto Kino urged the bluenette to stop. "Let's not split up right now. Whatever that thing yesterday was, we only beat it because we had this…well, we'll just call him a guy for now. This guy knew what he was doing. If one of us goes against another thing like that monster, we're not going to walk away easily."

"I agree," Usagi Tsukino added. "As should our tactician, if she weren't focusing solely on the fact that she's a hateful person."

Rei glared at Usagi for a second, then snatched the bag from Mercury, turned around and stormed off towards her room. "I'll do the foretelling. You four do whatever you want."

Makoto's jaw was clenched when she asked, not liking how their newfound ally had been treated at all, "Should one of us stay here? There's only five of us, and leaving any one of us alone right now is kind of asking for them to be hurt."

It was the blonde Sailor of Love that solved the dilemma, "I'll stay here and torment her. You three go find the Easy Bake Oven. If either of us learns anything, we'll contact the others, yeah?"

"It's a much better plan than splitting up and being picked off," Jupiter agreed. "Let's go, Ami-chan. Use your visor and see if you can maybe find a trail."

Now only a trio, the three Sailors remained in their street clothes for the moment as they began the process of finding a giant mechanical man in the middle of a major metropolitan area.

+++++ Shiba Park, Minato, Japan.

There are so many people around…where did they all come from? Shinji thought where he'd lived had been 'crowded'. Looking around at the park he'd managed to find himself at, he wondered how there could possibly be so many people all in the same place at one time. He drew a great deal of attention, not that he paid any attention to it. He couldn't communicate, he wasn't interested in communication, and staying in motion felt like the only way to stop his terror from catching up to him. He had to gather information, had to figure out where he was, and the signs for Tokyo took him through this area.

He remembered the Proving Grounds where he'd fought Jet Alone had been around Tokyo-1. Tokyo-1, or as he was hoping the signage here indicated as simply 'Tokyo', would have some way of contacting NERV. If not NERV, then maybe the UN. The UN had been part of moving Unit-02 from Berlin, so maybe they could help him. It was a fool's hope, but at the moment it was all he had to cling to. I can get back. I…I just need to find someone who recognizes Unit-01. I can get back, I can help defeat the Angel. I can…I can protect….

"Oh, wow!" A group of college-aged women hurried over, at least two of which snapped photos of him on cameras he barely recognized as actual devices. The speaker that had drawn his attention, however, was the reason he'd halted. Though her hair was closer to a chestnut, her face, voice, and the same look of cold confidence reminded him greatly of Ritsuko Akagi. Only, a Ritsuko that was at least a decade younger. "That's some fantastic detailing you've put into this." Taking his hand and moving his arm around to admire the range of motion, she nodded with an approving smile. "Really great craftsmanship. Normally cosplayers settle for 'sexy' or 'good enough', you're really going all out. I don't recognize the series, though. Gundam?"

"Maybe Mazinger," another woman added. He couldn't place her appearance, but she seemed rather friendly with the one he'd thought might have been Ritsuko. When Shinji didn't respond, she snapped her fingers, "Oh, of course. He can't talk, the sound's all muffled. Probably have to build in some sort of miniaturized microphones and speakers."

"But where would you put them, so you didn't destroy the lines?" The woman who looked like Ritsuko carefully ran her hand over the surface of Unit-01's chest plate, "It'd be a shame to mar this by putting holes in it." Looking up at him with a bright smile, she winked, "Can we take a couple pictures with you? We'll exchange phone numbers so we can call you once they're developed. I'd love to hear how you engineered this costume."

Developed? Social anxiety was screaming in his ear at high volumes, but assenting seemed to be the smarter play to be able to leave the encounter without accidentally hurting anyone. He barely managed to get a second nod in before he had 'Ritsuko' under one arm, and the other two posing like damsels being rescued on his left. After several shutter clicks, one of the ladies under his left arm raced over and traded places with the photographer. The former shutterbug ran over and jumped up, turning herself sideways so Shinji had to either catch her or let her hurt herself. Quickly lifting his arms over the women he had been 'sheltering', he caught the human projectile and found that holding her up was effortless.

"Wow, look at the guns on you," the woman in his arms cooed admiringly. "He caught me without even moving."

'Ritsuko' was irritated at her ostensible friend, and it showed through in her tone, "Which is all the more impressive considering your ass alone weighs three stone."

The woman to his left burst out laughing as the woman in his arms scowled and sulked at 'Ritsuko'. "I can't help it, it's genetic."

"I don't believe there's a 'chocolate gene', Kimiko-san," 'Ritsuko' rolled her eyes and then jumped up behind Shinji and clung to him with her arms around his neck. "Let's take the picture before he melts in this thing."

With women literally hanging from him, Shinji's mind was more or less on lockdown. He knew 'Ritsuko's' breasts were pressing against his back. He knew his hands were cupping another woman's knees and just under her shoulder. He knew the third woman now had her leg wrapped around his as she molded her body to his side. With nothing he could do, he stood as still as a statue and allowed the photos to proceed. As soon as the new photographer gave everyone the sign that the pictures were done, he carefully knelt down to allow both his passengers to stand on their own.

'Ritsuko' spun around in front of him and bumped the woman who had jumped into his arms aside. With a vulpine grin, she held up a scrap of paper that she'd written upon at some point. "My house line, and my pager. I'm guessing you don't have a handy carrying case where you keep your own info, so give mine a call when you're out of your costume." Leaning in while he was still kneeling, slipping the paper into his hand, and kissing where his nose was, she winked again. "Don't keep a lady waiting."

Pager?

"Come on ladies," the final photographer called. "We need to hurry, or we're not going to make the lecture hall in time!"

The group waved goodbye to him flirtatiously, giggling as they hurried off in a different direction to the one he'd been heading in. Gaining his base slowly, he considered the folded scrap of paper. Was that Ritsuko? It…it couldn't be. His mouth felt dry, his body felt sweaty. If…if it was her. As he moved to open the note, he felt a collision against his back and arms wrap around his face.

"Gotcha Mister Robot Man!" Moon's voice preceded a sudden warmth in his heart. "Now, no running away, ok?" Dropping down easily, she had a huge smile on her face as she danced in front of him. "I'm really sorry that Rei-chan treated you like that, but I promise that we're not all like that. So please," she clutched her hands together and made moon eyes at him, "don't run away? We really need to find out how to talk with you."

Jupiter's voice carried from nearby, "You found him, Usagi-chan! Great job!" Hurrying over with effortless motion, the statuesque brawler had a relieved smile to match Usagi's cheerful one. "Ami-chan is on her way over, she had to call her mom on a pay phone, so we had to scrounge up a ten Yen piece, because we only had ones."

Ten Yen for a phone call? If he could find a phone that accepted coins, he'd be shocked. The only ones he knew of accepted pay cards. Why do I get the feeling that things are worse than I imagined? Unfolding the note delicately, his mind seized as he read the contents. In English, the message read out, Call me anytime, RITS . He'd heard Misato say that nickname more than once. Without a last name, it wasn't definite proof…but too many things weren't adding up right.

"What's this?" Usagi snatched the paper from him, reading it quickly. When her smile faded, she looked over to Jupiter, "Makoto-chan…what's this say?"

Jupiter took the note, "It looks like a pair of phone numbers. I'm not great with English, so I can't really say."

"Who's Rits," Ami asked, ducking under Jupiter's arm and reading the note. "Why are we calling her?"

"Oh." Usagi blinked, turning to look at Shinji, "Is she your girlfriend?"

Shaking his head fiercely he tried to put into his body language that he not only stood less than no chance with a woman that brilliant, he certainly couldn't come close to someone that sultry. I can't imagine a planet on which she even thinks someone like me would be worth getting coffee with, let alone dating!

"Usagi-chan," Jupiter rolled her eyes, "if she were his girlfriend, why would she just now be asking him to call her? She probably is just a fan of cosplay, or robots, and stopped him to talk."

"How could he have a girlfriend?" Ami boggled at the thought, "He arrived here just yesterday. I saw him fall out of the sky! He spent yesterday with us, then fell asleep up at the shrine, left the shrine for an hour, and then we found him. That'd probably be the record for fastest courtship ever, wouldn't you think?"

Something about the way Usagi looked at him struck him as wrong. He was used to figuring out how much 'teasing' was in play with Misato, several months of living with her had beaten that into him. The look she gave, just then, wasn't teasing. Why is she pretending to be dumb?

"Well, good," Usagi grabbed his hand and forced him to turn around or be dragged behind her. "Because I would have had something to say to her about abandoning her boyfriend when he needed her most!"

Ami took the other side of Usagi from him, and Makoto flanked him on the right. It was the latter that brought up the question he himself was wondering, "Where're we going?"

"The Command Center. I disagree with Rei-san. Mister Robot Man is not a bad guy." Swinging his arm playfully, she kept her hand in his, "I get the feeling that he'll be one of the best people we've ever met."