Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction and all related material belong to Gainax Studios and Hideaki Anno, plus some material mentioned belongs to R.A. Salvatore. Anyway, I own nothing, only original characters created by me. I hope you enjoy this chapter as much as I have in presenting it you! Now on with the show!
Author's Note's: I forgot to mention the year the main story kicks off in (it's 2017, by the way). I agree with people who say that the Children are way too young to be thrown into combat situations so I age them a couple of years into their late teens.
Misato Katsuragi woke up with a horrendous headache, particularly centered directly at the base of Her skull. She was trying to remember what had happened when it hit her all at once; the Angel, picking up the strange boy and his companion, the N2 mine, their strange powers and then...nothing. She was snapped back to reality as she realized she was in the back seat of her car with Shinji sitting right next to her, reading what looked like an American novel, and the truly bizarre Scotsman Dr. Gannon driving. She looked at the cover of Shinji's book, thankfully knowing enough English to read the title: "Gauntlgrym". 'What kind of a name is that?' Misato thought, noticing two decidedly Elvish characters on the cover, locked in a duel, one of them, a woman, wielding a three parted BO-staff, the other, a dark skinned male, wielding a pair of scimitars, atop what looked like a huge statue falling over into a river of sloshing liquid fire. While it looked like an interesting book, Misato decide to let her presence be felt.
"Just what the Hell is going on here? What the Hell are you doing driving my fucking car, you creep!" Misato's angry screech made both males jump, and almost caused Gannon to lose control of the car and crash into a light pole that was near the ramp for the train rails that there express car was arriving on. As Gannon expertly manoeuvred the Renault up the boarding ramp and onto the train car, he waited for the safety clamps to firmly lock the car to the train before he rounded on the angry Major.
"Now you listen here, Missy! I can understand you bein' a wee bit miffed about the headache and someone else drivin' yer car, but there was no need for shriekin' like some damned Banshee!" Gannon's unearthly eyes blazed an electric blue, and Misato was absolutely sure she saw the veins in his neck and face glow a lurid violet. She did not even want to contemplate asking about that, so she decided just to keep her mouth shut until they arrived at Nerv headquarters. The car accelerated smoothly thanks to being a mag-lev system, and soon they were heading downward deep beneath the surface. The amber lighting down the length of the tunnel made Shinji's equally strange eyes seem almost jade in colour. He seemed completely engrossed in his book, that was until Gannon spoke up and reverently whispered, "Now that, lad and lassie, is a fair sight prettier than some vistas I've seen in my days, I'll tell ye that now".
Shinji actually managed to tear his eyes away from his book to take a look out the back window. His face lit up with excitement as the spiralling train tunnel fell away to reveal an enormous artificial cavern. Misato smirked as the two angelic men became drawn to the vast structure they had entered.
"Gents, welcome to the Geo-Front. This is our fortress we built to protect mankind".
The artificial sunset produced by the mirror reflective walls of the massive structure was no less brilliant than the real thing, a vibrant amber and burnt orange glow, hued with hints of violet and streaks of yellow. The expansive forested area, complete with glassy calm lake that came with its own patrol vessel, made the whole experience seem almost magical, like something out of high fantasy, but the illusion was not so much broken, as slightly off-put, by the huge artificial pyramid centred in the middle of the Geo-Front. As the train car made a final circuit of the Geo-Front, both Shinji and Dr. Gannon truly began to appreciate how much effort had been put forward to combat the otherworldly invaders known as the Angels. They were adamant about making all this hard work and sacrifice pay off; they really had no choice.
Victory meant life
Defeat meant death.
They soon arrived at the receiving station and waited as the wheel locks were released before Dr. Gannon smoothly drove Misato's pirated Renault off the train car and headed for the secure underground parking garage. When they found an open space, the Renault swung into the space and screeched to a halt. The three passengers practically leaped out of the car and jogged to the nearest elevator and headed down to the main headquarters entrance. After passing through the electronic gate and arriving at one of the expansive bridge junctions, they headed straight for Command with a surreal sense of direction.
Misato had always gotten lost in these corridors, even after working here for the last two years, but Shinji and Dr. Gannon seemed to know exactly where they were going, even with Shinji looking through the Nerv Official Information packet Misato had been ordered to deliver to him and Gannon checking his PDA. Shinji had stashed his shiny new Nerv ID card in his jeans pocket, making an off-hand comment about his 'lame ass picture', and Gannon was going over notes on the 'exo-shell' he had been talking about on the phone with Ritsuko about. She got a few glimpses of what looked like schematics for the thing and had to admit, she was rather impressed; it looked like a heavily armoured, powered battle suit meant for an Evangelion. If this was the contested piece of equipment, why was its use being contested at all? It looked like it could kick the shit out of a whole naval battle group, for God's sake!
The young Captain began to realize that there was more going on here than simple professional rivalry; she had always known that the Commander had a very passionate attachment to anything that was a part of Project E; Whether it was the enigmatic Rei Ayanami or the ludicrously unstable Unit-01, the amount of concern and attention he showed to either, Misato reasoned, was entirely unhealthy. She snapped back to the present as she heard an elevator open. She realized that even though they hadn't gotten lost, that they were late and she had a good idea of who would be sent to meet up with the group. Who actually had shown up, was not who she had been expecting though.
"Maya? What's wrong? Where's Dr. Akagi?"
Lt. Maya Ibuki, Dr. Akagi's young protege had come to meet the group instead of her mentor. Why this was the case, Misato did not know but if the blonde doctor hadn't come to meet them in this particularly critical time, then something very wrong was going on. From the distressed look on young Maya's pretty face, Misato was certain her guess was quite close to the mark. As the young lieutenant composed herself, she wiped a tear from her eye with her uniform sleeve and answered, her voice quivering somewhat, "We have no idea where she is. Captain, she just up and disappeared. I paged her several times, even checking her office, the labs, the Eva cages, everywhere! Nothing, nada, zip, zilch! Its like she vanished into thin air!"
Maya's voice began to break as she finished by saying, "I just can't believe that Sempai was involved with some kind of espionage plot! She must have been coerced or something!" She partially broke down again and Misato took the young woman in a friendly, comforting hug. Dr. Gannon watched the whole display and felt like a heal for rubbing the missing doctor's face in her guilt of trying to sabotage his project. He had wanted her punished, yes, but like having her pay docked and put on probation, stuff like that. While actual jail time sounded darkly appealing, they were short on personnel and talent as it was. He had wanted her to earn back the trust she violated. Sadly, he had a very good idea about what had really happened to her, and who had made it happen to her.
His suspicions about Lorenz Keel and his shady doings had gone from silly and dismissible paranoia to full-blown, deep-rooted, evidence dripping conspiracy theory over the years he had come to know the enigmatic German. He had tried to give the man the benefit of a doubt, but he had seen the Instrumentality Chairman go perfectly Mengele when provoked even in the slightest, but he would react not out of anger or frustration, but because he seemed to enjoy hurting people. He had become the most dubious of the mysterious German during that whole nightmarish escapade in Las Vegas. If he ever found out that that man was responsible for all that misery, and it wouldn't have been such a stretch considering what had happened, Emil Gannon was going to run that ghoul through the heart with a sharpened telephone pole like a giant-sized wooden stake. Considering that Keel actually had fangs, it wasn't such a stretch of the imagination.
'Someone had tried to make fancy bootleg spirits and narcotics using Angel DNA-contaminated water from Antarctica! They thought irradiating it would kill off bacteria and left over Angel cells. That was such a recipe for disaster that there were bloody flashing neon warning signs going off! People got sick and died, but didn't stay dead, people got sick and turned into bloody monsters! Some people simply changed into something...else'.
As Gannon thought back to the living nightmare that 'sin city' had turned into, he couldn't but help feel his blood boil and froth. The American government had 'dealt' with the problem, but instead of sending in quarantine teams and medical experts, they simply dropped a traditional tactical nuke right into the centre of it! Instead of the problem being 'dealt' with, the nuke had actually made things progressively worse. Now, what was left of Las Vegas was now sealed under a huge quarantine dome. Emil could still remember the perversely symmetrical array of a dozen glowing red eyes staring out at him from the translucent, heavily tinted carbon fibre-polycarbonate hybrid panels of the dome. Did those eyes belong to an animal that had somehow been changed by all the goings on, or did they belong to some poor soul whose only crime was falling into temptation.
'Deliver us from evil, indeed', Dr. Gannon thought bitterly as he remembered those horrible times. He looked to Shinji and realized that the boy had been remembering those times as well. He had an expression of sadness and remorse for things Gannon knew were beyond his control and never were within his control to begin with. He and the boy shared some words through the unique psychic connection they had established.
"Well, Sir, what do you think?"
"What I think, Shinji me lad, is that what we thought we knew about the goin's on at Nerv is nowhere near even half the picture, and what we don't yet know could fill up the bleedin' Great Lakes 'o' Canada!"
"That was a really beautiful Country, Canada. I hope we go visit it again when this is all over".
"Aye, Lad. I hope so too".
As Dr. Gannon and Shinji finished their telepathic conversation, Misato and Maya had finished a normal one of their own, focusing on what had happened to Dr. Akagi and what they were going to do in the mean-time.
"Okay Maya. Right now, we have to focus on doing our jobs. When this Angel is toast, we're going to scour this whole rotten berg for her, understand? She would want us focusing on the task at hand". The Captain's voice was all business, firm and clear without overdoing it on force. That helped the young Lieutenant to compose herself quickly and dry her tears.
"Your right, Captain. We need to get this done now or there won't be a later. If everyone would board the elevator, we'll get Shinji to the Eva cages and get him prepped". As everyone boarded the elevator, the lieutenant turned to the Captain and asked, "So this is the boy?"
"Yes, according to the Marduk Report, he has been designated as the Third Child", Misato answered, nodding over her shoulder to the boy with strange eyes that Maya had seen accompanying the Captain on the way in. Every time Maya looked at those alien eyes, she felt a bone-deep chill run right up her spine. She knew she shouldn't judge people just because they were different from anybody else, but she just couldn't help it. He was probably a sweet young man, really, but those damn creepy eyes kept giving her the willies. She wondered how his eyes had wound up like that, but decided to put it aside for when the Angel was dead...if they could actually kill the thing, that is.
The Angel had already decimated every tank division and mobile armoured infantry unit they deployed against it, not to mention the JSSDF best fighter crafts and V/TOLS. They were running out of resources and personnel; if they kept throwing military assets at it, they'd have nothing left for the next engagement, if they made it that far, that is.
"So, is Unit-00 ready for sortie? Are the repairs finished?" Misato asked out of the blue. Maya shook her head sadly and said, "Sorry Captain, its going to be at least another three more months before its back in any sort of shape. We had no other resort but to initiate cryogenic thaw and emergency prep of Unit-01".
Shinji felt all of the air being sucked out of elevator car. He thought that not only had Unit-01 already been thawed and prepped, but that it had been equipped with the highly contested exo-shell that Dr. Gannon and Dr. Carmine had jointly developed. Something about this stank, but before he could voice any kind of question, Dr. Gannon blew a gasket. His face flushed so deep a shade of red, so fast, that Shinji had honestly thought that the youthful looking Scotsman's head was going to explode.
"What do ye mean by 'thaw' and 'prep'? All of that was supposed to have been done by the time myself and the boy got here, Missie! Oh, and let me guess, you never installed the adaptors for my exo-shell did you? The bloody 'Commander' didn't want his precious pet Evangelion unit all mussed up, did he now? The adaptors were specifically designed to directly connect to the Eva's nervous system and on-board neural circuitry so to facilitate a real time connection with the exo-shell's neural net! Not to mention actual physical performance enhancement! That Goddamn fool Ikari is goin' ta get us all killed!"
Dr. Gannon was practically shrieking with rage, and the saucer-eyed look of fear on Maya's face, as well as Misato's face, was all the answer Gannon needed to confirm his worst suspicions. Shinji was equally angry, but he didn't want to go taking it out on anybody; well, except the bastard who had most likely given out marching orders.
'Not to mention the SOB who tried to turn me into an emotional wreck', Shinji snarled to himself.
Chairman Keel had seen this coming a mile away. He had warned the both of them that Commander Gendo Ikari wasn't going to install one single upgrade of Dr. Gannon's design because he saw the Evangelion as a last remnant memento of his deceased wife, Shinji's mother, a Dr. Yui Ikari. The Commander treated the Evangelion as if it were something sacrosanct and not to be 'violated' as the Commander had so arrogantly put it, so Keel had told to Shinji. After that comment though, Keel and the rest of the Committee had set Gendo straight, or so they had thought.
When Keel found out about this, he was going to be livid. When Lorenz Keel got livid, somebody always went to hospital...or the morgue, depending on just how angry Keel was going to get. Shinji tried to get his Scottish mentor to calm down, knowing that Emil Gannon had a comparable temperament but thankfully not the sadistic streak, but unfortunately what he lacked in cruelty, he made up for in pure and simple explosive rage.
"W-we're installing your adaptors r-right now, Doctor Gannon. Chairman Keel o-over-ruled the Commander when he found out a couple of hours ago". If Shinji was hoping for some kind of good news to calm down his pissed-off mentor, this was it. Emil Gannon seemed to deflate like a balloon that just had all its air let out, and he looked rightfully abashed. He scratched the back of his head nervously, swearing under his breath, then saying aloud, "Ya know, I pay good money to see top-notch psychiatrists about this damn temper o'mine, but it ain't doin' a lick a good. I am truly sorry, Lass. Its all this stuff goin' on that's put me in a right foul mood, to be sure".
While the explosively temperamental Scotsman genuinely meant what he said, the two Nerv personnel were not so quick to believe him...especially since his face had seemingly morphed into something distinctly not human. As Gannon looked to the other three people in the elevator, Shinji harshly whispered under his breath, "Doc, your face!"
Gannon had this same thing happen to him once before. He had become so perfectly angry as to undergo a physical change in his facial and cranial structure, and both times, he had not felt even a slight muscle cramp. He closed his eyes and concentrated on calming down. He remembered Keel's words about having to answer questions that they simply couldn't answer; well, at least not very readily. He tuned out Maya's panicked, rapid breathing and Misato's orders to drop to the floor and her clicking off the safety to a spare side-arm she had, even Shinji's emphatic pleas to leave Gannon alone and just calm down. In the time it took for the Scottish doctor to calm down, his face had returned to a distinctly human norm.
"Christ in Heaven, please tell me me face didn't look the way I thought it did, did it?" Was Emil's panicked whisper. His answer came in the form of Misato jamming her gun against the side of his face and snarling, "What the Hell do you think, Angel?" She was about to pull the trigger when Shinji jammed his own huge gun against her temple and spoke in a voice that was not of this world.
"Listen to me, very closely, you fucking bigot. What the First Angel did to you, and half the Human race, was terrible, and no one had any say in what was going to happen. SO guess what? Neither did Dr. Gannon and I have any say in our fates! We never asked for these creepy eyes and AT-Fields and all this other crap! We had it forced on us!"
Shinji was not at all happy. Misato had no idea what that would entail, but she really did NOT want to make him any angrier than he already was. What did he mean 'forced on us?' They were altered against their wills? Misato wondered if that were true or not, but if she voiced her doubts to the veracity of Shinji's claims, she was absolutely certain that he was going shot her point blank. He sounded genuinely angry, and from what she initially gauged about Dr. Gannon and Shinji, they both seemed like straight shooters, if not for being a bit on the loopy side. She decided to put her suspicions aside and look into things herself when Shinji snarled at her to make her focus on the present.
"Your so pissed-off at the Angels, that if anyone steps out of your idea of 'human', he or she automatically isn't! We've tried so hard to put a lid on all this creepy crap, but if you want to bitch and whine about it, fine! Go the fuck ahead! Just don't you EVER point a gun at the Doc ever again. If you do, I will consider you an enemy, and do you know what I do to an Enemy?"
Misato slowly shook her head from side to side and whispered, "No, I don't", too scared of the super-powered teenager to say anymore. Shinji smiled a smile composed of razor sharp teeth and not a single squared tooth in his head. He whispered in his normal voice, "You really don't want to know".
He whipped his gun back into its under-arm holster and took three steps back, crushing Misato's spare gun just as easily as Dr. Gannon had crushed her primary side-arm. Shinji kept giving Misato the evil eye, and both Misato and Maya stayed well away from the pissed off half-angel, practically leaping out of the elevator when they arrived at their destination. Shinji humphed as he walked past the two women, both of whom gave him a wide berth, and nervously smiling at Gannon, who looked like he had a head ache coming on, his face in his palm, mumbling under his breath.
Maya was the first to speak up after that bizarre and frightening episode.
"Captain, just what the Hell are those two?" She whispered nervously as Dr. Gannon caught up to Shinji and started talking to him quite sternly about watching his own temper, to which Shinji blatantly called Gannon a hypocrite, though not as seriously as Misato thought he might, but more in a playful dig manner. He also mentioned something about 'haggis', but whatever the comment, Gannon took it remarkably well, though he did smack Shinji in the head in a comical manner.
"Maya, I don't know", Misato began, "But as long as they both do the jobs we need them to do, I think we'll be okay".
Maya looked to her superior quite incredulously at that comment, but then Misato continued by saying, "Well, if they do decide to go ape shit and kill everybody, at least we have some idea of what to expect and act accordingly".
"How do we act 'accordingly', Ma'am?"
"Simple", Misato spoke with hands on hips and an odd smile.
"Yes?"
"Find a nice, dark corner, pray to God for a mercifully quick death, pee ourselves, and hope for the best!" Misato quipped, still smiling, even flashing the 'victory sign'. Maya, on the other hand, loosed her jaw and stared at her superior officer, her left eye-brow twitching in a rather alarming way.
"What the fuck is wrong with you...?" Maya deadpanned.
"I don't really know, now that you mention it!" Misato quipped again, not taking Maya's comment offensively, and still smiling. She now realized that Maya was quickly walking away from her, trying now to catch up to the volatile Half-Angels that had been apparently hired by Nerv to save the world from their big brothers.
Damn, she needed a beer... or something stronger.
The group had, after much shenanigans, finally arrived at the Eva cage for Unit-01. Shinji was checking out Unit-01 for himself before he got in, while Dr. Gannon was talking, rather calmly, to Lt. Ibuki about what his equipment was supposed to do.
The fully automated robotic arms that had been designed by both Doctors Gannon and Carmine had actually been installed in the cage several months before hand, but it was only with Chairman Keel threatening to revoke the Commanders authority permanently that really got things moving. Even before the adaptors were installed, the giant bio-mechanical monster had to go through some rather extensive upgrades so it could actually make maximum use of the enhancements the adaptors would provide. Fortunately, the robotic service arms weren't the only hardware addition to the Eva cage. Exotic looking equipment was arranged behind and above the Eva on either side near its huge shoulders, directly above its head, and two rather substantially large machines were positioned on the walls to the Eva's left and right, with the last one, reminiscent of a preachers pulpit, rising from the floor with its top just emerging from the artificial lake of LCL.
Sections of Unit-01's brilliant royal purple armour, including the shoulder mounts and pylons, had been precisely removed and placed out of the way on enormous racks along the walls, the robotic arms travelling along the lengths of the ceiling via motorized rails built into it, making Misato think of a high-tech department store or warehouse. Giant-scale injector guns – minus the grips and triggers – held aloft by more robotic arms were busy injecting the enormous living war machine with a variety of high-tech concoctions, all designed to augment the Eva's already remarkable abilities, and to facilitate the various upgrades, one of which to Gannon's happy surprise had been already complete.
"Well now, the on-board MAGI support computer that I designed to install into Unit-01 is already installed! A happy surprise, ta be sure! When did ye install it, lassie? Did it right to spec and spot on! Well Done!" Gannon announced to Lt. Ibuki as she showed him her PDA which displayed all of the work the technical and maintenance crews had done installing all the servicing equipment, not to mention using the equipment almost right away by installing the next-gen quantum computer successor to the original computers designed by both Dr. Naoko Akagi, Dr. Ritsuko Akagi's mother, and the younger Akagi herself.
Maya smiled at Dr. Gannon's findings and compliment. He wasn't so bad after all, she thought, just really...unique. She had marvelled at the designs for the on-board version of the MAGI computers used by Nerv headquarters. The whole concept of the MAGI had been overhauled and re-envisioned by the two foreign scientists. Rumour had it that Keel himself had been apart of the team who had created this incredible computer system.
It was like someone took the concept of the MAGI, then stripped it down to its core and rebuilt it from the ground up, expanding on existing concepts, implementing radical new ones, and even allowing for genuine growth and mutation in the force-grown bio-neural net. This one single MAGI unit made ALL of the others seem antiquated and slow by comparison. It took Maya back that they were installing such a revolutionary device into a war machine; it even frightened her a bit. She had never in her entire life, even when working with her beloved mentor, had ever been exposed to technological sophistication of this level.
"Does being half angel", she wondered, "mean your smarter than a regular person?"
It would make sense to her, at least, after reading a comprehensive report on 'The Incident' that had almost killed over a hundred people, but had instead, and quite literally, transformed them. The classified report that Maya had accessed told of the altered people as having so staggeringly massive growth in mental faculties, there simply was no comparison to what they were before. The Captain had read the same report, which was why she was now constantly weary of the two 'Nephilim'. She could understand what happened had not been their fault, but what they were now could still pose a fatal security risk if they ever lost control of themselves. For all intensive purposes, they had become the enemy in at least one sense of the word, and it scared the hell out of her.
While that fear was prevalent, Misato knew that these two unusual guys were, right now, the only chance to get a win in this first round of what had been dubiously named 'The Angel Wars'. Misato wanted to go find the people who came up with these wacky names and classifications and smack them all silly. She agreed with the younger Ikari that giving these 'space monsters' as he had called them, such emotionally and theologically evocative names was going to inspire all the loons to go all 'doomsday cult' on everybody.
She had already heard reports of mass suicides by regular folks who had, as a group, been convinced they had no hope left in this world but that salvation would be theirs in the next. One particular report got her ire up good and proper as it detailed the 'spiritual leader' of one of these suicide groups conning all participants to leave them entire estates to him.
He had them all take arsenic-laced soda pop, but his drink had been conveniently absent of the deadly poison. He had amassed a relatively sizable fortune over night. When authorities caught on, thanks to a surprising smart senior citizen who lost a son to the creep and had infiltrated one of his 'missions', the families of the deceased became incensed. The police never caught the guy because, after the families of his victims had caught up to him, there wasn't even so much as a pinky finger left.
On a related note, the relatives were never charged with the murderous con mans death.
It seemed to the Captain that their was still a shred a good left in the world (as well as comeuppance), and now that they had a weapon with which to fight this powerful aggressor and protect it. She smiled to herself as she quietly listened in to all the up-grades that Unit-01 was receiving at the moment.
The new on-board Magi Mark-2, which would coincidentally augment a pilots natural Synch ratio, their level of connection to the bio-mechanical super weapon, would actually provide real-time strategic analysis of the enemy and provide unbiased advice for how to efficiently dispatch the target. Battle telemetry, enemy movements, analysis of abilities and tactics, patterns in behaviour, all was converted from a highly compressed digital format into a format the human mind could readily absorb and understand. The computer could speed up reaction times, even expand the pilots existing faculties well beyond the human norm, essentially giving their brains quantum-processing level speed of thought, greatly expanded and accurate short- and long-term memory, vastly superior levels of intuition and greatly sharpened instincts, etc.
As the pilot synched with the Evangelion, they would also synch with the on-board MAGI system which would, in turn, augment their connection to the Eva. Basically an exponential synchronization system, to put it simply.
It blew Misato's mind that such a device actually existed; she had even heard - quite hush-hush from Dr. Gannon himself – that the Magi Mark-2 had a very special characteristic...it was directly interfaced, somehow, with Unit-01's core. She remembered his description of the unique power this would grant to the pilot quite vividly in her minds eye, and couldn't wait for the time when it would be deployed.
"The power to trigger the dreaded 'Berserker' ability of the Evangelion...whenever you want to, and to be able to AIM it. To be, quite literally, master of the beast within".
The nasty grin on Misato's face would have worried anyone had they been paying attention to her, but she made sure that she put on a professional face when anyone turned her way. '
'No sense in trying to put a personal face to this. Everyone needs to see a professional, not some angry woman looking for payback...but that is what I am. This is what I WANT. I WANT REVENGE! Now, thanks to Shinji and his shape-shifting mentor, I can finally begin to even the score and fight back for everybody whose lost somebody...I can get some payback for you, Dad'.
As Misato psyched herself up for the coming engagement, Gannon had begun a procedure that was going to give the Eva an incredible advantage. The first of Gannon's bizarre mixtures was what he referred to as a 'nano-assembler matrix suspension fluid'. After the blank look that Misato gave the volatile scientist, he chuckled deeply and gave her an explanation she could understand.
"Ye see, Captain, here's the story. The fluid I just described, which has now been fully injected into Unit-01, is going to help armour the Eva's skeleton. Specially designed nanites suspended in a complex nutrient supplement are going to be taking the large doses of heavy metals we've begun injecting into it, and recombine molecular structures to produce a very sturdy alloy me and the lads back in the U.S. whipped up. When the alloy is ready, it'll be bonded to the Eva's skeleton, making allowances for the pores in the bone marrow centres, allowing blood components to exit the marrow, so not impacting Unit-01's long term, err, health. The nanites themselves actually integrate into the skeletal armouring so they can make real-time changes if necessary, as well as help fuse the armour to the bone itself so to become a part of the bone, to anchor it. The unpredictable is a part of life, so best double-up on everything".
Misato thought she was going to have a migraine.
As incredible as it all sounded, it was also so far over her head with all the science stuff, that she thought her brain was going to overload. She did manage to keep up enough to ask a follow-up question.
"Wouldn't the skeletal armouring make the Eva harder to move. You know, more weight, harder on the joints, less speed?"
Gannon gave her a knowing chuckle. He smiled as he called up a schematic on his digital tablet and began to explain how that problem had been addressed.
"Any other day, Lass, you'd be spot on, but we came up with some wee bit sneaky ideas for dealin' wit dat particular problem before it became one. Now, first of all, we needed to make sure that the cartilage in all the joints could first handle the weight to start. We came up with a bio-polymer, basically a living plastic, derived from the Evangelion's own cartilage itself, so no immune system rejection. Now, this is supposed to give it way more compressive and tensile tolerances, without compromising flexibility. Any other method for joint enhancement, short or putting in an artificial joint, simply wouldn't work in the way we need it to".
"See, the collagen that makes up cartilage, which is both a connective tissue and lubricating feature to keep bones from grinding together, is stiffer than muscle tissue, but more flexible than bone, and even the cartilage tissue of an Evangelion is remarkably similar to our own, but decidedly more durable than our own, simply because of the size of the original life-form the Eva's were based on. Even so, adding metallic plating to even these giant-sized bones could cause rapid and severe cartilage damage. The bio-polymer makes the Eva's cartilage not only more damage resistant in the first place, it will augment its ability to recuperate by a factor of over seventeen times the norm fer this big beastie.
"Normal cartilage doesn't have blood vessels, which means it heals slower than other body tissues. The bio-polymer matrix actually forms artificial blood vessels in the cartilage, then connecting the artificial blood vessels to the Eva's circulatory system, allowing it to make use of the Eva's remarkable healing abilities at the same pace that the others tissues do".
Misato was decidedly impressed with Gannon's work, and smiled herself as she realized he was far from done. He tapped his tablet a few more times and brought up schematics for his new adaptors. The adaptors were surgically installed into the shoulders, biceps, fore-arms, back of the hands, several points on the chest, each and every vertebrae, thighs, shins, and instep of both feet. The adaptors, after being physically fused with the now armoured bones, would disgorge masses of nano-filaments. Half of all the filaments would either mesh and weave themselves into Unit-01's nervous system or connect to each other, allowing the adaptors to communicate with each other in real-time. All the adaptors have primary connections that interface with the on-board MAGI Mark-2, allowing the powerful quantum computer to oversee the connection between the Eva and the new exo-shell it would be equipping.
The other half of the filaments would be playing a different role. Since they were already connected to the other filaments, that was one less function they needed to perform. The remaining half of the filaments were in fact long chains of remarkably power nano-machines integrated into one another, essentially creating a muscle-fibre simulating robotic device than would operate the same way living muscle did. The filaments would essentially mesh with the musculature, and by doing so, make the Evangelion up to sixteen times stronger!
All of these incredible breakthroughs, and the speed with which they were being installed into the purple behemoth astounded Misato. She could only hope that these same breakthroughs could get a kill for their side in the Angel Wars. She was shaken from her thoughts as when she heard Shinji excitedly called out to Dr. Gannon.
"Doc! The skeletal enhancements are done, and the adaptors are now integrated. It'll be about a minute for full neural net-webbing and musculature augmentation to finalize. Actually, make that about thirty-five seconds! Damn, I love this stuff! I can't wait to get out there and kick some ass. HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHA!"
As Shinji broke into a maniacal cackle, both adults felt beads of sweat run down the back of their heads, nervously smiling at Shinji's antics. The crews simply shrugged and went about here business like nothing was out of place or unusual; then again, considering they were fighting 'angels' for the sake of humanity, using giant cyborgs as weapons, piloted by teenagers (apparently crazy ones, but what teenager isn't a little nutty), so who were they to say what was normal and what wasn't?
"Can we please get back to the task at hand?" A deep voice boomed from above.
All sense of play disappeared as Nerv's supreme commander finally made his appearance, slowing panning his view around the cage from the prinbow box above, not liking what he was seeing being done to Unit-01 in the slightest. While he no longer had any control of what changes could and could not be done, he would not simply sit by and let some idiot foreigner destroy his hopes of reuniting with his beloved Yui again. He almost snarled as the numuerous robotic arms began replacing Unit-01's dismatled armour, replacing it from where it was taken from and welding it back together, leaving not even a seam or mark to show any kind of work had been done, all of it polished to a mirror shine. All of the tubes and cabling attached to the Eva were disconnected and swiftly returned to the equipment they were attached to, no longer needed now that the core work had been completed; the on-board Magi System would handle the rest.
One day, Gendo swore to himself, he'd have all of Gannon's trash taken out of the cherished Evangelion, and then he'd deal with the platinum-blonde ass himself. He caught his sons eyes, hoping to cow the boy pre-emptively, but the sight of his sons alien eyes openly unnerved the usually cold and stoic man. He sneered as Shinji spoke up, "Unit-01 has been upgraded as per Chairman Keel's instructions sir. Clear to proceed?"
Whatever response Gendo could have planned for, this was certainly not it, not even close. Shinji's response was focused on the task at hand, all business. Gendo had expected everything from a timid introvert to a loud and boisterous extrovert; not a calm and unassuming young man with those bizarre eyes. He recovered quickly from his surprise and confusion, barking out, "Evangelion Unit-01 is to sortie immediately!"
"Well, its about bloody time!" Dr. Gannon mumbled under his breathe as he checked his tablet again, seeing that all of Unit-01's enhancements were now finished and were now connecting to the on-board MAGI-2. System checks were occurring at a break-neck pace, being halfway done already. By the time the Evangelion was loaded onto the launch catapult and sent on its way, system checks would be done and all of the new systems would come completely on-line.
Shinji had opened a vacuum-sealed bag he had been given by Gannon, which contained the specialized operations suit to be used by all evangelion pilots, the 'plug suit'. Shinji's suit was predominantly blue, with white shoulders and upper body plating, what looked like stylized white greives on his legs, and with matching guantlets on his arms. The whole look of the plug suit had a more 'body armour' look to it than other plug suits did, denoting the possibility of even more high-tech tools that Dr. Gannon came up with to help Shinji do his job. Shinji whipped off his long coat and quickly slipped out of his shoulder holsters and passed them to a mechanic who had been roped into playing 'butler'. Shinji climbed down from the evangelion and quickly jogged down the catwalk and out of sight as he changed out of his normal clothes into this suit.
Just when Shinji came back into sight, there was a thunderous BOOM that reverberated throughjout the cage and sent the whole place to quake. A support beam along the ceiling, along with some of the ceiling itself, came loose and plumeted down. Tech and mechanics alike jumped into the LCL lake to avoid being crushed; Gannon threw up his AT-Field around Maya and himself, debris harmlessly bouncing off the honey-comb patterned energy field. Shinji did the same, but he need not have bothered.
There was suddenly a sound like metal being torn and twisted and Evangelion Unit-01's enormous arm shot up out of the LCL like a bullet, blocking the majority of the heavier debris. Shinji had instinctively ducked, but when he looked up, he saw the Eva's huge arm raised above him like a great shield.
He smiled warmly at the save and whispered, "Thanks, Mom", quietly enough so that he went unheard by all. He straightened up, and was able to reach up and affectionately pat the armoured limb. He ran to everyone to make sure they were okay, noticing Maya's deer-in-the-headlights look at what Unit-01 just did, all without power or a pilot. He was glad that everyone seemed okay, and with a nod from the good Doctor, he jumped up to the huge shoulder of the Evangelion and climbed into the open Entry Plug and sat down into what Chairman Keel had dubbed the 'Throne of Souls' and tried to get confortable.
The locks in his suit slide into the ports in the seat with oiled ease, clamping solid with a sound disturbingly resonate of a heavy pump-action shot gun being cocked. The wearable quantum computer that was his plug suit booted up in seconds, and soon was connected to the on-board MAGI-2, which itself was now on-line and running through system checks. A component of Shinji's suit that really made it stand out from other suits on the outside was a holographic display visor - connected to the main suit through a USB cable - which actually projected system stats right into his eyes without obscuring his vision. He could feel a cold-water splash-like sensation in his head, and most importantly felt his senses begin to expand outward and through the huge bio-mech and all its sensory systems.
As Shinji's mind and the revolutionary bio-quantum computer began to interact, and both began to connect to the Evangelion, Shinji checked the status of all of the up-grades; the skeleton armouring and bonding was finally complete, the adaptors were now fully connected to the on-board neural net and living nervous system equally and fully on-line, and both were now perfectly interfaced with the MAGI-2. Every single thing that had been done to ready Unit-01, at least for right now, had been done. Shinji had talked with Dr. Gannon, who was now on the hunt for the actual exo-shell; it was in Japan, it was in Tokyo-3, and more specifically, it actual was on base. Now they just had to pin down where on base it was. Shinji had a sinking feeling that his loathesome parent had simply ordered the exo-shell dismantled and stored its parts in different areas of the base.
Chairman Keel was going to put two rounds in Gendo's head to be sure. Shinji just hoped that he'd be there to see it; or, even better, the one to do it. Shinji had found out from Keel all of his so-called father's dirty dealings and doings; he even found out about his role in Second Impact. Shinji hoped that his father would survive the Angel Wars, just he could put him out of the worlds misery himself.
He felt the soul within the Eva recoil somewhat at his angry and vividly dark thoughts, but Shinji calmly explained to it, or more precisely, to her, that Gendo had caused so much damage, to the world, to peoples lives, and to Shinji and practically the whole Ikari family with what he did. He knew about Gendo's plan to try to reunite with Yui, who now was a part of Unit-01, and vowed to stop him. Death was one option, but Shinji wasn't about to kill his own father just to settle up; he understood how bad those vengeful thoughts were, but after what gendo did to him, he reasoned, how could he not wish the wretched man harm?
While the spirit of Yui Ikari was not one bit pleased withj how dark her son's mind had become, she also saw so much good that had been tarnished by horrible memories and so much emotional and psychological pain. She was glad that Shinji could, for whatever reason, not synch with her with a percentage of 400%, because if he could, while avoiding fully being absorbed by Unit-01 himself, he would be able to connect to her deepest, darkest memories. If that happened, she might as well die completely, because Shinji would absolutely reject her and everything to do with her.
She found she could interact with Unit-01's new equipment directly, but only somewhat. She found the new equipment extraordinary, but something odd caught her eye. Yui found several folders in the master directory detailing schematics for the new systems, which were to be used by the self-repair system, something code-named 'morphix'. While that sounded quite intriging, Yui discovered something rather unnerving, and if she still had a stomach, it be doing flip-flops; there were schematics for Shinji's plug suit in a particularly prominant folder. She further explored the contents of the folder and discovered that in fact Shinji could easily max-out the 400% synch ratio needed to merge with Unit-01, but his plug suit has specially designed limiters that kept him from breaching that terrible threshold.
Yui learned of her son's extraordinary enhancements, and how they came about. She almost screamed in horror despite lacking any way to make an audible sound of any kind, at what had been created, even accidently, and prayed to God that somebody was using their common sense and got rid of the potentially catatrosphic Frankenstein mix that had been created during this so-called 'Incident'. How could any scientist in their right mind not see the tremendous harm this 'hybrid material' could cause. As she continued to peruse the files, she found a surprisingly small file for something supposed to be in themaster directory. She opened it, but found it to be hand-penned note digitally scanned to a file. What the note said, however, concerned her quite a bit.
It simply read: "I know what you did to that boy, to your husband, to the entire human race. You will suffer for it when this conflict is concluded"
"P.S. Go fuck yourself!"
Yui had no idea what to think about that. One the one hand, she was greatly frightened that someone knew of her plans for the future, but on the other hand, what sort of juvenile would write that vulgar warning note?
Dr. Gannon sneezed so loudly, he made everybody in the command centre jump. The long-haired Shigeru Aoba handed the Scottish scientist a hankerchief as he sat down at his station. Dr. Gannon sneezed again into the hankerchief, and after wiping his nose, grumbled "...the Hell was that? I haven't had the sniffles since I was a lad".
"No worries, Doc. My mom once said that it means that somebody is thinkin' about you", Shigeru responded. Dr. Gannon smiled at the quip, then turned to the massive holographic main display screen that dominated the forward wall of the command centre which showed Unit-01 being loaded onto a transport elevator that would take the armoured titan up to street level where the Angel was, for what ever reason, simply standing in an intersection, its lanky arms crossed over its grotesque chest like it was waiting for someone or something and wasn't very happy about it in the first place.
"What the fuck is it waiting for? An engraved invitation?" Shinji's sarcastic question went unanswered as Unit-01's support frame was finally locked into the elevator, the mag-lev coils whining up to sufficient charge to launch the huge mech on its way. The entire bridge crew were similarly curious, even more so when the they noticed the Angel tapping one of its clawed digits against its arm, as though it were becoming impatient and its huge bony shoulders rising and falling as though it were heaving a great sigh.
Shinji looked at the video images holographically displayed on the inside of the plug a skance and grumbled, "Eager for an ass-kicking? Happy to oblidge, you over-grown bastard!" He focused his eyes ahead as the bridge crew ran through the check list before deployment
"Preparing First stage: Activating System. A-10 Nerve linkages connected"
"Approaching borderline in four...three...two...one...borderline achieved".
"Prepping second stage: initiating LCL ionization. Setting Plug depth".
"Second stage successful. Plug depth set. Preparing Third stage activation".
"Ready for third stage activation in three...two...one...full activation successful. Synchronization holding at...uhm, what the Hell?"
Maya had been the one to make the unprofessional comment. Shigeru and his colleague Makoto Hyuga looked over at Maya's console to see what had made her respond like that. Shigeru responded by whistling loud and long, while Makoto was incredulous, "Okay, now that is impossible!"
Shinji's synchronization level was well over 300%.
As everyone stared at the synch ratio, then at Shinji's smirking image, Gendo couldn't help but stare bug-eyed at the same synch reading on his own console. He ever so slowly stood to his feet, his veneer of calm and control going right out the window. He now realized just how powerful a pilot Keel had made his son into, and also realized how far from human his son was, as Shinji's alien eyes were softly glowing, every vein glowing with a electric blue light. He winked at his father as he took notice of the commander, and waved at Gendo's immediate subordinate, Kouzo Fuyutsuki, Deputy Commander of Nerv. Shinji had learned from Keel that the Deputy Commander was actually not only trust-worthy, but a genuinely likeable fellow. Shinji hoped he made it out of this fight in one piece, because he wanted to talk to Fuyutsuki about his mother and how he had mentored her so long ago (and why the Hell he never stopped his mother from marrying a bastard like his dad).
Misato addressed Shinji, all traces of flirtation and joking absent.
"Pilot Ikari, are you ready to sortie? How's Unit-01 holding up?"
"Ready and eager, Ma'am! Let me at 'um!"
"Good to hear, Pilot. All systems are green! Okay..."Misato paused for dramatic effect, completely unable to keep it professional at the last moment.
"EVA LAUNCH!"
Shinji felt himself being pressed into his seat by the G-Forces exerted on the Eva by the Mag-Lev elevator. He had actually ridden in a fighter jet before, as a away to prep him for the G-Force that he'd be slammed with. He'd actually enjoyed it then, and he still loved it now. He could feel a powerful adrenaline rush as he readied himself to face the Angel, but suddenly he felt a very familiar sensation. He felt as though someone who had been changed like him was nearby. Okay, not nearby, per se, but in the general area, and getting closer very quickly.
He also keep hearing something that sounded like radio chatter, but he couldn't hear anything over the noise of the Mag-Lev. When the elevator hard jerked to a stop, giving Shinji a small case of whiplash, for which he mouthed off about immediately, as well as threatening the designers virtue, Shinji got a very clear listen to the radio chatter. Misato was arguing with a particularly loud American, who Shinji recognized immediately.
"Listen to Me, you whack-job yankie! You absolutely cannot flyer a mega-carrier plane over a civilian population centre! Change course or we will shoot you down!"
The American responded in a gruff bass-rumble that sounded older than the owner appeared on screen. The face was that of a man in his late twenties, almost ghostly pale skin, rusty red hair, and a ruggedly handsome face, finished with a mischievious smile that he was certain was getting Misato flustered.
Shinji's already unnaturally pale skin went completely white as he heard what Dr. Joseph Carine said next: "Darlin', that actually sounds like a heap of fun! Hope your gunners got good aim, cause here I come! Hey Shinji, give that ugly sonuvabitch a working class ass-kickin'!"
Carmine concluded his transmission with a savage roar of "YIPPIE-KIYAY, MOTHER FUCKER!" harking back to a beloved action movie of his from the eigthies.
"Jesus H. Christ, He's gonna do it!" Gannon practically screamed as he realized his American counterpart was just as crazed as he remembered. He hoped Shinji killed the target before his looney American mentor started another world war.
As the entire command centre began to panick as the enormous airplane began to swoop in, Shinji saw the Angel uncross its arms and look down at something near its feet. Shinji ignored Misato hasty command to kill the enemy and zoomed in on the ground right by the Angels huge left foot. What he saw made his blood go cold.
A pair of police officers were shooting at the Angel as they tried to escort a family of three to safety. The Angel seemed to consider the fleeing humans with curiousity, then Shinji felt his heart seize up as the black flesh that was visible through the Angel's bone mask seemed to crinkle up, like when someone smiles quite widely. Its eyes narrowed in a perverse kind of mirth, then snapped wide open as they flashed a bloody red.
"NNNOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
Shinji's anguished cry made everybody freeze and they focused on what the magnified image on screen now showed them; a small crater and a tiny scattering of what used to be people were now littering the ground. Shinji saw what was left of a young child's corpse splattered against the murderous alien's ankle like a grotesque play on a cartoon gag. His eyes were now so huge, Misato and the bridge crew all thought they were going to pop out his skull entirely.
"Oh, God! Shinji! Those people..."Misato began to say, but she couldn't finish through small sobs that escaped her lips. Shigeru and Makoto grimaced at the sight, and poor Maya fell out of her seat to the floor and outright vomited. Dr. Gannon felt he wanted to charge out of base, run up to street level and tear the abomination apart with his bare hands.
He needn't have worried about it.
The beastial roar that followed was so loud, it scared everyone to attention and drew their focus away from the barbaric act perpetrated by the monstrous being. Everybody sucked in a huge breath at what they saw.
Shinji's face had ceased to be human, more resembling what Dr. Gannon had morphed into. His eyes now burned with a savage red light, his mouth a den of razor sharp teeth, and tears could be seen at the corners of his wicked eyes, the visor removed and thrown aside. Shinji, or whatever he had turned into spoke in an otherworldly growl, just like the one he had used with Misato. There was one key difference though.
He was enraged.
"You like killing people you Goddamn space monster?"
There was no way to mistake the murderous look of intent of Shinji's monstrous new face.
He roared his challenge for all the world to hear.
"TRY KILLING ME!"
Evangelion Unit-01 seemed to croutch down as though it was tired, but Dr. Gannon noticed something that made his blood go frigid in his veins; brilliant white light was beginning to seep out of Unit-01's upper chest area, right where the MAGI-2 had been installed. Gannon had hoped to perform more testing before they deployed the aptly named berserk system, and since the MAGI-2 used the pure First/Second Angel hybrid DNA to grow its bio-circuitry, there was really no telling what the unique power of the hybrid DNA would grant to the quantum bio-computer installed in the titanic war machine.
Gannon hade never wanted to develop a system for actively triggering the dreaded berserker power, but Chairman Keel had been unusually inflexible. He now realized he should never have used the hybrid DNA to such an extent in the bio-computer, becasue its unique power had suddenly began to affect Unit-01 in ways even Gannon had not foreseen.
Going from a very lithe, almost boney physique to a Herculean physique was one such example.
The entire Evangelion softly radiating that colidascope energy field was another.
Taking off like a rocket, destroying its cradle with the force of its take-off, and smashing the ugly behemoth it faced with so hard an ungodly powerful pile-driver of a punch that caused what passed for one of its now-two heads to explode were several more examples.
As the purple war machine snapped the bindings on its menacing mouth, it too roared a roar of unadulterated rage, its own teeth reminiscent of a Tyranosuarus Rex's teeth then the squared human teeth Gannon thought it would have. The angular tooth-shaped mouth plates made the coonstructs savage snarl look even more menacing, its hateful glare all the more profound. It straightened to its full height as its opponent went flying well over many of the buildings that had not yet been lowered into protective bunkers.
It completely missed them in fact.
That should not have happened.
What did happen was the nightmarish creature stopped in mid-air, righted itself, and faced Unit-01, and then did something no one would have believed it could do.
It audibly spoke aloud.
"Well, now, that was quite the start! Shall we play?"
It spoke calmly and with genuine amusement, even arrogance as it regenerated its shattered second face. It crossed its arms again in an arrogant show of fearlessness even as Shinji chuckled wickedly in his terrifying other voice.
"You want to play, asshole?"
The two monstrous titans readied for another go, and then suddenly sprang so fast, even Nerv's high-speed camera's almost missed it.
"Let's Play!"
Author's Notes: Well, sir! This one was a hum-dinger to get out, especially since my computer died when I was almost done righting this chapter in the first place! Anyway, I hope everybody enjoyed this chapter. To those who did, give me a shout! To those who didn't, please give me some advice on what to fix for next time! Get ready for "Round One, Part 2: Play Time of The Gods". Later!