Disclaimer: NGE and all related characters and scenarios are the property of Studio I.G. And affiliates. I own not one thing except for original characters and scenarios, so please don't sick your lawyers on me!
Now that that is out of the way, let's enjoy "Travels of The Black Ship Part 2: The Journey Begins, So Does Pizza!"
Misato was amazed at how much alike the command centre back at NERV headquarters was compared to the new assault ships bridge; there was one big difference, though. Where the commander centre at headquarters was deep, the bridge of NERV's new assault ship was long. It was like someone had taken the command centre and compressed it to a half of its normal depth, but then they stretched it out to three times its length. It was like being inside of a high-tech gymnasium, it was so big. Another big difference in comparison to headquarters was five levels instead of three. You had the Commander's chair right at the back, which by the way looked like a cross between a metal throne and a fighter pilots chair. The next level down had thirteen individual work stations, each with touch screen-controls, physical controls and holographic screens.
Beneath the flooring of that level was an array of six Magi-2 style quantum computers. There were arrays of eight such computers beneath the third and fourth level; Even more beneath the last level. The sheer amount of computing power gave Misato pause, even though she wasn't a computer engineer or a scientist like...other people. Each operations levels also had a single recessed weaponry control console situated almost exactly dead centre. The Master Weapons Console on the second level could slave all of the ships weapon systems to itself in case the other console – or their operators – were disabled. The general shape of the bridge was kind of different too; the walls angled out to about a third the length of the bridge and then angled back inward the rest of the way. The shape reminded her of an old-fashioned coffin.
"Great", Misato thought, "now I'm conjuring images of death even before we get this crazy road trip underway. Way to build confidence, girl".
As Misato tried to put those grim images out of her head, the doors to the bridge all opened at once and the selected crew, which included headquarters 'bridge bunnies', began pouring in and quickly taking their seats. The Commander and Deputy-Commander entered through the door on the command level and the Commander sat down while the Deputy Commander took up his traditional position at Gendo's right hand. The Captain turned to both men and smiled.
"All crew present and accounted for sir. We await your order to launch".
Commander Ikari stood to his feet and addressed the bridge crew.
"Begin final system checks and prepare for ascent! We put a stop to this assault from outer space on our terms! If the Angels wish to change the battle filed, then let us join them there!"
The newly assembled bridge cried with a resounding, "Sir, Yes sir!" and set to work.
"Closing all exterior hatches and pressurizing all compartments!"
"Activating artificial gravity systems and inertial dampeners; structural integrity generators to maximum!"
"Power plants one through thirteen to maximum output! All power systems calibrated! Main propulsion on-line and awaiting input!"
"All systems are green! The ship is ready to depart, Commander!"
The Commander smiled confidently as he address Captain Katsuragi.
"Captain, the light is green. Take us out!"
Misato grinned mischievously at the Commander's go-ahead and turned to address the bridge crew. She laced her fingers together and popped her knuckles. She even worked her neck a bit. The Commander and Deputy-Commander looked a bit worried as they looked at each other, hoping that the good Captain wasn't going to take the wheel, so to speak.
She did something even worse. She walked down a side-stair to the level below her, made the assigned pilot vacate his seat and physically took the controls. As everyone began turning ghostly white, the Deputy-Commander turned to Gendo, looking for all the world like he was literally going to die of fright and softly whispered, "I've always loved you".
The Commander turned around aghast, punched the Deputy-Commander in the stomach, then the face, and began hopping up and down on the old man like he was a trampoline. Unfortunately Misato took no heed whatsoever of the savage elder abuse going on and began angling the huge ship upward, slowly increasing speed as she did so.
To the observers outside, The ship not only began moving, but also slowly but gradually picking up speed. The glowing circular rings along the ventral fuselage of the ship denoting the anti-gravity engines began glowing brighter and brighter as the sharp electrical humming they gave off steadily became louder and more piercing. The ship began to angle upward as the anti-gravity lifted the artificial leviathan higher and higher into the air. The ground crew had the good sense to order an evacuation considering that this particular manoeuvre was supposed to be saved for when the ship was out over the ocean by at least a hundred miles.
The Commander began angrily yelling at the captain to level out the ship and take them out over the ocean. What she did instead permanently scarred people for life; she took out her sun glasses, flicked them open and put them on her face, and slammed her open palm on the control the would activate the ships fusion drives, a powerful speed boosting feature that would allow them to get to the moon in the span of several hours.
Word of note: fusion drives are only to be used outside of Earth's atmosphere. The reason became crystal clear as the resultant shock-wave completely vaporized every single window in the Tokyo-3 international airport and severely damaged several buildings surrounding the airport. The one bit of silver lining on this dark cloud was that both the air port and the majority of the city had been evacuated to the emergency shelters since the Fifth Angel began its orbital bombardment.
Everyone was pinned to their seats as the huge ship streaked into outer space. Thankfully the ordeal ended as quickly as it began, and for the bridge crew, minus an ecstatic and soon-to-be-deceased Misato Katsuragi who was hooting and hollering like the crazy person she was (the jury just returned the verdict on that case), it wasn't a moment too soon. The bunnies were now a tangle of limbs, their eyes spinning in their sockets and their hair sticking out due to incredible static electricity build-up on the bridge, another result of using the fusion drives in an atmosphere. The remaining bridge crew either peeled themselves out of their seats and gave the good Captain withering dirty looks or peeled themselves off the floors and walls.
As the Captain began to realize that her little bit of fun had been anything but that for everybody else, she saw that the Commander and Deputy-Commander were missing from the Command level; not so. The two men had been spun, flipped, tossed and thrown about when the Commander's seat had come free from its mountings. As they raised their heads to level murderous death glares at Captain Katsuragi, the bridge crew promptly explained to her their displeasure at her short-lived romp, using such sophisticated methods as boots to the head, using her as a trampoline, a punching bag, and a door-mat respectively.
Commander Ikari nodded in approval as the Captain was properly disciplined, though he did wonder about the use of the rabid ferret though; where in the hell were they hiding that?! And why?!
As the bridge began to recover a sense of civility and professional decorum, Deputy-Commander Fuyutsuki was flipping off the smoking ruin that was Misato Katsuragi as she was being removed via gurney, and the bridge bunnies were now sporting hair styles reminiscent of a 1980's heavy metal band and particularly sour dispositions. The main doors to the bridge swished opened and an equally discombobulated Shinji and Rei flew onto the bridge and demanded to know what happened.
Shinji swore up another storm, which was rather normal for him, but Rei was quite surprising; she looked openly angry and ready to deck somebody, her arms crossed across her chest and tapping the fingers of one hand against the other arm. She and Shinji had been in the process of getting into their plug suits to begin their zero-g training. Shinji had at least gotten the bottom half of his suit on, while Rei was fully suited up. Shinji though had an assortment of bruises and contusions while Rei was conspicuously absent of injury.
"Rei has incredible reflexes and self-control, not to mention she was already locked into her control throne when Misato decided to play space cowgirl with the ship". Upon closer inspection, Gendo did notice quite the substantial bruise developing on Rei's forehead, which she was quick to explain, "Unfortunately for me, I had a PDA with me in the entry plug and it was not secured during the Captain's...episode. All that jostling around caused the PDA to be introduced to my skull a total of seven times".
She went on to continue with "and I now have my first headache; I believe the proper response is 'this sucks'".
As everyone on the bridge suddenly realized that Rei used surprisingly everyday use language, they were also immediately comforted by the fact that Rei was actually upset about something and being vocal about it; she was just a normal teenager after all. Well, as normal as Rei could be with sky blue hair and ruby red eyes. She massaged her forehead as a way to relieve some of her discomfort but it wasn't working so she requested to go to the med-bay to get checked out and maybe get some headache medication.
"You have permission, Pilot Ayanami", the Commander told her simply and decided to take stock of any injuries and damages that Captain Katsuragi may have caused during her short, chaotic romp and deal with them immediately. He then addressed Pilot Ikari before getting back to work. "Do you require medical attention pilot Ikari?" Shinji simply shook his head no and also asked to leave, but so he could make sure the Eva's hadn't inadvertently been damaged.
As both pilots were dismissed, Commander Ikari took out his wife's secret journal that Dr. Gannon had given him. He had poured over it again and again, trying to find something in it that would tell him that it was falsified, that Yui hadn't simply married him and produced a child with him just for the sake of some bizarre plan based upon some twisted sense of maternal hope for her offspring's future. He had discovered that while Yui had genuinely cared for him, what else he had discovered turned his stomach viciously. He had learned that Yui had planned to create a child that would bring about mankind's end, but also potentially a grand rebirth where that child would, in a very literal sense, become God and guide this new Eden according to his will. While Gendo could understand the part about granting ultimate freedom to a being that was, essentially, incredibly wilful, he didn't understand why she wouldn't want to join with him forever, that what HE had thought of as the end game was the final goal, not some hyper-idealistic "perfect world".
Every time he opened and read her journal, Gendo Ikari was made to discover that what he had always thought and believed about his beloved was becoming less and less true, if not completely proven false. He had raged in the privacy of his opulent apartment back in Tokyo-3, he had raged in the Evangelion Prototype Disposal Site and even in the relative peace of the artificial forest within the Geo-front. There were many a time the past few weeks after the revelations of the journal truly sank in that Commander Ikari visited NERV medical to treat his severely injured hands.
He decided to forestall reading that damnable book and simply tossed in onto the control console in front of him,rose from his seat and walked off the bridge, requesting that vice-Commander Fuyutsuki take over for him for a while. At the Vice-Commanders question as to where he was going when the ship had just gotten under way, the Commander answered that He was going to go get some lunch! He couldn't think straight on an empty stomach!
As the Commander stalked off the bridge, Lt. Maya Ibuki, who was trying to get here hair back into a half-sensible arrangement,softly quipped that the Commander was human after all. She soon wished that she had never spoken at all because the Commander's angry grouse came back to her with, "I heard that!"
As the Commander left the bridge to get some grub, he had no idea that he would be eating with a "guest". Shamshel, Fourth Angel and Daughter of Adam was sitting in one of the commissaries leather lounge chairs, her long legs curled over one of the arm rests, with a large pizza box of all things nestled in her lap. She was in plain sight of all the people there but they paid her no heed as she was using her newly acquired powers of illusion to render herself invisible to their limited human perceptions. She could knock over someones drink and the dimwit would either think that they had been clumsy and knocked it over themselves or that someone close to them had done it. She could swipe a food item right off their plate and they would either mistakenly interpret that had not gotten the item after all or that it had been taken by someone.
Now, she could still hide herself in the air-ducts or storage rooms, but she tired of hiding and decided to be bold. She'd ambush that murderer Rokubungi at some point and then she'd use her powers of illusion to sabotage the ship piece by piece so that when it got to the moon, her siblings could swat this oversized metal eyesore with minimal effort. As she began going over the finer details in her head, she delighted in the taste of this savoury human called "pizza". She was going to miss the senses of taste and smell, but after mankind was exterminated the Angels would leave this sad universe behind when they recovered and restored Father to his full glory.
Oh well.
At least for right now, since she and Sachiel were the only ones to assume the form of man, that meant all kinds of tasty goodies for her and her brother!