Disclaimer: I do not own Neon Genesis Evangelion or any of the things I want to in this world of ours. The only thing created by me on the NGE area is this fanfic series. If you sue, I'll sue back.

They walked for a good three hours, and they were all quite tired when they decided to come to a halt. The sat down in a triangle and opened their entry plugs. Shinji was the first to climb out, completely drenched in LCL. He coughed hard to get the liquid out of his lungs so that he could start breathing normal air again. He looked over to Unit 00 and saw Rei sitting on her entry plug, dangling her legs in the air. A puddle of LCL on the ground beneath her showed that she had coughed up the liquid at the same time as he had. Rei waved at him and pointed towards the red unit. Asuka fought to stand up on the ground, apparently, she had tripped while climbing out of her entry plug and now she was covered in a mud made by earth mixed with LCL couched up from Asuka's lungs. It was not that very nice, Asuka thought, and she let them all hear it with some colourful expressions not suited for kids, most of them in German.

After Asuka had punched Shinji quite hard on the arm for laughing at her, Shinji pulled their supplies out of a small cargo hold in the foot of his Eva unit. They made up a small camp with three tents in a triangle, each of them in front of their own Eva unit for quick access in case of an emergency, and a campfire in the middle. After eating a small ration they all decided to just sit around and have some fun, while observing and making notes of how things were and worked in this dimension. The gravity seemed to be the same; they had at least not felt anything different while walking. The air was clean and nice to breath after the LCL in the entry plug for some three hours. The sun was setting in the horizon, casting a red hue on everything. A few big shadows moved against the horizon. The angels were close. The following day they would be able to find out how long the days and nights were here. Ritsuko had been quite clear on the point when she told them to note down, calculate and re-calculate everything in the other dimension.

Flashback –

Ritsuko's hand shot out and grabbed Shinji's ear. She yanked him close to her and screamed in his ear.

"Everything!"

End flashback –

The sun set a lot faster than in the dimension of humans, and the camp were soon engulfed in darkness. The dark was broken only in a small sphere in whose center the trios' campfire resided. Soon, it too was extinguished and the rustling of tent cloth, clothing and sleeping bags could be heard for a moment. The motion detectors activated around the camp. Not that they should prove necessary if an angel visited as the angels made quite a noise themselves, but if there were other life-forms that should prove hostile against the teens. They all soon fell asleep. The silence was only broken by the yelling of Asuka.

"Turn that frickin' SDAT player off, baka Shinji!" a click could be heard as Shinji embarrassed turned his beloved SDAT player off. Rei smiled in her sleep. Her subconscious replayed the scene when Shinji saved her from the thugs. She would always remember that scene.

"Have you turned that fucking thing on again!"

"Gomen!"

The sound pulled them out of their sleep simultaneously. It was the sound of a heavy explosion or something impacting at a high velocity. They all rushed out and looked up. They looked up at the dot that grew by the minute in the sky. It was a drop-shaped object coming down like a meteor onto the dusty ground a few miles away. The blast could be felt all the way over at the camp. Soon the shape of the angel came into sight. It was like three eyes hanging together by threads, three eyes glaring at the growing earth from the sky. Sahquiel looked down on its prey. The pilots rushed to their Eva units. Luckily, they all slept in their plug suits since neither of them though it would make such a big difference of they kept the LCL drenched clothes on or drenched new clothes to wear. The quickly activated the units and rushed off to meet the angel head-on. Shinji charged immediately as he got there first of them. He flew up using his jetpack to an equal height of the angel and pulled the progressive knife. He plunged it deep into the AT field and ripped it open, leaving it defenceless against the attack coming from Asuka. She flung her bazooka onto her shoulder and fired off a rocket straight into the centre eye and core of the angel. The explosion echoed over the field. When the smoke cleared, the two units on the ground saw how Unit 01 tumbled through the air, the jetpack on its back torn to shreds by the tremendous power of the blast, to land in a heap on the ground, creating a quite large crater. Rei screamed.

"Shinji-kun!"

Unit 01 had crawled up from the crater it had created in the impact and shook the dirt off. He looked up, estimating height, letting his look wander down while he let out a long whistle.

"Now, that's a fall." He shrugged and walked to the camp to eject the entry plug and get some more sleep. The girls stared in disbelief at him. Then Rei remembered that he was tougher than he looked. She smiled and ran over to the camp too to eject the entry plug and have a nice eye-to-eye talk and maybe some cuddling in a tent. Asuka sighed. She could barely stand the thought of Shinji and Rei together, and it only got worse by each time she tried to ruin their relationship as the couple more than made up for what Asuka had managed to do. Asuka walked over to the camp too to either get some sleep or be more social.

'At least with baka Shinji.' She thought with a slight hint of acid. She looked at the albino bluenette girl running over to talk to Shinji with disgust. She had never lost to anyone before she came to Japan, and she was not letting this trophy run away with some pale faced, blue haired redeye. She'd rather die, or kill…

The rest of the day had been spent chatting, training and just hanging around at the camp.

"Do you feel alright, Shinji-kun?" Rei leaned exaggeratedly close to Shinji and studied his facial expressions as they changed from relaxed to a bit nervous and then back to a relaxed look.

"I'm okay; I had my back to the explosion." He looked over at the Eva unit crouching on the ground with the jetpack beside it. It had a few holes with jagged rims and it was mostly blackened by heat. The jetpack was in short unusable, irreparable and, well, not useful anymore. He sighed and looked at the Eva with trouble in his eyes.

"I guess it can't be helped…" He murmured softly to himself. However, Rei overheard it.

"What can't be helped, Shinji-kun?" He looked over at Rei and smiled assuring at her.

"Nothing, I'm all fine." Rei however was not fooled by the simple 'nothing' response and decided to keep a close eye on Shinji for the next few days. So did Asuka, but for another reason. Rei did not have to wait though.

The purple Eva unit screamed as if in pain, crouching low to the ground, hugging its shoulders as if seeking comfort. It let out another deafening howl of anguish and pain and flung its head back, arching its back and stretching its arms out at the same time. Huge, yellow electrical-like wings protruded from its back, gleaming and surging with electrical power. They were ten to the number, and sat in a circle from a point on the Eva units back, going like a circle or halo behind it. The light emanating from them were enough to make the others to shield their eyes. Unit 01 started moving its wings, slowly and nervous at first, but soon they disappeared for the eye and became a blur that lifted the unit into the air with a grace far wider than the one provided by the jetpacks. Shinji smiled at the girls through the comm. window and explained the matter to them.

"It is a thing specially developed for this Eva unit since it stood my father closest to the heart and he wanted to give it an upper hand in any situation." Asuka and Rei snapped their dropped jaws back in place and activated their jetpacks. The tongues of fire and the plumes of smoke following them seemed if possible even more polluting than ever when they looked at how gracious Unit 01 moved through the clear morning air. Asuka gritted her teeth and flew higher than Rei, planning to put one of her plans into motion. She positioned herself over Unit 00 and boosted her jetpack, making the flames longer and hotter, burning the blue and white Eva unit plus disturbing it with her jet turbulence. Rei screamed as she fell to the ground a good kilometre beneath and a certain death. The there was a blur of yellow and purple and the 00 unit was securely in the grasp of Unit 01.

Asuka gritted her teeth just so quiet it could not be heard through the comm. radio system. Shinji and Rei let this pass for now since another angel was approaching. Shinji flew down and deposited Unit 00 on the ground. The jetpack was dented, but it could be repaired later on by Shinji. He flew up and positioned himself slightly in front of Asuka. They watched the angel advance. The black and white streaked ball seemed to flow on the air currents and go gradually closer and closer. He looked at Rei. He had put her in the way of the angel. He was sure that if the angel had had a mouth it should've had smiled in a mocking way at Shinji. Shinji projected the image of a grinning angel in his mind and went almost mad with rage as he had accidentally put the image of a slowly disappearing Rei in the scene. He aimed with his handgun and fired a testing round.

The angel vanished without a sound instantly before the bullet could hit. A huge shadow shot out from under where it had been and loomed there. Shinji swallowed as he realized that the shadow was quite strange. Any boulders or trees that were within the shadow perimeter seemed to sink in its darkness. The angel reappeared, but the shadow remained. Shinji and Asuka and Rei stood facing the strange angel Leriel. Then at the same time, a virus started infecting the nearest piece of technology that it could find. Rei's progressive knife. They all now had two angels to deal with at the same time. Rei ripped the knife out from its sheath and threw it into the ground. The virus could actually be seen as small golden particles travelling up and down the full length of the knife. The angel was called Ireul, and was the virus. It started searching for a way to enter the Evangelion units' bodies. It started trying to take over Rei's unit. Rei stared at the knife and the swung her laser rifle from her back and aimed directly at the knife a hundred metres away. She fired one, well-placed shot. It tore the knife into shreds in a deafening explosion. And with the knife, every piece of the virus-like angel Ireul disappeared.

Asuka and Shinji had a slightly tougher time dealing with Leriel. They worked frenetically on a tactic, testing weaknesses and strengths as good as they could. Their brains worked overtime, and then they figured it out. Shinji proved their theory by shooting at Leriel. It vanished and then appeared a few minutes later. He fired another round the moment the angel reappeared and noticed that the angel moved now to avoid the round. Without another word, Asuka charged.

Shinji fired another round and the angel disappeared. As it reappeared again, Asuka hovered a few hundred metres behind it, grinning maniacally and aiming her bazooka at the angel. She pulled the trigger as soon as she saw it appear. The rocket jetted through the air with a plume of smoke behind it. Its pointy tip pierced the angel and the missile buried itself in the core positioned in the middle of the sphere-like angel. Leriel was torn inside out, blood and pieces of flesh flying and raining everywhere as the rocket detonated itself and destroyed the core as well. The Eva units in the air were tossed around in the shockwaves like leaves in an autumn storm. They flew down to join Rei whose unit lay in a heap on the ground, pressed there by the shockwaves. As expected, Asuka did not lift a finger to help Rei. But Rei only focused on Shinji, who always had to save her. She cherished it sometimes; it made her feel as wanted as she was. At least by the one person close to her geographically who loved her, the other one wanted to have her intestines with her morning cereals. Rei didn't know about this though, but the continuous glares at her back thrown by Asuka made her feel a bit uneasy, and who can blame her?