Unseen prismatic flash heralded the return from the alien mind. Shinji, heaving and gasping for breath, almost fell forward. He managed to stop his fall by desperately grabbing at the table edge. The teacups rattled. Slowly he started to try to calm his erratic breathing. Breath came in short gasps and the world was silent to his hears. All he could here was the endless grinding of death of phantom echoing that resounded in the deep. His eyes bright burnt, though nothing was wrong with them, the images of death and haunting phantasms danced in his eyes in horrid, vivid color no sane man might see and retain their sanity. Where there really that many colors?

Homura moved to his side, quickly kneeling and placing a concern hand on Shinji's shoulder. "Are you all right?" he asked with concern then looked up to the somber landlady. Anger blazed in his eyes as small flames tickled his closed fist, "What did you do?"

The landlady merely picked up her tea with delicate hand and took a sip. "Nothing he wasn't ready for," she answered enigmatically. "I'll have no fighting in the Izumo house. Put away those flames. I wouldn't hurt Mr. Ikari...too much," she added with a hint of a satisfied smirk appearing on her lips.

Slowly Homura unclenched his fist and let his flames die down. He gave the purple haired landlady one last angry look. She might be kin by Takami's claims, but as far as he was concerned he had nothing in common with her. She was utterly alien even to him. A heavy silence fell over the room, only broken by the uneven heaves of the older man.

Homura tried to gently pry him into a sitting position, but Shinji kept his iron grip on the table. Giving up and no trusting the landlady he folded his legs beside Shinji, keeping a wary eye on the Miya. The table might give him a fraction of second to react, but it was enough time to react. Placing his hand on his knees, he mentally prepared himself to act if his fellow alien chose violence.

"Was that… no, it really was…" Shinji muttered as he regained a regular breathing cycle. He loosened his death grip on the table and raised his eyes to Miya, who keep lightly shut her eyes and wore that insufferable half smirk. In his mind he was glad it wasn't the stone cold killer she had been, but for a brief moment he could see a bit of Karasuba in her. If there was any doubt Miya and Karasuba were of the same stock then it was the insufferable half smirk they both loved to wear.

"Are you okay?" Homura asked again. "What happened?"

"Exactly what you saw," Miya answered before taking a long sip of her tea. She began to refill it leaning forward slightly., as her arms move Homura started to bring a flame to life She gave him a bemused look and raised an eyebrow at his hands were a thin wisp of smoke spiraled lazily into the air. "I won't kill him. If I wanted to do that, I would have a long time ago."

"That doesn't answer the question. I've seen Angels and worse, but…that thing… Is that even a thing?" Shinji insistently asked, righting his position. He felt the after effects, his entire being quivered uncontrollably. He felt his heart racing from fear of the unknown the likes of which he hadn't felt in a long time. Yet it wasn't all fear that made his heart race. There was more to it than that. He knew what it was and hated it.

Excitement. He was excited to meet a being that could utterly crush him, yet all he could think of was the fight. The idea of fighting that monster that could crush him so completely and utterly sent his mind spiraling into dark places he hadn't walked in years. Asuka bathed in those emotions, but he was a different breed, or so he liked to think even if it was a mask, a convenient mask that let him walk as one of the rest of humanity even if it were as a lie.

He heard Homura ask after his health again and was brought back to the limited reality of humanity and most Sekirei. The Guardian plan. He had a task, a mission to start and a madman's plan to put into check. "Will you accept him, Miya? I don't ask you to defend him, Homura is more than capable of that," he gave the gray haired Sekirei a sidelong glance. It was strange how the alien was concerned about his health, he had no real ties to fire-user beyond a handful combat lessons in which he had uttered crushed the alien.

"I will," she said curtly. "As for the matter of rent, I will work that out with him myself. Your presence is no longer needed."

Her intent was clear. It was time for him to leave. His part in this matter was down. The Guardian had been planted and it was time for the gardener to leave it alone to root deep into the earth. He stood on shaky legs. "Thank you for your hospitality," he quietly said with a small bow of his head. He didn't trust his balance. "Homura, you're things will be sent here by tomorrow morning," he reminded the Sekirei quickly and started for the door. Miya didn't move a muscle, but Homura followed after him.

As he slipped his shoes on, the fire-user kept asking after his health. He noted with some amusement that it was almost as if he were the Guardian's Ashikabi. Taki and Saki would be more than annoyed by such a strange twist of fate, even though Homura's gender was indeterminable. The experiments and testing had seen to the verification of that, but it was hardly a good thing if any of the projections by the MAGI were correct. When MBI had fed the information to NERV the MAGI hadn't given the Guardian a gender even in their longest range projections without extreme outside influences beyond the ones MBI claimed would be allowed into the city.

"Homura," he said firmly before he opened the door, "I'll be fine. What happened was an accident and no fault of Miya," he smoothly lied. He had become all too good at lying to everyone these last few years. "I suggest you get comfortable here and get to know your new landlady. She can be fun at times," he said then cut himself off. There was no need to say more. It would only lead to nostalgia of bygone days that would never come again.

"But-" the alien began to protest, raising a hand towards him.

"No buts," Shinji commanded causing the Sekirei to drop his hand and a stubborn look to appear on the alien's face. "You have your duty and I have mine. We both do our duty and maybe we'll be able to meet when this madness comes to an end. Though it might be over a desolate city or worse," he added sadly. There were never good results when one let aliens rampage and battle in a city. Add humans, the warmongering animals that they were, and all that might be left might be a few fire brunt hulks of civilization. Then again, if he failed in his duty then the same thing would spread without even the slightest form of control.

Opening the door, he shakily stepped into the light, leaving the Guardian in a strong position to wreak havoc on the Plan when the time came. Soon the battle would start and the city would be consumed by war.

"Damnit! I give up," Saki complained, throwing the notebook on the table. She leaned back and stretched, reaching for the roof of their apartment. The sound of papers crumpling to the floor and other notebooks hitting ground was a nice, if brief, change of pace from the classical score Taki had insisted upon playing earlier. She would have and still wanted to change it something heavier, music with some weight behind it.

"Watch you language," Taki chided from across the coffee table.

"Yeah, yeah I'll think about it," she replied noncommittally with a dismissive flick of her hand towards the mist-user. "This all bunch of nonsense anyway. Symbols, fragments of sentences. It's like a bored kid just decided to start drawing in his notebook. There's no connection to anything other than a mental ward. Is it normal to mention bloodletting at three times a pages?"

Taki sighed and gently placed the text, a slightly thicker and older than the notebook by a great many years, then began to straight up the papers that had fallen. "You do realize this is our job now. We have to deal with this sought of thing. It's what Shinji asked of us and it's not exactly boring."

Saki leaned forward and gave her sister Sekirei a skeptical look. "Human occult knowledge. It doesn't even exist. Most of it's just a bunch of nonsense a group of crazy humans believe in. They make up most of it trying to sound mysterious," as she said that she brought her arms close to her body and placed the back of her hands beneath her chin to wiggle her fingers. "It's superstition, noting more and nothing less." She folded her arms across her chest stubbornly. "I can't believe you find it remotely interesting."

"Be that as it may, we still must investigate. Pick up a book and we might get through this box before tomorrow. Then we might have more personal time to spend with Shinji," she said, a small blush betraying her inner thoughts about time spent with their mate.

Saki jumped up, waving a finger at the other Sekirei. "Woah girl! There are rules for that sort of thing. You agreed that is my turn," she enunciated every syllable getting her finger as close to the mist-users face as she dared. The last she wanted was another wet set of clothes. She could vaguely hear the dyer over a particularly quiet part of the background music.

"I know," Taki replied, narrowing her eyes at the offensive finger. "Put it away," she warned as even as she could.

"What? Scared? Of a finger?" Saki scoffed.

"Really? You want to go there? Do you real want to go there?" She clenched her fist as wisp of mists began to fall. "Do you know how much water a human body can take before they drown? I wonder what it might takes to drown a Sekirei," she asked rhetorically, examining her nail as she smirked ever so slightly.

Saki smiled widely and leapt backwards on to the couch. Fists clenched she bounced slightly, the couch speaker faintly in protest at her sudden weight. "Let's go! No powers, just fists!"

"Hmpfh, do you have confidence without your blades or is that just bravado talking?" The wisps of mist vanished in an instant as Taki took a strange stance.

She was perplexed by the stance her sister-Sekirei had taken. It looked nothing like any of the forms she had learned from the humans various fighting styles. "I'm surprised. You actually look like you can fight in hand to hand. And here I was thinking you were more of a range or ambusher," she mocked. This fight was personal. It was over her mate. Though technically speaking Taki was also Shinji's mate, but it was personal. This was a matter of who would have the next turn with him. Fighting over that was more than appropriate.

Pain.

Burst of light.

Pain.

Blinded.

Pain.

Twisting.

Pain.

Withering.

Pain.

Colors.

Pain.

Forever.

Pain.

Instantaneous.

Pain.

Saki fell to her knees, gasping for breath. She fell off the couch, her head hit the table. Papers scattered. Fear for her mate was all she could feel. The bond, weak as it was, shouldn't have given such strong emotions unless something was wrong. Her vision swam slightly as she shivered uncontrollably. What was Shinji experiencing? What was happening to her mate?

She struggled to lift her head. Her body was wracked with shots of pain. Taki was no better off. She reached for her sister-mate, yearning for comfort. The pain, the pain! Why was it wrong? Pain should be pain. Color that's shouldn't be swarm behind her blurred vision. She felt warmth, another's touch. Warmth in her hand of another, she closed her fist not wishing to lose that. She cried out, arching her back and hitting something. Bodily pain compounded with mental pain.

Then it stopped.

Her head throbbed. Her vision swam and her back ached. The colors were gone. The flashes of pain were gone. The world was right again. Her head throbbed at the mercifully fast fading memory. "What…what…" she struggled to get any words out. It was as if the breath had been stolen from her body.

"…bond," Taki replied weakly, squeezing Saki's hand tightly. "Da…danger…"

Saki tried to move, but she could muster the energy needed. It was as if all her inhuman strength had been sucked out by that, she couldn't decide what to call it, experience, she settled for at last. "Have to…have to go to him." She needed to go to her mate, her instincts told her to fly as fast as she could to him. Her heart ached for him. She couldn't move. She struggled in vain. Tears of rage and helplessness welled up as she lay helpless on the floor.

Slowly her vision darkened. Weariness overtook her and she felt sleep coming. She tried to resist, but her body turned against her. She needed to stay awake, for her mate, for her sister-mate, for her pride. She couldn't…

She heard sobs of self-hatred from her sister-mate.

… she wouldn't…

Her sister-mate's hand was warm. Warmth was good.

…give…

Warmth was comforting. The world slowed down.

…in…

…

"Rei." A name uttered with no inflection, no emotion, nor anything even vaguely resembling a mortal's voice. A mechanical voice, a fake voice for a man who had lost his; a machine's voice that uttered the name of a soul that he knew nothing of. "Begin the experiment."

"Yes." The answer was soft, a barely audible woman's whisper. The world darkened as the lights quickly faded away. The glass panels were concealed by smoky black interlocking hexagons. "Subject 636 are you prepared?"

As those dead words passed through pale lips, the center of the room was illuminated in a gentle white glow. A tanned, black haired girl, no older than sixteen or seventeen, lay there eagle spread and bound on the cold metal table. A fine specimen of humanity's female form, but she trembled and wiggled nervously, a fine blush on her face at her nudity. "Y-yes, I'm ready…I-I'll make it," she answered hesitatingly, her voice cracking.

Naked fear shone in the girl's eyes of Rei stepped out of darkness and into the circle of light she inhabited. Slowly the pale skinned Accursed extended her left hand over the girl's chest. "Subject 636 confirmation granted. Beginning preliminary evaluation," Rei uttered for the sake of the various recording devices watching the operation as was standard procedure for NERV in these darker days.

Smoothly and painlessly she slipped away from the world of humans. The shadowy world of the Angels was a breath of fresh air; every aspect of it fit the desires of her Angelic half. Grays and blacks, wavering physical forms of the Others known as humanity, surrounded her, but she didn't give the figures seated behind the wavering walls a second thought. They were familiar to her human half already.

"Testing for resistance," she stated, her voice echoing and wavering in the world around her. Focusing the world shifted around her. All around the space she had designated as 'her' there bloomed clouds of black orbs stretching onwards into infinity from every direction. Other black orbs in rotated around each cloud of black orbs, tracing circular patterns she could vaguely associate with concentric circles. Reaching out with her other hand she spoke, "Manifesting cutter." Her voice boomed around her, coming from every direction. With her left hand she timed the speed of the rotating black orb and seized it in a single motion. It struggled in her. She felt the raw energy pushed and pulling at her unseen hand. It was easier to think in limited human terms for her. She had no desire to become like the ones she had fought.

"Cutting in three, two, one," she brought the metaphorical blade down, cleanly slicing through the black orb contained by her unseen hand. Color exploded before her eyes. Brilliant white light, hideous purple light, sickly greens and ghastly yellows. She felt her mortal shell tremble at the sensation of those diabolic colors. It might have regurgitated the last meal if she hadn't been the true master of it. The colors flashed over and over, a series of consecutive explosions she had contained within her AT field. They raged, seeking to escape their prison, but she wouldn't let them.

She watched the colors as they exploded. White. Yellow. Purple. Green. White. Purple. Green. Yellow. Green. White. Yellow. Purple. Onwards the colors flashed, one after the other after the other without fail. She vaguely heard screams of pain from world of humans, but it was a distant echo that did not shake her. The subject was in pain. Pain was good. To be Accursed was to be pain, be in pain, and to be with pain.

"Subject 636, biologically capability with the LI is estimated at sixty-seven percent. Conversion rate is zero point zero zero zero three." Rei retreated back to her body, the black orbs vanishing along with the wavering reality gone from her sight in an instant. As she settled back in she felt the shell's weariness. The stress was wearing away at the shell and would require the basic biological imperatives to be meant once this operation was complete.

"Rei, look down."

A woman's voice that caused anger to rise. A foe? No, a rival? Disliked? Yes, that was it. Ritsuko Akagi. She had issued a command to her. Should she listen? Yes, her thoughts were disoriented as the delirium of two realties crashed down around her, a silent cascade ripping and tearing up all before it. She made her shell bend its head. The other biological female, they were related by no other means than gender of the human species, screamed and withered in pain.

The restrained subject bucked and tried to touch her belly. Red blood blossom over blackened flesh forming a two dimensional image of what might be called a star. The flesh stank and smoked slightly in the after effect of the cut. The subject screamed harder, louder and at a rising pitch. It annoyed her shell's ears. The human hearing mechanism where extremely venerable to most sounds that they couldn't hear and easily broken. Much like sight and form, she found the human shape limiting, but the Angel shape impractical to her purposes.

"She bleeds," Rei stated. What was the doctor trying to point out? "We may proceed with the implantation procedure. The Angel Flux Barrier is malleable for only a brief time. The LI must be implanted soon." Time was running out for Subject 636. The cut she had made would be contained by the body for only a limited time. Then the energy would be released into her body. The effect would be a cascading effect that would rip her atoms apart, electrons separating from their clouds and releasing their energy all at once. Once that process began Subject 636 would begin to be incineration from the inside out. The last piece of her body to go would be her brain. She would feel everything as the incineration process had repeatedly been shown to leave the nervous system alone. If Subject 636 were to be successful then the LI would have to implanted soon.

"Commander we can't proceed with just a sixty-seven percent!" Dr. Akgi protested, leaving the intercom on. "The threshold of success is too low for the second stage binding."

The Subject was whimpering in pain, an improvement over screaming for her human hearing. Subject 636 looked towards with tearful eyes. She could name the emotions in those eyes. Fear. Pain. Begging. Agony. She could name all of them and more, but that was all they were; words. Words without meaning to her. The other two, Shinji and Asuka, had tried to teach her about the meaning, but she couldn't understand because they didn't understand themselves. They were like her; a good thing for her. Even her now dead cousins had been in each other company in their prisons as they waited to surge froth. She could feel them even though hundreds of miles might separate them. They were one and the same, three parts of whole.

"Is Subject 636 replaceable?" The cold voice of the Supreme Commander of NERV answered from the unseen heights.

For a moment Dr. Akagi was silent. Rei heard the faint noise of a pen over the intercom that she assumed belonged to the doctor based her pervious use of the intercom. She regarded Subject 636 curiously as the subject continued to look at her, craning her head as best she could against the neck restraints. Subject 636 desired an end of the pain, help, aid of some kind she realized. The looks she was received were similar to the ones of her fellows when their human bodies were in pain though Subject 636 didn't have the stormy blue eyes or the angry blue eyes of her fellows. Subject 636 was not one of them. "Estimated time to internal incineration is three minutes and fourty seconds. Physcial incineration in four minutes and tweteny seconds," Rei informed dutifully. This was a science, she had to be as accurate as the data gathered from the other failed experiments.

"We can't lose 636! The Committee on my ass for losing the last thirty candidates with no results to show. The candidate's pool is shrinking and we have nothing to show for it! Six hundred and thirty two failures! The only successes were natural born ones! There's only so many children who might, MIGHT, fit the criteria and half are already dead!"

Dr. Akagi's voice was strained with exhaustion and misplaced anger. Rei knew that she misplaced the failure of the GOSPEL Project to create more like Shinji and Asuka on herself when the fault was beyond her control. Humans simply weren't ready to rejoin the Angels. Their weak bodies were unable to comphrened the full glory and might of the Angels and others like those savage brutes. Her cousins were savage brutes, mindless things driven by an old commandant that bore not place in the modern world.

"We have no options. The Committee wants to see results. We must produce another Accursed and show them the GOSPEL is worth the investment." The commander's voice was steady and smooth, never changing as he turned away the chief scientist's fears. "Rei, begin the Jericho Procedure."

"Understood," Rei answered and slipped back into the Angel state.

"Medical team to the procedure room! Stop her!"

She heard Dr. Akagi's command to try to stop her. Her orders did not allow any to interfere with the Jericho Procedure. It was a simple matter to fuse the doors shut as the medical team started to open them. With her unmatched might she pulled the doors back together, fusing them into one as she did. There was no way in or out for a human now. This room was meant for that purpose. No explosives short of destroying the entire Geofront, a feat that would require all the energy of the human race released at once at the very least, would bring down the walls.

Turning her attention back to the Jericho Procedure, she heard Dr. Akagi railing and ranting over the intercom. Threats were issued, but she ignored them. They were the buzzing echoes in her mind and worth just as much. Gendo Ikari's words were amongst the few whose worlds actually mattered. The other two whose words she would listen too were far beyond this bleak place of endless pain and misery for all of them.

Around her she began to calculate the requirements for the LI's in her mind, her thoughts appeared as screens around her; a physical manifestation needed to keep her human brain from overheating. As she did so she reached into the human world. From high above she gently tugged down the numerous robotic arms after severing the controls from the controls in the command room. Syringes, saws, laser cutters and other medical devices approached Subject 636, who had once more begun to twist and turn in fear, whimpering and crying as she did so.

Subject 636 had to be restrained. 636 could not be allowed to move during the Jericho Procedure. Rei swiftly and deftly found the appropriate bodily locations to deactivate 636's higher brain functions and leave 636 temporarily parallelized. "Subject sedated. Commencing first stage of Jericho." The world shifted again and once more she was surrounded by the black clouds. "First stage of Jericho beginning. Estimated time to completion is six hundred and sixty six seconds. Unacceptable. Moving to Jericho Procedure Beta. Estimated time to completion is forty seconds. Creating Infinity Cutter."

She moved the robotic arms into position and activated the laser. Within the black clouds she began to cut. Clouds burst in flashes of colors she ignored. More and more flashes crossed her vision as she both cut through the infinity of atoms of the Subject 636 and used the many robotic arms to slice open the Subject. Taking less than a half a second in human time, she pulled away from the cutting to examine the rate of interior immolation.

Subject 636's organs were failing. The internal body temperature was rising as she cut and cut. The external skin was heating up, but the covering of humans could be replaced. She only carried if it affected the eyes. The eyes were exposed and unprotected. Even as she studied the Subject's condition she continued to use the robotic arms to cut and slice, hack and pull away to reach the muscle and bone below.

From one of the robotic arms, as she continued to cut amidst endless flashes of those damning colors, she pulled out the syringe filled with a glowing blue liquid. Without a wasted moment she used the laser cutter to crave a straight hole into the bone of her upper arm and sent the syringe into the hole with in a single try. Emptying the syringe into the bone marrow, she snatched the implants from another arm. Using several scalpels and several forceps she pulled the muscle and veins away from the bone, leaving a small area just big enough to get the sixteen metal implants through one at a time.

The lower functions of the Subject's brain registered the wrongness. No human should have felt this feeling and it knew that. It turned to its fight or flight response and tried to flee. Instinctively it knew that she was far too powerful to fight. With a quick flick she forced he thrashing Subject to remain still. She checked the internal immolation process and knew it was a lost battle. "Subject 636's liver will fail in thirty seconds. The rest of the Subjects organs will fail within thirty-three seconds of that. Estimated time to complete Jericho Procedure Beta seventy seconds. Ending Jericho prematurely, unable to continue."

The Subject was a loss. The Jericho Procedure was incomplete and she could not continue. It would be a waste of valuable resources to give this failed Subject anything more. She pushed the robotic arms back into their cradles high above in the darkness, let the muscle and skin fall back onto bone and retruned to her regular state. Instnaly Subject 636's body reacted. It's higher brian fucntiosn returned with fifteen seconds to spare.

"Save her Rei! We can't lose another one!" Dr. Akagi screamed at her.

"It is unprofessional to scream Dr. Akagi. The immolation process is too far along. Even if I were to intervene then Subject 636 would be left in a half melted internal state from which no human will ever recover. The cost of supporting such an existence would strain NERV unnecessarily in terms of both time and money."

"Fine, but I'm not explaining this to the Committee. You will be," she retorted stiffly. "You can ask for another subject, not me."

"Commander, it seems that the stress of the last two months has taken a toll on Dr. Akagi. I would suggest mandatory leave for at least a week with no access to the MAGI," she offered to the Commander. The Subject was withering in pain. Tears no longer flowed, having been dried up by the Subject's own body. Her skin was reddening all over her body as the internal organs began to the final step to immolation. Unfocused eyes rolled back into the Subject's head as the Subject's face began to brighten.

"An excellent idea Rei." There was no praise in the elder Ikari's voice. "Consider it so Dr. Akagi. One week with rescinded access to the MAGI. I do not want to see you on this base until the end of the week. Am I understood?"

"Yes sir,' the doctor said sharply, a hint of anger in her voice.

It seemed that her estimation to the time of external immolation had been wrong. She had been off by several milliseconds. She heard footsteps as Dr. Akagi left the command-observation room. Rei took several large steps backwards as the body of Subject 636 glowed brighter. It was a pain to clean up superheated organs from her clothing and she had using up many of the spare lab coats, like the blood stained one she had worn into the room.

Idly she noted that there was a bloody hand print from the Subject staining the front her jacket. It seemed as though her human body had moved slightly and come into contact with one of Subject 636's hands. In a way she knew that it could be seen in a far more poetic light, but she had never understood the human desire to try to express concepts through words. Words were inherently flawed ideas. How could words ever reflect the perfection of reality?

The other two understood that all too well. Concepts of beauty portrayed in words were an insult. Asuka had broken the arm of a male who had the audacity to recite a poem about his infatuation with her. Shinji had walked past a girl who tried to claim she loved him when she began to spout romantic drivel. Love and words, two concepts humanity never understood and the ultimate insult to her and those like her.

They needed no words between them. They felt each other. They knew each other. Nothing another human could bring would ever change that. Humans were limited and flawed, seeing only what they wanted to see. They could never compete with the affection of those who had seen perfection. There was no way, no vehicles know existed to allow a human to experience what the three of them had undergone to become what they were.

The stench of flesh cooking drew her attention outwards. The body of Subject 636 was little more than a blackened pile. She had missed the full immolation, but she had seen it enough. All that remained of 636 was that blackened pile that still glowed hotly in places, hidden embers blazing away from the depths of the remains.

"Rei, the door," the commander reminded her.

She nodded and walked to the door. It was more efficient to open the door and walk out rather than open it from her position and have to move past the medical and cleanup teams no doubt waiting on the other side. "Subject 636 has been destroyed. Experimental Jericho Procedure proved to be inefficient. Suggestions include reviewing footage in an effort to understand what happened to Subject 636. All traces of Subject 636 must be destroyed in accordance with NERV-GOSPEL protocol."

She looked down to the bloody handprint, the last physical evidence of Subject 636 that meant link to back to them. The lab coat would have to be destroyed. She unbuttoned the garment and dropped in on the floor as she returned to the Angel state. Destroying the lab coat was as simple as generating heat by vibrating the atoms that composed it for less than a second at extreme velocities. When the coat was gone, the last crisp of the bloody handprint flashed away nothingness, she undid the fused door. As the doors opened she stepped forward and the humans gathered outside the door frozen.

With naked fear they parted before her, wary and watchful of her every action. They feared her and loved her because they could not understand her, it was as simple as that. Did not the holy books of some religions call fear of their gods the first step to wisdom? What was a god then? An entity that humans could not understand perhaps? She frowned and the humans flinched. That question deserved better answer than that. It was insufficient to properly answer the question.

That train of thought stayed with her as she walked upwards towards the more populated parts of base. Her body demanded food and then sleep. Did a god need food or rest? Or was that an endless paradox of existence, much like humanity? Everywhere she passed other humans she was subjected to fearful stares. She was fear incarnate to them, a monster bound to them by thin chains, but it was all she had ever known. She accepted it, though she had yet to embrace it. Embracing such an idea would result in an unfavorable relationship with the elder Ikari and a positive one with her fellows. Perhaps that wasn't so bad after all. Gendo Ikari wasn't one of them anyway.

A/N: This fic is an enjoyable episodic adventure that proves to be a nice break from my original fiction. The next chapter will see the start of the Plan and a hunt through a city of superpowered aliens in the dead of night. What could possibly go wrong? Oh let us count the ways...