Disclaimer: Oh woe is me! I do not own Evangelion! Darn it...
Neon Genesis Goonvangelion
Book 1: The Overdue Re-Write
Chapter 7: All in a Day's Work / ANGEL ATTACK
Naked Rei clones.
(Welcome Google Searchers. - Ed.)
Dozens of them.
Soulless husks floating in a giant back-lit tank in a room made entirely of metal and glass under a kilometer of rock and armor plating.
Shinji Ikari, lone Evanglion pilot, was curled into a fetal position on the floor. A shred of him wondered why the tank had to be shaped in a semi-circle that surrounds him like a nightmare that won't end. The rest of his brain told his mouth not to scream or the zombies will find him, then went off to lunch.
Not that it registered, but the room smelled of fresh blood.
Jared walked into the room, nodded and waved to the Rei clones, picked up the unresisting Shinji like a sack of potatoes, and left through the main doors. Behind him, the doors closed and locked themselves.
In the outer chamber, Jared had halted the mad dash to aid his fellow Eva pilot to make John swear on his Nintendo that he wouldn't try to peep on the naked Rei clones. John finished the swearing in before realizing that meant he'd either have to help blind-folded, or the planets had aligned and Jared was being clever.
As luck would have it, Jared was not only being clever, but also misappropriating six rolls of duct tape to help John keep his promise, whether he wanted to or not.
That explained the muffled sounds and the mound of duct tape on the wall. It didn't help get Shinji back, though. Jared gingerly deposited his cargo on the floor and shook his head. "You're a mess, Ace. I know it's kind of overwhelming and more surrealistic than Modern French Art..." He shuddered. "But don't worry."
Shinji may or may not have heard him. He did twitch when Jared pulled the duct tape off of John's mouth eliciting a scream of agony.
Simmering with rage, "That hurt."
"The Rei clones will thank me for that some day." Jared said, the superior smirk coating his words instead of his face.
"Then I shall dedicate my life to making sure that day never comes."
"Are you always this testy after I play Boy Scout and do a good deed?"
John scoffed. "Of course, if by that you mean after you tear half of my face off with duct tape."
"Everyone's a critic. You gonna do something about Shinji?" Jared nodded at the broken human on the floor.
"I though you were the Boy Scout."
"I moved into management. I'm delegating. Fix him."
"I'm taped to the fucking wall."
"No you aren't." Jared corrected impatiently, he was missing quality Asuka time on this useless argument.
"What the, when did you..."
"Fear my elite ninja skills!" The blond Goon declared.
"You don't have any--AAAAAAAAAAAUUUUGGGHH!"
"Huh, bit of a delayed reaction there. Well, hurry up and fix him, There are only so many Asuka-minutes in a day."
"Murder you..." John growled and moved the boy around so he could see into the pilot's eyes. Pulling a shiny pen-shaped device from his shirt and waving it in front of Shinji. "Ever see one of these?"
The boy's eyes just focused on the object, which flashed brightly. Shinji's eyes remained glassy while John put the device away. "We split up outside of the briefing room. You got lost and Jared and I just found you." He pointed at the small doors one the other side of the hallway. "Elevator's that way."
Shinji blinked. "T-thanks, guys."
"We'll be up in a minute," Jared said.
Shinji left. Once he was gone, Jared grabbed his comrade by the shoulders. "You have a flashy-thingy?!"
"Oh, this old thing?" Out came flashy-thingy. Flash, went flashy-thingy. Then, flashy-thingy went away. "Let go. We found Shinji next to The Graveyard. I'm going to get his jacket. You're going to make sure he gets topside safely."
Jared blinked and removed his hands from John's shoulders. "Well, don't be long."
John smiled as Jared quickly left in pursuit of Shinji. Once the doors closed, he rubbed his hands together with glee. "And now my blue-haired beauties..."
* * *
Andy awoke on the Briefing Room floor, and immediately leapt to his feet and thumped his chest.
"YEAH! It's good to be... alive?" A glance around revealed that the room was empty. "Damn it!" He stomped around in anger, stopping only when something yellow fluttered to the ground from his shirt. It was a note. Picking it up, he read the contents out loud. "Headed for the Asamayama earthquake research institute. Wish you were here. Get your butt in gear. Signed the Being of Overwhelming Power, Jared."
He scoffed. Then, "IT'S MECHA TIME!"
Wishing he had a theme song of his own, Andy settled for humming the Wing Commander one that plays when the characters are running to their ships. At volumes science insists are impossible for humans to hum. Nonetheless, Andy defies the laws of both man and nature, and makes it to his Eva in record time.
Then he had to double back to the locker rooms and change into his plug suit.
Once inside, the main systems came on line, Andy synchronized with the behemoth, and hatches above him opened as the Eva slid onto the launch rack.
"CHARGE!!!" He screamed, hammering the huge red button on his controls that didn't actually do anything but looked too good to resist threatening the techs into installing.
Technicians in charge of the cage made their phone calls. The Operational Commander tried to figure out how she was talked into leaving an Eva behind. Eventually, launch authorization was given and an overly enthusiastic back-up bridge bunny tried out her best impression of the Major.
"LAUNCH EVA!"
As the launcher kicked in, Rob Zombie's Dragula began blasting over the mecha's internal and external speaker systems. Inertia propelled the Eva to new heights, where the metal wings were allowed to unfold and set the Eva of Death aloft.
Now he had a theme song. He also appeared to have a tactical computer. He pushed a few buttons at random, muttering insanities to himself. "Where's the volcano? Look for a volcano. It's a big smoking mountain, damn it. It can't be that easy to miss. I'm looking for some F-Type bombers preparing to erase said mountain, and some large equipment for--THERE IT IS!!!"
There was a spectacle laid out on the ground in a carnival of colors. A gray lollipop was the massive crane set near the glowing red crater. About half a kilometer away sat an array of white trailers and trucks that were obviously the command center for this op. The gray blob would be John's Unit-05, fretting around the blue and white blob that would be Unit-00' instead of doing his damn patrol. The purple blob of Unit-01 was on winch duty, apparently guarding the massive device from the very threatening tree line just uphill of the operation. Near the big red circle was a black blob thing that looked half the size of the other mecha. That would be Jared, gnawing his nails down to his wrist bones in worry.
The lack of a red blob on the sea of green vegetation told Andy where Asuka was.
No F-Type bombers, but Andy was an optimist, and sure he could scare some up if they didn't just wander by in the next ten to fifteen minutes.
On the ground, things had been quiet for far too long, so all eyes that could be spared looked up when what sounded like old American rock music began faintly playing from above.
"Bastard!" John cursed. "I wanted to come in with music first!"
After the song ended and Andy landed, some F-Type bombers did a quick pass and moved to circling at a comfortable distance, prompting Unit-04 to engage in a brief victory dance.
"I'm glad you're enjoying this!" Jared snapped at him.
"I am, just a little bit. Things will get better after your girlfriend awakens the unholy horror slumbering beneath our armored feet and brings doom upon us all. I expect this to happen in the next five--"
Asuka's voice cut over the comm. "Angel secure. And I heard that, you asshole."
"Cut the chatter," Misato's voice joined Asuka's. "Begin retrieval pull."
Unit-03 crossed its arms, but no-one could tell, thanks to the crazy armor job.
Unit-04 shrugged helplessly.
"Wait a minute. Retrieval? That means Asuka's coming up. Heh, right into my arms..."
"Rei," said Asuka over the comm, "Remember what we agreed on?"
Unit-00' jump-kicked 03 in the head, knocking the unit back into the tree line, then returned to its patrol position.
Andy blinked.
John spoke into the private comm line to Andy's Eva. "Jared's Evangelion has the most physical strength of all the units, so he's supposed to help 02 get the cage out of that pit, and help 02 out if necessary."
"But... but I am the strongest!"
"Andy..."
"And this operation is FUBAR'd, in five, four, three, two, one!"
Nothing happened, except John cursed his short straw and tried to talk sense into Mucha. "Andy."
"I said one!"
Or at least get his attention. "Andy!"
"Something blow up!"
"ANDY!"
"He is lost to us, my friend." Jared said, his Eva stand next to 05. "He has gone... to a dark place."
"You got out of that forest quickly."
"I am one with nature," Jared said with a sage air about him. "Besides, it would be rude to miss out on Venus Rising from the Sea."
"More like Mars rising from the volcano."
Finally, the top of Unit-02's D-Type armor began to surface.
"So there's a plan to get the lava out of the cage, right?" After a moment of listening to the response, "How did the cicada's get on this channel?"
Ritsuko finally replied on a sound-only channel, "The cage walls use magnetic fields to hold in the Angel, the magma should pass right through it."
While Andy and John have their Units ready a Gallat Gun and a Special Beam Cannon just in case, Unit-03 grabbed the Angel cage and set it on the ground near the hole. Within the massive metal cube, a black orb shimmered darkly, it's coloring that of pure madness.
Jared had his own take on the orb's appearance. "Its surface shimmers like the blood of innocent children spilled in the moonlight."
Asuka looked at Unit-03 through her display in horror. Sure, the thing was disgusting, but that was... She really didn't want to know what was going on in his head. Eventually, Unit-02 removed itself from the crater without incident or aid (unwanted or otherwise) from Unit-03. It and the other American Evas stood around the Angel's cage.
"It worked!" Misato's shout was triumphant.
The goons echoed her, their voices ringing with incredulity. "It worked?!"
"Yeah, weren't you guys paying attention?" She asked rhetorically to the goons, who were saving time by ignoring her.
"Screw the river," Jared said, "We three stones have done some fucking major landscaping."
"Cool," John said with a smile.
Andy did what was expected of him. He broke into song. "Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's back to NERV we go. We've got the Angel, there is no danger, hi-ho, hi-ho..."
The embryo twitched. Before anyone else could so much as blink, all three American Evas were aiming glowing balls of energy at the thing, each larger than the egg itself. A massive drop of salty water appeared from nowhere and rolled down the midnight-black surface. No more twitches came from the orb.
"Oh, I'm sorry, did we break your concentration?" John asked the egg.
Nothing moved. The energy balls hummed softly in the air, like nukes on very short leashes.
Inside of the Mobile Command Center, Misato turned off the live feed to the pilots. "Is it... scared of them?"
Outside, Jared stroked an imaginary kung fu master beard, a very master Pei movement. Andy cackled maniacally. John laughed a big booming evil laugh, straight from the gut... of EVIL!
The other pilots not amused, then after a moment were spooked by a peel of thunder.
* * *
An hour later in the Mobile Command Headquarters, Ritsuko's attention was divided between the quickly stacking data being recorded by NERV's new prize and the backlash of suggesting Misato take all of the pilots to a nearby hot spring to celebrate.
"He slept with two nurses last night!" Misato shouted.
Ritsuko stopped spinning a pen through her fingers. "I saw the film. He's very flexible."
"He's indecent!"
Ritsuko sipped at her coffee, gently arranged few papers on her desk, then cleared her throat and spoke to her long-time friend in a tone normally reserved for a master handing their retainer a tanto. "Mis-chan, you've had a long day. But things went well, the Angel's fully restrained, none of the Evas have so much as a scratch on them, and even the pilots are getting a little bit of well-deserved R-n-R. Why don't you go enjoy it with them?"
"With the pervert?"
"Bring Kaji."
Misato snarled.
"Have some beer."
"Am I that two-dimensional?"
"Mis-chan, you're stressed. I don't know how more clear I can make this: The Angel is secure; go relax." For emphasis, Ritsuko pointed at her office door.
"But what about that blond kid?"
Ritsuko made a note to give the NERV psychologists a call. "Fine, if I arrange for a JSDF escort and bodyguards, will you be okay?"
"I... I think I will be."
"Good." She led Misato to the door as if she were a small child. "There you go. Have a good time, Mis-chan."
"Hai, hai."
* * *
"I don't believe it," said Jared.
The trio were standing in the hall of a traditional Japanese hot spring, known locally as a 'ryokan.' Before them was the entrance to the rear deck that overlooked the men's side of the pool. The rear lobby was little more than a divided hallway that led to the outdoor hot springs
In his defense, standing in a stereotypical, outdoor Japanese hot spring that was part of a very traditional ryokan. was a surreal experience. He grew up in the Pacific Northwest, both the forested and desert areas, and was very familiar with American hot springs. The closest he'd ever been to a ryokan until now was watching anime. Hence the weird moment of disbelief, despite the fact he and the other goons had been here for almost an hour washing away the grime inside the building. Given not more than a bucket, some basic NERV-issue toiletries, and cold running water, the surreality of the experience really began there. He expect to be simply going with the flow by now, but seeing the springs in person... This was way more impressive (and cultural) than piloting giant bio-mechanical war machines or scrubbing himself off in a bathing area that reminded him strongly of certain scenes from Ranma 1/2.
And here he thought that commanding a seven hundred ton mecha would never be routine... government agencies could suck the novelty out of anything.
Tokyo-3 had much of the 'vibe' of the original Tokyo. It wasn't a perfect replacement, but in this anime, a whole continent had been vaporized, so some slight differences were to be expected. He liked Tokyo-3 as much as he imagined he would have liked the original Tokyo. It was a great place. But this...
"Don't even think about peeking on the womens' side," John said from his elbow, not that John had learned to talk from his arm joint, he was just standing next to Jared and this is a common way of saying that without implying they're being civil to one another. John, like Jared and Andy, was wearing a towel wrapped around his waist. He was still slightly damp from their wash-up inside and eagerly awaiting the moment when they could finally sit down and relax. The slowly steaming pools outside promised relaxation aplenty, and John was not going to miss out on this opportunity, even if he had to murder his comrades in cold blood.
Andy was humming along to the sound of hover gunship flyovers like he was listening to a beloved piece of classical music that got his blood pumping like a death metal concert. The ground troops outside were setting up enough heavy artillery around the springs to repel an invasion force from China while the goons watched in varying degrees of fascination, speculation, and exultant joy.
"Boy, these guys are setting enough heavy artillery to repel an invasion force from China!" Andy squealed excitedly.
"Yeah, it's like they don't trust us to bathe near the womenfolk," Jared said, earning a sharp glares from John and Andy.
After a half-hour of security sweeps, the JSDF guys let Andy into the springs. He shucked his towel, adjusted his swimming trunks, and gently lowered himself into the 'mild' end of the pool with a sigh. "Aaahhh. Not as good as a giant mecha, but close."
After getting checked by security, John made his own entrance, setting his towel on the deck to reveal a sturdy blue pair of swimming trunks. Then he started running right at the pool of water. "CANNONBAAALL!"
Andy watched in naked amusement as John took a running leap at the water. Expecting his fellow goon to land on one of the rocks encircling the natural springs and test the waters with a single toe, he was slightly surprised to see John actually leap almost two meters into the air, steal some hang time while he was up there, and make the biggest splash he could manage...
Then float to the surface, unconscious.
"That looks like it hurt," Andy said to himself, letting John's body float around the pool.
The JSDF soldiers weren't paying much attention to John by then, as a new squad entered the area decked out in full body armor and flak jackets. A machine gun was quickly set up in one corner of the wooden deck leading to the natural springs, which Andy quickly moved to get a better look at.
"Hm... M240 type, a.k.a. MG3. Looks like an M240B model. Seven point six two millimeter NATO rounds. Seven hundred and fifty rounds per minute base rate. A reliable and respected weapon used by most of the world's military... I shall have it!"
Then Jared was wheeled out. Not to be out-done by John's entrance, Jared was strapped to a metal dolly by heavy chains, tied up in a straight jacket, and to top things off, he was wearing a metal face mask made infamous by a certain movie...
"Damn him, I wanted to do the Silence of the Lambs bit!" Andy cursed and ranted.
The JSDF soldiers parked Jared. An officer came to the front and spoke into his tac comm. "The package is on ice, let the girls in."
A hover gunsip flew overhead.
"Hey John," Andy asked his unconscious comrade, "How come the JSDF brass get their sentences emphasized with close air support?"
Silence replied with nothing at all.
"Unconscious again?" Andy scoffed. "Useless."
The officer nodded to some un-heard reply from his radio. Then he ordered two grunts to fish John out of the pool and give him a few slaps to wake him up.
Andy was pretty sure that the brass knuckles were entirely necessary. By the time John was awake, Andy had returned to the pool, his hair and upper body badly singed.
"What happened to you?" John asked.
"The guy next to the 240 Bravo also has a flamethrower."
John waited for Andy to finish.
"And apparently they don't want me touching it."
"The machine gun or the flamethrower?" Questioned John.
"The 240 Bravo. What use is a flamethrower in a hot springs?"
John pointedly looked at Andy's burnt hair, but his look went ignored.
"Hey!" Jared shouted. "I'm trying to mimic a classic American film here! Pay attention!"
John sighed, walked out of the pool and up to Jared, then shoved at his shoulder. The goon, metal dolly and all, fell over. The JSDF soldiers scattered like he'd dumped a live grenade at their feet. The machine gun was quickly pointed at Jared.
"No need for that," said a short Japanese man in a white lab coat. It took John a second to realize the man had spoken in perfect English. The guy waved the M240 off and approached Jared as a scientist would a pet project. He spoke to John without looking at him. "I assume you're the control?"
"If you mean the sane one," John replied in English, "I guess yeah, I am."
He gave the goon a glance, lingering on the top of his head for a split-second. "Are you feeling okay?"
John rubbed at the bandage. "Fine, actually. Weird... no one put that bandage there, and I landed in the pool feet first..."
The scientist-looking man chuckled and drew back from Jared, motioning John to follow. Once at a safe range, he offered his hand to the goon. "John Toyamota. Head researcher at the station here."
John shook the man's hand. "John Genoni. Eva pilot."
Toyamota took a clipboard full of paperwork from the JSDF officer and gave it half a glance before signing. "Thanks for making that recovery, by the way. It went very smoothly." He handed the clipboard back.
John watched as four huge guards wearing body armor that was mostly interlocking plates wield some massive manipulators that unlocked Jared from the dolly, then removed the chains. "I was only assisting. Major Katsuragi was instrumental in ensuring a smooth recovery, you should thank her."
"I did, personally, by coming here and signing off on this paperwork." Toyamota smiled.
The big guys finished with the chains, then used their instruments to unlock the face mask and the two straightjackets, then the whole group high-tailed it out of the springs. Jared rubbed at his wrists, clad in a simple black pair of trunks. The SAW team hunkered down, watching him as if the sixth fleet was about to sprout from his shoulders in a spray of blood and bone and pound hoof across the grounds to decimate the gunnery nest.
"Thanks, I guess," John said ruefully.
"You'll take him from here?"
"I'm afraid so."
Toyamota chuckled again, shook John's hand again, and bid a polite farewell before leaving.
Jared watched him go impassively.
"You bribed Misato to help you make that appearance?"
"Actually, Toyamota wanted a blood sample."
"Straight jacket?"
"I don't like needles."
"Jared 'I beat my fists to hamburger on steel plates for fun' Waddell doesn't like needles?" John watched Jared shudder at the word and threw his hands into the air in defeat. He stalked back into the water muttering to himself. At least Andy was consistently crazy.
Speaking of Andy...
"Get away from that mac--"
FWOOSH!
After standing up and brushing himself off, "...Jared, your hair's on fire."
Jared gave John a funny look and swan-dived into the pool, surfacing at the far end with a sigh. His hair steamed enthusiastically, but was no longer aflame. After a nanosecond of sitting still, his concentration shifted to the armored partition dividing their half of the springs from that of the fairer sex.
"Don't you ever quit?" John asked.
"John, it's like they say: Two rolling stones are moss to my hand in a bird's bush."
"No one says that, ever. It doesn't even make sense."
"Damn it, and I spent hours grinding those metaphors against one another."
John opted to shut up at that point because talking with Jared was giving him a headache.
Jared choose to ignore John in turn, then looked at the M240, then back at the wall, then back at the machine gun. Then he pulled out his own flamethrower, a homemade affair that looked more likely to kill him in a giant fireball than drive off an acid-bleeding xenomorph.
And he pointed it at the water and pulled the trigger.
John was not amused. He was not amused and he was hot, surrounded by steam, and out-flanked by idiots. Stupid Jared. Stupid flamethrower. He cracked his knuckles.
Screams of panic from the gun nest gave way to hastily conceived and hastily executed orders. "Get some flash-bangs in there!"
Something moved in the mist, and there was the sound of flash-bangs going off. Not here, in the water, but near the machine gun.
"I'm blind! COVER FIRE!" And that would be the JSDF grunts getting defensive.
John used the sound of the gun to get his bearings and charged. He came out of the vapor cloud at the same time as Andy did, and as luck would have it, along an intersecting course. They smashed heads and landed well short of the nest unconscious.
Jared, however, was already in the nest and fully conscious, though the JSDF soldiers getting their asses kicked really, really wished he wasn't. Once the soldiers were dispatched, Jared took command of the M240, spraying the accursed barrier with 7.62mm slugs while John and Andy recovered from their impact.
Andy stepped on John's face to grab at Jared, but was thwarted by John twisting his foot and using the Goon as a springboard to tackle Jared. The pair crashed to the ground, Andy groaning in pain behind them. The gun's last bursts went wide, damaging a pair of hover gunships.
Andy flipped back to his feet and quickly grabbed the gun, only to find six JSDF soldiers dog-piling on him. Glancing to Jared for aid, he saw Jared and John locked in a struggle for dominance while more JSDF poured into the area.
Only seconds passed before the goons put down the JSDF reinforcements, and turned on one-another. John pulled out some 2x4s and put down Jared and Andy with a pair of skull-cracking impacts.
"There, now--" John looked up to see Shinji watching him with eyes the size of dinner plates. "Uh, hi."
"Hi," replied the Eva pilot, not moving.
The cicadas held their breath.
"they're noisy," Rei said from across the partition.
"It's a good thing this wall was reinforced. Pity about those VTOL, though," Misato replied.
Without the need of an introduction to preempt her voice, "Ha! That stopped them? They'll try again, trust me! And then, I'll be ready! OHOHOHOHOHOHOHO!"
"Should I even ask?" Said Shinji.
"No."
Feeling the need to make conversation to help him ignore the pile of either dead or unconscious soldiers and two goons at John's feet. "Where do you get those things?"
"Lumberyard. Where else would I get them?" John tossed the wood away.
Then two more squads burst into the area, shoving Shinji to the floor and covering him with ten assault rifles. Three more squads drop over the far wall and pop out of the ground around John, wielding cattle prods and a few more machine guns.
To top things off, Kaji walked in. Then he did just what was expected of him--he took command of the situation. In short order, the goons were roused, the soldiers were cleared out, a new SAW was set up with additional armor, and Shinji was allowed to get his towel back into a decent place. Before too long, all five males were bathing peacefully in the pool.
Wait, did I just type 'peacefully?' We're still in Goonvangelion, sorry for the confusion.
"Not quite used to living in Japan?" Kaji asked John a short while later, pointing at his swimming trunks.
A shrug preceded the verbal response. "I'm used to communal showers, and I'm... adjusting, but we have our own bath in the apartment."
Kaji himself shrugged. Had any women been watching, there would have been a mass swooning. Actually, there probably would have been mass fainting at the sight of Shinji in a hot springs. "Well, you'll get used to it."
"Hm..."
"Don't you have hot springs in America?" Shinji asked.
"Well, we do, but they're treated more like swimming pools. No nudity and all that."
"Yeah, we're all from prudeville, USA," Jared said, suddenly lounging on a rock a few feet away from the Japanese men. Well, boy and man.
John's eye twitched as he noticed that Jared's trunks were now on the deck railing next to his towel. Damn sneaky... He was like one of those accursed ninja sometimes.
"Prudeville, where's that?" Shinji asked. "I thought you were from Washington."
"I mean America is full of religious whackos. Like the middle east but with even more guns and less political stability."
Knowing the goons on a professional basis, Shinji looked only mildly surprised. "Oh, really?"
"Yeah, but there's... uh, certain... ahem. There's stabilizing forces that are... an, er, inherent part of the... political landscape." Jared's smile was so fake it immediately gave Kaji and Shinji stomach cramps.
Kaji raised an eyebrow to match his pained grimace. Shinji nodded, the expression on his face making it clear he had wandered too far down this particular conversational path and needed an out. Preferably one involving fire and antacid.
Apparently Jared only saw the twitching, and took it as encouragement. "But me, y'know, I'm all cultural and stuff." John snorted, which was totally the wrong thing to do, because it got Jared's hyperactive puppy-length attention. "Of course, there is an upside to all of this cultural shock... Rei's naked over there."
The twitching got worse. "Rei... had quite a few nude scenes. More than your prudish bitch. I'm not in any hurry."
At this, Kaji looked calculating.
"Yeah, Rei was kinda the slut of Eva." Jared suddenly dived into the water again. Maybe because a huge rock had just flown through the space his head had occupied a half-second ago. Maybe. Maybe he just really wanted to be on the other side of the pool where he would actually have time to see the murderous psychopath who had possessed John's body reach for another weapon.
Shinji was chanting, "I will not run away, I will not run away, I will not run away..." Even though the living shadow surrounded by a visible killing aura was telling his lower brain functions to run or die.
Then Jared splashed John, and it was on.
"Wait, how did he splash you from across the--" Kaji was instantly drowned in a dozen waves of water kicked up by the goons. For a moment, only his flailing hand was visible. Shinji had obeyed his 'flight' instincts and was already on the deck by the time Kaji crawled out of the frothing mess.
He was about to call in another machine gun squad when the water suddenly stopped flying. Kaji righted himself and checked on Shinji, who was crouched on the deck, watching the goons as a mouse would watch a hawk. Seeing the goons looking at each other murderously and shifting slowly into fighting stances, Kaji opted to retreat as well.
A dramatic wind blew across the spring, causing those still wet to shiver.
From the over the wall came Asuka's voice. "What the Hell is this tumbleweed doing here?"
The fight before him instantly forgotten, Jared called to his goddess. "Asuka-sama!"
"Stay away, you freak!" Came the reply.
"That's our tumbleweed..." John sighed.
"Hey, who's got the popcorn?" Andy asked.
For some reason, John and Andy looked at Shinji. "Oh, Jared left it in his Eva."
"Oops. Well, I guess this means we can't do this, then."
All three lowered their guards. Shinji sighed in relief. Jared started scaling the dividing wall with surprising speed.
"Jared!" Shouted Andy, John, Kaji, and Shinji.
BZZZZT!
His body was luminous, skeleton a shadow beneath his skin. He opened his mouth. "YEEEEAAAAARRRGGGHHH!" Then fell into the pool leaving a trail of smoke in the air.
Kaji poked the goon with a stick a few times, eliciting Asuka's name in delirious tones.
Shinji slipped back into the spring while John tied Jared off to some rocks at the far end of the pool.
Then Asuka's voice broke the 'peace' again. "Hey! We're short a bottle of shampoo."
John snapped his fingers. "No problem!"
"John? Hey, I didn't ask..."
Ignoring her grumbling, John slapped a bottle of shampoo into Shinji's hand. The young ace cocked his arm back to toss it over the wall when John stopped him and adjusted his aim after checking for wind.
"Okay, let it fly," John said.
Shinji chucked the bottle, which sailed over the wall in a graceful arch before--
"Whoa! Who threw that?!" Shouted Asuka.
"I-I did," Shinji said.
"Dumpkoff! You nearly hit me!"
"Damn!" John hissed.
Kaji rolled his eyes.
* * *
By the following day, the Angel had been secured in an underground bay back at NERV HQ. The Science Division was eagerly taking passive samples of the egg. For some reason, the Americans had actually showed up to work at something resembling their work hours, then came down to watch the goings-on. And piss off Ritsuko.
"Guys, please stop taunting the fetal Angel."
After they quit calling it names and demanding a fair fight, everybody calmed down just a little.
"What are you guys doing here, anyway?" Ritsuko asked when she had a moment to interrogate them on the catwalk. Where they had set up lawn chairs and were mixing some drinks.
"Wondering what you're going to do with it, for one," Jared said.
All four glanced at the Angel embryo, still midnight-black behind the thick walls of its AV7 containment tank.
"No idea," Ritsuko said after a minute, "I had good money on the capture failing miserably and having to kiss the mountain goodbye."
Andy stood at attention and clicked his heals together, saluting. "I shall not fail you next time, Doctor!"
A drop of sweat the size of a fist rolled off the back of Ritsuko's head and splashed on the catwalk.
"It's funny..." John said.
"What?" Jared prompted.
"The Angel's embryonic form is almost exactly the same as the embryo of practically every Earthly creature... and it's eerily similar to that of we humans... Is it 'we Humans' or 'us Humans'?"
"We..." Ritsuko scowled, realizing she was helping him. "It took you this long to notice that?"
"Actually, we've known for a couple of years now, it just took a while for the topic to come up." Jared sipped his drink.
Ritsuko did a double-take. "Years?"
"HEY! It's my job to spoil everything!" Andy cut in.
John's hand was halfway to his hidden flashy-thingy when Jared jumped up and walked to a workstation at the end of the catwalk. He came back with a fistful of paperwork. "No, Andy, your contract says that you are just supposed to play the part of the destructive psychopath with a knack for navigating the ventilation system."
Andy stopped his queued-up rant and snatched the papers out of Jared's hand. After reading the first page, "This isn't my contract! This is a lemon of a Ranma 1/2, Sailor Moon, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Care Bears, Card Captor Sakura, Dual, DragonBall Z, Gundam Wing crossover piece!"
Jared grinned evilly. "Wasn't I writing that?"
Andy glared at the doctor in disgust, while Jared gave her a wink and a saucy look of approval.
Then a pair of two-by-fours broke other their heads and distracted them, as well as Ritsuko. John seized the opportunity like a Californian realtor, ushering Jared and Andy from the wing without so much as a backward glance.
Ritsuko stared at the lawn chairs for a moment after they left. "I really, really, really, really, REALLY [HATE] those guys. But at least they didn't see this!" She triumphantly held up a small notebook. Upon the front a title in black could just be made out. The Angel Compatability Project.
Then a hand reached down from above and snatched the notebook out of the doctor's hand with an audible 'Yoink!'
Misato walked in a moment later and noted Ritsuko, breathing heavily, before shifting her gaze to the smoking pistol in her hands, and then to the bits of ceiling tiles on the floor. "I take it this is a bad time?"
Ritsuko was later seen on a Tokyo-3 street corner in a sandwich sign with "The End is Near" painted on the front and back.
* * *
Within a 'secure' conference room somewhere in NERV that no-one else was using now, John was yelling, the vein on his head about to explode. "ORDER! ORDER! I SAID SIT YO' ASS DOWN, BI-OTCHES!"
Andy finally stopped jumping around and got down off of the desk, and Jared let go of the overhead light he was swinging on. Both picked out actual chairs and sat down.
John straightened his shirt and composed himself. "In spite of some near-misses and almost fatal errors..." A glare was shot at the other two. "We actually managed to survive two episodes worth of Eva. Well done, gentlemen. But before we pat ourselves on the back--" He smirked as the two stopped patting their own backs. "We must prepare for what is to come."
"The day Tokyo-3 stands still?" Jared asked.
"Exactly," said John, "The lights go off, the place gets hot, Misato and Kaji get stuck in an elevator for three hours..." He stared into space, imagining what should have happened.
"We can rig an airborne aphrodisiac in the elevator," Jared offered.
John shook his head. "Too risky. We need a plan, we know what the Angel can do--"
"Actually, we only know how it will attack if presented with a very specific situation. It could spray acid if attacked from ground level or any number of feats," said Andy.
Jared and John blinked. John patted Andy on the head and offered him a bone-shaped biscuit.
"Err, right. I say we smuggle our Evas above ground before the whole place shuts down," said Jared.
"Smuggle? Smuggle?! It's not like we can stuff them under our jackets and tip-toe up 40 levels!" John pointed out.
Andy was still mysteriously in the grips of human rationale. "And we can't just sneak them out by piloting them. Giant robots are inherently... non-stealth."
Able to conceive of no more sophisticated response while in shock at Andy actually making sense, the other goons boggle. Convinced their 'friend' is possessed by some mysterious power, they plow on through their briefing.
"What we need is the biggest Ninja Vanish on the most grand of scales..." said Jared.
"What we need is to be up there practicing when SEELE cuts the power," mused John.
The possessed one spoke. "You know that they won't let all three of us up at the same time."
Jared got on top of his desk and pointed a commanding finger at Andy. "Then thou shalt be charged with leading the heavenly beauty Asuka--"
"And Rei... and bring Shinji while you're at it." John interrupted.
"--down through the passageways, unharmed to her Eva--"
Automatically correcting, "--their Evas."
"--Eva...s to." Jared turned to John. "HOW DARE YOU INTERRUPT MY GOD MODE!"
"Oh, I dare all right."
The possessed Andy ducked into a ventilation duct to avoid the two clashing Americans. True, he liked a good brawl, but couldn't quite figure out the point of this one, and grew bored before even considering joining in.
* * *
Asuka stopped walking. Shinji and Rei nearly plowed into her, following her en route to the main platform. Andy neatly sidestepped the stumbling trio, halting next to Asuka, who glared at him. "What are you doing here?"
Andy glanced around largely empty sidewalk, then to the sign a block away that pointed to a subway entrance that could get them to NERV. "Heading to work," he said casually.
Asuka scoffed. More than two weeks had passed since her incredible piloting made it possible for NERV to capture an Angel alive and intact. And ever since they got back to Tokyo-3, the big loud American... well, the biggest, loudest American, had followed them around every time they weren't at home. If they split up, he either followed her or Shinji around. Since he spent more time with Shinji than her or Rei, Asuka assumed he wasn't as much of a pervert as his friends were. He insisted he had nothing better to do, but he was there, day in and day out. Watching from outside of the school. Walking next to them down sidewalks. Following them into stores. Showing up on the same trains. Annoying little, er, large pest.
She had shucked her Mini-MAGI once, to see if that would shake him, but didn't get half a block before it reappeared on her wrist. She dumped it behind a vending machine later that day, and it reappeared again after she tried on some skirts. Andy, naturally, had been hanging out in a nearby restaurant--one that offered a clear view of the clothing stores she had 'recovered' her Mini-MAGI in--and she confronted him, loudly. Someone called the cops, who took one look at the lug's I.D. and ordered him to take her back to Katsuragi. Her, the hero of NERV, who'd single-handedly bagged an Angel with no support! Okay, so maybe she had some help from the winching crew. And that creepy doctor that built the cage to hold the sucker. And so, yeah, the Angel was just an egg, but damn it, didn't she deserve some more credit than this? Than being dragged halfway across town by Mucha of all people to get lectured by Katsuragi about keeping her Mini-MAGI on at all times and an Angel could attack at any time and blah, blah, blah.
Clenching her fist as Andy stood there, looking clueless but clearly in no mood to let them out of his sight, Asuka decided that she might have to break something now. She started counting off on her fingers. "First, you've been following us everywhere since we got back from Mount Asamayama, and today the Pervert and Psycho have completely disappeared, which--"
Shinji tapped her on the shoulder and pointed at two Evangelions facing off in the foothills on the other side of town.
"Okay. Two, Katsuragi is at work, and security has rotated our escort out this afternoon due to the testing, which leaves both us and you unattended, and they never do that; it's like leaving a toddler in a roomful of shiny red ICBM launch buttons within reach. Three, instead of taking advantage of this, you decide ON YOUR OWN to attend a sync test."
"Your point being?"
Asuka was going to pay him back for this headache by knocking out teeth. "Something is up."
Rei nodded. "indeed."
Shinji jumped on the bandwagon, and why wouldn't he? There were two girls on it already. "This is totally out of character for you. You three have something planned."
"and we will know what that is," Rei pressed, somehow her emotionless, uninflected monotone sounded threatening.
"Just spill it, Mucha. Maybe the authorities will go easy and just electrocute you." Asuka smirked.
Before anyone could utter so much as a word, the powerlines above them went silent, and the silenced echoed across the city as a wave of not-noise, followed by the faint clatter of backup generators kicking in at various locations.
Andy was more than a foot taller than Asuka. "You had to mention electricity, didn't you?"
Hey look, Asuka knows choke holds! "WHAT DID YOU IDIOTS DO?!"
Andy gasped, surprised at the grip holding his windpipe nearly shut. "IT... Is... Time..."
"Time for what?" Shinji asked.
Andy finally pulled free and jumped away from the circling EVA pilots.
"Time to play 'follow the Mad Mecha pilot to the Eva cages'."
Shinji and Asuka looked skeptical. Rei looked... at Andy. "Yeah. Right."
"Oh really? The city's power is out, NERV's generators are devoted to maintaining the MAGI, the other backups are off-line thanks to sabotage, an Angel is skittering across the landscape towards us and our Evas are thousands of feet beneath! If you think you can navigate the maze of ducts, passages, and catwalks down to the cages faster than I can, then be my guest! You go your way, it takes you until the Angel is here to rally the Evas. You follow me, you're at least at your Evas when Gendo starts manually setting the mecha up. SO WHO'S WITH ME?!"
Asuka gasped and repeated the only word that mattered, "What do you mean sabotage?"
Rei looked up from the NERV manual. "he does have more experience with the passages..."
"My father's manually setting them up?" Shinji echoed.
"No time to space out now, invertebrate. Time's a wasting. ONWARD!"
Asuka lingered for a few seconds pouting before she ran to catch up with the troop. With any luck, she'd kill this one single-handedly and put her depression out of mind for a while.
* * *
The two Evangelions already on the surface were hardly screwing around.
"Goldfish, this is Prairie Dog, do you read, over?"
An elegant, simple, effective plan for total and complete victory was being flawlessly executed.
"Roger that, Prairie Dog. Reading negative electrical readings in T-3, what's your read?"
The plan leaves nothing to chance, as failure equals the extermination of mankind.
"Roger that, Goldfish. Tokyo-3 has zero electrical activity. Begin operation Picket's Charge."
The Evas began to move with purpose, preparing to engage their fearsome enemy.
"Roger that, proceeding to intercept target Alpha, over and Out."
"Goldfish, who IS this Roger guy anyway?"
The last hope for Mankind, Ladies and Gentlemen. The last hope.
* * *
Within a NERV elevator a familiar scene was taking place, one right out of a certain anime...
"Whoa... that can't be good," Kaji said to the dead lighting and the red emergency lights that had come on when the elevator stopped.
"Those... Americans! Oooh--!" Said Misato, the elevator's other occupant.
Remembering their hot springs antics, Kaji wouldn't have put setting up him and Misato past the trio. But Kaji was never one to pass on an opportunity to tweak his favorite Major. "What have they done now?"
Misato waved her hands at the elevator walls in lieu of using Japanese to explain herself. "This!"
Above and unknown to the two unwilling passengers, a tiny misting device started to release its deadly venom into the atmosphere. Misato and Kaji stared at each other for a few moments, then turned away, adjusting their clothing. At length, one of them spoke. "It's getting hot in here."
Kaji removed his jacket, wondering for just an instant if it was a safe thing to do. "You can say that again."
"It's getting hot in here."
Kaji didn't respond, inviting an uncomfortable silence to move in, make itself at home, and puke on the couch. Kaji began to chuckle, but not at the terrible metaphor. The whole situation was so obvious, so juvenile, so... American...
"What's so damn funny?" Misato snapped, adjusting her own jacket.
Kaji's chuckles gave way to burbling giggles, which looked strange coming from a guy like him, then into an all-out gale of laughter. When he turned to Misato, he stumbled and pitched into her. Misato grabbed Kaji, holding him by the shoulders. As she pushed him a few inches away, she realized where his head was resting.
Her voice throaty, "You... you... pervert..."
Kaji slowly stopped laughing, looking into Misato's eyes, which smoldered with passion. They leaned closer, intent on one another's gazes, completely ignoring the four low-light, battery powered cameras that were revealed by several sliding panels, slowly opening.
Well, you asked.
* * *
Elsewhere, a minor dispute was taking place.
"WHERE THE HELL ARE WE, BAKA?" Screamed Asuka.
If you just walked in, perhaps you're unfamiliar with our definition of 'minor.'
Andy's reply beat Rei by a full tenth of a second. "Sublevel D, Section 42A, Subsection R. Any other stupid questions from the peanut gallery?"
Said peanut gallery, from left to right in Andy's internal targeting grid looked at him with a glare, an impassive stare, and a pensive look.
"Uh... I think she meant how far are we from the Evas?" Said the pensive one.
Andy kicked at the grate under him with the abandon of a lobotomized electrician licking some mains wiring. "By my estimate, about halfway there, more or less. Now do as I do and don't touch anything!" He grumbled something far less polite and more about 'boring jobs' and certain morons under his breath as the grate gave way, dropping him down a vertical access shaft.
"We... aren't supposed to follow him down there, are we?" Shinji asked.
* * *
Meanwhile, the battle was joined!
Which is a phrase that makes exactly no sense all by itself.
Anyway!
Eva clashed with Angel, hurtling dust and small buildings into the air left and right. The Angel was hardly different that its canonical cousin: a spider-like thing with a body covered in dozens of colored patterns resembling the classical Egyptian stylized eye. It's eight legs were comically long, double-jointed (to the surprise of the attacking pilots), and blacker than black. It held quite a maneuverability advantage over the Evas, appearing to bend the laws of physics as it fended off the assaults. The Evas were whole, however, a testament to the goons' intensive anime training regimen.
The battle cries were the underlined period to the above assertion that the goons are utterly bat-shit insane.
"YEEE-HAAAW!
"Prairie Dog, how is that helping our battle?"
"Goldfish, keep the chatter to a minimum, please."
The Evas separated in the wake of the Angel's last attack and drew back in a zig-zag pattern. Where they passed one another, the Angel kicked at the nearest unit, aiming to bowl both over in a single attack. Almost as if they were waiting for it, Prairie Dog jumps to one side of the kick, twisting around the limb in mid-air while charging a Kamehameha. Goldfish drops into a baseball style slide, drawing its progressive knife and rebounding off the ground in a bee line towards the Angel.
In the blink of an eye, the Angel drew back three legs to defend itself. Prairie Dog let loose with the Kamehameha, forcing the Angel to brace itself and collapse its AT Field into a short-range shield to block the attack. Goldfish aimed for the biggest gap at a full sprint.
Prairie Dog disappeared.
The AT Field evaporated. A leg slammed into Goldfish, knocking him away. The progressive knife tumbled through the air, ignored by all...
Except for Prairie Dog, who appeared in a crouch behind the three legs, caught the blade, and slashed at the Angel's central body.
Which wasn't there. A leg hit him from the side a nanosecond later, sending him into a conveniently placed hill made of forgiving solid basalt.
"I told you!" Goldfish shouted angrily.
Gouts of acid were already flying through the air. The Evas were on their feet immediately and charging... in the opposite direction.
"We need backup!" Goldfish added.
The Evas continued running, cutting a curving path around the rubble that used to be a freeway interchange between the Angel's point of origin and the main shaft the pilots had climbed in the original series. Not too many buildings nearby, and no shelters; a perfect place to stage their last stand. Hopefully, it wouldn't be their last stand.
The duo completed their half circle to close in on the Angel at close to four hundred miles per hour. Again the Angel countered with positively unnatural speed.
"KAMEHAMEHA!" Shouted both pilots.
The blasts were so massive that the Evas were slammed to a halt and the Angel froze in its tracks. AT Field battled AT Field as all three combatants poured on the power.
Some NERV and JSDF personnel observing the event remarked that some welding shields would be really handy, what with a miniature sun shining in the middle of the city and all.
The Angel moves first, deflecting the beam to one side while it dodged the other way. The lance of energy, before it is cut off by the Evas, reaches a set of foothills four miles outside of Tokyo-3, annihilating the hills and continuing out over the Pacific until it parts ways with the curve of the Earth and reaches into space.
"It didn't work!" Prairie Dog hollered in panic.
"I didn't know it could do that..." Goldfish stared.
Neither did the smart thing, which was get behind cover. The Angel had enough time to recover from its dodge and jump into the air while the Evas reigned in their energy. While sight-seeing, it had enough time to spit out more acid.
Then, "IT'S EATING THROUGH MY ARM!"
"WE'RE GONNA DIE!"
It nearly hit them.
"OH, WHAT A WORLD!"
"THE BURNING! THE BURNING!"
I said 'nearly.'
Prairie Dog pouted. "Mou... You're ruining all of our fun..."
Only celebrity power could save this scene now. If only we had Twoflower here to make a guest appearance...
* * *
Meanwhile, where there were only agitated Evangelion pilots trapped in the ductwork...
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, MORE OR LESS? WE WERE JUST HERE FIVE MINUTES AGO!"
"Vent navigation is not an exact science," Andy said
"IT'S NOT A SCIENCE AT ALL!" Asuka said, hoping volume would keep any of the stupid from getting on her.
"So then why are you asking for such details? If you want scientific answers, you ask John, you want perverted answers, you ask Jared, YOU WANT BIG EXPLOSIONS, YOU ASK ME!"
"I WANT TO GET TO MY EVA NOW, MANIAC!"
Andy, not familiar with the art of dealing with an upset female, raised his finger to continue his 'lecture,' and was kicked right through the side of the duct by a furious Asuka.
The three pilots listen as the wrenching sound of Andy tearing a hole in the sheet metal gave way to the quiet whistling of his body falling fifty stories straight down a vertical shaft. This was followed by many loud, painful noises and screams of pain.
Then his voice was faintly to the trio. "...Found it..."
Asuka blinked.
All three rushed up to the hole and leaned out to see what 'it' happened to be. Ritsuko's voice greeted them. "Oh there you are. Where are the others?"
"The Red Haired Demon cast me into this foul pit, and now I fear the others are at her mercy."
Indeed, Shinji was holding Asuka from jumping down the shaft after Andy, and struggling. "Rei... little help here?"
Rei grabbed Shinji in a bear hug, helping to send all three through the hole.
"That's not what I meant!"
Asuka cut loose with her battle cry halfway down. "BANZAI!"
"sorry, ikari," Rei whispered in the boy's ear.
A pale hand shot out and caught something along the shaft's wall. Shinji was jerked to a stop, while Asuka slipped through his fingers and hit her target with laser-guided precision.
"AAAAAAHHH!" Screamed Andy in greeting.
Ritsuko, standing a decent distance away from Andy (ten meters), watched with frank approval. Behind her, the technicians preparing the Evas for launch exchanged looks, as it was time for a new betting pool.
Asuka rolled off the pancaked goon and bowed before the doctor as if she'd just dismounted the parallel bars.
A rope ladder fell out of the shaft that had disgorged two ballistic Eva pilots, and a pale Rei and paler Shinji climbed down to the floor without incident.
Andy rose to his feet and shook his head several times. Eyes still spinning in their sockets, he pointed an accusing finger at the wall, though his question clarified to whom he was directing his question. "Not that I'm complaining or anything, but where did you find the ladder?"
Shinji looked at Rei, who just ignored him. "Ayanami had it," he offered. "There's a permanent service ladder in the main shaft. She hooked onto it and we climbed down."
Andy gave Rei a look normally employed by bad actors playing the part of a sadistic Nazi torturer.
"i am merely using the technique that you, waddell, and genoni have demonstrated," Rei finally said.
The muscles around Andy's left eye twitched. "Oookay, Let's get MECHANIZED!"
No one moved.
"Everyone get into their plug suits and prepare to sync with your Evas," Ritsuko said.
The pilots burst into motion.
Andy shifted his glare to Ritsuko in turn.
"Oh, grow up," she said, returning to her Manual Launch Checklist.
* * *
Topside, Goldfish and Prairie Dog were still alive and kicking. Also running and dodging. Lots of dodging. They had trapped the Angel in between two beam blasts, but it took only seconds to break free and rush Goldfish like an SUV plowing into a compact. Prairie Dog interrupted the charge by breaking a massive steel beam over the Angel's central body. It did no permanent harm to the Angel, but Prairie Dog at least had some acid to dodge. Meanwhile, Goldfish got clear and rolled to his feet at the western corner of the freeway interchange where their battle had stalled.
As Goldfish studied the massive area full of rubble and parked vehicles, and flanked by short buildings, four Evangelions climbed out of egress portals around him in a semi-circle.
"IT'S TIME TO PARTY!" Andy bellowed over the comm. Then Unit-04 wing's snapped out and the Eva took the skies like a true Angel of Death. How this helped the battle wasn't explained.
Shinji, Rei, and Asuka fanned out to the north and south to avoid making themselves into one big target. Prairie Dog went flying from one of the Angel's kicks, and settled Unit-03 gracefully into a crouch next to Goldfish, completing a half-circle blocking the Angel's progress to the west. A steep hill rose from the edge of the demolished interchange, blocking off that route, and to the south the shorter buildings grew thick and the roads narrowed.
The Angel held its position, fidgeting as it seemed to be weighing its options--through the Evas, over the hills, or between the buildings and along a curving route to its destination with its flank exposed to the four machines of death.
And then there was Andy, the embodiment of flying doom overhead.
"What are we up against?" Asuka demanded quickly.
"Fast-moving, shoots acid, long legs, bad attitude. Wants the main access shaft back there," Goldfish jerked Unit-05's thumb over its shoulder. "Didn't you guys get briefed by Misato?"
"No-one's seen her. Ritsuko told us to talk to Commander Ikari, and he said to talk to you two," Shinji supplied.
"do you have a plan?" Rei asked simply.
Meanwhile, Prairie Dog had spied a tanker truck. More specifically, he had read the warning on the back of the truck, which made it perfectly clear--in English--that this tank held ninety-nine percent pure Hydrogen Peroxide. Another tanker, not far away, had similar warnings on the read identifying its contents as ninety-nine percent pure Anhydrous Ammonia.
Chemists and fans of rocketry should be getting excited right now.
"All I need is some silver," Prairie Dog muttered to himself in the plug. "But..."
"Prairie Dog, come in. We've got reinforcements and need to take this ugly out, pronto." Goldfish said over the comm.
"Eureka!" Shouted Prairie Dog.
"He's dead, what about him?" Goldfish asked.
"Wait," Unit-01 cocked its head mimicking its pilot, "Who is Prairie Dog?"
"I think it's the Pervert." Asuka replied.
"And John is Goldfish? Did we all get code-names? What's mine?"
Prairie Dog ignored him and pointed at Andy. "Andy, put up a gun nest on that mountain!"
Unit-04 drew its pistols as it banked away, ignored by the Angel. "Aye-aye!"
"He didn't get a code name?"
"Prairie Dog, what's going on?"
"We're making a bomb. That thing's smart, but probably not smart enough to figure out what we're up to and prevent it from getting blown to pieces. Shinji tosses the tanker on the right, while Asuka tosses the tanker on the left."
"I see," said Asuka, spying the vehicles. "But we need a catalyst."
Goldfish quickly added, "Prairie Dog, the words 'bomb' and 'blown to pieces' do not belong together."
"Roger that, Goldfish. And as for a catalyst? We don't need a catalyst."
Andy's voice came on, "You're pretty scary when you imitate Doc Brown, you know that?"
Goldfish and Rei dashed to the south, expanding the net, and took cover behind a short building. The Angel started to rush the remaining Evas, and then Andy opened up on it.
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!"
"I'm not sure what's louder," Prairie Dog said as he held his position, deflecting legs, "His laughing, or the frikkin' gun he's shooting."
Goldfish, meanwhile, took to his task like an enthusiastic fanboy. Acid was flying, Prairie Dog might die at any second now, and Rei's Evangelion was next to him--life couldn't be better. Unless that ugly spider-Angel was dead. He watched in awe as Rei emptied her whole pistol at it, dropping the useless gun once it clicked on empty. The weapon pulverized a delivery truck at their feet.
"Now!" Prairie Dog shouted, getting up from weathering another barrage.
Goldfish slipped out and charged up a Mazenko, almost dropping the forming energy ball when he saw Unit-00 mimicking his actions exactly.
Andy was quick on the draw, and the Angel shifted its AT-Field to deflect Andy's Final Flash. Goldfish and Rei laid in with their energy beams and brought the Angel to a halt. Then Prairie Dog rolled under its legs and launched a Kamehameha at the exposed belly. The Angel curled into a ball under the fire, like a spider dropped in a candle's flame. Contracted, but did not give up.
Then Asuka and Shinji threw the tanker trucks onto the Angel.
Under more 'normal' circumstances, the Angel would have simply brushed aside such a laughable attack. However, it was now putting all of its energies into blocking the Fire of Death four Evangelions were shooting at it, and had nothing left to intercept the large but apparently inert projectiles inbound for the top of its head.
It could shoot a bit of acid at them.
It did.
Then fifty tons of improvised rocket fuel exploded right on top of its body.
When the Angel shifted its AT-Field to try and block the explosion, four energy blasts pierced it and added to the inferno.
A visible distortion ripped through the air, marking the passage of an immense shock wave that kicked up dust and debris almost half a dozen kilometers in every direction.
Goldfish expected the shock wave to do little more than tickle his Eva's armor, and was quite surprised when he was hit with what felt like a sledgehammer wielded by Heracles. Unit-05 and 00 were literally blown off of their feet and sent airborne.
Asuka and Shinji crouched and focused their AT-Fields to block the blast, and weathered the storm stoically.
Andy was about to break out his happy dance when the shock wave knocked over Unit-04. Cursing, he righted himself, then resumed the dance while the echoes danced around the valley.
At ground zero, Unit-03's legs were sticking out of the ground.
Goldfish righted himself slowly. "Is everyone dead?"
"Ya, mon," Prairie Dog replied.
Unit-02 and 01 each took a leg and slowly pulled 03 out of the ground. The plug immediately popped and Jared jumped onto the shoulder of Asuka's Evangelion.
Where he began to loudly sing the 'Ode to Joy' chorus from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.
Within the plug, Asuka shook her head in exasperation. Unit-05 and 00 picked themselves up easily, and silently walked to the center of the crater where there was absolutely no sign the Angel ever existed.
"HQ, this is Goldfish. Target Alpha is silent."
"Genoni, quit using those stupid call signs. No one authorized them."
"The Major didn't complain," he balked.
"The Major is trapped in an elevator on level fifty-two, and I'm sure she's not pleased with your stupid call signs!"
"Is she going to be this grumpy every time we save Tokyo-3?" Andy asked over the open line.
"Get some fresh air," the 'good' doctor ordered tersely. "Before your brain entirely rots out your skull."
"In a minute," said Andy. He resumed his victory dance, mindful of the rules restricting him from spiking an N2 mine in celebration. Damn NERV, always crimping his style.
Shinji sat Unit-01 down next to the inert Unit-03, disembarked, and watched the sun set. Rei did likewise, parking her unit on the other side of 03, which prompted John to follow suit. Asuka 'landed' her unit as well, uppercutting Jared when he tried to grope her.
End Chapter 7
A note from the author: I have been waiting ten years to open an Evangelion fanfic chapter with the words 'Naked Rei clones.' Okay, technically I was procrastinating for ten years, but my only concern now is the womenfolk. There should be enough naked Shinji to balance everything out in the coming chapters, so we're cool. Right?