Ghost in the Evangelion

by LatwPIAT

Crossover between Ghost in the Shell and Neon Genesis Evangelion, placing NERV and the Angels inside post-cyberpunk Japan in 2030. Verbose technothriller.

7. Layer 07: ASUKA STRIKES Leviathan and Su

Ghost in the Evangelion – Layer 07

San Diego Naval Base, United States of America, 23 SEPT 2030
The sun hung high in the cloudless sky above San Diego Naval Base. On the roof of one of the Imperial American Navy living quarters, a young girl had taken the opportunity to take a quick sunbath. It was not, she was very adamant, to get a tan; she certainly wasn't that kind of girl who judged herself only by her own appearance. But she enjoyed the activity in of itself and that was as good of a reason as any, was it not?

After deciding that she'd spent enough time in the sun, the red-haired girl gathered her beach-bag and walked back inside, into the cool of an air-conditioned rec-room. She instinctively walked over to a vending-machine in the corner, looking for a drink. She rubbed the cold can against her sweaty forehead, sighing. As she took the first sip from her can of fruit juice, she eyed the other occupant of the room, a copper-haired boy about her age sitting in one of the room's chairs and reading a magazine about dead and forgotten civilizations. He, as always on warm days, wore a spotless polo shirt and a matching pair of trousers. He certainly hadn't been going outside – not that he ever did if he could possibly avoid it.

"Hey Dan!" the girl shouted to draw his attention away from excavations of the Olduvai Gorge "Let's take another round in the simulator. I'm sure you'll do a little better this time."

"You've beaten—" the boy began.

"Crushed," the girl muttered.

"—me eleven times the past week. Shouldn't that be enough for you?" he said and raised his gaze from the magazine. His face bore features of both French and Vietnamese ancestry, just like his father's.

"Nah, I want another go," the girl said. "Besides, it's in your best interests; without synch-tests, how are you ever going to get your synch-ratio above 18%?"

"I'll have plenty of time at Ar—" the boy caught himself "The place we're not supposed to talk about. Besides, they've already disconnected my unit and started transporting it to my father's place, so I'm afraid you're out of luck, Asuka."

"Aww," the girl loudly voiced her disappointment "I wanted another chance to grind you into dust!" she said and smiled.

"And this is why I prefer training with Noh," the boy mumbled under his breath, before returning to his magazine.

"What was that!?" Asuka snapped.

"Nothing."

"Hmpf!" she said, and left to see if she could find someone who valued her attention better.

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Somewhere over the Pacific, 5 OCT 2030

A large, grey cargo plane, painted in the colours of the Imperial American Navy, began its slow descent through the white cloud-layer. Its small passenger-area, installed more as a modular option than a dedicated passenger-compartment, was occupied by a small group of three teenaged boys and two comparatively older women, one blonde, one black-haired. The black-haired one was sleeping soundly, despite the incessant, reverberating hum of the plane's engines.

"She always does this," Dr Akagi commented to the three boys, straining her voice a little to be heard above the background noise. "I've never been able to figure out how she can sleep on a cargo-aircraft. Hmm. Maybe she turns her ears off... but that wouldn't stop the motion or the vibrations..."

Shinji smiled in tacit recognition of having heard her, while Toji and Kensuke seemed a bit more distracted with observing – if that was the right word – the serene and sleeping form of Cpt Katsuragi, with her head rolled to one side against her seat-belt.

"Oh wow!" Shinji suddenly shouted, as he looked out the window. "It looks great!"

He pointed at an atoll that had just become visible as their aircraft drew closer. In the middle of the dark blue ocean, a turquoise circle surrounded a pair of sandy-beige spots. Kensuke, sitting beside him, leant somewhat intrusively over Shinji's lap to catch a glimpse.

"It's just like in the pictures!" Kensuke exclaimed. "I never thought I'd see Midway before! So much military history in one place; the location of such a great battle!"

Kensuke continued by gesturing wildly in front of Shinji's and Toji's faces, enacting the battle of Midway down to the smallest detail, from memory – and a small amount of help from his cyberbrain.

"Keep it down, will ya!" Toji grumbled "Nobody cares about World War One anymore."

"I'm talking about World War Two!" Kensuke said, with insincere shock in his voice.

"Whatever…" Toji muttered under his breath. "Can't you just enjoy the view?"

There was a loud yawn, and Ritsuko shifted in her chair as Misato stretched her arms. Cpt Katsuragi rubbed her eyes a little, then declared that they were soon there. After a few smaller yawns, she directed her attention to the three boys in front of her.

"I hope you boys can find something to do on Midway", she said "I have some work that needs to be done before tomorrow involving… well, you're not cleared for that," she stopped herself, much to Kensuke's disappointment "…and then I'm going to pay my respects to my family."

"Wow!" Kensuke yelled in surprised. "You have family who fought and died in the Battle of Midway? That's so cool!"

"No, actually," Misato said, with a little seriousness and confusion in her voice "I just had a third cousin who drowned while swimming in the lagoon during World War III…"

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A solitary figure stood leaning against the fence of the airport's administrative building, staring down at the tiny figures emerging from the belly of the cargo aircraft. The figure herself wore a sundress in a pleasant yellow shade, and her blue eyes looked with displeasure upon the three shortest figures walking out of the plane – to her mind, they were but schoolboys.

A scant minute later, just inside the cool terminal building of the airport's terminal, those cold blue eyes met Shinji's briefly as her gaze passed over him and his friends. Her expression changed a bit, from a slight frown to a slight frown with a slight smirk in it, as one of her akimbo arms shot up to wave happily.

"Hey Misato, hey Dr Akagi!" she smiled at them.

"Asuka!" Misato yelled back, with the same vigour. "I haven't seen you since you were six! My, how you've grown!"

Under the subdued howl of the air-conditioning, nobody heard Ritsuko's chuckle but herself, as her mental image of her friend clashed with the almost aunt-like way she'd greeted the red-haired girl.

"Yes!" Asuka announced "I've fully matured now!"

A soft gust of wind ruffled her dress as she paused – the wind was not quite strong enough to make it billow – and she brought a finger theatrically to her lip.

"Now… which one of you is the Third Child?" she said, jabbing her hand outwards and letting her index finger pan over the three boys.

"Maybe you shouldn't talk about that in here…" Misato began cautiously.

Asuka watched the three boys' expressions carefully as she pointed at them in turn; the big one was nonplussed, the one with glasses was surprised, and the awkward-looking one… was that embarrassment? One of the other boys shot him a look as her gaze dwelt on him a fraction of a second longer. Yes…

"That's it?" she exclaimed "That's the Third Child?"

She lowered her arm just as Misato raised her in a cautioning motion.

"How disappointing. He doesn't look like he could kill a Rakbu, let alone VR sim of one!"

"I'll have you know Shinji has killed three of those monsters!" the larger, more muscular of the three boys injected.

"Yeah!" the bespectacled one joined him "He's a real hero who's defended Japan from real monsters!"

There was a faint slap, just about audible over the air-conditioning, as Misato's hand impacted with her face. Asuka crossed her arms.

"They're called Rakbu", she said impatiently "And I've heard he got help from another Eva against the third one. Not very impressive."

"What do you know about—"

Kensuke's worship was aborted by a firm grip against the back of his shirt, almost pulling him to the floor. It was, perhaps, for his own best.

"Why don't we go someplace you kids can talk," Misato said with a groan. "Someplace quieter!"

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"…and during my last synch-test I logged a 72.1 peak as well as over fifteen continuous minutes of 60 of greater!" Asuka said enthusiastically as she and Shinji's friends and colleagues boarded a military shuttle-bus. "Which, I believe is a new record!" she added with pride and smiled at Ritsuko.

"Fifteen minutes? That is impressive!" Ritsuko said as she found herself a seat next to Misato. "The report from Dr Delacroix will be interesting; I wonder how the stability-equilibrium propagates at such high values…" She pursed her lips. "This reminds me, I need to check with Ibuki…" the doctor continued, lost in her own thoughts as she searcher her jacket for her phone.

"It wasn't Marie," Asuka injected "It was while we stopped over in California, so it was Susan who handled the analysis. I'm supposed to pass on her greetings, by the way."

Misato reclined in her seat, sinking into the soft pillows. It was much better than cargo plane seats, and there were no painfully tugging seatbelts this time around. Everything were so relaxed on Pacific Islands like this, even military ones. White sand, nice people, warm water and a bright sun… Maybe she could find some free time to spend on the beach; she felt like she deserved it after the stress off three Rakbu in just two months – that, and living with a teenaged boy. That had certainly proved more stressful than she'd imagined; all the things she had to do to make their home look at least somewhat respectable, cooking for two…

Misato's internal rambling were brought to an abrupt halt when a young man shouted at their bus.

"Hold the door!"

There was something familiar about the voice, Misato realized, though she couldn't quite place it. Her eyes panned over the clean-shaven face as the man boarded the bus.

"I believe we're going the same place," he said and smiled at them – at her, in fact.

As he walked down the aisle, she could even recognize his gait.

A sudden thought raced through her cyberbrain. Loose some muscle, she thought to herself as she glimpsed at the loose-fitting blue shirt. Subtract ten years from the face, add some stubble… It can't be…

"Kaji!" Asuka yelled. "Are you having lunch with us?"

"I'm afraid I am," the young man said and smiled, the corners of his mouth almost smirking "How could I resist when there are so many lovely ladies here on this island?"

The smile. It was him. He was here.

Misato cancelled her plans to go to the beach. She suddenly remembered how much work requisition forms were. They had to be signed and checked in triplicate. There were probably some ambiguities in them she needed to get clarified by someone high-ranking and busy.

"Not even a 'hello', Misato? Has it been so long?" he asked, looking at her with a clever smile.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Misato blurted out. Kaji's face faked a dejected shock, then returned to an even wider smile.

Yes, there were going to be some ambiguities in the requisition forms, Misato decided. Many of them, and they all needed to be checked by a panel of admirals and generals. Probably a few presidents too. And a king. And all three Popes.

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"Are you seeing anyone?" Kaji asked. His head was propped up on his clasped hands, and – much to Misato's annoyance, he was still smiling.

"I believe that's none of your business, Mr Kaji." She answered coldly while folding her arms and staring out the window of the café.

Shinji and his friends were nervously trying not to stare at the two bickering adults. Ritsuko seemed not to notice anything at all.

"Ah, so you are!" Kaji said triumphantly. "Who is it that has stolen your heart? Who is the competition?"

Kaji fixed Shinji with a gaze.

"Is it him? Tell me, Shinji Ikari, does she still toss and turn at night?" he said, fixing Shinji with a level and utterly serious stare.

Shinji's eyes shot wide open, and his cheeks turned a particularly bright shade of scarlet. The sudden look of surprise, as if someone had interrupted the careful assembly of a house of cards by flipping the table over, was shared by his classmates. Asuka's face had also turned a strong shade of red, with traces of green.

Ritsuko momentarily raised her eyes, then returned to her croissant and coffee as if nothing had happened.

A particularly careful observer might have noticed a slight upwards curve on her lips as a powerful motion jerked the heavy wooden table. She almost chuckled when Kaji flinched a little.

"What. Is that." Misato began, pausing between each word to exhale laboriously. "Supposed. To mean?"

"So quick to defend him…" Kaji said.

Tea and coffee cups clattered as another powerful jerk shook the table. Shinji was becoming acutely aware that other people in the room were staring at them.

"She hasn't changed, has she, Shinji?" Kaji peered at the blue-eyed boy.

Ritsuko hastily saved her PDA from a sticky, brown death as the table shook a third time and toppled her coffee cup.

"Hmpf. Turning off your pain receptors is cheating." Misato said and stared intensely at Kaji.

"Um, excuse me sir," Shinji began, "But how do you know my name?"

"You're quite famous in my line of work; the famous Third Child, who killed a Rakbu without prior combat experience!" Kaji said.

"Or training. Or warning." Shinji added with sotto voce. He was vaguely aware that the red-haired girl was fixing him with a harsh glare for reasons he could not quite determine. "So… what is your line of work, Mr Kaji?"

"No need for the 'Mister', Shinji." Kaji said as he leant back in his chair. "But I am in the oceanography service, I've been told."

Shinji raised his eyebrows quizzically.

"You've been told?" he said with a voice that wavered slightly from confusion.

"You're not very bright, are you, Third Child?" Asuka said softly and gave him a flat look.

"But yes, Mr Kaji, why are you here?" Misato asked coldly.

"Officially, I am accompanying Asuka to Japan. Unofficially… well, let's just say that after three months in Antarctica, a cruise to the sunny beaches of California and Midway seems like a vacation to paradise." He answered.

Misato relaxed a bit. But only a little.

"Antarctica." she said, warily.

"Yes."

"As in—"

"Yes." Kaji answered quickly.

Captain Katsuragi shifted her pose, and stopped crossing her arms. Just as she was about to pose a new question, a large, muscular man of European descent dressed in an IAN admiral's uniform barged into the café, followed by two heavy-built men carrying a young Japanese girl between them.

"Mr Kaji!" he shouted as his stern eyes caught hold of Kaji's ponytail. "I caught another one of your kids snooping around in my ship! Haven't I told you military vessels are no place for children?"

"That is not my ward," Kaji explained simply. "If I'm not wrong, she's the daughter of a somewhat prominent general. Now, what was his name again…"

Kaji relaxed in his chair as he theatrically mimed racking his mind for the name. "It's on the tip of my tongue…"

"Kirishima?" Kensuke shouted in surprise.

"Hey Aida!" Mana Kirishima smiled, and waved awkwardly from between the two seamen's grip. "I find myself drawn towards you. By these muscular men."

"Ah, yes, General Kirishima, that was the name," Kaji said and leaned forwards. "He's here because of the renegotiations of the Kyosho-Boston Pacific Naval Defence Treaty, I believe…"

The admiral looked at Mana, whose entire face was lit up with a 'told-you-so'-grin as the two seamen released her arms. Kaji motioned to leave, rising from his chair.

"That reminds me, you'll have to excuse me, I have some work to attend to. Katsuragi, we'll have to talk about my adventures in Antarctica at some later point, perhaps over a cup of coffee?" he said, smiling. There was only a hint of promised impropriety in his eyes.

"Yes, that would be—" Misato caught herself and clenched her fists.

"So that's a date then, pick you up at seven?" he said as he moved swiftly to the door, seeking to make a clean getaway.

"Don't think I'm done with you, Kaji! Just because Miss Kirishima isn't your responsibility doesn't mean I've forgotten that you still haven't gotten your childrens' toy off my ship!" the admiral snapped, glaring at the departing man.

"Ah, but Eva Unit-02 doesn't stop in Midway, that's merely where my responsibility ends." Kaji said with a cunning smile. "The Eva is going all the way to Kobe; I believe the woman in the red jacket has the requisition-forms."

With that, Kaji disappeared trough the entrance to the café, and Misato was hugging the back of her head with her arms, staring into the table in front of her. She barely noticed the clatter of chairs as Asuka rose and followed the man out.

"This isn't happening", she muttered to herself. "This is a bad dream, no, a nightmare!"

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The wind was brisk in Askua's hair, and looking out at the large concrete dam that enclosed the atoll, she dangled her legs over the edge of the building's roof.

"So, what did you think of the Third Child?" Kaji asked.

"Honestly?" Asuka leant backwards, until she could see Kaji stand upside down, looming like a majestic stature. Part of her hoped he could see how her cheeks reddened when she looked at him. "He didn't really seem all that great. I expected something more. I'd have though the Third Child would be less of a child – don't laugh, you know what I mean."

"I'd never laugh at you, Asuka." Kaji said in a reassuring tone.

"But you were constantly chuckling at Major Katsuragi, or at least holding back a giggle." Asuka replied as she turned to face him in a less trained posture.

"That's because she's an old friend, and we used to trade blows all the time." Kaji smirked. 'Trade blows'. I have to see if I can work that into our next conversation.

"But, anyway," Asuka – oblivious to Kaji's cunning smile – continued "I know I'm a genius, and Dan's as much of a genius as his father despite not using it for anything worthwhile, and Susan told me the First Child gets excellent marks. Shouldn't the Third Child be… more bright? You'd think that NERV Japan could do better than having two thirds of their pilots be Noh and Noh's male twin…"

"Hmmm…" Kaji hummed as he stared into the distance, where a crew in orange overalls were doing maintenance work on the dam. The electronic overlay in his telescopic vision told him their security passes checked out. "Don't sell the Third Child short. He scored a peak of over 60% during his first time piloting."

"But that's nothing!" Asuka almost yelled. "I can do over 60 consistently, and I've never even been in a battle yet."

"I didn't mean 'battle'," Kaji explained "First time in an Eva. During his first synchronization."

Asuka jumped to her feet and dusted quickly off her dress.

"But that shouldn't be possible!" she said, right before she stormed off towards the stairs.

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Mana Kirishima sipped her green tea calmly in the café, having taken Asuka's now vacant spot.

S. Toji So…

The text popped up in a chat window in Kensuke's peripheral vision.

S. Toji you gonna ask her out or what?
A. Kensuke what?
A. Kensuke why should I ask her out?
S. Toji don't pretend you don't like her.

Kensuke shot Toji a glare, but the heavy-set boy just flashed a wide grin. He tried to find some way to phrase that he wasn't interested in girls just because they were named after WWII warships, but before he could find just the right words, Mana interrupted the chat.

"Hey, you guys want to see military dolphins?" she blurted out.

"Dolphins?" Toji asked and raised his eyebrows.

"Yeah," Mana answered as her face lit up with enthusiasm. "Midway has one of the largest pods of military dolphins. They're like dolphins… only genefixed to be smarter and kinder, almost like a human. I bet I could use my card to get you guys access to one of the tanks. My dad said it was OK to bring a few friends, and the smart dolphins are totally cool."

She hesitated for a moment, realizing she'd been talking rather fast. She tried to read the interest in their faces.

"So what do you say?"

"Smart dolphins?" Kensuke said. "That sounds cool. I'm willing to go."

Mana turned to Shinji.

"How about you, Ikari?"

"Well, it does sound kinda interesting—"

"Third Child!" a voice bellowed from the opening to the café, interrupting him. A pair of eyes so cold he imagined they could have caused another small ice age met his own in a hard stare. "You're coming with me. I have something to show you."

Without waiting for a reply, she walked over to the table and grabbed Shinji's wrist in an iron grip. At once, she started dragging the bewildered boy out of the sofa without acknowledging Ritsuko or the three other teenagers.

"Wait, where are you going?" Mana asked.

"That's none of your business." Asuka replied. "And even if it were, I'm not allowed to tell you."

Mana's eyes narrowed.

"Like there's anywhere on this atoll that you'd have access to…" suddenly Mana lost her certainty and left the words hanging. Asuka seized upon the opportunity and continued dragging Shinji after her at a brisk pace out the door.

Mana shot a glance at her mobile phone, which she'd placed on the café table next to her can of green tea. She hesitated for a moment, then snatched it and stormed after them.

"Wait… what just happened?" Kensuke asked Toji, who like Aida, was trying to catch up mentally on the situation. They gave each other quizzical stares.

"It appears," Ritsuko said in a flat tone of voice without looking away from her PDA, "that the girl you've spent the last ten minutes staring at – exactly where I will be as polite as to not remark upon – just stormed out of the room in pursuit of another boy."

Kensuke gave her a confused look. Ritsuko put down her stylus and turned to face the freckled boy.

"You should probably chase after her then," she explained with a hiss. "Go now. Shoo!"

After the two boys had left, she leant back and stretched her legs, before picking up her stylus and returning to her work.

"Finally some peace and quiet," she muttered under her breath. The woman stretched out, clicking her finger-joints, and yawned. Then the scratching of her stylus was the only noise against the background hum of the base.

A little later, she smirked a little and suppressed a chuckle. "Oh, to be back in high school…"

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Shinji wheezed as he tried to keep up with Soryu's pace. Her hand, which was comfortably warm against his skin, was uncomfortably tugging at his wrist every time he fell behind. It wasn't as much that he minded that quite attractive girls wanted to have him all alone – but in his mind, he'd always imagined that he'd still be able to feel his own fingers – and there was a rising feeling of disquiet and awkwardness, as she hadn't spoken for over ten minutes and he really didn't know the girl at all.

He tried to think about what he knew about her, to take his mind off the faint taste of LCL in his mouth. She was part Japanese, and she was an Eva pilot like him. She's about my age, and she's kinda rude to me sometimes but maybe that's just because she knows what's going on? …I guess? he thought. Wait, why was there even the taste of LCL in his mouth? Maybe that wasn't a question he wanted to know the answer to. Maybe he should think about Soryu again.

He'd only known her for about an hour, and she hadn't said much to him except for when she would call him 'stupid', 'dull' or similar things. It made it difficult to find something to say to her, Shinji imagined. He could ask her where they were going, or say something about how nice the blue water in the lagoon looked… but she'd probably just roll her eyes at him or call him an idiot again.

For a moment, Shinji considered letting his eyes rest on the part of where Asuka's dress parted to reveal the exotic and flawless skin of her back – or even more tempting, where the yellow fabric curved slightly around her butt… but it'd be really awkward if she caught him. She kept turning her head sharply, as if she was some kind of hawk, to look at him from time to time, and he really didn't want to make her think he was a creep.

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Shinji massaged his wrist and tried to get the blood to flow back into his hand. The red-haired girl had finally let his arm go when they reached the locks that bridged the gap between the western and eastern halves of the coral reef. The concrete dam and its locks completed a circle that completely sealed off the inside of the atoll from the outside. It was, Shinji mused, almost as impressive a piece of mega-engineering as the Kobe geofront.

"You trained at the Matsushiro geofront," Asuka asked him, as they waited for the American guards to process their NERV ID cards. "didn't you, Third Child?"

Shinji turned to face her. She looked less stern now; almost pleasant.

"Uh… no," he answered. "I've been training at Kobe the last months, Miss Soryu."

"Mein Gott, seinen Sie verstockt! Asuka muttered in a low voice and creased her eyebrows to a near-scowl, her face returning once more to its much less pleasant form. "No, I meant where did you learn to pilot an Eva? You trained with Noh, right?"

Shinji looked perplexed at her, and then avoided her gaze.

"I never had any training until August this year," he explained. "And who's Noh?"

"Hiryu Nochishite." Asuka said, her mouth forming the unfamiliar syllables with care. "'Noh'. The Reserve Pilot. You can't possibly not know who she…"

Asuka stopped, her eyes glazing over for a split second while her cyberbrain opened a calendar.

"Impossible. You cannot have started training this August." The blue-eyed girl stared intently at him again, her arms at her hips, as if her sheer force of questioning could change what he had said. "You are lying. The first Rakbu attacked the night to the first of August. It takes the average pilot five months to be able to even synch, and that's after a year of pre-synch training. I'll accept that you succeeded synching for your first time during a combat launch, but with no prior training is… well, it simply shouldn't be possible!"

"I'm not lying!" Shinji protested, raising his arms to a defensive pose. "I had… uh… on-the-job training?" He laughed weakly at his own joke, and quickly silenced himself as Asuka continued to stare incredulously at him. He really wasn't making a good first impression, he thought to himself.

"This is kind of a let-down, you know?" Asuka said with a smile. "I was expecting the Rakbu to be difficult to defeat. More challenging that the simulations. Now I finally understand why they let someone like Dan and Noh become pilots."

"Who is Dan?" Shinji asked.

"He's an Eva-pilot without an Eva. Formally he's on the waiting list for the European Coalition," Asuka said with pride in her voice, "but really? He's not even a reserve pilot. And he maxes out at about 20% synch ratio, so he has problems even with simple simulations, like the one set in Beijing."

"The one set in Beijing is murderous…" Shinji mumbled.

"No, it's dead simple," Asuka corrected him. "You're probably making the same mistakes Noh are. Susan says it's a systematic flaw with the pilots from NERV Japan. You just need to—"

"Who's Susan?" Shinji interrupted. Asuka gave him a cold, flat stare.

"I wasn't finished talking." She said with an angry undertone "And how can you be so ignorant of—" She looked at something behind Shinji and groaned. "Not those idiots…"

Shinji glanced over his shoulder to see Mana running towards the guard station, with Toji and Kensuke behind her, trying to keep up.

"I knew you'd be going this way," Mana said when she'd closed the distance to Shinji and Asuka. A few seconds later, Toji and Kensuke arrived. Toji was panting like a dog, and Kensuke looked as if he was about to collapse from exhaustion. Asuka grimaced as she caught Toji glance at her.

"Ten… minutes…" Toji wheezed. "How can anyone…" he took a deep breath "run for ten minutes… at that… pace?"

"Well, it took some time to figure out where they'd gone, and I didn't want to lose them," Mana explained. "And I had to not run down – and over – an admiral this time; they get really pissed if you do that…"

Kensuke chucked in between his deep, recuperating breaths. Asuka rolled her eyes. She smiled when the officer behind the desk handed her back her and Shinji's NERV ID cards.

"Everything seems to be in order, Miss Langely Soryu. The two of you can proceed through the gate," the officer said and waved in the direction of a guarded turnstile.

Once again, Asuka seized Shinji's wrist in an iron grip and walked towards the turnstile. She mumbled 'bye' as she swept their cards at the turnstile and walked on towards that bascule bridge that crossed the locks.

"Hey, wait for me!" Mana shouted as she started running after them.

She ran through the turnstile, barely stopping to swipe her card. Mana ran on towards the drawbridge, before Kensuke had even managed to get back onto his feet. He reached as far as the turnstile, where the Imperial American Navy seaman gave him a suspicious look.

"This isn't really a place for civilians to congregate," he said with a deep, booming voice. "If you don't have permission to pass through here, I must ask you to leave."

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Asuka lifted the tarpaulin triumphantly, letting the sunlight beam into the transport deck of the Othello, a rebuilt oil tanker.

"That's… a different colour." Shinji commented. "I expected it to be white."

"That's because your Eva is a test-bed for developments," Asuka explained with a smirk. "It's only the Test Model, and Unit-00 is even more primitive. But that's not all that's different about Unit-02."

She lifted the opening in the cover higher and waved for Shinji to take a step inside.
Mana took advantage of Asuka's hospitality and climbed in after Shinji, ignoring Asuka's frown.

"It's warm in here," she commented as her eyes peered through the damp haze.

That's an understatement, Shinji though as sweat poured out of his skin like the sea through a ruptured dike. The air was dense and humid, and the light was a mix of bleak halogen lights and muted sunlight shining through the tarpaulin cover, but he could still see clearly the immense bulk of the Eva; the view from the opening hadn't quite managed to encompass the sheer size of the mechanical monster. His mind wandered back to the time he'd first seen Unit 01 – but instead of a harrowing reunion with his father, he was instead sharing the moment with two highly attractive girls of his own age; it was something of an improvement. Even if one was all shouty.

"Wow," was all he managed to say.

"Impressive, isn't it?" Asuka said as she strode across the raft bridge that connected the deck to the Eva's head. "This is Evangelion Unit Zero Two, the first Production Model ."

Mana wandered out onto the pier and stared intently at the Eva's body through the water.

"Production Model?" she asked as she jaunted over to the head and looked curiously into one of Unit 02's four large, eye-like lenses.

"Eva Unit-00 was a prototype model, made largely to develop the robotic and cybernetic frameworks needed for the pilot-vehicle interface," Asuka explained as she climbed onto the tallest point of the Eva's back with a series of jumps she managed to make look easy. "It was never intended for combat or even operational use. Unit-01, meanwhile, which is the one the Third Child here…"

Asuka waved her hand at Shinji. The boy frowned. Half-remembered security briefings raised the fact that... uh, maybe Soryu shouldn't be saying this.

"…is the 'test model', and was built largely as a test-bed for the armour, sensors and weapons-technology that was developed for the later Eva units;"

She waited for the words to sink in, letting the last word trail on as she inhaled softly.

"…the Mass Production units, which are superior in all respects and without the flaws that plagued the prototype and test models. It's the world's first real Evangelion, and it is, simply, the best."

A thundering scream of metal being crushed shook the transport ship. Suddenly, the calm water made tall waves and the raft bridge whipped back and forth like a taut rope. Mana fell backwards off a raft and Shinji barely managed to catch her hand. Suddenly, he found himself slammed down hard onto a raft. The air was kicked out of his lungs and his whole chest hurt. Asuka struggled to stay standing as Unit 02 swayed beneath her.

Ow ow ow Shinji thought, as he struggled to keep Mana from sinking. Cyborgs are heavy.

"What was that?" Asuka yelled.

"I don't… know." Shinji answered through clenched teeth. He tried to pull himself up from his prone position, but struggled to move under Mana's weight. He felt his arm go numb as her iron grip tightened.

"What are you doing?" Asuka asked him as he climbed down.

Before Shinji could answer, Mana's other arm reached up from the pool and took hold of the raft. She pulled herself, soaked and miserable, out of the water.

"Thanks Shinji," she said, gasping for air. "Seriously. Thank you. Really."

"You're OK? Good." Asuka concluded "Let's see what that was!"

Shinji ran after Asuka and emerged into the sun. A thick pillar of black smoke rose from the sinking wreck of a nearby warship. Suddenly, another warship was cut in half, as if an invisible knife had struck through its middle.

"Torpedoes?" Mana said as she caught up with the two pilots.

"It's a Rakbu," Shinji said. "This is really bad."

"A Rakbu?" Asuka asked. "How can you be so sure?"

"It's like the second Rakbu… I think." Shinji said. There was the scent of ozone in the air, and he could taste the tang of LCL in his mouth. For just a moment, he felt like he was back in Unit-01, a burning pain in his chest. "We should talk to Misato," he said urgently.

"You think?" Asuka said and looked at him suspiciously. "Isn't that a little premat—"

Asuka was struck speechless by the sight of a destroyer rising into the air in front of her. It was floating in the air with no visible means of support, as water poured off its bow. The hull crumpled and twisted, as if held in an invisible hand. Suddenly, electrical arcs shot from the ship and down onto a nearby vessel. The destroyer was blazing, and burning IAN seamen fell from the deck as it was shook like a rattle.

Black oil poured from the ruptured hull and into the sea. A trail of fire swept downward until Shinji looked upon a waterfall of fire – and then the destroyer was torn in two, its midsection crushed like an empty coffee can.

"A Rakbu…" Asuka smirked.

She looked at Shinji's friend. Mana was stunned, her eyes wide and her mouth halfway to gaping. Her hands were clasped hard around the railing, and her knuckles were pale white. Asuka shook her once.

"You should get off this boat." Asuka said with a gravely serious voice.

She watched Mana run down the ramp and onto the atoll, then turned to Shinji, "Third Child, come with me!"

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Havoc had come to Midway. The 16th Imperial American Navy fleet was desperately scrambling to fight an enemy they could not see. Chaos reigned as ships were torn asunder before they'd even realized they were under attack. The majestic vessels poured their black blood into the oceans, covering the sea in a lake of fire. The screams of dying seamen were faint over the roar of the burning oil.

"Yeah, I don't care what SOP is, I have authority in this situation." Cpt Katsuragi spoke into a military radio resting on her shoulder as she put on her jacket with one arm and let another fly rapidly over the keyboard of her laptop. "No, this is a UN matter, and that means I get to speak to the admiral."

Holding her laptop with one hand and typing with the other, she rushed to the café's window to get a better view, still trying to hold the radio in place between her head and shoulder. She shifted her attention to her cybercom.

[Captain Katsuragi, NERV Japan. What's the fastest plane you've got?] She winced as a destroyer was ripped into pieces like paper confetti by a throng of invisible tendrils. The remaining superstructure was slammed into an escaping frigate. [Kobe international airport. Four and a half thousand kilometres. I'll give you a few seconds to find out,] she said.

She switched back to the radio as the tactical map on her laptop updated.

"Yeah, the Admiral's aide is fine, I just need to ask him to… don't you dare go static on me you piece of shit radio!" The captain awkwardly balanced on one foot as she dragged a table up to the window for her laptop with the other. She returned to her cybercom.

[The C-220 transport can get to Kobe? How long does that take?] she asked. [Six hours is too long. Can a fighter plane do it?] She frowned as she was told the answer. She glanced at her tactical map. [There's a carrier a thousand kilometres north of Wake Island. Can it be done in two jaunts? Give me two seconds.]

She picked up the radio again. A small icon appeared in her peripheral vision. It read [Call from Shinji], underneath a picture of the boy looking glum. She accepted the brain-to-brain call.

[Shinji!] she said before he could say anything. [Where are you and Asuka?]. Her hands were racing over the keyboard as Shinji replied. [That's good, she has my permission to launch. Tell her to hurry.]

"Hello! NERV delivery!" she said with an overly sweet voice into her radio. "Would you like to order some data on this enemy and the most effective countermeasures to use against it?"

"This is a combat situation!" the reply came, shouting. She could hear the Admiral's aide list casualties in the background. "Don't disturb us!"

"Now, this is just my opinion," Misato began, holding back the desire to call the admiral an ignorant, petulant child "But that's very clearly a Rakbu, and killing them is kinda NERV's specialty."

She winced once more as a wave of missiles hit dangerously close to a sinking frigate, hitting nothing but water. The fleet was going to torpedo itself at this rate.

"All I need you to do is to protect the Eva transport," she said. "Unit-02 has top priority."

She heard a plastic 'clack', and the admiral's voice became distant: "All ships, fire at will!"

It's pointless! she thought to herself, before resuming the cyber-call.

[Can the plane take a teenager?] she asked. [A teen-ager. Tango-Echo-Echo-November.]

For a split second, Misato was distracted by the sight of a helicopter carrier's bow rising out of the water until it was nearly vertical. Half a dozen attack helicopters slid off the deck, swirling into the water. Some were snapped in two as their refuelling cables were drawn taut and bounced back.

[He's a hundred-and-sixty-one centimetres tall. I just want him in Kobe ASAP!] she said over the cybercom.

[No, I don't know how much that is in feet. I only want to know if he can fit in the co-pilot's seat.]

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Yet again, Shinji found himself dragged along by the wrist by a red-haired German girl. She'd first raced him to a locker to pick up a heavy NERV back with her name on the tag, and now she was dragging him back into the ship's island for reasons she hadn't bothered telling him.

"Why is the Rakbu attacking Midway?" he asked, to break the silence. "They've never attacked outside Japan before…"

She gave him a daft stare.

"First, read up on some history." She said as she closed the door and looked at a descending staircase. "Secondly, it might be after my Unit-02. You must have noticed they go after Evas in combat."

"Yeah, but—" Shinji began.

"Wait here," Asuka ordered and ran down the stairs.

Shinji flexed his hand and sat down on ascending stairs. He needed to rest, but he really also should make sure that Asuka got to her Eva, he felt. Misato hadn't given him any orders, and she'd sounded really busy over the cybercom. It wasn't as if he could do anything anyway, he reasoned. But what's Asuka up to?, he asked himself. Why did she stop here?

"Um," he said as he swung halfway downstairs. "What are you doing—oh."

Asuka was putting on her plug suit. Of course. That made sense. And to do so she'd stripped naked. Her underwear was with her yellow dress, thrown haphazardly onto her bag. It was white, like Rei's. And she'd not quite put on the plug suit yet, so he could get a quite ample view of her chest-area. The right thing to do, Shinji knew, would have been to turn away. He would have liked to turn away, but different parts of his brain were still trying to catch up with the unexpected shock of seeing a half-naked girl his age.

"Pervert!" Asuka shouted at him, breaking the spell. "You rude and thoughtless idiot of a jerk!"

Shinji spun around and stared intently at the wall. He felt, to say the least, somewhat embarrassed.

"Why must all boys be such perverted stupid pigs?" Asuka ranted on as she fit her hands into the gloves of the plug suit.

Shinji's head was spinning, his mind like a soup torn between some quite delicious images of what the red-haired girl would look like in the sealed plug suit on one hand, and the shame and awkwardness of the whole situation on the other hand.

Something soft landed on his head. He picked the dark grey plug suit off his head and gave Asuka a quizzical look.

"Here's one for you too," Asuka said sternly.

"Uh…" Shinji mumbled.

"What's the problem?" she frowned, if possible, even more at him. "Hurry up and put it on!"

"But… why do I need to wear one?" he asked "Aren't you the pilot?"

Asuka rolled her eyes at him.

"Well, of course I'm going to pilot it. But I'm going to show you how to properly pilot an Eva. And since you seem to be the best that Japan has to offer in the piloting department, I suppose I'll have to keep you safe, and in the cockpit with me is clearly the safest place to be!" The explosions as the prides of the Imperial American fleet were torn apart accentuated her point. "Now put that thing on and come with me!"

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The inside of Unit 02's entry plug was identical to Unit 01's – except this time Shinji was not alone, and the Soryu girl was sitting in the pilot's seat. He, meanwhile, was floating in the LCL and holding onto her seat.

"Now I'm going to give you the show of your life!" Asuka announced, and handed him a fibre-optic cable. "Do the amphibious configuration for me while I handle the battery start up."

Shinji lifted his hair, which flopped lazily in the LCL, and plugged it in, only to be assaulted by a flurry of menus in a language he didn't understand.

"What's taking so long, Third Child?" she asked him in her now rather familiar complaining voice.

"I can't read the menus," he explained. "I don't know which options to pick."

"Seriously, you don't know any German words at all?" she asked exasperatedly.

"I know 'boden-weltraum waffen steurung systeme'," he replied and smiled awkwardly.

"First, it's pronounced Boden-Weltraum-Waffensteurungsysteme," she said, "and secondly that's not going to be of any use at all."

"Unit-02!" her voice was loud "switch from German to Japanese language configuration."

"There," she said, "now you can be useful."

[Shinji?] Misatos voice rang over his cybercom, [Shinji, where are you right now?]

[I'm with Asuka,] he answered, [in Unit-02]

[Oh, good, that's—] suddenly Misato stopped talking [what the hell are you doing inside Unit-02?] she yelled. Shinji reflexively tried to protect his ears, but his cochlear implants were rather ignorant of whether his ears were covered or not. [Only Asuka needs to pilot the Eva, I need you to come to the airport immediately!]

"Uh, Miss Soryu," Shinji tried cautiously, as Asuka was running through the pre-launch procedures.

"Shut up!" she yelled, "Can't you see I'm busy, you idiot?"

Suddenly Shinji felt the Eva shift from its prone position. He could vaguely feel that its legs were retracting into a crouching position. Then, suddenly, the muted sunlight became strong, and he could see the destruction that had been wrecked. No matter where he looked, he could see rivers of burning oil running atop the uneasy surface of the ocean, and the immense, knife-like shapes of warships had become steel coffins, slowly sinking beneath the waves. And then he spotted it – an immense V-shaped wave of foamy water cruise through the water, heading straight and fast right for him.

And then he was slammed hard down against the Entry Plug, as his view rocketed skywards. He recovered just in time to see the white, V-shaped wave crash straight through the Othello as if it was made from matchsticks. He suddenly felt a little lighter as the ground approached at breakneck speeds. Instinctively, his view swung to the battery-meter.

"We only have fifty-eight seconds of power!" he exclaimed.

"That's plenty of time," Asuka said with unwavering certainty.

[Katsuragi], she said over Unit 02's cybercom. [I need the Eva's umbilical cord on the flight deck of the Zachary Taylor ASAP!]

[I'll see what I can do, Asuka], Cpt Katsuragi replied.

Unit 02 hit the ground hard. Shinji felt his stomach protest. Then, before he'd gotten his senses back, Asuka was already charging along the coral reef. Then she leaped across the locks and aimed for one of the aircraft carriers still docked outside the atoll. Shinji's mind was still trying to catch up when Unit 02 landed on the flight deck of the Zachary Taylor and seized the Eva-sized power-cable in its hand.

"But we still don't have any guns!" Shinji noted.

"In your Test Model, perhaps, Third Child." Asuka said triumphantly, "but this is the one and only Mass Production model, and it has integrated weapons!"

Asuka flicked a molly switch on her left joystick, and the entry plug's panoramic screen was filled with ominously red notifications.

"…which are not loaded under transport, for safety reasons." Asuka frowned. "At least I still have the knife."

One of the dark green pylons of the Eva swung open, and an immense knife swung out and landed in the ready hand of Unit 02. With another swift movement Asuka adopted a battle-ready stance, with the knife pointing out towards the breaking V-shaped wave.

Then, suddenly, the wave flattened out. Where it would have gone, a torrent of ripples continued, made by rain from a clear sky. Shinji and Asuka glanced upwards.

"Mein Gott!" Asuka began.

"It's…" Shinji struggled to find the right word.

"Huge!" they said in unison.

Huge, if anything, was a misnomer. The rakbu was over three hundred meters long. Its body was vaguely whale-shaped, yet also ray-shaped; a large fin on each side cast a shadow wider than the flight deck of the aircraft carrier. Shinji could see its gaping maw, each tooth an iridescent spire glowing in the crimson red light that emanated from its gullet. Above the jaw was a massive umbrella-like shape, transparent like glass, inside which two incandescent red spheres glowed menacingly. Radially at the edge of the aboral surface, long tendrils, each like single glass noodle, were extending forwards in a glittering, grasping chaos.

The observation took but a small fraction a second. Asuka, near-instinctively, jumped backwards and to the side. The immense bulk of the third Rakbu came crashing down on the flight deck. A dozen tendrils swarmed around the Evas legs, while another half-dozen thin strands lashed against the Eva's torso.

Asuka cut at the flailing tendrils. She could feel the impact, but the cuts were invisible against the Rakbu's transparent skin. It did not bleed, it did not even flinch. As the strands near her legs began coiling, Asuka made Unit 02 dance awkwardly on the uneven carpet of Rakbu tendrils.

"You've fought the Rakbu before, Third Child!" Asuka shouted. "Any advice?"

"Uh…" Shinji racked his mind. "Stab the red sphere?"

Asuka flickered a look at him. He was certain she'd actually managed to roll her eyes at him, even as she was tracking the path of a dozen near-invisible appendages with her eyes.

"There are two of them," she said sarcastically. "You've put your two months of training to good use, I see."

"Stab them both?"

Yes, she was certainly disgusted with him. Still, she lunged at the exoumbrellal membrane with the Eva's knife. The edges of the wound reflected light and darkness as the dark pillars of rising black smoke and the mid-day sun competed for attention. Immediately, a pair of raised tendrils shot like vipers for Unit-02. Shinji was tossed around inside the entry plug as the Eva shifted violently. The knife-arm swung away – but the glass-like strands coiled around the free arm. Asuka's left arm strained visible as she fought against the tight grip.

Suddenly Shinji felt like his chest was trying to implode on itself. The panoramic screens of the entry plug were flooded with reports of failing subsystems.

"Dismiss!" Asuka shouted as she attempted to use her free arm to cut herself free.

More error reports filled their peripheral vision. A good fifth of the screen was filled by [High Voltage Alert – Disengage]. Shinji figured he should do something about it, but the pain in his arm was numbening, and he just felt like curling over.

"Dismiss!" Asuka shouted, a hint of desperation in her voice. Shinji caught her face as it was reflected against the dark glass of a dead screen. She was gritting her teeth and clenching her eyes almost shut. He looked back at her, and he could see her left arm twitch violently.

Is this what I look like when I fight?, he wondered idly as another electrical shock caused his torso to sting from all directions at once.

Asuka's eyes were wide and angry. She swung fast, hard and direct at the restricting tendrils – and at the same time coordinated her Eva's feet against the twisting mass of strands it stood on – and she knew she could keep it up. She bit her lip – and suddenly tasted blood. Her eyes darted over the failing screens. There had to be an opening somewhere; she refused to believe the relentless lashes were without flaw – and then she found it.

With trained economy of motion, she swung the Eva's knife into a hammer grip. Outside the reach of the flailing tendrils, she struck against the nearest eye-like red sphere. The aboral membrane ruptured under the force of her strike. She could feel the knife sink into the Rakbu's strange flesh, as if she was cutting through syrup – and she hit the crimson sphere, and her knife sank deep.

The iridescent red sphere exploded, and the glowing red fluid spilled out of the wound. A blood-like pattern formed on the inside of the umbrella-like head. One of the tendrils coiled around Unit 02's left arm felt limp and slipped off.

Then a screeching, ear-sundering scream rang through the Eva. The whale-like bulk of the Rakbu shuddered, and it rolled over and off the flight deck, dragging Unit-02 with it into the dark waters.

"Scheiße!" Asuka muttered as she continued to strike against the entangling strands.

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[Status report!] Cpt Katsuragi yelled. [Shinji! Asuka! Are you OK?]

[We're fine,] Asuka answered. [The electrical attacks seem to have ceased, but the knife doesn't seem to do anything. I burst one of the cores, but that doesn't seem to have stopped it much—Scheiße!]

[Asuka! What happened?] Misato asked.

[The Rakbu is trying to eat me!] Asuka reported. "That's just plain wrong, humans are supposed to eat fish, not the other way around…" she mumbled to Shinji.

Misato bent her back and tapped the side of her head. She had to figure out how to deal with the situation, but the Eva simply didn't have any weapons for underwater combat. Unit-00 was, of course, out of commission for a few more weeks, and it would take at least six hours for zero-one's amphibious equipment to arrive by plane; zero-two's D-type equipment was probably at the bottom of the ocean by now. She was certain the battle would have ended by then, one way or another. Let's hope for 'another' she thought to herself.

There must be something she could do. She chewed lightly on her own lip and wished, for once, that Major Kusanagi was there. On one level, the Major's naysaying and sceptical nature was grating… but on the other hand, whenever she bounced ideas against the woman, she always ended up with something that worked in the end.

But she simply didn't have time for that kind of relentless back-and-forth arguments. She had to think of something quick. She glanced at the vaguely circular map of Midway. They're installing the hydroelectric dam, but the lagoon is rather shallow – yet shallow enough to drown in, she reflected morbidly, and it can be sealed off…

"That's it!" she announced to the entire CIC room.

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Ninki, the third Rakbu, burst from the water and sailed through the air. Unit-02 grappled with the thick net of tentacles that trailed from the bell. As the Rakbu arced its spineless back, a glowing point slammed into its abdomen. A white line of smoke traced back a missile frigate that had begun curving back to attack. Another missile slammed into its fin. High-curving missiles streaked down, while lines against the canvas of black smoke that rose into the sky. Plumes of water shot upwards when the missiles missed the Rakbu and sank into the water nearby.

Then Ninki dropped into the water, as if untouched by the blossoming fireballs. Heavy ripples surged outwards, rocking the nearest ships. Another battery of anti-ship missiles plunged into the Rakbu's wake. Each exploded with a muted flash, sending clusters of bubbles to the surface. A school of torpedoes swerved towards Ninki's bell. They were swallowed whole without notice.

A high-pitched giggle penetrated Unit-02's entry plug. Asuka, instinctively, tried to shut her ears with her free arm. The Rakbu's arms dropped their persistent attack and held back. Then Unit-02 was tossed around like a ragdoll in a storm as the Rakbu banked on a turn. For a moment, Asuka was face to face with a bottle-nosed dolphin – it was marked with the Imperial American Navy seal, and carried a sonar rifle in a small turret cybernetically grafted to its back – and then gulped LCL as the dolphin was snatched away by a probing tendril.

More strands snatched out to grab stray members of the pod. Ninki hungrily stuffed its maw with their wriggling bodies, swallowing them whole. A few were savagely sliced by the titanic, diamonoid teeth as the Rakbu snapped after Unit-2.

Suddenly the Rakbu made for land. As it rose from the water, Unit-02 was tumbled like a leaf in the wind. For a moment, Ninki stood on its tail-like appendage – then it slammed down onto the harbour, scraping its abdomen against the concrete. Tendrils shot out, coiling around the screaming forms of terrified men and women as they ran. Another pair of thin arms made for a pool full of smart dolphins. The moment the Rakbu made contact, the dolphins twitched and rolled over, dead from electrocution.

Then Ninki lunged again. With unbelievable strength, it thrust further inland. Its massive bulk slammed belly-first into a wall of oil tanks. One by one, as if they were balloons popping, they spilled their black contents out over the harbour. Partially covered in fuel, the Rakbu rolled into the sea. The flood of oil that poured over the edges of the dock made contact with the burning lines of fire that ran from a nearby sinking helicopter carrier.

An attack boat that had drawn to close made close acquaintance with the Ninki's teeth. The Rakbu shot out of the water, crushing the vessel in its jaws. As it swerved through the air, the flickering flames played upon its transparent skin as sun was, for a moment, blotted from the sky by the thick black walls of smoke that surrounded the leviathan.

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[You want to use us as bait?] Asuka asked . [That sounds rather...] She purposefully did not complete the sentence.

[Not as bait, as lure,] Misato explained.

[I fail to see the difference,] Asuka said, trying to mask her extreme scepticism as much as she could manage.

[You're not going to be used as some gigantic fishing hook,] Misato continued the metaphor, [you're just going to lure the Rakbu into the locks. Those gates can sheer a destroyer in half, so with your AT-field there, we should be able to cut it in half.]

[Hmmm,] Asuka said over the cybercom. She looked suspicious, Shinji thought, but she seemed to be seriously considering it. [I'm willing to give it a go. Trying not to be eaten is really really boring.].

"And frightening," Shinji mumbled.

"Coward," Asuka said as she tossed the Eva around to avoid the approaching jaw of the Rakbu.

[OK, we're good to go on this end,] Misato said after a minute. [The Zachary Taylor has been evacuated and the remote control is coordinated with your tactical net. You should begin moving in about two minutes.]

[We're ready,] Asuka announced.

The Rakbu was more sluggish underwater. It moved faster than on land, certainly, but Asuka found the tendrils easier to dodge. It was also easier to control Unit 02 when her arm didn't feel like it was trying to break itself apart.

But it was not a winning prospect. It was just dodging until one of them got tired and made a mistake. It was almost a welcome change when the Eva was pulled taut between the umbilical cord and the constricting tendrils of the Rakbu. Asuka smirked as she saw the Rakbu flop its immense fins to pursue, instead of holding her back. You're going to be a good stupid little alien, aren't you? she thought. You're going to be so occupied with trying to reverse the evolutionary chain that you're not going to nice you're being lured into a trap.

Asuka and Shinji waited in silence. In the Eva's peripheral vision, they could see an overlay counting down towards their destination. Once the meter reached the lower hundreds of meters, Asuka let go a thankful breath.

And then Ninki, the third Rakbu, struck. It rushed forwards. Before Asuka had even noticed its movement, its diamond-like teeth dug deep into Unit 02's armour. Pain shot through Asuka as her mind scrambled to get a grip on the situation.

Scheiße! Scheiße! Scheiße! she thought.

[What's going on?] Misato yelled. [Asuka, Shinji, report!]

[The Rakbu bit us!] Shinji reported. [I think it's trying to maul the Eva, and oh my chest hurts so bad…]

"Abort the mission! Abort the mission!" Misato yelled to the CIC. "The target is dangerously close to friendly personnel. We can't risk it."

The jellyfish-like head of the Ninki broke the water first, glittering like broken glass covered in blood against the sun. Then the dark green, half-limp body of Unit 02 followed in its jaws. Shinji supressed the urge to vomit as the Eva was shook like a half-dead fish in a hammerhead shark's jaws. As the panoramic screen lagged, he could see snapshots of the aircraft carrier's approaching bow.

[Misato!] Asuka yelled.

[I'm sorry Asuka, I thought it was going to work, I…] the captain apologized.

[Forget about that! The aircraft carrier!] Asuka yelled as she was tossed back and forth in the entry plug.

[What about it?] Misato asked.

[Full starboard and full speed! Then open the inner gates!] Asuka said.

[What's that supposed to do…] Cpt. Katsuragi said, trailing off on the last words. [My god, Asuka, you're a genius!]

[I know!] she yelled back. [But you can shower me in well-deserved praised later. Just open the inner gates!]

"Do as she says." Cpt. Katsuragi commanded.

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Shinji watched, wide-eyed, as the bow of the Zachary Taylor approached. If his tactical map was any indication, the aircraft carrier was almost too big for the pound of the lock. He could see no reason, whatsoever, for why Asuka had wanted them both rammed by a supercarrier. Perhaps Rei was not the only female Eva-pilot who was not quite normal, mentally speaking? Yet Misato had agreed to the plan; it had to have some merit, yet all he could conclude was that all of NERV's female staff was all insane. Ritsuko, after all, looked a bit like a mad scientist.

He looked at Asuka. Her face was filled with glee and exaltation. Her eyes were completely focused on the aircraft carrier. He was pretty certain she'd stopped blinking a little while ago. He was about to be die inside a mechanical giant, crushed to a pulp between a leviathan and a monster of a ship. The symbolism was somewhat poetically peculiar, but offered little solace when the ploughing bow of the ship filled the entire panoramic screen.

The Zachary Taylor crashed into Ninki. There was a tortured whine as the nuclear-powered engines of the supercarrier pushed the Rakbu, stressing the steel superstructure. For a moment, it looked like a wrestling-match between giants – and then the Rakbu yielded. It was slammed into the walls of the pound. With a terrible, gut-wrenching sound of flesh scraped against rough concrete, it was shoved towards the inner gate of the lock.

Unit-02 fared worse than Asuka had hoped. Its left arm had been caught between the Rakbu and the wall, and the armour plates had been torn off like a worn sleeve. The pain was intense. She struggled to keep her Eva from getting caught again, manoeuvring against the turbulent and treacherous currents.

Then, at last, they all came to a stop. Almost perpendicular to the walls, the supercarrier had pinned the Rakbu against the pound. The umbrella-shaped, head-like part of the Rakbu twisted and tossed, dragging Unit-02 with it. Ninki could not move away, its left fin crushed by the impact. The supercarrier slipped and slid, crashing into the subumbrella of the Rakbu's bell – yet it still had the Rakbu pinned.

"Hey, Third Child," Asuka said, after she had taken a deep breath, "you scream like a nine-year-old girl."

Before Shinji could answer that, the logs from the entry plug to the contrary, he did not, Asuka was already back in command of the situation.

[Now Misato!] she yelled over the cybercom, [close the inner gates!]

There was a deep, clunking hollow sound. For a moment, it seemed as if nothing was going to happen, and that Unit-02 was just drifting lazily about in the atoll basin. Then the Rakbu shuddered, and there was a sound of metal scraping against metal. The sliding gates of the inner lock were bucking against the hull of the Zachary Taylor, quivering under the hydraulic forces that tried to squeeze them shut.

And then they closed fully. The bow of the supercarrier was sheared straight off. It fell slowly into the azure lagoon water, giving Asuka a clear view of the forward flight deck as it drifted past. When it struck the ground, a thick cloud of grime and mud was whirled upwards. Unit-02 was blinded, and Asuka could only tell that the Rakbu had been decapitated because Unit-02 was dragged down with it. The lights in the entry plug dimmed, and the battery timer started counting down from five minutes.

"Now that," Asuka said, "Third Child, is how you kill a Rakbu."

She turned to Shinji and smiled.

"Do you think NERV will let me keep it as a trophy?" she said, "You know, to mount on the wall?"

"The current housing market will make that somewhat impractical," Shinji retorted.

"Now you're sounding like Dan," Asuka muttered. "There might be a patch of Sahara that's dryer than that joke, but I doubt it."

Worse, I sound like my father, Shinji thought, …if my father ever cracked jokes.

"I just want the head," Asuka said jovially, "Dr Akagi can have the body for her research."

Asuka's eyes glazed over for a split second as she used her cyberbrain. Four large spotlights of blinding strength peered down into the shallow basin and panned over the lakebed.

"Let's see what my prize looks like…" she said.

She quickly found the grime-covered, decapitated head of the third Rakbu. The tendrils were sprawled around the bell, and the jaw lay dumbly half-gaping against the ground. Then she caught one of the tentacles twitch.

"Did you also see that?" she asked Shinji.

"Yes," he answered gravely.

[Misato, emergency,] Asuka reported over the cybercom as she made Unit-02 step cautiously away, [the Rakbu isn't dead.]

Slowly, laboriously, yet without pause, the Rakbu's head began to crawl along the surface of the artificial lake. Its tentacles retracted and pushed against the ground, until the umbrella-like bell floating against the surface. The jaw and head hung from its centre, motionless, yet also glowing with a powerful crimson shade that could penetrate even the thick layer of mud on the Rakbu's skin.

Then, in the blink of an eye, it was gone. Where it had been, there was only a cloud of mud and grime, falling slowly to the bottom of the basin.

"Where did it go?" Shinji asked, his voice wavering.

"I don't know!" Asuka snapped, "The sensors are confused by the mud-clouds."

She twisted the Eva around. She caught the Rakbu, for a moment, and then all she could see was another cloud of mud.

"Scheiße! Ich sehe nur Scheiße!" Asuka said, anger once again the main component of her voice.

[What's happening Asuka?], Cpt Katsuragi asked. [Tell me what's going on!]

[Ich meinte 'Schlamm'!] Asuka yelled. Unit-02 stumbled, as an invisible tentacle whacked its head.

[Um, I mean,] Asuka said as she tried to get her Eva back onto stable footing, [I can't see the Rakbu because it keeps whirling up mud.]

Once more, she caught a glimpse of her prize, and once more, by the time she had started to swim in its direction, it was gone, replaced with an empty cloud of grime. Suddenly, as the cloud cleared, she could feel something tighten against her neck. Her face went pale. Almost at a reflex, she started to tear at her plug suit – then she caught Shinji, in the corner of her eye, grasping at his own throat, as if he'd choked on something.

It's just the feedback, she realized, thank God!

She twisted the Eva around, sluggishly. Then the grip around her neck tightened, and Unit-02 plummeted face-down into the ground. Despite the immense force behind the throw, the Eva still fell painfully slowly, and the anticipation only worsened the fear.

Then another tendril struck, crushing an armour plate in the Eva's torso. Asuka inhaled sharply.

[It's too fast!] she shouted, as she tried to get her Eva to stand up. [It's so much faster now.]

She caught another glimpse of it, and narrowly dodged a tendril aimed at her eye. She could see the tendril moving, slowly, in the water, as she tossed the Eva into a spin to avoid it. And she could see the near-invisible strand shoot past her, as her spotlights danced over it. But her knife-hand was agonizingly slow. By the time she'd brought it up to strike, the tentacle was long gone, and the Rakbu had disappeared behind a cloud of slowly-falling mud.

[I simply can't keep up with it!] she reported, yet Shinji could see in her face she wouldn't let the impossibility of the situation stop her from trying; she moved the knife close to the torso, trading range for reaction-time.

"Damnit!" she shouted. "It's not fair that we have to fight the Rakbu in its ideal habitat."

"…wait," Asuka bit her lower lip. "Shinji, this is a hydroelectric dam, isn't it?"

"Uh…" Shinji said. "I think so? It's more like a lake though—watchoutforthatarm!"

A tendril narrow missed coiling around Unit-02's legs. Asuka struck down, the knife's path painfully slow – but just fast enough to peel off a strip of the transparent membrane.

"I saw it, idiot!" Asuka shouted, then she smiled. "Gotcha!" she whispered.

[Misato!] she transmitted. [Can you open the sluices on the dam?]

[The sluices?] the captain asked.

[Yes, without all this water, I'll be faster,] Asuka explained [and the Rakbu won't be able to hide in the mud clouds.]

There were a few moments of silence. Asuka dodged another entangling tentacle.

[Yes,] Misato answered. [Yes, we can drain the basin.]

Asuka took a deep breath and shot a glance at the battery time. She had just a little over three minutes left. Then she heard a ghostly sound, and the mud-clouds started drifting, slowly, away from the field of battle. The ghostly wail turned to a slurping, and she could actually see the surface of the lake approach.

But the battle, still, was not won.

When the water-level reached Unit-02's neck, the water had cleared enough for her to see the Rakbu. It was floating near the surface of the water – she found a jellyfish comparison apt- bobbing with the troubled waves the draining made.

And then it rained attacks on her from above. Half a dozen tendrils swung at the Eva's head, impossibly fast, like snapping cables. She threw herself to the side – one tendril, painfully electrified, broke the shoulder of the Eva's useless arm. It was, she knew, an insignificant hit. Yet, she could not deny, it was extremely painful.

She barely had time to grit her teeth before the second overhead barrage came. This time, she ducked beneath the waves and pulled back. The thick, transparent cables plunged into the water, where she'd been just been standing – and just where she'd predicted they'd hit. They sunk deep, far deeper than the Rakbu, had it had her magnificent intelligence, should have let them.

Her knife shot out. Of the six tentacles that had struck at Unit-02, two came back at half the length.

Unit 02 circled around the Rakbu. Asuka had learned it's reach now, and she knew where it was. With every second that passed, she reasoned, her advantages grew. Let it attack, she told herself, as the water-level passed just underneath Unit-02's shoulders. Yet, she also remembered, it was also advantageous to control an engagement.

She swung Unit-02's left side forward, shielding herself with the bad arm. She held the knife back. The Rakbu took the bait. A throng of tendrils lashed out at her from all directions – and she made Unit-02 step back, out of their range. Then she raised her knife above water, and with newfound speed and reaction-times, she hacked hard at a pair of clustered arms.

There was an unearthly, high-pitched scream, like a mockery of the smart dolphin's giggles, echoing between the tall concrete walls of the dam. As the sound bounced back and forth against the semi-parabolic curves of the coral reef, the warped howl continued for nearly a minute as the battle continued.

With the water at her mid-torso, Asuka tried another faint. She jumped forwards again, and waited for the attack from above. It never came. Instead, she could feel a powerful electric sting in her foot. The pain shot up her leg, and she felt the Eva twitch and buckle under the shock. She could hear Shinji whimper from behind her seat. Maybe bringing him hadn't been so safe after-all.

She slashed at the constricting tendrils. The Rakbu seemed overly cautious, she realized. Perhaps its magnificent alien intelligence was nothing against her own – or perhaps it was holding back for a reason?

She eyed it as she kept her distance. It was vaguely jellyfish shaped, if jellyfish were wide across the bell than Unit-02 was tall, and liked to eat dolphins whole. The water-level had reached her mid-torso, and she could see now that it had lost the head and jaw – thin membranous patches of skin, like a curtain ripped savagely by a cat, hung from its centre. And the centre was glowing red.

"Shinji," she called, "that red thing, is that what a core is supposed to look like?"

"Um… Yeah!" Shinji shouted. "That's exactly what a core looks like."

She stared at the pulsating, blood-red sphere that was coiled up, covered in what looked almost like transparent intestines or nerves, against the umbrella-like shape. She considered her chances; she had one arm, it still had at least a hundred. She was, at best, wading in a pool the size of Hamburg, and the Rakbu seemed optimally suited for an amphibious engagement, to speak nothing of its natural weapons.

But a tiny voice in her head reminded her, she was Asuka Langely Soryu. She was the best at what she did, no matter what it was, and right now she was piloting Unit-02, the best Eva-unit ever built. This made her, essentially, one of the greatest people alive on Earth. She had doubted, occasionally, her own ability, until recently.

Then she had met the other contender for the title, and right now that boy was huddled up next to her, jumping like a scared cat every time the Rakbu lashed out at her.

Suddenly, she felt certain in her victory.

She rushed forwards, as fast as she could. It was, technically, wading. It certainly felt like wading, Asuka thought. The hydro-jets had stopped working once the water-level had dropped below the Eva's torso. She now had to push forward, waist deep in water, a two-hundred meter stretch. Now that was trying to move so much so fast again, she suddenly felt sluggish again.

The arduous task was further complicated by the net of tendrils the Rakbu tossed up against her. They lashed out at her, relentlessly. She caught a pair in the hook of Unit-02's arm and pulled hard. The carpet-like web of tendrils suddenly untangled, as the Rakbu tried to reorganize itself – then she cut them off with the knife, and let go. The hundred-legged leviathan stumbled.

Unit-02 pushed on. Asuka had to dodge steadily more tentacles as she closed in, and she eyed the battery-timer. It had dropped faster than it should. And the third Rakbu, perhaps a little more intelligent than she had acknowledged at first, was retreating on its spindly legs. It was slower, true, but if she ran out of power, she would become fish-food.

[Asuka, Shinji] a voice rang in her cochlear implants, [Stay back. We're transferring an umbilical cord to the dam. If you can pull back to the south-western docks, you can plug in there. I don't want you to get into a fight with just a minute of power left.]

[Sorry Misato,] Asuka replied [But with all the water, Unit-02 can't make it that far on just a hundred-and-twenty seconds of battery. I'm going to finish this now.]

[No,] the captain said sternly. [I'm explicitly forbidding you from engaging the third Rakbu. Pull back. I'll get a helicopter to hand you your end of the umbilical cord.]

"Hmpf," Asuka said, "I am notstupid," she mumbled, "I know my limits, and taking down that Rakbu is well within them."

"I wouldn't get into a fight with Misato over it," Shinji said, "she got really angry at me when I disobeyed during training once."

"That's probably because you're not all that good at independent judgement and self-control," Asuka said.

A tendril struck at Unit-02. She easily dodged it and flayed off a strip of membranous skin.

"Huh. It seems to be lowering its defence…" Asuka noted. "But orders are orders…"

She frowned at the panoramic screen and took a few cautious steps backwards.

"Wait," Shinji said, "Did you just call me an idiot?"

"…it took you that long to notice?" Asuka taunted him. "Idiot," she muttered under her breath.

"I heard that!" Shinji said.

Then Ninki struck. The end of a tentacle suddenly rose from behind the Eva, a trap laid long before it had come that far. While the proximity claxons still screamed in Asuka's head, the tendril wrapped around the limp arm of Unit-02. Powerful electric shocks rocked the Eva.

[Asu-ksssssss] a corrupted video-conference icon appeared in the Eva's peripheral vision. [Wh-oing on? Re-kssssssssss!]

Asuka screamed in anger and pain. Shinji just screamed in pain. Suddenly, the Rakbu was upon them. A torrent of lashes beat against the armour plates. Tendrils wrapped themselves around Unit-02's arms and legs. The remaining eye, and the core, glowed in menacing shades of pulsating crimson. A pair of tendrils entangled the Eva's head, covering one of the eyes and darkening a third of the entry plug. Shinji felt as if his head was about to pop.

"It's going to coil up on us and explode!" he yelled. "It's going to kill us all!"

Asuka reached her Eva's arm, still holding the knife, up against the outer edge of the suumbrellal surface, where the tendrils joined with the bell. In too much pain to concentrate, her own body mimed the motion. She had problems breathing, and her heart felt as if it was about to explode. She got a strange, charred taste in her mouth. But she still reached out. She pinned the knife between Unit-02's thumb and index finger.

She grabbed the root of a tentacle and pulled hard. The electric shocks that racked the Eva ceased, for a moment. Asuka used the momentary pause to twist the tendril halfway over her shoulder. The Rakbu, most of its arms coiled around Unit-02 like an octopus prying open a clam, overbalanced and fell. Shinji tumbled around in the entry plug as Unit-02 rolled on top of the soft, squishy underside of the Rakbu.

Asuka started stabbing. Through the panicked electric shocks, she relentlessly and unstoppably stabbed at the luminescent red core and the tendrils that covered it. A dozen arms flopped off as she brought the knife, aided by Unit-02's AT Field, against the Rakbu. She could feel, instinctively, Ninki's AT field shift and pulse as she thrust against it. She could feel it tear and rupture, as the knife made contact with the glass-like shell of the core.

The core shattered, and popped. A red mist of qualia was carried off by the wind. The bag-like umbrella-shape of the Rakbu started leaking into what little remained of water in the basin.

Asuka took several deep breaths. Then the entry plug turned over to emergency lighting, and Unit-02 collapsed.

01100101 00100000 01100100 01110010 01101001 01101100 01101100 00101110

Esgilia Academy, Kobe, Japan, 7 OCT 2030
Toji tipped his chair on its rear legs, marking nasty marks in the floor of the Esagila Academy's classrooms. His feet were resting on a nearby desk – notably not his own – and he was back in his rebellious interpretation of the school uniform, his usual attire of the gym uniform at all times. He turned to Shinji.

"So…" he said, "how much would you be willing to pay me and Kensuke here to not show pictures of you in the female Eva-suit to the female students of the class?"

Shinji's faced paled.

"Or the male student body, for that matter," Toji continued, "that'll be twice the price, for both, of course."

"You…" Shinji began, "you wouldn't really...?"

Toji grinned. Kensuke snickered.

"Nah, of course not!" Toji said, with a huge smile upon his face. "We're you're friends. We wouldn't bully you. Unlike certain red-haired German she-devils," he added.

"She's not all that bad…" Shinji muttered.

"See?" Toji said, "she has you under her spell already!"

"Knock it off!" Shinji mumbled.

"She's actually a witch from a German witch coven, and she's bewitched you with a magic potion!" Toji said, purposefully melodramatic. "Did you drink anything she offered you? Did you keep an eye on your drink at all times?"

Shinji rolled his eyes.

"Or maybe she's actually a criminal superhacker;" Toji continued, "a puppet master who has ghost-hacked you into just thinking she's a sweet girl!"

"I never said she was sweet!" Shinji protested.

"Or maybe she's a vampire," Toji hung his hands forward like a stereotypical movie vampire, "who's after your blood and is infiltrating the student body… to…" he slowed down as he caught a glimpse of long red hair atop a smiling face of a somewhat unusually pale skin-colour.

"No, it can't be!" Toji shouted as he pointed at Asuka "The rude German man-eating red-head!"

"Toji!" Hikari's voice reverberated through the room, "How dare you call your new classmate—" Hikari waved a hand in the direction of Asuka's brand new school uniform, "—a 'man-eater'. Or 'rude', for that matter. Show some respect, for once. And sit properly."

Toji leant back and stared into the ceiling. The next weeks of school would be murderous.