Author's Note: So, with this one we get closer and closer to the main point of this story: Shinji's return to the Tournament. We also delve more into the little things that will set the story up to be more than a bunch of repetitive violence, which is something that no one wants to see. Now on with the fun!

UT Evangelion

Chapter 3: Remember a Day

Shinji, had the bench he was sitting on in the cafeteria had a back, would have leaned back in surprise at how efficiently Asuka had defeated her opponents. Thankfully, he was mindful of the fact that the bench did not possess a back and did not end up on the floor, instead remaining surprised in a rigidly upright position. On the vid screen, both teams had been teleported back to the Liandri Stadium onto their respective platforms. Floating cameras had instantly descended upon them, circling and streaming video to vid screens around the galaxy.

Asuka reached into the air with both arms, raising applause out of spectators seated in the stadium's 200,000 seats and standing in the infield crowded around the stage. Savage stepped down off of his own team's platform and thundered across the stage directly toward Asuka.

"You skinny little-" he began, pointing at her with a meaty index finger.

Casper stepped around Asuka and grabbed his finger with both hands and yanked him sideways off of his path of travel and into the audience, who automatically clamored for his autograph. The vid screen pulled in on Asuka, showing the large smirk on her face.

"Enjoy the fans, Savage?" she asked.

The Juggernaut tried to respond but was drown out by the wave of people mobbing him. Shouting, he punched one fan in the face.

"Get off me!" he shouted.

They ignored him and continued to pull at his armor, wanting to take a piece of the heavy reinforced steel with them as a souvenir. One fan used his legs to brace himself as he pulled a shoulder guard off. The sudden release drove him back onto his rear, where he had a second to savor his find before more people began to mob him for the shoulder guard. Up above them, Asuka laughed and walked with the rest of the Angels off the stage toward the locker rooms, intent upon getting some of the dried blood off of her skin.

Shinji turned off the vid screen, got up out of his seat and headed out of the cafeteria. After watching that match, he had come to the conclusion that Casper was the main combat powerhouse behind the Angels of Darkness. With the knowledge that she was a Liandri android, Shinji wasn't surprised that she could move that fast and be that deadly. But still, some of the ways she had found enemies made him wonder if maybe there was a bit of unfair competition going on within his old team. Then there was Asuka. She looked just as good as she had all those years ago and her leadership abilities had no doubt improved since then. However, she still didn't seem to be effective enough to lead a team to the championship like she had apparently done for the past few years in a row.

Shinji shook his head at the thoughts. He told himself he didn't care; it wasn't his place to care about Tournament affairs. He wasn't a combatant anymore and didn't have any desire to. After seeing how the fans had treated Savage his position on the sport being grotesque and wrong had in no way softened. However, at the back of his mind, a small dark part of him said something completely different. As Shinji entered the bridge again, he did his best to push it away and succeeded.

For the moment.

--

Asuka stepped into the locker room and immediately began pulling off her armor, first the boots, then the gauntlets and finally the upper body armor. Normally she wouldn't have stripped out of her armor this fast in the past. But since one of the team members was sleeping with her, another was a fellow woman, and the third was an android headed for the service booth at the rear of the locker room, she didn't mind so much. As she stuck her armor pieces in a special cleaning locker next to the one holding her clothes, she watched Casper enter the booth.

It wasn't so much a booth as a massive walk in closet filled to the brim with Liandri scientists, all scurrying around in white lab coats and carrying holographic clipboards to keep tabs on Casper's 'vitals'. After pulling on a red tank top and jeans, Asuka wrapped a towel around her sweaty neck and headed over to the booth. She peered in the bulletproof window and watched as Casper sat down gracefully on a metal chair. Mechanical automated arms swung around on pivot joints attached to the ceiling, attaching electronic hoses and bundles of wires into ports all through her armor.

A scientist walked around her, checking each port and making sure everything was connected properly, not that they didn't trust the three supercomputers responsible for Casper's maintenance, but that it was always better to be sure than sorry in the case of a multi-billion dollar piece of precision machinery. Unlike the public was led to believe, Casper was not a simple modified XO8000 series residential service android, but was in fact a carefully disguised and finely tuned weapon created specifically for winning Tournament matches.

And win she did. Casper's rudimentary onboard CPU in actuality had little to do with her overall decision making process in a combat situation. Instead, each and every one of her reactions, ranging from a weapon change to a taunt to a particular shot taken was carefully measured and predicted using the tri-computer complex set up back in the head Liandri corporation offices. This in itself totally violated the company's own rulebook, specifically the rule regarding outside computational assistance. On that subject, the rules were quite strict on it, saying that any team using such methods on its androids or any other aspect of play was punished by banishment from the Tournament for life.

But, since Liandri wrote the rules, it could also break them at will. Thus, Casper existed. Asuka knew all about the 'Casper situation' and also realized that if it were exposed, she would take the fall, not Liandri. Thankfully, the New Earth Government congress was much to wrapped up in treaty negotiations between the Axon and Izanagi Corporations. It had no time to bust the popular spectator sport for the equivalent of what steroid abuse was before it was deemed legal in 2067, shortly after the demise of baseball.

As much as she hated having an unfair advantage, she wasn't all that angry about it. For one thing, she had to do it. She owed the Liandri higher-ups for helping her eight years ago, and with the Tournament starting back up in a week and a half, she needed all the help she could get. So far, everything had fallen into place and all she had to do was bear Casper being on the team for one season and pretend she liked it. Besides, she was starting to come around to the android being able to practically sense what was coming in a fight. So maybe it wasn't all bad.

With that, Asuka met up with Toji and left the locker room for the post-game press conference.

--

"Here you go sir," said the bookstore's cashier, handing Storm a bag full of dusty paperbacks.

"Thanks," he replied absently and turned to leave.

He pushed his way out of the store and into the grand walkway that ran across the upper floor of the Sky Mall, the planet Posid's only real remarkable achievement. It had been three days since the Angels of Darkness pre-season match against the Heavy Hitters, and the Spiteful Unrest's two-man crew had finally delivered its cargo to the dock in orbit around the planet they were now a mile above. The Sky Mall was constructed on massive pillars and was roughly the size of the region on Earth called Connecticut. It contained every modern item not essential to survival. In short: if you didn't find something you liked, you either weren't looking at all or were completely lost.

Across from the bookstore was a clothing store. Within it, Storm saw Shinji poking around through the racks of clothing; his hands in his jacket pockets and his sunglasses on to avoid being noticed for who he was. Stepping quickly through the crowd, Storm entered the store and stopped next to Shinji.

"See anything interesting, Captain?" he asked.

"Nah," Shinji replied, "Just poking around a bit. What'd you get?"

Storm ran through the contents of his blue plastic bag. "3 Dickinson, 2 King, 4 Poe and 2 Axler," he said.

Shinji only nodded, eyeing an expensive suit through his mirrored sunglasses.

"You liking that suit, sir?" Storm asked.

"No, not really," Shinji lied.

Normally, he would have been telling the truth. But recently his mind had been slowly formulating a plan and had only been kicked into overdrive by the conversation he had had with an old friend the night before over subspace radio…

--

Shinji sat in the radio room on Spiteful Unrest, tapping his finger idly on his knee as he waited for the call to go through. Speaking all the way to Earth from warp space wasn't a cheap thing to do, but he had some questions he wanted answered. And he could only think of one person who knew the answers to these questions. Someone on the inside, and someone who was hopefully awake at this hour.

"Hello?" a groggy female voice answered on the other end.

"Is this Misato Katsuragi?" he asked.

"Yeah, and who the hell are you? If you're one of Kaji's friends you can tell that low life mother-"

"Misato, its Shinji," he cut her off.

"Shinji!?" she asked, unbelieving.

"Yeah, it's me," he reiterated.

For the next minute and a half, Shinji held the receiver away from his ear as she screamed in surprise. Throughout the screaming there was the sound of vague words placed somewhere between 'oh my God its good to hear from you' and 'why the hell didn't you ever call to talk to me you asshole?' After a bit, she wore off completely into the second camp.

"Why are you calling me? Last I heard you were running a cargo ship out on the ass-end of nowhere," she said.

"Yeah, that is what I've been doing. But now I'm wondering what's up with you. Did you stay on managing the Angels after I left?" he asked.

"Up until last season, yes," Misato replied.

"What happened?" Shinji asked.

"Asuka fired me," Misato explained, then added, "Fucking bitch."

"Drinking on the job?" he teased, not able to resist the thought that had immediately crept into his mind.

"Wha-? Hell no!" she shouted, "If I weren't so happy to be talking to you, I'd of hung up at that."

"I'm sorry," he said.

"You're damn right you're sorry," she muttered.

"So, why did she fire you?" Shinji asked.

"Did you hear about Aida?" Misato asked.

"Sure. My replacement or whatever," Shinji said.

"Hon, Toji's your replacement, not Aida. Anyway, Aida got kicked out for that new android. Screwing up a flag capture is no reason for someone to be let go, not even by Asuka. The Angels are a pawn of Liandri, plain and simple. They needed a slot on the team for Casper, so they kicked out Aida. Toji was safe due to his relationship with Asuka, and Rei'd been there since the beginning, so they couldn't very well kick her out," she explained.

"Thus, Aida got the short straw," Shinji muttered.

"Exactly. I figured out what they were doing and bam, got the boot myself," Misato said.

"You think they're cheating?" Shinji asked.

"Shinji, I've been in the managing business for a long time. I know instinctively when a team is cheating and I especially know that when Liandri is involved they're either assisting in it or they're directly behind it, pulling the strings," she said, "In this case, Casper is the most unfair competitor ever to come out of a multi-billion dollar assembly line."

"Asuka would never do that. She's to full of pride to have a cheater on her team," Shinji protested.

"I don't think she has a choice," Misato said.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"I'm not sure, but I do agree that normally she wouldn't allow a cheater on her team. Thing is, whatever is going on can be squarely placed on her shoulders. Liandri always covers their bases, and this is totally illegal. So if someone were to catch onto it-"

"Then Asuka would take the fall," Shinji completed for her.

"Exactly," she said, then went silent for a minute.

"What?" Shinji asked, reading into the silence as Misato thinking about asking him something.

"Well, me and a group of people are getting together to expose Asuka. We're starting a team and I was kind of wondering if you might be inclined to come out of retirement," she explained.

Shinji thought for a second, looking straight ahead out of a window in the radio room. The stars beyond the foot-thick glass didn't twinkle and seemed to be staring right into his soul. Maybe he should go back, just to return some honesty to the sport. Finally, he kicked himself in the head for thinking like that. Killing was wrong, and he wouldn't go back and do it.

"Thanks for the offer, Misato. But I don't think so," he said.

Misato sighed. "Oh well. It was worth a shot, but hey, if you ever change your mind you know where to find me," she said.

"Yeah, nice talking to you Misato," he said.

"Same here, Shinji. I miss you," she said.

"Goodbye," he said and hung up the receiver…

--

"Whatever," Shinji said to Storm, "Let's get on out of here."

"Sure," Storm agreed.

"Wait," Shinji said, and they both stopped.

"What?" Storm asked.

"Did you get what I asked from the vid store?" Shinji asked.

"Yeah," Storm said, patting his jacket pocket, "I got it right here."

"Good," Shinji said.

The two men exited the clothing store and began walking back toward the shuttle bay for transport up to the space dock in orbit. When they were about halfway there, a deep voice rumbled across the walkway.

"Everyone get on the ground!"

Shinji and Storm both turned to see a Skaarj warrior standing in the middle of the walkway with an older model minigun in his hands. Like all Skaarj, this one was around eight feet tall; green skinned and with the build of a Juggernaut even without armor. The species was divided into tribes, and though Shinji wasn't by any means fluent in the tattoos that separated tribe from tribe, he did know that the symbol tattooed across this particular Skaarj's left breast was that of the Razzor Tribe. They were known for having one of the largest slaving empires in Skaarj history. Their leader, Razzor, was an outspoken anti-human activist and though this Skaarj definitely wasn't Razzor, Shinji was sure that he shared the leader's opinions.

"Storm, take cover," Shinji muttered.

Storm didn't ask questions and got down on the floor, one of the only people actually doing so,

"On the ground! All of you!" the alien barked again, "Unless you wish to try your luck. I encourage that."

Without any kind of warning, Shinji leapt toward the center of the walkway, behind a small steel bench. The Skaarj warrior opened fire with his minigun. The rounds pocket-marked the bench and in the thinner areas punched clear through to the other side. Shinji drew an Enforcer pistol he kept hidden in his jacket pocket and popped out from behind the bench. He fired three quick shots, missing the first two but scoring a hit on his opponent's arm with the third. Letting out a growl of pain, the alien squeezed his weapon's trigger again. Shinji ducked back into cover as the bullets raked past his position and into a group of people trying to get away. To an armored soldier or Tournament player, the bullets would have simply made neat holes and left the body largely intact. Unfortunately for these civilians, who had no armor, the results were much messier. Blood and chunks of organs exploded across the walkway and rained down on the glass display windows flanking the crowd.

Shinji looked away, not so much because he couldn't take the sight, but because he didn't feel like having blood in his eyes during a fight.

"Hey! Stop shooting and let the civilians go!" Shinji shouted.

The shooting suddenly stopped, soon followed by the screaming civilians who by now were on the ground either by choice or by death.

"Why?" asked the Skaarj, "I'm supposed to take them as slaves."

"So that we can have a fair fight!" Shinji shouted back.

"And why should I waste my time?"

Shinji thudded his head against the bench as he realized what he had to do.

"Because," he stammered reluctantly, "Because I'm Shinji Ikari!"

Storm, who was lying flat on his stomach, looked from Shinji to the Skaarj and back to Shinji as the big alien thought this over. Finally, the Skaarj made a decision.

"Weaklings: leave," he growled.

At once, Storm and the other civilians stood up and disappeared through the narrow pathways between stores. Storm, however, stopped and crouched behind a trashcan. He couldn't wait to see what was about to take place. Across the way from him, he could see someone else had the same idea, except they were filming it with a small home video camera.

"Your move," the Skaarj warrior growled, his minigun leveled toward Shinji's cover spot.

Shinji took three deep breaths as he prepared himself for what he was about to do. Abruptly, so that he wouldn't second-guess himself and not go through with it, he jumped out from behind cover and ran straight for the Skaarj, firing with his enforcer as he did so. Two shots smacked into the Skaarj's chest, knocking him back a bit, but not killing him. It did, however, through his aim off by six feet to the right. Minigun bullets smashed into glass display windows and shattered them, raining shards of the clear material down on the tile walkway below. Shinji got two more shots into the Skaarj's body before the minigun began moving toward him.

Thinking fast, Shinji shot open a store window to his left and dived through it. He landed on his shoulder painfully and slid into a poster rack, knocking it over and dropping rolled up pictures of Tournament players all over him. Bullets flashed over his head and blew apart shelves of useless junk. Then the sickening sound of a jam echoed across the area, followed by the Skaarj fighter cursing his weapon. Using the opportunity, Shinji jumped back out into the walkway, his Enforcer out in front of him and was instantly met by a punch to the ribs by his opponent. Without the added weight of armor, Shinji flew a good twenty feet before landing on his back with two cracked ribs.

He sat up on one elbow and aimed with his Enforcer, only to find that it wasn't in his hand anymore, but laying on the ground five feet to his right. The Skaarj marched forward, discarding his minigun to the side and instead baring the twin wrist blades on each arm that were the customary melee weapon of his race.

"The great Shinji Ikari's head," the Skaarj laughed, "Such a worthy prize."

Suddenly, another Enforcer slid across the floor and hit Shinji in the leg. Looking over to where it had come from, Shinji saw Storm giving him the 'thumbs up' sign. Nodding, Shinji grabbed the Enforcer and emptied its clip into the Skaarj's face. The alien stumbled backward and fell through a glass railing, breaking it and plummeting to the floor below the one they were on. Storm walked out from his hiding place and helped Shinji up off of the floor. Together, they stepped over to the destroyed railing and looked down at where the Skaarj had crushed a round rest table and was now lying surrounded by green blood.

"Let's get the hell out of here," Shinji said, handing the Enforcer back to Storm.

"I'm with you on that, sir," Storm agreed.

Shinji stopped to pick up his own lost weapon and walked with Storm down the empty walkway towards the shuttle bay. Now that they were gone, the man with the video camera stepped out into the open and got a shot of the dead alien before pocketing the camera and heading away from the battle site, intending to sell it to a news station.

--

Later that night, Spiteful Unrest was back in warp space. Shinji was sitting in his cabin, wrapping a towel around his ribs tight enough to keep them from moving to much. As he did this, he thought about how easy it was for him to go through with killing that Skaarj earlier. Granted, it was kill or be killed, but still, he hadn't even hesitated. And that brought his thoughts back to what Misato had said last night about starting a team to expose Asuka and why he had declined. The reason had been because he had been weary about killing people again, not because he thought that cheating was right. But after today's events, he was sure he could do it.

Standing, he left his quarters and headed down the hall. He entered the subspace radio room and eased into the operator's chair. He turned on the equipment and held the receiver to his ear, punching in Misato's number with the other. It rang a few times before she picked up.

"Hello?" she asked.

"Misato, when does the regular Tournament start?" he asked.

"Next week. Why?"

"That offer for me being on your team still open?"

"Yeah."

"Good. I'm headed to Earth right now. Where do we meet you?" he asked.

"Who the hell is 'we'?" she asked.

"Me, and my first mate."