Author's Notes: When it comes to writing, I can be one slow son of a bitch. The third chapter is finally done now though. Reviews are appreciated.
Chapter Three
Day Three- A Curious Storm
He turned to see the sound coming from someone sitting on a large boulder on the shore.
"Hello."
The figure slowly slid off the rock and walked out of the shadows. It was a girl, around the same age as him, maybe even a bit younger.
Shinji had never met an albino in person before but that could be the only explanation. It was as if she'd been drained of nearly all colour, a lonely ghost standing on the shore.
Red eyes blinked underneath a ragged mop of grey hair.
"Hello," she said again.
"…Hello?" Shinji replied weakly. Who was this girl? Nobody just goes up to talk to complete strangers anymore. Not to mention the…well, the everything that looked wrong about her.
"You are Shinji Ikari, son of Commander Ikari."
It was said blankly and without intent, a statement rather than a question.
"H-How did you know that?"
Shinji began to back away from the strange girl as she slowly began to advance on him, closing the distance between them at an appreciable rate.
"You are the boy who stole Unit-00 from me."
She was increasing pace now. Shinji keep backing away wildly without thinking, just feeling that he couldn't let this girl close to him.
"I didn't steal anything! How do you know all of this anyway? Who are you?"
"Me? Not important. More important than you though. But that's not hard. You're just an accident that's stolen my proper place. I can't imagine there's anything significant about you at all."
His eyes narrowing, he stepped forward, ignoring the girl's repulsive presence. He had spent his entire time here getting pushed around with barely a say. Not that long ago, he had just saved everyone in the city, maybe even the world. Who was she to say anything of him?
"But that was just an Assassin-class," she said, her gaze pinning his train of thought to the ground. "They're pathetic, barely even Heroic Spirits at all."
At this point, it could be safe to say that Shinji had no idea of what was going on at all. This was becoming a disturbingly common experience lately. When was Misato going to explain everything to him again?
Before he could say anything, she immediately closed the distance on him, her hand rising to shove itself inside his mouth. A slick oily taste flooded his mouth.
Startled, he tripped over, bringing them both down, her body landing on top of him. She was so cold…and yet she was filled with warmth, a scurrying frantic heat. A hungry heat.
…
Showing her first expression the entire time, she blushed slightly but refused to move, her palm still covering his mouth. Her body writhed against him in a manner that would certainly been pleasant under any other circumstances.
Breathing heavily, she hushed him.
"Can't you hear that?"
There was no sound apart from his quick terrified breathing. Despite this, the strange girl slowly got to her feet, brushing herself off.
"We should do this again sometime."
A moment later, the sirens began to wail.
0000
"Hey! Do you hear that?"
Jiro Watanabe looked up at his friend and fellow co-worker Hiroshi who was leaning over the side of their relatively small fishing boat.
"What's there to hear? Can't be the sound of fish, doesn't seem to be any of those little fuckers for miles around," he complained.
"Nah, it feels like something's slapping 'gainst the hull," he replied. "Here, come have a look at this."
Getting to his feet, Jiro leaned over the side.
"…Huh. Looks like a bit of kelp or something."
True enough; something that looked nothing more than the large strands of seaweed was softly lapping against the hull.
"That's weird. Where do you think that came from? I don't remember setting anchor in some fucking seaweed."
"Probably just some drift or something."
"I don't think so. It's too big for that, look."
Raising his lamp, Hiroshi illuminated the surrounding area, spreading a circle of light through the pre-dawn skies.
The boat was surrounded, adrift in a field of kelp that stretched as far as they could see in the hazy light.
"What the fu-"
A sudden crack! Reverberated throughout the lonely ocean followed by a slow slurp. The lantern went out.
000
snack gristle bone
The Fifth had a name once but it had been overridden by a great rage and a terrible strength.
It drifted through the ocean as a cloud of killing intent, driving away all life before it.
There was one place it needed to reach.
The guardians were strong but so was it. Every soul made it stronger. It needed more souls.
There was only one path.
With a reach that encompassed the ocean's depth, it ripped into the seafloor, ploughing through bedrock as if it was sand.
This was an island kingdom. It knew islands. Islands and screams.
000
The Fourth was dead.
At the moment of its terrible conception, it had been devoured from the inside by an other that did not recognise divine mysteries.
The primordial soup in the ruined lake overflowed, sending out feelers. The Other knew this place. It felt the call of a thing that it did not know, a call of power and grandeur.
What was it to dare to presume to call it?
There was nothing recognised as existing here except the Other. Only the Other and things that it swept aside from its mere presence. Part of it was compelled to head towards the city, to drown it's inhabitants in the folds of it's flesh and claim the city as it's own.
The Other quashed the remnants of the Fourth inside it with barely a thought. It did not do such things. It was an old and it was patient. A thousand years could pass as if it was a mere blink of an eye to it.
But there was no time for a thousand years, a dissonant voice sprang up in the beatific chorus of it's synchronised mind. It must be done now.
The Fourth was insistent. For the first time, the Other was forced to recognise another being into it's private existence, another existence with meaning. The remains of the Fourth could not entirely be consumed inside it.
Very well.
It will sweep forward. The Fourth mentioned something about 'guardians' but the Other destroyed it's objections. Aside from the Other and the Fourth, all other beings were just illusions, momentary light springing forth from the broken mirror shards of the universe.
There would be no resistance.
As it's soundless mating call ripped the night in half, the Other prepared to breed.
000
The sound of the gun echoed through the air. It didn't get to fire a second time as a gloved hand swiftly enclosed the wrist of the hand holding the gun and squeezed, feeling the fragile bones shatter into fragments as the second fist slammed into the gunman's exposed neck, killing him instantly.
The man hoisted the guard's corpse as the other members of the security team opened fire, the bullets impacting on the human shield. A quick word and an inscribed rune later, the remaining guards scattered as the corpse was thrown into their midst, bursting into magical flame as a crude Molotov Cocktail.
While they were disoriented, the man blurred, stretching the capabilities of the eye to track him as he leapt down and picked up the fallen gun as he rolled. Squeezing the trigger, the guards quickly joined their friend as corpses.
Silently, the man continued on his journey, his rune-enhanced legs propelling him down the hallway at superhuman speed.
Mortal bodyguards…was this some kind of joke? Presumably Katsuragi had planned on his Lancer doing the serious guard work. An amateur mistake, especially since the sounds echoing from the titanic clash outside informed him that Lancer was still currently occupied.
All was progressing according to plan.
The sound of shouts resounded through the building as another security team discovered the bodies he had left behind. They would very quickly be on his trail. Of course, he had planned for this. He stopped running, his legs dragging across the ground from the sheer momentum his magically enhanced speed had built up. As he reached a corner, he knelt down and withdrew an old-fashioned fountain pen from his jacket.
With the smell of burning wood, the Mystic Code inscribed a complex runic system upon the floor, shortening what would have been painstaking work to a few short seconds.
It was part of the plan that he was going to have to use this sooner or later; it would simply be most advantageous for him to use it now.
With this done, he burst back into a run. Time was off the essence here, even with the help of Raidho.
A few seconds and three corners later, he reached his destination. A wooden door at the end of this particular hallway. This was it.
He didn't even break stride, much less slow down. The door caved in with a single blow of his Uruz-enhanced fist, not pausing as he trampled it over.
"We had a deal! What kin-"
He stopped talking as his eyes took in the surrounding scene. The empty room was one thing, the skull hanging in the shadows was another. The skull moved, dragging a body of shadows behind it.
Needless to say, this hadn't been what he was expecting at all.
He didn't even bother trying to turn around. At the full momentum he had picked up, it wasn't going to be at all possible. Instead he continued at full pelt, leaping into the opposite wall at a speed that would have broken his legs if it weren't for his protective runes.
Having turned his body into a living projectile, he made his escape through the wall, bursting into an accompanying room.
Or at least, that was the plan.
Instead, he was slammed onto his back as an ebony arm snaked out and coathangered him mid-leap.
"Argh!"
Pain exploded in his back as he was slammed down to the floor at a ridiculous velocity. In giving with his Origin, the magical defences and reinforcements layered upon his body stopped it from killing him several times over. Unfortunately, he had nothing that stopped it feeling like he'd taken several swings of a sledgehammer to the spine.
The white skull swam in his vision blurrily.
…Ugh. He wasn't cut out to fight Servants, no mortal was. No amount of reinforcement could make it so. Luckily, he had a bit more than simple physical enhancement and runes to back him up. With proper use and the advantage of surprise, his Thousand-Word Rewriter could even the odds.
He rolled away from Assassin in a blur, retrieving the enamel fountain pen from his jacket as he did so. A tiny scratch of its ink on the wooden floor re-wrote a boundary field around him. That should give him the few precious seconds needed to fully inscribe the spirit war-
Assassin reached through the field and casually smacked the Mystic Code out of his hands, the force of the blow sending the young magus sprawling.
The final legacy of his family, a Mystic Code forged from the teeth and tongues of several generations of Rokubungi patriarchs was crushed under its foot carelessly.
Within moments, the Servant reached down and grabbed him by the neck, hoisting him up to eye level before doing one of the most surprising things an Assassin could do. Speaking.
"Gendo."
000
"Gendo."
"Gendo!"
He woke to the sound of alarms resounding through his small personal quarters in NERV.
000
Several Minutes Later…
"Give me the full situation," he said as he and Fuyutsuki entered the battle room of NERV HQ.
"Where are they?"
Ritsuko looked up from the MAGI array, troubled.
"As far as they can read, nowhere. Unit-01 hasn't detected anything within range yet either."
"Another Assassin?"
Fuyutsuki , who had woken Gendo earlier with the news of two Servants spoke up.
Gendo shook his head.
"The deck may be stacked against us but not that much. Another Assassin is impossible. The Fourth and the Fifth will attack. The only possible explanation for why they haven't already is that they are in hiding or…they have already started their attack in a way that we cannot conceive of. How are the Pilots?"
"Teams are already on their way to their homes to escort them to their Spirit Units," replied Makoto, who was acting Chief of Operations until his superior officer reported in. Misato wasn't here yet, no doubt joining the team escorting the Third Child.
"Good. I want them into their Spirits and on constant alert for any possible strike."
The noise in the already busy command room increased as the red telephone on Gendo's desk rang out, ringing only for a moment before it was snatched up.
"Ikari," said the man on the other end, one of NERV's official UN liaisons. "Satellites have picked up the approach of a suspected threat off the west coast of Japan."
"Go on."
"Whatever the hell it is, it's a swimmer of some kind. It only raised itself up to the surface for a few minutes but that was enough for us to see. It's huge, Ikari."
"…Details?"
"Not much but current extrapolations from what parts of it we saw…well…it's at least quadruple the size of the Third."
"I see," he received this news with no crack of his façade. "Any idea where it is now?"
"It dived and we lost track of it. I'm sorry but we have no idea where in the ocean it is now."
"It won't have gone far. Goodbye."
The receiver clicked down.
"We have reports of an oceanic threat. We need to mobilise the Wings for possible long-range Spirit deployment."
"We have an incoming message from Lt Col Katsuragi."
"It's about time she checked in," Ritsuko said. "Put her onscreen."
What they got however was hardly reassuring.
"We've got a problem down here! Shinji is gone!"
000
"Crap! I'm not supposed to be here! Not now!"
The grey haired girl gave a short childish giggle.
"You won't get into too much trouble. After all, you can just blame me. I'll take the responsibility for it. That's what your kind want, isn't it?"
"My…my kind?"
"…Weak," she dismissed him. "But enough talk. Those are the evacuation alarms, Pilot. Unit-00 needs you. Come on," her voice lifting an octave as she suddenly took his hand. It felt like a corpse.
"I'll escort you right there. I know a shortcut."
Shinji had little time to ponder this sudden and inexplicable mood change before he was nearly yanked off his feet by the surprisingly strong albino girl. He still didn't even know who she was yet!
"You already know my name so…who exactly are you again?"
"Oh?" she seemed genuinely puzzled, her tone light-years away from how she had been at the start of his encounter. "I'm Rei."
"Well…Rei. I have a few questio-"
"No. You have to go to your Unit now. It's been fun talking to you but if you don't keep walking after me, I will kill you. And then I'll get you up and kill you again. And it will still be nicer than what will happen to you if you stay here and talk. Now follow."
Her grip on his arm tightened, sending spikes of pain through him as she quite literally began to drag him down the street.
Shinji had no idea of what to do. He was trapped with a possibly-homicidal, certainly-insane girl was dragging him off somewhere he could only hope was what she said it was. But she was right in that the evacuation alarms were sounding. Did he remember the way back to Misato's apartment? What if he got lost? What exactly was out there that they needed the alarms for?
A white skull flashed through his mind briefly.
Maybe it was just better to follow this Rei. She sounded like she knew where she was going, anyway.
Having decided to go along with this for now he sped up, only to slam into the corpse-girls back as she drew to a sudden stop.
"It's too late. Sorry Shinji."
000
"How is the evacuation proceeding?"
"Over 90% of the general populace have retreated into the Geofront."
"Excellent."
Gendo sat back as he observed the tides of humanity through his view-screen. While the Geofront was incredibly impermeable to kaiju-sized beings such as Spirits or Servants, there were many, many human-sized entranceways leading from the surface down to the Geofront. It allowed for quick evacuation while keeping a strong defence against an incoming Servant.
Now that the civilians of Tokyo-3 were out of way, the true battle of Spirit and Servant could begin. Or at least, it should. Neither of the Servants had been considerate to show themselves, aside from that brief surfacing that one had done off the coast. And as for now the Spirits were still woefully out of action with both Rei and Shinji seemingly having gone AWOL. Luckily Asuka had been located and was en-route to the Geofront to pilot the newly arrived Unit-02. Her skill with unlocking and releasing its PHANTASM should be able to hold down the fort until the First and Third were located. Misato was leading a team on the surface to find them now.
It was nowhere near a good situation, but they would hold. The Geofronts defences will, no must hold.
This confidence was broken by the sound of screams.
Moments later, an explanation was forthcoming from Aoba.
"There's an attack! No Servants but…"
The main view-screen shifted to show the tide of humanity flooding into the Geofront begin to thin and split apart as a small army of monsters began to pour in through the entrances.
Armed NERV personnel took immediate action and opened fire on the shapeless monstrosities. The air was filled with gore as the bullets wantonly tore and ripped chunks out of the monsters. Despite these injuries, they kept coming and it seemed as if it took nearly an entire round to be emptied into one of them before it stopped moving.
And whenever one of the demons fell, more would always be slipping through the evacuation entrances, those that had been so wonderfully designed to stop building sized monsters from entering but did absolutely nothing to stop human sized intruders.
It only took a moment to come to a conclusion. The Geofront had already been compromised but it was not an unsalvageable situation. Their guards and defences could probably deal with the ones already inside, but if they kept coming…
"Seal the entrances. All of them."
Fuyutsuki spoke up.
"But there are people still outside."
"Sometimes you need to sacrifice many to save even more. You of all people should know that by now, Fuyutsuki. We'll bottle ourselves up in here and send Unit-02 out to burn them all."
"But that's the problem! Pilot Langley and her escort have just entered the tunnels. If you give the order to seal now, they'll be stuck outside with the monsters. No Pilots, no Spirit Units!"
This line of reasoning forced Gendo to stop and think. However, a single glance to the view-screens steeled him. Their scattered line of defence was about to be overrun if they didn't stem the alien tide.
"…She's a magical prodigy isn't she? She can take care of herself long enough. Ritsuko! Tell the MAGI to seal off absolutely every point of access."
"Aye."
As the battle continued, the entranceways slowly sealed shut. The screams off those trapped outside with the bulk of the demons rose in volume before being cut off entirely as thick metal slabs rolled across the gateways.
Gendo did a quick mental calculation over how many deaths he may just have caused before slowly letting out his breath.
"Don't worry Fuyutsuki. We need the Pilots. Arrangements will be made for her."
"Arrangements?"
Gendo pushed up his glasses, the blank orange lenses reflecting the scattered gunfire shown through the view-screens.
"Arrangements."
000
"What is that thing?"
Shinji was whispering as he crouched behind Rei, the crazy albino girl seemingly going through one of her nicer phases. He'd begun to get rather good at suppressing the revulsion he felt from being near her, though skin contact still felt horrible.
"You know, I really have absolutely no idea. If I were going to guess though, I'd say they were demons, creatures that distort natural laws. It's probably qualifies as a Fiend of some sort actually so this is pretty good."
"Pretty good? What, are 'Fiends' weaker than usual Demons?"
"Not at all. In fact, they might be stronger."
"Then how is this 'pretty good'? At all?"
"Well, I've never gotten to see one of the Fiendish Kind before. It's rather interesting."
The object of their speculation was around the corner, outside of the small alleyway that they were crouched in.
It was roughly human-sized, but the similarities stopped there. As far as Shinji could tell, it had absolutely no defined features beyond a single circular mouth lined with vicious looking jagged teeth. The rest of its body was a constantly shifting formless mass of tentacles and pseudopods.
It seemed to be alone and whatever hidden aural capabilities it might have didn't seem to have been enough to pick out their whispering.
Shinji and Rei had come across it rather unexpectedly and were forced to take cover lest it see them…somehow. It didn't really seem to have any eyes to see with in the first place but neither of them felt like taking chances.
They had been hiding from it's presence for what felt to be the better part of half an hour and it still showed no sign of moving.
"It's fascinating isn't it? It doesn't look like any kind of ogre that I've ever heard of but if they're anything like each other, they don't actually have any Magic Circuits. Instead they generate magic just by living. It makes you think, doesn't it?"
Personally, the only thoughts they were inspiring in Shinji were 'we're all going to die horrible painful deaths' and 'that is the ugliest thing I have ever seen, bar none".
Remembering her threats of painful death, he felt it was only tactful not to tell her this.
The apparent 'fiend' shifted only to settle down back into its solitary position, quashing Shinji's hopes that it might finally be moving.
"So…what do you think is going on?"
"Don't know," she replied, nowhere near as talkative as she was before. As they'd been together through the early morning, Shinji had begun to detect a pattern in the girl's strange mood shifts.
The one she was in now was often rather unresponsive and silent but it was also Rei at her least cruel and randomly malicious towards him. It was probably the best chance he would ever get to answer the question that had been bugging him for over an hour by now.
"Hey, Rei. Why…Why are you…Why are you …the way you are?"
As predicted, the girl didn't even blink or shift her gaze.
"Shattered," she said, as if it was the simplest thing in the world.
"Shattered?"
"If you pull something in too many different directions, it breaks."
She turned towards him, her face twisted into a nasty smirk and Shinji immediately knew he had made the wrong decision.
"Observe."
000
The wretched thing groped along the ground, surrounded in a mess of it's own pulverized body. It reared up, maw dripping blood and broken teeth, only to be brought back to the ground by a hail of bullets. Its twitching body was riddled with holes until it stopped moving and dissolved into a frothing broth of flesh.
Corporal Saruwatari wrinkled his nose at the stench.
"Looks like it's seafood tonight!"
The nearby soldiers laughed, more out of relief to be alive than from any perceived humour. The monsters were like pitbulls; once they got their teeth in, they didn't let go. Behind the defense lines, the medics sat on their hands. There was little for them to do, as anyone bitten by the monsters died a quick painful death.
But despite all this, the superiority of modern ranged firepower had won the day. While some monsters had reached biting range, the majority had been gunned down beforehand, their corpses filling a killing ground that stretched from their defensive position to the sealed gates to the tunnels outside.
The laughter began to give way to strangled screams as several of the gunmen fell to their knees vomiting.
"What?" He cried out.
Saruwatari flinched as he was hit in the chest by one of the more explosive vomiters. He had time to see the lines of blood in the sticky glob of sick before he felt his own gorge rise. The contents of his stomach were violently evacuated; he barely had enough time to get to his knees before it happened.
He lost consciousness and fell face-forward into his own bodily waste, his last thought being of the long string of blood running down his chin. The medics later found him drowned in his own fluids.
000
"We're taking more casualties!" Aoba said.
"What? The hostiles are dead. Where from?" Fuyutsuki replied.
"Reports getting back are indistinct but they…they say it's some kind of biological weapon!"
Gendo froze as one of his hands automatically reached for his glasses. No. He had only three full uses at most of it inside of him before it's metaphysical weight ripped his Circuits to shreds.
It had been stupid and rash of him to use even its passive effects to subdue Shinji for his pivotal role. To use it on such inconsequential beings would be a last resort, especially when there were more mundane methods to be used. But…he felt it pulling at him, tiny words chanting endlessly in his mind. Words that were slowly etching over his brain and overriding everything else.
He was not meant to have these alien things in his body.
He slowly became aware that everyone in command centre was looking at him, waiting for orders. He feigned to be simply adjusting his glasses.
"Order everyone there to retreat, if they haven't done so already. Ritsuko, deploy a quartet of mages who have the knowledge to purify the area and cleanse it of malignant magical influences."
"Right away," the blonde replied. "With gas-masks, I assume?"
"…If they must."
000
The Other sang soundlessly into the shattered void that was it's perception of the world around it. Once again, the Other felt the pressure from the reality of this world attempt to stifle its birthing cries but its silent song would not be ignored. The Supreme Reality Marble it back shattered. A world that was nothing but fading reflections of a broken mirror of stars could not assert authority over the Other, even in this strange place on the flip side of the Spiral where all was different.
Time was different here. No fluid flow and regular stops but infinite multitudes of shattered separate moments flying past, separated from each other at a tiny level, the universe breaking further in each one.
The Fourth was still refusing to be digested, clogging the Other's worldmaw with its impossible size.
It's thoughts kept intruding on his choirmind, spreading discord through the previously untarnished Other.
Enough. Is it not good enough that We recognize you as an existence separate of the shard reflection lives?
The Fourth had invoked the Other into existence, a god bearing into the mirror world on a pile of it's fluid children.
Was it not enough that your physicality continued to live inside of Us?
Apparently not. Foreign concepts continued to edge into the Other's mind, the primary concept being 'art'.
The Concepts of this world are as broken as its mirror and resemble nothing of the Concept list We see in the Old Records. What is 'Art'?
Answers slowly snaked into the chorus, as fractured as their speaker. Art was the shrieks of pain given by an impaled infant, the slow moans of a man when you slowly ripped his skin off and turned his organs inside out. Art was the crack of bone beneath you as you readjusted them properly, the twisting of the spine into a more aesthetic shape. Art was the pain a women felt as her body was intruded upon and filled to the brim by a swirling mass of effluvia and flesh. Art was the reshaping of other's lives, their destiny bent to yours. Art was pain and love and life and glory.
But the one thing Art wasn't was death. Art was life. Art was best when masterpieces were alive to see what had become of them, tears of joy and gratitude in those who still had eyes.
This new concept is strange to Us but interest is obtained. Take the fingers and show Us your Art on the shard things that are still alive.
With the Fourth now occupied, the Other saw the battle between it's fingers fighting the tiny consciousnesses that momentarily sprang forth from the reflections of the broken mirror stars of this universe.
The illusions coughed and nibbled at some of the Other's fingers that had penetrated into the womb. They pushed slugs of this broken world into its fingers and had toppled them momentarily while the Other had been focussing the majority of its choir on the Fourth-remnant.
But the Other was real. They were not. Ergo, any damage utilised by the reflection creatures was illusory and could be ignored as the petty distractions they were.
Not only that, but the Other's finger had touched some of the scattered lights now, crushing most but only subduing some. This was a paradox. They were not real, yet the Other inside their systems was. The only way to resolve this paradox was if those reflection people were not reflection people, but were fingers of the Other instead.
The choir discussed it for the briefest of the shattered time-flow before decreeing this logic to be impeccable.
000
Maya shifted uncomfortably in her seat, the scratch of the gasmask against her face and the weight of the air-tank on her back bothering her. She and three others of NERV's primary Magecraft department were en route to the outskirts of the Geofront. Along with them came a large medical team, loaded with supplies.
It still occasionally felt strange being so close to technology, despite the fact that mages had been doing it more and more since the Second Impact. NERV was the odd man out of course, a collection of heretics who were exploring the furthest bounds of technology and magecraft that had culminated in the Spirit Units.
Her thoughts were cut off as the carriage rolled to a stop.
A short walk later and they reached the rendezvous point where what was left of the NERV's own armed forces had fallen back to. The medical team got immediately to work helping the medics already there on tending to the wounded and the infected.
Maya turned to the other mages sent with her to check their readiness to perform the purification magecraft.
She prepared her end of the ritual but once again she was interrupted by the cries of the others.
The field of dead monsters began to writhe, as if a tide of tiny insects began to flow over it. A corpse raised its head and went into an impossible spasm as it burst apart only to be reborn as another demon. The grisly scene repeated itself across the battlefield.
The screams intensified as the soldiers watched as those who died from the fumes melted into goo; the effluent pooling together spawn more demons. Those alive had their screams silenced by tendrils ripping out of their orifices. The tentacles violated their innards, crushing and shredding the men into chunks of wet, sopping meat. Corrupted remains split open and gave a horrible mockery of birth.
A hasty magic shot ripped one of the newborn abominations apart only for a new monster to rise from its corpse.
"Run!" shouted one of the few surviving soldiers.
And so they did. The train was still at its station, its driver gawking openly at the incoming horde. Maya was the first on board, her heart thumping a mile a minute.
What just happened? What just happened? Her thoughts were jumbled into an incoherent mess at processing what she had just seen.
The small carriage became overcrowded as the survivors piled in.
"What are you waiting for," the normally quiet Lieutenant roared at the driver. "Go! Go! Gooooo!"
000
The command center watched with a mixture of silent fascination and horror at the scene portrayed. Ritsuko was the first to speak and state the obvious.
"The demons are clearly more powerful than expected."
"Yes…" Fuyutsuki replied, trying to understand what he had just seen. For some reason, it was striking him as horribly familiar.
To the elder man's left, Gendo was once again finding his mind wandering back to using it. Not yet. Not yet.
But what other options did he have? Out of the five weapons in the Conceptual Armoury, three were anti-unit weapons that would have little effect on stopping a massed attack, one wasn't even a weapon at all by most standards and the other couldn't be wielded by anything less than a Spirit Unit.
Speaking of Spirit Units…Yes that could work. They'd already sent Asuka the means after all. And communication with her and what was left of the above-side teams were still possible. They could relay their instructions to them. And if the Spinal Column was still a go…
Yes.
"Sound the Imminent Secondary Breach alarm and proceed with those protocols as described. Ritsuko and Fuyutsuki, follow me."
"Actually," Fuyutsuki disagreed "I need to retire to my study. I have a very disturbing hunch."
"Then go," Gendo said. "You weren't going to be particularly useful for this anyway."
As Fuyutsuki left, Gendo turned back to Ritsuko.
"We need the Spirits prepped immediately."
"But who is there to pil-"
He cut her off. "Assemble your underlings and do it now. Don't ask."
000
Shinji bit back a scream. Literally. His mouth filled with the taste of his own blood as his teeth crushed part of his tongue. The arm that Rei was holding had twisted and curled in on itself, moving like putty underneath the girl's fingertips. He tried to scream again but his teeth had fused together into a single bone plate, sealing his mouth.
He flailed wildly with his free hand only for Rei to grab it and somehow, rip it off entirely. The mangled wreck of his arm socket inverted and turned into a massive mouth that began to grind its teeth against what was left of his skeleton.
Shinji would have liked to believe that the events of the past few days had allowed him to build up a significant pain tolerance. He was wrong.
One of his legs actually managed to connect with the side of Rei's head, smacking her body against the wall where she lay motionless. For a few seconds, Shinji was allowed to believe that it couldn't get any worse.
A pair of inhumanly hot hands grabbed his legs, sending him spasming in further pain as his last remaining limbs liquefied. The grey haired girl entered his field of vision, licking the residue off her fingers.
"I think I'll take your eyes last. This way, you get to watch."
Time seemed to stretch into a horrible eternity of pain as she carefully and meticulously removed his remaining internal organs. After that, she reached further inside of him, his flesh moulding around her hands as she pulled out his bones, one by one. He flopped helplessly as she flayed him open, ripping him apart piece by piece.
Shinji eventually emerged from his daze of pain to see Rei's face directly in front of him, the pressure of her fingers all around him. His body had been completely destroyed, save the single eyeball Rei was holding. The eyeball that she had transferred the remnants of Shinji's consciousness into.
Studying it for a moment, she closed her hand around it into a tight fist, feeling it's gooey remains ooze out between her fingertips and onto the ground.
Every sense he had left could only register that. Through mists of blood, he saw Rei loom over the small pile of slime that was now him.
"Don't worry, Shinji. You won't die. Ever."
.
..
…
….
…..
…
Shinji fell back, landing on his back on the pavement. He couldn't think, his thoughts clouded with only the feeling of immense pain. After a few agonising minutes, it began to clear. He tried to remember what had just happened, but his mind drew a blank every time, recalling nothing save the endless eternities of pain and those red eyes.
A hand brushed against his arm, causing him to twitch back fearfully for reasons he could no longer remember. They were still in the alleyway, the thing was still lurking obliviously outside and the girl was still staring at him.
"You really don't have any training do you? I heard about your upbringing, but I almost didn't believe it until just now. Your complete lack of mental defences is pitiful."
"…Ergh? What just happened? What did you do?"
"You were asking annoying questions so I decided to mess with your mind a bit. None of it was real, though I'm pretty sure you weren't able to tell at the time. I took the effort of making sure you don't remember most of it by the way. You should thank me for that."
"What? Are you crazy? Why the hell would I thank you for t-that!"
"Thank me Shinji."
He felt his mouth lock up as it began moving on it's own accord, his tongue following suit.
"…Thank you, Rei."
"There, that wasn't so hard now was it?"
Rubbing his jaw, Shinji slumped down further. Rei was dangerous, and clearly insane to boot. If he stuck around her too long, it wouldn't be the monsters that killed him. But she had told him that running away from her now would be a certain death sentence and he believed her.
His only ray of hope was that this was only for one night. It was only until he got back to the Geofront. Then he would never have to deal with this strange girl again.
"Well, would you look at that!"
Oh god. She was suddenly cheerful again. He made to edge away before she grabbed him by the collar and dragged him out of the alleyway and right to where the monster was!
"Rei! REI!"
His screams must have worked because she dropped him unceremoniously onto the road.
"It's fine now," she said. "The demon must have left while we were preoccupied."
It was about time. Anything to shorten their travel time together. She helped him up, Shinji noting that he was slowly becoming used to the corpse-girl's loathsome touch. He still didn't know why she felt like that though. And he sure wasn't going to ask her a personal question like that. Never again.
And so they walked a curved and twisted path through the silent city, a path that Rei insisted would take them to safety and avoid the remaining monsters at the same time. Did she know where the monsters were? Not worth thinking about. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other and he'll be safe, away from the monsters and the grey girl. J-just keep walking.
Step.
Step.
Step.
Time dragged on and he began to slump, a tremor entering his pace. He hadn't slept at all since the Third Servant hospitalised him. Too much, too fast. Unconsciously, he began to lean against Rei. In his fatigue he no longer cared about her crawling and unsettling touch or her seemingly endless supply of cruelty and unpredictable malice. She nearly stumbled for a moment before hesitantly putting her arm around him and supporting his half-asleep frame.
Not long after and he had fallen asleep entirely.
000
He was on a train.
Rei was sitting next to him, her arm around him. But it was strangely alright. The wriggling under her skin, the hungry heat and the dead cold were all right. This was how she was supposed to be.
Rei was also sitting on the other side of him. And on the seat across from him. The compartment was filled with Rei.
The floor of the carriage was slick with blood running from a body hanging from the ceiling. He had never seen that girl before.
000
Shinji opened his eyes blearily. He was lying on the sidewalk. His ribs kind of hurt from…something. Why did his ribs hurt?
A few seconds later he had his answer as a foot nudged his chest ungently.
"Hey you! I know you're alive! You're name is Shinji, right? What do you think you're doing here?"
The sun was just beginning to rise, the light providing a fuzzy halo around the red-haired head of the girl standing in front of his prone form.
"Don't you have a job to do?"