Forbidden Designs

by Brax The Great

The power of Adam. The Power of Lilith. Two halves that if reunited would bring about the end of the world as we know it. Very true, but in a way that no one saw coming. Read & Review please! reviews will inspire me to get chapters out faster!

9. 4th Period, 4th Angel, 4th Child

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the property of Studio Gainax, its respective creators and so forth. Suing me would be a waste of your time and mine since I am dirt poor.

Author's Notes: Shinji begins attending Tokyo-3 First Municipal High-School after showing off rather sophisticated shape-shifting abilities and meets an angry young man known as Touji Suzahara (by the way, I just realized that I forgot to include how Ritsuko was rescued from Keel's tender care; I won't be giving anything away with my usual info dumps, so I hope you enjoy the mystery!)

Shinji Ikari was standing just outside of the main gate to his new high-school, sunglasses firmly in place and long leather coat blowing in the gentle breeze. It had been a long week of preparing for something that, initially, seemed so mundane. That was where the fun was, though. Shinji had never had a normal life, and now he was going to do something that most young people his age dreaded of doing: He was going to school. Misato had driven him after he had settled his few things away at his apartment early that morning, far too energized to sleep.

He was still coming to terms with the fact that he was now living on his own, no adult supervision. He had actually entertained (very happily so) the thought of living with the purple-haired beauty. She had insisted that he room with her (as in share her apartment; he would have his own room), and had promised to keep things as far away from romantic as possible. Shinji had respectfully - and sadly – declined her invitation. Even if he had been sharing the same building with her, it was still too close. He couldn't bear the thought of losing control and hurting her.

He'd kill himself first.

As Shinji let that particular portion of melancholy fade into the background, He noticed that there were a lot of pretty girls giving him an appraising eye. One young lady licked her tongue across her pearly white teeth, a lascivious smile threatening to split her head in two. Shinji tilted down the sunglasses he wore enough to wink at her mischievously, greatly entertained by how she jumped when he gave her a good look at his unusual eyes. He pushed his sunglasses up his nose and calmly strode into the main building, kicking his heels at one point, and snickering like a loon.

After finding his assigned locker, he changed out of his biker boots into the school regulation sneakers provided and stored away his coat and book bag, grabbing the required books for his first class. He suddenly felt a great many eyes on him, and then came to a stark realization. Everybody was staring at him. He had tribal tattooing on his left arm, which was half-bare thanks to the short sleeve t-shirt. Everybody seemed rather nervous, and Shinji really was dumb-struck as the possible reason popped into his head; everyone thought he was with the Japanese mob!

Thankfully, he had a solution!

He became confrontational!

"Yeah, I have tattoo's! So?"

"Um?..."

Shinji noticed a pretty young thing with her hair done up in pig tails with her hand up. 'Well, at least somebody remembered their manners!'

"Yes darling? And you are?"

"I'm Hikari Horaki, Representative for Class 2-A. A pleasure to meet you!" She bowed graciously, and seemed very genuine about that, as well Shinji was glad for the small piece of info since Class 2-A was his assigned homeroom, but when Hikari noticed Shinji's surprised expression, she got the hint.

"Oh, it's not your tattoo's that has everyone nervous, its, well...how really pale you are!"

Shinji felt like slapping himself when he realized he had forgotten to try adjust his pigmentation, or if that didn't work (Shinji wasn't quite willing to blindly let his new ability do all the work in case it decided to conk out on him), slap some make-up on. When he had met Rei Ayanami for the first time, he was surprised by how naturally pale she was; Well, he had reasoned, she is an albino! He, in his excitement, had forgot to put on some make-up to make himself at least have the proper skin color and tone. His ghostly white skin had already made him even more of a gossip topic than the enigmatic Ayanami, and he had just walked through the door!

"Damn, and me without my tanning lotion! I knew I should have caught more rays back in the States!" Shinji joked. He had meant for the joke to deflect from his condition. It worked. What surprised him was how well.

"DUDE!" A tall, lanky young man with not-quite regulation length blonde hair and a long sleeve shirt on called out. Shinji could see a hint of tropical sun shirt underneath the regulation top. "I went to America last year for my summer vacation! It rocked !" he wildly gestured with the 'rocker' hand-signs, "I got this cool tattoo there, so don't worry about your ink, bro!" He rolled up his right sleeve to show a curvaceous surfer girl with chestnut curls down to shoulders standing on a beach holding a surf board looking back over her shoulder as a high wave was coming in.

"Sweet ink!" Shinji exclaimed as the 'surfer kid' walked up to him and extended a hand. "The Name's Shinji Ikari, bro, what's yours?" Shinji responded. The surfer kid answered with a cheeky grin, "Kenji. Kenji Carmine Nakamura! At your service!" Shinji's smile vanished into an expression of slight surprise, but mostly confusion. Kenji answered with a laugh and said, "Yeah, odd name I know. My Uncle's family name is Carmine"

"By any chance", Shinji interjected, "Would your uncle's first name be Joseph? He was an American..."

"Army Ranger?!" Kenji squawked in surprise.

Kenji looked Shinji up and down, then suddenly exploded with laughter as he sprang forward and scooped the wildly surprised Shinji in a crushing bear hug. As Shinji flailed his arms and legs like a crazy person (because he was now absolutely sure he was being attacked by one), the mortified and angry Hikari Horaki was yelling at Kenji to drop the poor boy this instant. Kenji stopped his mad twirling and began looking around. Some students looked mortified themselves, some even scared, while others seemed resigned to Kenji's crazy behaviour, muttering something about "crazy Americans".

Kenji then looked at Shinji and carefully placed him back on the floor and back up a step or two, sheepishly scratching the back of his head.

"Sorry", Kenji muttered "My uncle is this awesome dude, and, even as a little kid, my mom would tell me stories about all of the adventures my Uncle went on while he was in the military. A few years ago, I learned that my uncle had taken you in when you were just a little boy, 'cause your Dad up and left you when your Mom died. I thought, 'my super cool uncle is always lookin' after folks, even when their not family! That rocks'. I wish I could have met you sooner".

"This may sound kind of creepy", Kenji went on, "but I always wanted to have a little brother. I know, you were raised by Uncle Joe, so you'd be a cousin, but I always thought of you as my little brother".

Shinji had no idea what to say to that, but he smiled and clapped Kenji on the shoulder.

"Well, 'Big Brother', I think we ought to head to class or we'll be late!"

Kenji bear-hugged Shinji again, and now had the Class 2-A Rep smacking him rapidly with a paper fan across the back of the head.

The bell had sounded and the three realized they were all going to be late and took off like shots from a gun. They made all made it to class just under the wire; Hikari gracefully stopped by her desk and sat down carefully, Kenji leaped over several rows of desks and crashed into his, flipping it over onto him and the arm of the desk nailing him in the groin causing him to swear like a sailor and his classmates to wince in remorse - One classmate is reported to have grieved, "Oh my God! That poor lady!" - and Shinji skidded into his desk and flopped down into it, just as the bell signalling classes starting rang and their teacher walked in the door.

"RISE! BOW! SIT!" Hikari ordered the class as per ritual for greeting their sensei. The class was just about to sit back down when they all suddenly realized there was a clomping noise mixed with what sounded like a metallic tapping sound. They soon realized that the sounds were from their new sensei's footsteps. The class looked up as a whole and got a very good – and startling – first look at their new sensei.

He was weird to say the least.

He wore shiny black leather boots that clomped with each step, accentuated by the jingling of the spurs attached to them. Inky black dress pants and matching dress vest with a cream-colored dress shirt and string bow tie, a long leather trench coat much like Shinji's and a very wide brimmed black cowboy hat completed the ensemble. He strode to the board, picked up a piece of chalk and wrote his name in elegant English script and then again below in Japanese Kanji.

The Class of 2-A was now introduced to their new sensei, Joseph Michael Carmine.

Shinji's eyes all but exploded from their sockets when Dr. Carmine took off the cowboy hat, tossed it onto a near-by coat rack, followed by his long coat. He sat down on the edge of the desk, staring at each and everyone of the stunned students that made up Class 2-A with his huskie-like eyes, his almost ruby red hair just as exotic as his ghostly white skin.

"Howdy, Y'all! I'm your new sensei for this year. Joe Carmine is the name, I hail from America as my goof-ball nephew in back will attest", he cheerily greeted and the entire class turned as one toward said goof-ball who by the way was waving his arms like a marijuana-stoned moron, "and Mr. Ikari near the back can further verify".

All eyes were now on the unnaturally pale young man who had taken off his glasses to show he had eyes just like his sensei. He had a sinister smile on his face and was flashing the 'victory' sign. Dr. Carmine spoke again, "I used to be in the army..."

"THAT'S SO COOL!" Screamed out a freckled kid in the back with sandy hair and glasses. He had a camcorder out and was now mere inches from the startled Carmine who had jumped off the desk, tripped and fell square on his rump. To say he was mildly upset would have been like saying Adolf Hitler had been a somewhat mean person.

"When did you join the army? How old are you? Did you ever kill anybody? What kind of missions were you sent on? Who were your team mates? Did you travel to Middle East? What kinds of guns did you use?" Kensuke Aida spoke at motor-mouth pace, which further aggravated the furious American.

Carmine flipped to his feet, walked over to the window, opened it, checked down below and found an open dumpster half-full of garbage. He walked back to the boy, one Kensuke Aida, who was being shouted down by the class representative for his disrespectful behaviour, grabbed the kid by the scruff of his neck and pitched him out the window where he landed in the dumpster, squealing like a girl from departure to arrival.

After checking to make sure the boy alright he turned back to his shocked and shaken class and roared, his accent almost comically thick, "YOU WILL RESPECT MAH AUTHORITAE!"

Every single student in the class was stunned and shocked, their eyes bugging out of the sockets. Carmine checked on the Aida boy and was relieved to see him squirming around in the dumpster looking for both his glasses and his camcorder. He snickered as he said, "Nice landing, junior", before turning back to the classroom of horrified teenagers who most thought their new teacher was going to throw them out the window next.

"Oh, he's fine! The garbage broke his fall!"

Every single student face-vaulted.

"Now, where were we?" Carmine asked his now comatose students. "Kids?"

After Class 2-A's students woke up - and Kensuke climbed back in through the window (why he simply didn't use the stairs no one even dared to ask, and how, nobody even dared contemplate) – class properly got underway. Despite being a complete and utter psychopath, the students found that their new sensei could make even boring subjects fun, and subjects that were difficult or hard to grasp were made easy to understand because Carmine-Sensei could explain even the most convoluted and abstract concepts in terms everybody could get. He was a fun teacher to have, even if was a bit on the unstable side.

Kensuke had just met his new hero! He felt it was an honour to get thrown a window by an actual military man! (Yikes!)

Shinji had worried that Dr. Carmine had killed a classmate, and the Nephilim man had only been a teacher for a few minutes! Thankfully the rest of the class and the next several classes went by without too much craziness (though Shinji almost jumped out of his skin when Dr. Carmine dropped several subtle hints that the official cover story for Second Impact was a giant load of bullshit, and even proposed an easy at-home experiment as homework to test to see if a meteorite crashing into earth at near light speed would result in an event like Second Impact or something else!). Shinji had to try to talk to Dr. Carmine about blowing the official cover story! He, personally, couldn't have given a flying fuck, but The Commander would flip his Amish-bearded lid!

Not to mention the realization that giant aliens blowing up Antarctica would unsettle more than a few people.

He was just about to raise his hand and question Dr. Carmine's theory in a way that made it sound like an actual question about the homework experiment, but the bell signalling the end of the period blared, and all the students began filing out. Shinji was clapped on the shoulder by Kenji who asked him if he wanted to hang out for a bit. Shinji decided why not, there was still time to talk to Dr. Carmine. Shinji noticed that Rei Ayanami had been present in class today; she was staring out the window as though lost in thought. Shinji noticed she still had her arm in a sling and one of her eyes covered in bandages. He sidled over to her, Ayanami turning toward him even though he had made no sound or greeting.

"Pilot Ikari?" Ayanami's voice was a ghostly soft whisper, which made Shinji smile like a devil because he thought it was incredibly sexy. His smile vanished in an instant though when he realized that each and every one of his classmates was now gawking at him. 'Aw, pud fucker!' Shinji swore mentally as Ayamani had unintentionally blown his cover as an Eva pilot. As questions, lewd propositions, and adoration were heaped upon him, he never noticed a tall, tanned young man wearing a track suit glaring daggers at him with utter contempt.

It was now fourth period and Shinji had a free period. Kenji was with him and they both had convinced Ayanami to join them; Shinji licked his lips at having such delicious company as the designated 'First Child' and couldn't wait to try to 'thaw' the schools so-called 'Ice Queen'. Meanwhile, a couple of girls from class were sneaking around behind him, trying to covertly follow him, but wearing stiletto heels (what in the Hell?!) and having long silky platinum blonde hair and vivid green eyes kind of made it hard to hide among a school of almost entirely Japanese students.

Not to mention they were terrible at it.

They were giggling away, sneaking glances and smouldering looks at him and Kenji. Kenji wasn't nearly as slow as Shinji had initially thought him, as he had noticed the girls even faster than Shinji did. He had been pretending obliviousness like a professional spy! Shinji and he chuckled when they both realized they both had the two girls pegged from the get-go, and neither had suspected the other of knowing. Shinji looked back over his shoulder and caught the girls with his eyes as they had (rather ineptly) tried to hide behind a tree, but had picked a tree far too thin to be of any use. They looked around and, as they realized they were caught out, demurely approached the two boys and actually curtsied. They both folded their hands in front of them and spoke simultaneously. What surprised Shinji – other than how gorgeous they were – was that they neither spoke English or Japanese; They spoke Greek!

"Παρακαλώ μας συγχωρήστε για την ακολουθία σας! Ήμαστε μόνο περίεργοι!"

Kenji looked at the twins girls askance and asked Shinji what they said. Shinji ignored the question and addressed both the girls.

"Το Hey, δεν ανησυχεί για το! Το Curiousity δεν είναι ένα κακό πράγμα, αλλά θα μπορούσατε να έχετε πει ακριβώς γεια. Εν πάση περιπτώσει, ποια είναι τα ονόματά σας;"

Shinji looked at Kenji quickly and said, "Their speaking Greek. Thankfully, I'm fluent".

He turned back to the girls who gave him their names.

The one on the left said, "Alexandra" and the one on the right said, "Ambrosia". Next they spoke together, but this time they spoke English when they bowed their heads and proudly said, "We're the Tatopoulos Sisters!" They spoke almost at a whisper though when they said next, "We are very sorry for snooping!"

Kenji spoke up in English before Shinji could and said, "Hey, no biggy!" Shinji had been surprised by Kenji's skill with English, but then considering that his uncle was American, it wasn't such a stretch. He was about to ask Kenji who taught him English when an angry voice yelled out, "HEY, NEW KID!"

Everybody all but jumped out of their skin, the yell was so loud. They all turned toward the source, which was the tall, glowering young man that Shinji had noticed out of the corner of his eye when he had first entered class. He was being trailed by the crazy kid with glasses and freckles that Dr. Carmine had thrown out the window, looking rather nervous, but surprisingly in good spirits otherwise, as he was excitedly panning his camcorder over the lovely Tatopoulos sisters. Kenji quickly went to Shinji's side and gave him a hushed but heated warning.

"Shinji, watch out , man! That dude is bad news! Name of Touji Suzuhara, one of the schools resident jocks; actually a nice guy, most days, but ever since his little sister got hurt in that big fight a couple weeks ago, he's been like a bull in a China shop. He's picked fights with guys in the higher grades, and WON EVERY SINGLE TIME! He's got a hair-trigger temper and skills to match. Watch it with this guy!"

Touji Suzuhara strode up to Shinji and Kenji, giving Kenji the sign to beat it, which he promptly did. Kenji had a feeling that Shinji would be just fine, since he was practically raised by his beloved uncle, but he was still worried. Touji was giving Shinji the evil eye and grabbed him by the front of his uniform shirt and hauled him forward until the two were eye to eye. Shinji smirked at the wanna-be bully, not trying to provoke him, but getting a reading on him. A quick look at the inside of Touji's mind showed him a deep love for his little sister, Mariko, and why he was so angry: the girl had been hurt when she had got away from her older brother; debris had fallen on top of her from when Shinji piloting Eva Unit-01 had been thrown into that office building that hadn't retracted into its bunker due to faulty hydraulics; it was a minor miracle she was still alive.

Shinji felt a great swell of sorrow for the guy, and also realized that, yet again, he had caused innocent people harm. If he hadn't been so angry and kept his focus, not to mention just listened to everybody's advice and pulled back for a minute, he could have attacked the Angel with an upgraded Eva that had all of its power core reactor shielding. He should have just done the job right and killed it quick instead of jerking around.

He was snapped out of his melancholy, however, by a fist colliding with his face, knocking him flat on his back. He shook his head and started to get up when a fist roughly closed on the hem of his shirt, hauled him to his feet and he was punched in the face again. The Tatopoulos Sister both shrieked in alarm and fright as Touji socked Shinji even harder on try number three. He thought about how Touji's little sister had been hurt, and how he'd react if a family member he cared about had been hurt like that, because some cocky punk didn't do his job right. Touji began yelling at him.

"HOW DOES IT FEEL, ASSHOLE? HOW DOES IT FEEL TO HURT PEOPLE, TO MAKE PEOPLE MISERABLE?! YOUR JUST AS BAD AS THOSE FUCKING SPACE MONSTERS! I WAS SUPPOSED TO LOOK AFTER MY LITTLE SISTER! THAT'S A BIG BROTHER'S DUTY, TO LOOK AFTER THOSE WHO COME AFTER! BECAUSE OF YOU...BECAUSE OF YOU...I SCREWED UP! MY LITTLE SISTER IS ALL BUSTED AND BROKEN BECAUSE...BECAUSE...!"

Touji started to hit him again.

As Shinji's thoughts swam and bounced about his mind as he took the beating, he realized something that had been staring him in the face, but his own melancholy had kept him from seeing it, something so innately simple and direct.

Shinji whipped out a foot and hooked it around Touji's jaw, throwing the surprised boy off of Shinji, who shot tot his feet, his face twisted into a portrait of anger, surprising his attacker. The boy then got both of Shinji's fists straight to the face, knocking out several teeth and actually fracturing his jaw, knocking him flat on his back. Shinji levelled so poignant a glare at the boy, the boy froze despite his spinning head and harshly aching face. Shinji snarled at him, and hoisted him up and snarled in his face, which was already beginning to swell.

"You have every right to hit me, to hate me, but get this through your block head, numb-nuts! Yeah, I messed up, but so did you! I should have done my job right, like I had been trained to do, and you should have been keeping a better eye to your little sister", the mentioning of which spurred Touji into attacking again, but this time Shinji got him in an arm lock and threatened to break Touji's arm if he didn't knock it off. "We both screwed up royally and now we're both beating ourselves up over our mistakes. Guess what, moron?! Put that rage into something useful! Aim it where it belongs! These things that are killing people? They started the mess, so try beating them up! You don't have an Eva? The big ass robot I drive? This whole school is one big recruitment centre for Eva pilots!"

That particular statement made everyone gathered go still as statues.

"Become an Eva pilot like me, and lets kill these things together! Lets stop this mess before it gets any worse! Before somebody else little sister or brother gets sent to the hospital, or worse!" As Shinji finished his tirade and let go of Suzuhara, who looked very much shocked and deflated, Shinji noticed Rei talking into her cell phone. She quickly hung up and pocketed her cell phone before saying, "An Angel has been detected. We need to report to headquarters".

Just before Shinji started to follow after Rei, he pulled something out of his pants pocket and tossed it to him. The Jock caught it one-handed and looked at it; it looked like a metal chalk holder, but with a clear panel on one side showing a bright blue fluid inside and a plunger switch at one end.

"It's a medical device", Shinji explained. "Press it against your jaw and press the switch; it'll hurt for a bit, but it'll fix you up good as new!" Shinji turned and began to jog after Rei, just as the Angel alarm klaxons began to wail. Shinji stopped for a moment as he hear the hiss of hypo-spray he gave Suzuhara. The young man was in quite a bit of pain, but he clamped his aching jaw tight and let out no more than pained grunts. Suzuhara and he locked eyes.

"You and me, sport? We'll finish this later", Shinji vowed with a growl as he took off after Rei again at a run.

Shinji had just finished putting on his plug suit and was now racing toward the Eva Unit-01's cage. He was going to do the job right this time and no fooling around. He'd follow orders and perform like the professional he was trained to be. He almost ran past the elevator to the cage, but skidded to a halt, grabbed the frame of the elevator door with his left hand and pulled himself inside, just as the doors closed behind him. He hit the button for the Eva cage and caught his breath; well, tried to catch it, since he ran all the way from school, all but smashed through the front gate check point, and ploughed over anyone unfortunate enough to be in the hallways when he flew through toward the locker room to get his plug suit.

He had no idea he could run like that! He had even scooped up Rei Ayanami and instead of the girls weight slowing him down (she was startlingly light, making Shinji idly wonder if the girl was eating right) and actually picked up speed! He only slowed down enough to pivot, gently deposit a stunned and shaken First Child onto a bench near the front gate, and then physically smashed through like it was wet tissue paper.

The one failure in his highly dramatic entrance was that Rei actually slide along the bench, hit a large open-top garbage bin, flipped over and flopped face first into festering trash. To say she was displeased would be like saying the Black Plague was a very bad disease. Rei slowly raised her head out the trash can, snarling like an animal, hissing like a cat, and one would begin to wonder if she was really human or not as her eyes were glowing a murderous crimson. Her potent fit went unnoticed as the lid of the trash receptacle (which had been thrown off when Rei hit it) came back down on top of her head and promptly knocked her out.

Shinji had managed to calm his breathing down to a rushed intake from his high-speed marathon asphyxiation. He was now leaning against the elevator rear wall and trying to get his head clear for the task at hand. While he was having some success with that, he still had this sense of dread since he entered headquarters. Something about this Angel attack was different from the first, and it hadn't even started yet! Shinji had a strange and unnerving sense of being watched; he knew about the hidden security cameras in the halls, the offices, labs, and elevators, but this was something else entirely. It was like someone...or something, was in the elevator with him.

Shinji had seen stealth suits make a person physically invisible, but there were always tells, though subtle. This was more like a ghostly presence rather then a physical person concealed through advanced technology. It was giving Shinji the creeps on a whole new order.

When the elevator came to a stop, he shot out the door the moment they had slid open enough to allow him to slip through. He raced toward the door to Cage-07 where Unit-01 was being kept; after much hard work and serious remodelling, it was completely overhauled so it could accommodate the incredibly transformed Unit-01. Shinji smiled as he whipped into the room and looked up at the bio-mechanical behemoth. The maintenance crew actually had to knock out an entire wall and deepen the floor to make it fit! Not so much because it was so much wider, but because of radical proportion changes and new external gear that force the work crews to completely rebuilt the locking and clamping mechanisms that held Unit-01 immobile.

As Shinji climbed onto the boarding platform, that paranoid sense of being watched seemed to sky-rocket and it was driving him crazy. He tried to zero in on it, but every time he came close, the feeling would abate, and now it seemed to be coming from everywhere all at once. He had a bad feeling that the angel was somehow probing Nerv headquarters psychically like he could, but if they could do that, why wait until now?

Shinji had no answer to that troubling question as he boarded the entry plug that was to be loaded into Unit-01. If Shinji had been looking at the door to the cage, he would have noticed a random Nerv technician sneering at him from the shadows, piercing red eyes glowing like torches. The man's uniform jacket was shredded and bloody on the front above his stomach area, revealing skin that looked like someone had taken a large blade to it repeatedly and when that skin healed, it left terrible, ugly scars of angry red that stood out against his milky white skin. The man was a little taller than average height and of a slim but well toned build, and with a beautiful face. He was leaning against the door jamb like he had nothing better to do. He walked away, casually ripping off the ruined uniform jacket and under shirt, glad that there were spares in 'his' locker in the changing room.

As he walked away, the man grumbled under his breathe, "You survived one fight boy, but lets see how well you face Shamshel. She's been looking forward to this!"

He stopped for a minute as he walked away, as dark purple liquid began to seep out of the wall. The liquid moved of its own accord, and had been placed in patches throughout the cage so pinpointing them would be problematic. Where one single patch would have been detected, many smaller patches were dispersed at random inside of the wall panels and electrical system. It had connected to each and every surveillance device in the hallways and elevators leading to the Eva cage and the cage itself.

As gallons of the indigo liquid left the walls through open seems, electrical sockets, and even lighting fixtures, it pooled just in front of the man and flowed toward him. The man felt no fear whatsoever as the liquid flowed up under the hem of his pants legs and into his legs. It took no more than a minute as the living fluid was absorbed, no, reabsorbed into its owner. The man had what he needed and was even now passing on that information to his 'associates'.

After retrieving a new shirt and uniform jacket, he resumed walking the halls. The man, who was in fact not a man at all, began to hum a merry tune and even kicked up his heels. He walked past a young female and glanced her way, finding her most pleasing to the eye. He stopped her and asked if she could show him around; it was his first day here at Nerv; not a lie, bold or subtle. The man he had absorbed had in fact just started at Nerv that day, but because of a train delay, the poor fellow had crossed paths with he who now wore his flesh. She seemed very concerned about what happened to his uniform, to which the man answered, "I got into an accident coming through the gates". Again, not a lie, just not the complete truth.

The young woman had no clue that the surprisingly pale but very good looking young man she had met wasn't even human at all; no instinctive warnings, no ques to give him away. She actually seemed quite smitten with him.

"Ah, yes", Sachiel, once Third Angel and now a Human/Angel hybrid thought, "life as a Lilum was very good indeed!"

The Command Center was just getting initial reports from observation posts that the Fourth Angel had arrived and was making it way toward Tokyo-3 from the sea. When images of the creature were transmitted to the Command Centers huge holographic screen, reactions were varied. While some people tried to keep things professional, others couldn't help but comment on the Angel's hideous appearance.

"Oh Yuck! The fucking thing looks like a giant dildo flying in reverse!" Captain Katsuragi's declaration made everyone on the bridge jump in disgusted alarm. Dr. Akagi thankfully kept things professional. "Please, Captain, try showing some decorum while on duty. We are professionals, aren't we?" Misato actually blew her old college friend the raspberry then turned back to the main screen. The Angel had the appearance of a monstrous, blood red flat worm, but with what looked like a bone mask similar to the Third Angels placed squarely between the two eye spots on its massive flattened head.

As the Command Center crew watched the Fourth Angel approach, the JSSDF began opening fire on the enemy from positions along the banks of the harbour, roads along the hillsides and from the air. They needn't have wasted the ammunition as the Angel's AT-Field deflected everything.

"Jeez, what a waste of ammo! Damn JSSDF jerks just want to blow their loads!" Misato snarked at the scene. "Wait a minute".

A very awkward and very still hush fell over the Command Center like a bomb. Every eye was turned to the now beat red Misato Katsuragi. Of all the people to comment about what she just said, no one expected the Commander to put his two cents in. "Captain Katsuragi", he began softly, "If work here at Nerv has become too trying for you, perhaps you could take up a writing position, perhaps? At one of those adult publications?" Every single person on the bridge fought back laughter as Misato babbled an apology to the Commander at the veiled threat.

"Hey, what's it doing now?" That was Lt. Aoba's question, which brought everyone back into focus. The Angel had stopped in mid-air, and was rearing back, like a huge snake getting ready to strike. As technicians and bridge crew began checking their displays, areas along the underside of the Angel bulged and swelled. Flesh seemed to stretch and harden, forming into nasty looking sharp points. The newly formed spikes weren't just a concern as they were something unexpected, but they seemed to have what looked like long transparent seems along their lengths.

"What are we dealing with here, people?" Captain Katsuragi enquired, wondering what this new trait would mean for the combat situation. As the image tightened on one of the newly grown spikes, Misato felt her skin begin to crawl as the image, as it continued to be enhanced and magnified, began to show hints that each spike was filled was a poisonous looking green fluid...and what looked like dozens, even hundreds of hideous faces staring out with bulging eyes which seemed to lock stares with her, like the things inside the spikes had suddenly detected her presence and looked at her as though recognizing her. She felt an involuntary shiver run up her spine.

"I so do not like the looks of those things! Any ideas? Anybody?"

Lt. Ibuki turned to her. "Ma'am! Those spikes seem to be hollow and filled with some kind of fluid that bears a striking similarity to LCL, but with a much higher PH level, like a very strong acid. Something else, though, is that the Angels own Blue pattern seemed to grow exponentially but also seemed to break down at the same time, if that makes any sense. Lt.'s Aoba and Hyuga have some very worrying results", and she turned to her two colleagues. Lt. Aoba went first, "Ma'am, the Blue pattern didn't break down, it sub-divided".

"What did you say?!" Dr. Akagi jumped into the conversation with a look of distinct worry on her pale face.

"It sub-divided Ma'am. We have no idea what this means; we're still crunching the numbers". Lt. Aoba seemed very reluctant to share his findings all of a sudden.

"Well, crunch faster, damn it! The Angel is practically right on top of us!" Captain Katsuragi yelled. Lt. Hyuga spoke up for his co-worker. "Ma'am...this is the first time we've ever seen the Angels do something like this! We have no idea what those spikes are! Are they some kind of close-range defence system, or just some new physical characteristic? I have no clue!"

A litany of cursing and swearing exploded from the speakers after Lt. Hyuga finished.

"How the fuck does a goddamn space alien suddenly grow big-ass spikes like that for Christ's sake?! Jesus, Mary and Joseph, since when in the name of our Saviour can they fucking do that kind of shit on their own?! Huh?!" Everybody turned their attention to the huge holographic monitor and stared at the Nephilim teenager sitting in the control chair of Unit-01's Entry Plug. He looked incredibly surprised, not to mention blatantly upset, even incredulous. He continued his rant. "First these things start shape-shifting and talking, and developing all kinds of other useful talents, but they needed Transcendence Radiation to do it! The reactor in Unit-01 has all of its shielding this time, so how did the Angel do that this time?! Damn it, I should have just pulled back when Captain Katsuragi and Dr. Gannon told me to the first time! Way to go, Shinji, you fucked up! You..."

"PILOT IKARI!"

Shinji, along with everyone else, all but hit the roof when Commander Ikari roared at the top of his lungs. After all eyes were on him, he quickly continued.

"Yes, Pilot, you made a mistake, but stop and think for a moment! Have you ever considered that perhaps, just perhaps mind you, that the Angels have always had such abilities? That they simply began to employ them because they chose to? The timing was coincidental, yes, but have you ever stopped to consider what these things really are? They are beings from beyond our solar system. They can change and adapt themselves by actually becoming more intelligent, even choosing the form they will appear in. Being able to adapt their physical form to battle conditions is probably one of their basic abilities for all we know! We know next to nothing about their physiology, and we're still surprised when they pull something like this?! In the long run, it doesn't matter if they used Transcendence Radiation to alter themselves or not; what matters is only that we stop them here and now. Now, get your head on straight, calm down on straight and engage the enemy!"

Shinji smiled at his Father's simple advice and decided he was right. Even after swearing to focus on the problem, he kept inventing blame to heap upon himself. Even if these things could adapt themselves however way, they still had to be stopped, and right now Shinji Ikari was the only person who could. He should have followed the same advice he gave to Touji Suzuhara; speaking of whom, he wondered how the block-headed jock was doing, and hoped he wouldn't do anything too stupid.

Oh, how Shinji would have been shock to learn just how stupid his classmate had acted that day. He was going to find out, though.

Touji Suzuhara had never heard of a more brain-dead plan in his entire life! He and his friend Kensuke Aida – resident military otaku and outright whack-job – had somehow convinced the class representative to let hem go to the mens room, but they had an ulterior motive as Kensuke convince Touji to force open the window in the bathroom and crawl out, all so Kensuke could get better pictures and video of the fight with the Angel. After sneaking out of the shelter, they had made their way through the abandoned streets of Tokyo-3, eventually reaching the city limits and heading into the hills. They found themselves at the base of a hill in one of the local parks and decided to hunker down and wait for the anxiously awaited show.

So engrossed were they in the show to come that they never noticed two young women sneaking around behind them. These two girls had learned their lesson the first time and left their stiletto heels behind. Their sandal feet made barely a noise as they slowly crept toward the unsuspecting boys. Alexandra and Ambrosia Tatopoulos had spied the fool jock and his camera wielding friend sneaking out of the shelter and decided to follow them. Alexandra wanted to give that brutish twit a piece of her mind for bludgeoning Ikari while her sister consistently tried to dissuade her from such action.

"Sister, please, I beg of you, stop this at once! We are only going to get into trouble for sneaking out like we did, and it will seem all the more suspicious if we are discovered to be trailing after those two idiots!" Ambrosia begged her older sister, but her sister was unmoved by her sisters plea. Alexandra spoke softly but with firmness born of anger.

"Sister, how can you tell me to yield when that brutish cur attacked Ikari for something that was not his fault? Ikari tried to protect people he had never met, and that thuggish lummox beat him for faults that were his own, not Ikari's! I will not attempt to beat the fool, but oh how am I going to give him a piece of my mind!"

Alexandra would not be dissuaded at all.

She dropped any and all pretence of being stealthy and stormed toward the two unaware boys as they gawked at an enormous door that had initially been concealed by an entire section of mountain side roar open and the mighty Evangelion Unit-01 was lifted into view atop a massive hydraulic platform. Alexandra was taken back by the sheer size of the huge machine, dumb-struck at its incredible scale and wondered how something like that could even stand up straight and not fall over, never mind walk or fight giant aliens.

She was roused from her thoughts when a certain jock yelled at her.

"HEY! LITTLE MISS BLONDIE! WAKE THE FUCK UP AND GET YOUR NARROW PALE ASS OVER HERE! THE FUCKIN' FIGHT IS ABOUT TO START!"

Alexandra and Ambrosia both squealed in fright when Touji had started yelling, but now Alexandra was even angrier at him. She stomped up to the taller boy and slapped him hard across the cheek. She glared at him while Touji's expression was a potent mix of incredulity and anger. If looks could kill, there would be nothing left of Alexandra Tatapoulos to bury. He took slow, threatening steps toward the girl and snarled through clenched teeth, "Do that again. Just try it".

Alexandra would not be cowed. "You think you snarling and barking frighten me, fool? Think again. You treat people like garbage and then expect them not to respond? Wretch! You attacked Ikari for no reason other than you piled the blame for YOUR OWN stupidity onto him. Like he said, take responsibility for your actions and aim your anger where it belongs, you lummox!"

Touji only smirked. "I knew there was something up with you after me and Ikari got into it. You like him, like him, don't ya? Ya see somebody smackin' around your man, and you get all uppity. Ha! I get it!"

Alexandra's face turned a brilliant scarlet at Touji's accusations and was about to retort when someone else spoke up. "Jeez, Louise! Will the two of you pipe down and shut up, how 'bout it? You'll give somebody a headache! Get it on, get it out of yer systems, and get hitched already! An old married couple is quieter than you two knobs!"

Kenji Nakamura walked out from behind a tree, wearing a long leather trench coat over his school uniform and shiny black cowboy boots with matching black hat. Touji quirked a brow at him while the younger of the Tatapoulos girls blushed like crazy. Kenji smiled warmly at Ambrosia while her sister glared daggers at him. She was about to tell the fool to mind his own business when Nakamura pointed toward the bay and simply said, "The show's about to start".

Shinji had powered up Unit-01, and armed all of its weapons. He was going to try to finish the fight quick by using the AT-Breaker missiles that Dr. Gannon had developed. He remembered how much damage they had done to the third angel and decided to instead of ending with a bang, he was going to start with one. He already had a target lock on the incoming Angel and had opened the holographic display showing the entire weapons suite; a handful of seconds later, he had scrolled down to the weapon system of choice, selected it, and activated it and then raised his Eva's large gauntlet-armoured arms. He armed the launchers and turned off the safeties. He smirked as his finger began squeezing the trigger. "Boy are you in for a surprise!"

Suddenly, red alert screens started popping up, and what those screens alerted Shinji to made him squawk in denial. The alerts were something so innocuous but so scintillating poignant he thought a major artery in his brain had popped.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN 'OUT OF AMMUNITION'?! THE LAUNCHERS WERE LOADED BEFORE I WAS DEPLOYED! I WAS THERE, FOR CHRIST'S SAKE! DR. GANNON WAS THERE! DR. AKAGI WAS THERE! WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?!"

Sachiel had never laughed before. He – quite literally – had had no sense of humour, or even the most basic concept of humour at all. One-liners, schtick, sarcasm, puns, riddles, gags, double entendre, all of it foreign and completely alien. Now that he was in human form, however...he was rolling on the floor laughing his hairy new head off at the young Eva pilots priceless reaction to finding out his weapon of choice was completely useless to him!

The secure communications tap he had set up had between a laptop he had purloined and the main external cameras allowed him to monitor the boys fight with Sahaquiel without anyone detecting it! He had also unloaded the AT-Breaker missiles after they had been loaded, manipulating computer records to hide his tampering. Technology could be so useful, if one knew how to apply it.

He laughed as the fools in the command center ran around like poultry that had been decapitated trying to figure out just what the hell had happened! Humour! How lucky these Lilim were! Not only did he now get the core concept of humour, he found it remarkably enjoyable to simply 'get it'.

Case in point: he had walked outside the base for some fresh air finding that the recycled air of Nerv headquarters left a stale, bland taste (or absence there of) on his new tongue. He had sat down on a bench near the front gate to rest for a moment when a strange smell hit his new nose. He scrunched up his face in disgust and turned to the trash receptacle. He heard what he had thought was moaning and looked inside, quite startled to see the half-angel girl Rei Ayanami unconscious in the trash. He blurted out, "talk about 'dumpster diving'!" and was surprised at his own silly joke but yet found it so humorous he roared with laughter, pirouetting like a ballerina, never noticing Rei lifting her head from the trash, a hand against her forehead.

"What happened? Why am I in the – oof!" Ayanami had began to ask, but Sachiel's fist collided with the back of her head, knocking her out yet again. Sachiel realized what he did and made a hasty exit, but not before putting his own 'signature' to Rei Ayanami's current misery.

He wondered just what kind of misery his dear sister was about to visit on the foolish child and his abomination weapon.

Shinji began frantically checking his other weapons to make sure they hadn't been tampered with, and soon found they were in proper working order. While he was quite pleased with that, he also realized that without the specialized AT-Breakers, this would end up a long, dragged-out fight. The only way his working weapons could punch through an AT-Field was if he either completely unloaded all of his solid projectile ammunition with the explosive yields set as high as they could go, overload each and every projectile energy weapons which could serious damage or even destroy said weapons, simply go postal with the entire weapons suite, or even less appealing would be to go hand to hand and try to breach the Angel's AT-Field the old fashioned way: brute force and stupidity!

After careful consideration of all available information and calmly deducing the most eloquent option, he decided on option 5: all of the above! He powered up each and every energy weapon he had, over-rid the safety protocols and powered them up well past their maximum tolerances, clicked off the safeties to all of his projectile weapons, and simply started shooting the moment the targeting computer locked on.

Phased high-speed proton beams hit the Angels AT-Field at near-light speeds, sending it flying backwards as its AT-Field was actually standing up to the barrage, but warping and flapping like the sail of an old galleon during a fierce storm at sea. Heat-seeking missiles and smart bombs pounded the Angel, depleted uranium cannon shells were fired at near-light-speed velocities from prototype rail guns, heavy machine gun rounds from full-auto anti-aircraft and anti-tank guns rapidly peppered the target. High-energy plasma beams and torrents of controlled fusion energy swiftly burned away at the AT-Field.

The Angel decided to try a different tactic from a direct attack, since doing so would simply land it in the same mess it had gotten itself into, and shot straight up into the sky, causing many of Unit-01's weapons to miss. The targeting system was quickly able to adapt, instantly ceasing fire and re-targeting, but not before the Angel did something unexpected yet again. It flipped completely over and launched the huge spikes it had grown earlier high into the air.

If the Angel had meant to distract him with that, it was an idiot, Shinji thought to himself. He kept his focus on the Angel and cursed and swore and roared as Unit-01's weapons relentlessly pounded at the Angels quickly weakening AT-Field.

Shinji never noticed the flesh of the Angels underside rippling and shifting around the S2 organ as it had when the Angel had grown those spikes before, just at the instant that the AT-Field spectacularly failed.

The Field shattered like glass and the Angel seemed to hang in mid-air momentarily before it exploded like a super nova, generating such perfectly intense white light that anyone would have been blinded by it. Shinji was not only glad for a surprisingly easy kill, but also that all of the buildings had retracted into their heavily armoured bunkers before the Angel had arrived. As the down-burst slammed into the mighty Evangelion, it braced itself for the coming impact by quickly crouching down and throwing its arms over its face. Even as it did this, billowing clouds of smoke and flame slammed into the ground with enough force to generate powerful sonic boom shock-waves that shattered and warped sturdy metal plating. Armoured plates were scorched and even partially melted by the intense heat of the flame generated by the explosion. A huge mushroom cloud rose from the harbour area and high into the sky.

Shinji felt his blood run cold as he realized something important, even with the roar of the explosion splitting his ears and shaking him like a toddlers rattle: that explosion was far too powerful for just the Angel being blown up. It should have been cleanly vaporized, not blown to hell with destructive force very nearing an old fashioned nuke or an N2 mine. The only explanation for the power of the blast was a self-destruct. Had the thing wanted to go kamikaze from the get-go? Did it want Shinji to kill it? If so, they why not stay on the ground to maximize damage, why the dodging act, and what was the purpose of those weird spikes?

Shinji was drawn from his internal musings when the proximity sensors went crazy and directed his attention up. He looked up and paled; those same huge spikes were now screaming back towards the ground, their deadly sharp tips seemingly aiming at him. He squawked in surprise as the huge organic projectiles began raining down, punching through concrete, asphalt, and reinforced armour plating concealed beneath the city streets like all of it was tissue paper. Most of the spikes had stopped about three-quarters their length into the streets, while some had hit thankfully emptied-beforehand buildings.

Unit-01 was crouched down as low as its joints would allow, its heavily armoured rump almost touching the road, its AT-Field deployed above it and its arms raised above its head. It now had mechanical shutters on the helmet to protect the eyes, which were now closed. One set of shutters opened slowly, as though Unit-01 was afraid to open its eyes, then the other set. It slowly turned its head from side to side, it AT-Field vanishing silently, then quickly stood up straight, looked behind it, around several buildings and turned back around. It repeated this actions several times and rapidly, like it was confused and beginning to panic. Well, that or having the worlds biggest fit.

Shinji's voice came through over the external speakers.

"Oh, come on now! Mother cock sucker! They all missed!"

Indeed they had, as the closest one to Unit-01 was a seven second walk from where the huge Evangelion was standing. He walked his Eva over to the spike and began prodding it with the toe of his Eva's boot. The spike seemed inert, but suddenly swelled and burst, torrents of a thick, sickly looking ooze swamping the streets. Shinji's Eva hopped away from the slime while wearing a shocked expression on its usually rigid face. It's shocked expression became even more pronounced when Shinji zoomed in on the hissing, bubbling contents; there were dozens, perhaps even hundreds of S2 cores within and each and everyone of them were moving on their own, as though they were swimming in the muck!

"Okay", Shinji hesitantly began, "That is absolutely not a good thing!"

"Shinji!", Misato's panicked voice came through the internal speakers like suddenly scraping ones nails on a chalk board, making Shinji jump and cover his ears. He was about to retort when she screamed, "All those cores are miniature Angels!"

Sure enough, each and every core had generated huge globs of shapeless tissue that quickly took distinctly humanoid shape. The newly born "Mini-Angels" each had six arms and were coloured just like their parent, even the same markings. They had a single pair of legs and pronounced exo-skeletons, making look like they were wearing organic suits of armour. They had crests upon they heads that made them look like they were wearing miniature versions of the Fourth Angel as helmets with the "legs" wrapped around their jaws like straps, but with the forward pair of legs angled around surprisingly yellow snake-like eyes.

Each and every one of them roared like thunder and ran off with cheetah-like speed. Shinji was snapped out of his stupor and began firing his already over-taxed weapons at the legions of Angelic offspring, but only got a handful of them as the others either simply dove for cover or even teleported out of harms way. Several of them actually returned fire, buffeting Shinji's quickly redeployed AT-Field. He swore and snarled at the development, never realizing that one of the spikes had not opened, and had in fact burrowed itself deeper into the road. It had started generating a high-intensity phased plasma field that allowed it to quite literally swim through armour and bedrock alike by melting both with temperatures near that of main sequence stars, but using a powerful AT-Field kept it from igniting the atmosphere. It had one other unique ability; it could completely hide it own unique energy signature within the everyday background radiation of the planets EM field.

Nerv's detection equipment simply were not calibrated for such a thing. By the time the plasma field had reached optimum temperature, it quickly passed through Nerv's many layers of protective armour, bedrock, and anything else that got in the way. It immediately ceased generating the plasma field and simply floated down to the ground after breaching the armour, knowing that the detection system was being deceived by internal sabotage efforts.

Within the Chrysalis, for that was what it really was, Shamshel actually snickered to herself as one of her offspring had successfully teleported into Nerv's medical ward and retrieved the sample of DNA she had requested. She decided to instead of going through a sloppy stage-by-stage evolution like Sachiel had, she'd cheat a bit and use an existing genetic template to give herself a new form. All she had to do was absorb the sample and transform into a more 'appealing form'.

Shamshel and her kin had no concept of gender, nor did they need one initially, but since The Change occurred, they each began to think of themselves as male or female. It did not seem like such a big concern, but yet to each of them it was, as it help to give a measure of weight to their unique personalities. Even mighty Zeruel considered himself male even before The Change, and now that particular self-image was now reinforced.

As Shamshel thought about how such simple ideas could be so powerfully defining to an individual, her progeny thief had returned with the sample of DNA she had requested. It was a blood-bag with a bio-hazard label stuck on it. The progeny simply held it up to Shamshel's Chrysalis and it levitated upward. Long thin tendrils suddenly shot out of a bulge that had grown on the surface of the chrysalis and tore into the sample bag. Every last drop of blood was absorbed, which caused the tendrils to begin to glow with a soft blue light that quickly began intensifying. As the tendrils retracted, Shamshel began to audibly laugh.

At first her voice fluctuated between very high pitches, low baritones and piercing screeches, until it seemed to settle into a smoky, husky feminine chuckle. She dropped all pretences of stealth and allowed Nerv's Angel detection system to pick her up. The alarms in the Command Centre went ballistic, and when the bridge staff had a positive lock on the location, the term incredulous seemed wholly inadequate to describe their reactions.

"Christ on a cracker!" Shigeru screamed. "Where in the frosted fuck did that thing come from?! The Fourth Angel is inside Nerv headquarters!" His hands flew over his console, trying to get sensor analysis on just exactly what in the blue Hell was going on. Maya and Makoto were likewise engaged, and soon the three of them had fairly sussed out how the Fourth Angel had pulled off this little stunt, but that did little good as they had no idea how to repel it. Unit-01 was still topside trying to deal with the Fourth's progeny, but Misato told him to beat a retreat back to base and told him blatantly why.

"Misato, are you kidding?! The Fourth Angel is inside headquarters? Sonofabitch! These little freaks are a glorified diversion! I'm coming back!"

"Shinji, we've activated the city's new defence systems and they seem to be pinning down those 'things' the Angel birthed for the moment. They can manifest defensive AT-Fields but they have nowhere near the strength of their 'mother's' AT-Field. The few we've managed to hit were blown to bits! Don't worry about the Angels kids, worry about the Angel itself!" Shinji was particularly nonplussed to be sure, and he was becoming even more agitated as Shamshel's children began to focus on him again. What made the situation more aggravating again was that the offspring had somehow doubled in mass and had more powerful AT-Fields than a moment ago. Shinji ended up exhausting his physical ammunition and his energy weapons were boarder-lining on overload. Red warning indicator icons kept flashing on screen as the remaining arsenal began to overheat to the point the weaponry was glowing red hot.

Shinji was just about to turn and make a break for it when the ground began shaking. It started off as a mild tremor at first but soon escalated into a proper building wrecker of an earthquake. Roads began twisting and ripping, huge fissures tearing open and general hell was being raised. The ground was quaking so terribly that even the mighty Unit-01 had trouble keeping its footing. As it staggered and tumbled around trying to get a grip on something to steady itself, Shinji felt a great searing pain in the behind his eyes and an mocking feminine laugh bubble to the surface.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Shinji's scream echoed through Nerv Headquarters like an explosion in a confined space. He grabbed his head in agony and lost control of his Evangelion which promptly face-planted into the ground with a thunderous boom. Shinji was still in agony and very much conscious as though whatever was causing the pain was actually keeping him from passing out. He thought he was going to have an aneurysm, the pain was so intense. He kept trying to block out whatever it was that was attacking him, for that was what this was, an attack, but to no avail. As Shinji tried to concentrate through the pain, a huge section of the city's decaying downtown residential block suddenly began emanating a sharp electric blue glow. The bizarre light seemed to filter right through the roads, and now ribbons of said light were wafting up through like some spectral mist. It twisted and snapped, like a living thing trying to break free of confinement. Suddenly, the entire block exploded with a nova-intense flash of light which had now taken on a pinkish tint, making it seem a light purple now.

Shinji suddenly felt such an absence of pain that he almost passed out, it was such a blissful relief. His relief was very short lived as the owner of that terrible power rose through the column of power that had vaporized the residential block. The new arrival was not so new after all, as Shinji's on-board sensors began getting a clearer picture of the being as the column of energy swiftly began to dissipate. Soon, the energy pillar was gone, and as the stars in Shinji's eyes began to clear, he blinked several times as he checked the readings the new arrival was giving off and began wondering if he needed glasses.

His on-board sensors were telling him it was the Fourth Angel rising into the air. Not only that, that Angel had taken on a tremendously humanoid form. What was surprising about the Angel's new form was it was distinctly female; long, curvy legs ending in five-toed feet, a shapely behind, a curvy figure to match, human-like shoulders and arms ending in five fingered hands attached by normal-looking wrists. The differences – and they were blaring – was the deep magenta skin colouration, the long claws tipping the fingers and toes, the external ribs below its shoulders and what looked like a crown-like plate that resembled the Fourth Angel's initial form atop its head. It turned around in mid-air, allowing Shinji to see the rest of it.

He wished he hadn't; not because it was hideous, but because it was startling attractive for a giant extraterrestrial monster. A pair of gravity defying world-class breasts grew out of its chest, correct in placement if not normal proportion; it had a lean, trim figure with excellent muscle tone and a striking lovely face that would have been perfectly at home on a super model; high, elegantly sculpted cheek-bones, heart-shaped face, elegant jaw, straight nose, and full pouty lips that were an inky black, like it was wearing goth lipstick.

What bothered Shinji was just how...familiar the Fourth Angel's new face was. He just couldn't put his finger on it. Unit-01's head was turned to toward the transformed Angel and its eyes were just as wide as Shinji's. The imaging system seemed to develop a mind of its own and zoomed in on the Angel's remarkable bust. It jiggled as the Angel hopped up and down, like it was trying out its new legs.

"I wouldn't mind trying out its new legs!" Shinji lustfully thought to himself as he couldn't help but stare at the lovely giantess the Fourth Angel had meta-morphed into.

As Shinji forced Unit-01 into a sitting position against a heavily armoured bunker, the Angel stood straight up, struck a sexy pose and looked right into his Eva's eye's. The Fourth Angel actually winked at him and did a forward flip towards him. It stopped right at Unit-01's feet and actually knelt down. What reduced Shinji's brain to porridge was the Angel dropping to all fours, crawling toward Unit-01 and then straddling its lap...and then gyrating its shapely hips like it was giving him a lap dance.

"You know, Baby, all I'd need is bottle of beer and a few giant-sized twenty dollar bills and I'd have it made!"

"PILOT IKARI! JUST WHAT EXACTLY ARE YOU DOING?! ENGAGE THE TARGET!"

Captain Katsuragi was perfectly livid at Shinji's overly flirtatious behaviour (not to mention feeling just a tad bit jealous...Shinji was her's after all!). Her indignant scream made everyone in the command centre hit the roof. Dr. Carmine began swearing at her and threatening to "spank her like a petulant child!". Commander Ikari and Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki both chastised her angrily for screaming at such a high volume (Gendo fell out of his chair and Kozo tripped over him). Dr. Akagi had a wild-eyed look on her face as she stared at her old friend, her hand pressed to her heart to stave off an attack. The Bridge Bunnies simply glared at her (they had fallen out of their chairs too). Misato Sheepishly backed up and said, air palming to forestall any further anger, "Sorry! Got a bit carried away! Heh heh!"

Everybody face-vaulted.

Shinji couldn't believe what was going on, but he was drawn from his thoughts when he noticed that he no longer felt the Fourth Angel's weight. He noticed that it was now standing on top of a defence bunker, its arms spread wide, one leg in front of the other, standing on tip-toes. Shinji wondered how it could have moved so fast and how he had not noticed it until now. He got his Eva back to its feet and glared at the Angel on his display. He had exhausted his projectile weapons completely, and going for the weapons locker was risky, but he had no other choice as his energy weapons were in self-repair mode and were locked out until they were ready.

Shinji aimed Unit-01 toward a nearby weapons locked and took off in a sprint. The huge Evangelion slammed its feet into the ground with explosive force with every step, churning concrete and asphalt into a fine spray of dust and powder behind it. The Angel started firing high-speed proton particle shots at Shinji that were more penetrative than explosive, punching nearly perfect holes in buildings and bunkers as Unit-01 deftly dodged the shots, the on-board sensors warning of oncoming fire and predicting where the attacks were aimed.

Shinji was surprised that he didn't hear Misato or Dr. Akagi trying to yell advice or instructions in his ear at the moment, but right now, he really didn't need the distraction so he never paid it much attention. He continued running toward the weapons locker, somewhat mystified as the Fourth Angel hadn't moved a muscle since it started shooting; was it that confident that it believed it didn't have to physically pursue him or attack head-on? Shinji decided to think about it after he got to the weapons locker.

He just made it to the intersection and began approaching the weapons locker when the Fourth Angel suddenly swung around the locker from behind and slammed both its feet into Unit-01's chest, actually cracking its exterior armour and bruising a few ribs in the process; Shinji's ribs actually broke.

Not again!, He mentally swore at himself.

Unit-01 was launched backward by the force of the kick, but the Angel decided to give it a bit more momentum and fired a powerful high-speed proton particle beam from its core. The beam slammed into the purple Eva with super-luminal force, shattering the chest armour like glass and severely burning the flesh beneath. Shinji's agonized scream echoed in his ears, cut short as Unit-01 bounced and slammed off of buildings as it was literally sent flying out of town, leaving a trail of broken armour pieces behind it. The Angel decided then to add even more injury to insult as it shot out a glowing tentacle of pink energy from a glowing eye-like lens under its left wrist which wrapped around Unit-01's neck.

The tentacle stopped the Eva's flight, but if not for all of the skeletal and joint strengthening, its head would have been yanked off, but the synaptic feedback almost fatally separated the vertebrae in Shinji's neck. The only thing that stopped that from happening was Unit-01 getting its hands around the tentacle and hanging on for dear life. Being made of energy, though, the tentacles began to burn into the Evangelion's hand, despite the extra armour.

Shinji growled through the pain.

The Angel snapped around with a sound very much like a gun-shot and using the tentacle around the Eva's neck, literally sling-shot the huge bio-mech clear past the city limits.

The only thing that stopped it from smashing to a far adjacent hillside was the experimental flight engines built into the exo-shell.

The flight engines exploded to life and stopped Unit-01's momentum in an instant, but the sheer suddenness of the deceleration caused the Eva's arms and legs to be stretched back so forcefully, they would have been ripped from the sockets if not for the extensive amount of joint reinforcement that Doctors Gannon and Carmine had worked on.

Unfortunately, it still hurt like a sonofabitch! Shinji's limbs were also snapped backward by the synaptic feedback; they had fared less well than Unit-01's did. They had been savagely yanked right out of their sockets, Shinji screaming in agony yet again.

Shinji snarled through the pain as his plug suit began to shove his limbs back into their sockets. It did it using the built-in strength enhancement gear, lifting and aligning the limbs with the sockets so they could be reset properly. Each limb being reset came with an explosion of pain; Shinji almost passed out, stimulants or not. As his mind fought to stay awake, he registered a crackling in his ears. Great, He thought, My hearings going too. Just fucking peachy!

It wasn't his hearing going, as the volume of the crackling slowly increased, but also there was a distorted voice desperately trying to get Shinji's attention.

"Shinji! Can...ear me? Can you...", The voice kept cutting in and out, but Shinji knew Misato's sexy voice anywhere. He sent a mental command to the communications array to try to clean up the signal; the response he got made him sit up in shock, despite the injuries and pain. The signal was competing with another, more powerful signal. There were two points of interest that made this find so shocking; Firstly, the signal was coming from the Fourth Angel. The thing was jamming communications? Surprisingly smart, Shinji thought, but how would it know enough about the communications systems to jam them?

As interesting a question as that was, it was the second thing that made Shinji's blood run cold: The interfering signal had been attuned to his brainwaves! Suddenly a thought exploded in the young Ikari's mind and he was livid. First he mentally commanded the communications array to increase signal power well past the recommended maximum and had to override the safety protocols. Next, he ordered the computer to begin filtering out the competing signal from the Fourth Angel. He looked to the screen and magnified the image of the Fourth Angel. It looked as though it had stopped mid-stride and had a look of angry concentration on its lovely magenta face, as though...as though something had gone with its plan and it was trying to figure out how to fix it! But there was something else that made Shinji even angrier: the image of the Fourth Angel could still be seen atop the bunker that it had been perched on...and it seemed to partially fade in and out

Misato's voice now came through clear as she tried to communicate with his again. "Shinji! Are you alright?! What the Hell happened? You just started running away from the Angel and it ran after you! Didn't you see it running along the roof tops?!" Apparently not, Shinji grimaced, only now realizing the Angel's game. He looked back to where he had thought the Angel was perched. It was now gone.

Were Shinji's senses being distorted? Were his perceptions being manipulated, and if so, was he really looking at the Fourth Angel, or where the Angel wanted him to look?

"Misato, I think that thing has been messing with my head somehow. I thought the Angel was shooting at me, but it was some kind of illusion. The sounds, sights, the physical sensations were all real, or so I thought. Its not just visual hallucinations, there's auditory and even tactile illusions. I wouldn't be surprised if there were olfactory illusions too!" Shinji was in no mood for mind games, especially not when they seemed this real.

"God Damn it! No wonder! Shinji Dr. Akagi, Carmine and Gannon are all trying to develop counter-measures to this head-job the Fourth Angel has going, but don't worry", Misato smiled wickedly before she continued, "the automated defence systems will keep it off your back".

"But Misato", Shinji worriedly began, "the automated defence systems are pinning down the Fourth's offspring, aren't they?"

"Yes. The anti-personnel and anti-tank class weapons are pinning down the Angels kids". She giggled a bit at Shinji's annoyed look and continued, "I never said one word about the heavy ordnance now, did I?" The angry growl that rose from Shinji's throat sounded more like a giant jungle cats growl than that of an angry teenager. Misato mentally slapped herself and realized she could have been using the heavy ordinance to support Shinji when the Angel started its mind games, but with the shock of the damn thing spawning legions of offspring and somehow burrowing into headquarters itself, she completely let it slip!

The computer-controlled heavy weapons were mounted on heavily armoured concealed turrets that were situated atop elevation pillars that could retract into the ground or be raised high above the city's skyline. The weapons powered up and rose to firing height and targeted the Angel.

Shamshel was still standing in the road, trying to get back into the human boys mind so she could influence him again, but just when she was about to adapt to the strange interference that had developed a powerful force slammed into her left shoulder from behind, completely blowing off her left arm! An instant before the pain kicked in, a rational complaint roared through her head: Where in the Hell did that come from?!

The Fourth Angel got her answer as the rest of the heavy weapons began locking on and firing on her. She raised her AT-Field, but as she did missiles with familiar blue-green contrails came screaming at her. Shamshel had remembered those weapons as AT-Breakers, the weapons that had allowed the human child to best her brother, Sachiel. She dropped her AT-Field and simply ducked under the weapons as they flew at her, but that left her open to all the other ordinance.

Shinji had gotten his Eva into a sitting position when Misato loudly came back on-line. "Shinji, watch it, we've got civilians nearby! There right by Unit-01's left hand!" Shinji whipped his eyes eyes to the left and indeed saw a small group of teenagers near the Eva's enormous left hand. If he had moved just even slightly without knowing they were there, he could have killed them.

Misato had officially gotten herself off the 'naughty' list.

"Shinji, get them inside the entry plug! The defences will cover you!" Shinji nodded quickly at Misato's order and ejected the plug and opened the hatch. He saw the group and realized they were his new friends from school and those two bozo's Suzuhara and Aida. He yelled, "Get your asses up here or you'll be squished!" The assembled group did not need telling again as they scrambled up onto Unit-01's hand and then to a long rope ladder that had been spat out of an open panel just below the plug socket. As they each climbed in, they swore or squealed in indignation as they were immediately soaked by the LCL.

"Holy shit, we're gonna drown!" Suzuhara yelled as he tried to hold his breathe.

"Awwww! My camera's ruined!" Aida wailed as his beloved video camera became swamped.

"Your wretched camera will be the least of our worries, idiot! Shut up and let Ikari work!" Alexandria shrieked at Aida as her sister tried to get her to calm down. The only one not losing their cool was Kenji, who looked like he was having a blast.

Shinji sure as shit wasn't and gave them all a death glare that spoke very clearly: shut the fuck up or I'll come back there!

Back in Nerv HQ, Misato looked sideways at her old college friend and asked, "Hey, Rits?"

Ritsuko hated that nick-name – it made her sound like some kind of cracker! - but she ignored her impulse to suplex Misato and answered, "Yes, Captain?" She enunciated the word to hopefully get Misato back to using professional language. It failed spectacularly.

"I thought you'd kick up a stink at allowing civilians into the entry plug. So, why are you so cool about it?"

"Oh, lass, that be a simple one", Dr. Gannon's voice spoke up from the console. He had been monitoring things from his private lab in Central Dogma. "There's a wee gadget that Shinji has that'll allow him to filter out extraneous neurological impulses".

Misato responded to the information with culture and sophistication: "Whaaah?"

Shigeru piped up as Dr. Akagi looked like she was going to cook one off of the back of Misato's head and made things surprisingly clear.

"All those extra people are creating what we call 'thought noise', so normally having more than one person in the plug would interfere with the pilots connection to their Evangelion. The filter device that Dr. Gannon mentioned will basically block out all of the thought noise so only Shinji's brainwaves are picked up by the Synchronization system".

"Oh. Well, why didn't you say so in first place, Ritsuko!" Misato had turned to her old friend with an exasperated expression then turned back to the main monitor.

The expression on Dr. Akagi's face was one that promised unholy vengeance upon the purple-haired Operations Director.

Shinji smiled as he booted up the Psi-Filter system and opened a small panel in his control chair in front of him. He pulled out a metal frame-work head set from which a handful of wires led to the control chairs inner workings and placed it on his head. It was designed so it could fit over and lock together with the neural clips Shinji wore in his hair. After it was firmly in placed and all connections locked, Shinji activated the device.

What should have happened was that the thought noise of all of the extra bodies in the plug would be filtered out by the head-set, while simultaneously Shinji's brainwaves would be amplified; this meant a partial release of the inhibitors that kept him from achieving a 400% sync ration. A risky move any day of the week, but a move Shinji desperately needed to take.

What actually happened was that Shinji received a powerful electrical shock that made him convulse like someone having a rather terrible seizure. Every muscle snapped to attention, his body going rigid with the voltage coursing through him. If it had been anyone else, they would have died. While the voltage didn't kill him, it left him twitching and boneless as he the current suddenly shut off and Shinji passed out hard.

"What the...what the fuck just happened?! Shinji? Hey, Shinji, you okay man?!" Kenji tried to rouse the unconscious pilot but with no luck. As the extra occupants tried to wake Shinji up, Suzuhara noticed that the Fourth Angel was now coming toward them with slow, languid steps, like it had all the time in the world. As Touji thought about it, he realized it was time to get off his ass and do something.

"Get 'im outta the chair! I'm drivin'!" Touji's shouted command made everyone freeze a moment, but Kenji and Kensuke swiftly complied, helping the unconscious Ikari out of the command chair – after finding the safety clamp release switch - and Touji quickly sliding in himself.

"Excuse me, but just what exactly are you doing, young man? You haven't been selected as an Eva pilot, Unit-01 isn't calibrated for you, and you have no training!" Misato angrily barked from the holographic screen to the left. Touji gave her the stick eye before firmly sitting back into the control chair and fiercely gripping the control yokes.

"Geez, Lady! Why is it that all the fine women have to be so damn bitchy too! Just reprogram this thing or whatever! Its not like we have another choice here! Our main guy is down, and I think if this thing had an auto-pilot whatever, you'd have turned it on by remote the second Ikari got zapped! Tell me how to drive this thing already!"

Misato had to do a quick ten count – and then repeat – before she even thought about responding. While she could see the boys point of view, she really didn't like his attitude! Bitchy?! Her?! Really?! That brat was going to hear it from her! That was, if they got out of this fiasco of a sortie alive.

Ritsuko gave her a look that asked, "Its your call" and Misato responded with a single head nod. She quickly relayed her instructions to the bridge staff. "Alright, since we are rather pressed for time here, initiate remote emergency recalibration of Unit-01! Dr. Gannon, implement whatever countermeasures you have developed to block the Fourth angel from tampering with the pilots mind immediately! Don't wait for my approval, just hit the damn switch when your countermeasures are ready!"

"Aye, Captain Katsuragi!"

"The Eva actually does have an auto-pilot feature, but we haven't tested the system yet, and I'm absolutely not having a repeat of the last 'system test', are we clear?" She looked to Dr. Gannon's alien visage displayed in the top left of the the huge holographic screen as he nodded to her. She nodded back and continued. "Switch the synch systems to a clean profile and compile one for, uhm...by the way, what's your name, kid?"

"Touji Suzuhara, Ma'am", was the clear reply.

"Compile a new synch profile for Touji Suzuhara and load! How's recalibration coming?"

"Ma'am! Emergency recalibration complete! Loading new synch profile now!" Lt. Aoba slammed his finger on the ENTER key was watched the screen as the new settings and synch profile were switched over.

In the Entry plug, Touji felt a greatly disorientating wash of sensation as his mind was being connected to the Evangelion and the Eva itself was connecting to its temporary pilot. Under normal circumstances, the empowering soul would have rejected the pilot and prevented the Eva and pilot from connecting in the first place, even going so far as to shut down the Eva.

This was by far not normal circumstances.

A new soul had been born within the Magi-2 on-board computer system which was connected to Unit-01's core through cybernetic implants, using samplings of Shinji's brainwave patterns, the life amplifying/restoring power of the Transcendence material used in the bio-neural circuitry of said computer, and even a tiny fragment of Shinji's own soul that had been copied by the computer using Transcendence energy and then assimilated into the energy patterns of the bio-neural circuitry itself.

This new soul possessed free-will, the ability to learn and adapt, and the potential to grow and evolve all on its own. It was, of course, also incredibly curious. It examined the mind of the boy who had connected to it and began to examine the depths of his inner psyche. It saw a surprisingly attentive and self-aware young man than people gave him credit for simply because of his outward behaviour and appearance. It saw that this young man had made some rash decisions in his life, which were further aggrieved by feelings of guilt and hurt. The new soul was saddened, even upset by the fact the new boy had attacked its vessel's primary pilot, but was greatly cheered by the fact that this boy was now trying to apologize through useful action. Anyone could say they were sorry, but to truly demonstrate that, you had to show it through action and behaviour.

The new soul connected to Touji Suzuhara with fervour and sub-consciously imparted to him all the training he would ever need. Touji, for his part felt like was more alive at that moment than he had his entire life, felt energized with strength and vigour, brimming with confidence and strange but welcome sense that he knew what he was doing. He was going to beat that over-grown alien bimbo into bright red goo!

The Nerv personnel overseeing Unit-01's temporary appropriation by one of Shinji's classmates were alerted by a computerized voice coming from the speakers of a significant development that would have lasting repercussions for the rest of the Angel War.

"Attention! Attention! Fourth Child Identified! Subject: Touji Suzuhara now registered as Fourth Child. Generating Identification Profile And Updating Active Roster. Generating ID Codes And Security Clearances For Pilot Level. Roster Update...Complete. Identification Profile...Complete. Initiating Automated Plug Suit Manufacture...Awaiting Physical Statistics for Fourth Child".

"Uhm, Ma'am?" A nervous Lt. Ibuki looked over at the Captain as she tried to garner her attention. She needn't have bothered, as Misato soon guessed what Maya was trying to tell her.

"Mother Mary! That twerp has a synch ratio of almost 200%!"

As the rest of the bridge staff tried to analyze just what in the hell was going on, Commander Ikari, Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki and Doctors Carmine and Gannon were having a softly spoken discussion about recent developments.

"Well, this certainly throws the predictions of the scrolls completely out the window. Shinji's classmate has taken over control of Unit-01, and successfully I might add, the Fourth Angel turned into a giant Amazon, Shinji has been taken out of the picture, temporarily I hope, and the fourth child has been identified much earlier than the scrolls ever predicted. The Old Men must be pulling whats left of their hair out!" Fuyutsuki couldn't help but chuckle, but he did manage to keep it down. Gendo was unusually silent, resting back into his high-backed leather chair with his hands steepled in front of his face, a look of quiet curiosity as the two super geniuses conversed with each other rather animatedly.

"Sam Hill, Emil! The shit has not only hit the fan, it has busted through the fuckin' roof, pardner! We knew this kid had the gift, but we never knew he had it like this!"

Gannon could only smile as a thought bubbled to the surface. He knew about Keel's plan of Human Instrumentality, and even how his discoveries had changed those original plans, bu he wasn't sure yet about what the new iteration of the Instrumentality plans entailed, but that was okay. Gendo had his version of a controlled Third Impact, Seele had theirs.

Joseph Carmine had the intention of stopping every version of the murderous plan, but Emil was sure that Gendo had some serious good sense knocked into his head. If not, well...he learned a thing or two from Keel about dealing with problems. Besides, Emil thought, I have MY version of Third Impact to implement.

As Unit-01 kicked to its feet, Touji felt like it was his body doing the work, not the giant mechanoid he was now piloting. He could feel the ground beneath the Eva's massive feet, he could feel a gentle breeze against the Eva's armour. He could even feel the Angel trying to get into his head. Misato had told him about how it had messed with Shinji and that realization made his blood boil! The bitch wouldn't even fight her opponents herself, but use her damn illusions to screw them up!

As Touji snarled in rage, the mouth restraints of Unit-01 snapped with a thunderous boom and the Eva snarled in rage as well, mimicking its new pilot. The mighty Eva took several tentative steps forward, and as Touji quickly got used to it, he sped up from a slow pace to a quick jog. He really didn't care that the Angel could mess with his mind; he was going to mess with its face!

Pilot and Eva roared as one as they charged the Angel, which now had a worried expression on its face as it realized that its psychic manipulation was being rebuffed, and not only that, it was like there were several minds at work, not just one. It didn't matter whatsoever; the pilot would die when Shamshel destroyed the ugly construct. She would be the one standing victorious, not some disgusting knock-off of Father. She dropped into a crouch and tore off toward the Evangelion, intent of bathing the hills in its tainted blood.

The battle was joined again.

Author's Notes: Holy Shit! This chapter took much longer to finish than I originally thought! I'm just glad i could finally finish this thing and get it out to you all who have been patiently waiting for it. I'll be seeing everybody again in "End of the Fourth, Beginning of the Fifth". TTYL!