"Hey, Asuka, you ready to go?" Shinji had just come out of the male pilot's locker room and was waiting for Asuka.
"I'm over here, baka," Asuka called from down the corridor, by the coffee vending machine. "You want anything?"
"No, I'm good," Shinji joined the redhead as they set out for home. It was a week since the last Angel attack, and things had returned to a delicate new 'normal'. Nobody would tell Shinji what had happened during the last attack, all he knew was that when he and Asuka had arrive at the geofront, the alert as over.
As to Asuka... they had just finished a dual sync test in Unit 01, and it had not gone well. Their combined score was slightly less than either one alone. But Asuka appeared happy. Or at least not angry.
"So, what are you planning on for dinner?" Asuka asked. At this point cooking had devolved onto Shinji. Asuka's half hearted attempts were just that, and Misato's cooking rated as a biohazard.
"I was thinking of trying something European, I found this recipe on-line for something called Giviklte kroit, And it looks pretty easy, so I was.." Shinji trailed off as they passed Ina. The white haired pilot shuffled out of a room and turned to go in the other direction from them. She didn't even glance up as the other two teens walked past - she looked like her pet dog had just died.
Asuka frowned as Shinji's head pivoted to follow the other girl.
"So what is this stuff? I've never heard of it before." She drew his attention back to where it belonged, on her.
/\ PoC /\
Inia was just approaching the apartment that had been assigned to her when she felt a familiar presence. "Cryska." She pulled herself more upright, and fished out a half-remembered smile.
"Hello, little one," her surrogate older sister greeted her. Standing with her was Yuuya Bridges, one of the other TSF pilots that Shinji had rescued through the Dirac Singularity. "We finally have some time off after all the grilling, so I wanted to come surprise you."
"And I had to tag along," Yuuya smiled. "Are you doing ok? You look kind of down."
Inia felt something in her thaw at the friendly faces, "I'm fine. It's just the drills are really boring, and the people here are not very welcoming." She really didn't want to talk about Kaworu. She still had nightmares from that. And that was saying something, as she had seen BETA eating fellow soldiers (though never anybody she was close to).
"You haven't made any friends?" Cryska asked. She thought Inia had mentioned some, but her life had been so busy that it was hard to keep track.
"Not close ones." Shinji was another topic she didn't want to talk about. He was barely returning her calls, and she hadn't been able to talk to him since the.. incident. Because he was always with Asuka. "Lets go out for dinner – there's a nice little American place down the street.
"Urg. There's only so much McDonald's you can eat." Yuuya countered, "lets go get some raman."
Inia turned to Yuuya in surprise, "I thought you hated everything Japanese?"
He just shrugged, slightly embarrassed, "Cryska likes Japanese food."
/\ PoC /\
"So how long are you here for?" Inia asked with forced cheer as they sat down at the hole in the wall restaurant.
"We have leave for a couple of weeks, and then we're both going to be inducted in the UN Peace-force as test pilots. They are going to try duplicating our TSFs."
"Just like back home, but without the BETA." That caused all three pilots to sit silently for a moment. Yuuya was the only one who still had close friends in the other Earth, but it was a humbling prospect for all of them that they were now free of the BETA threat. "So how is the war against these 'Angels' coming?"
Inia sighed, "it has gotten strange. Not in the least because of what happened with Rei Ayanami." She took a sip of her coke, "I wasn't there, but by all reports she should have died when her Evangelion self destructed, but a couple of weeks later, she walking around, with just a couple of bandages around her arm and over one eye."
"But don't your Evangelions have an ejection mechanism?"
Inia nodded, "Yeah, but she was ejected under adverse conditions: Her Evangelion blew up behind her. With that sort of knocking about, she shouldn't be up and around a couple of days later. She would be lucky to be on life support in an ICU." Inia found that once she started talking, she couldn't stop. She had gotten used to having Shinji to converse with everyday, so having to go so long without talking to anyone was like a huge logjam of words had built up inside her and was now bursting out. "But Rei has always been a strange girl. I can barely get any sense of her – its like the volume on her personality is turned down to a whisper."
/\ PoC /\
"Hey Shinji," the teen in question looked up from eating his lunch. He was sitting with Asuka, watching as the other teens milled around the school green. "We should go say 'hi' to blue girl. It's her first day back in school after almost dying." Asuka gestured towards Rei, who, as usual, was eating alone under a shady tree.
"I guess." Shinji had only so much time in his life for 'projects'. He glanced over at Asuka. "Let's go," he sighed.
Asuka frowned. Shinji had seemed like a nice guy in the beginning, but he had turned out to be a complete spineless dweeb. It's like he didn't really care about anything. Well, that wasn't completely true. He made an effort to care about her, and that was worth a lot of points, as far as Asuka was concerned.
/\ PoC /\
Shinji and Asuka were walking to NERV for training when somebody called out "Shinji!"
Coming towards them was Inia and two others – one was a woman with short white hair, and the other was a guy. Both had a military look to them, though currently they appeared extremely 'off duty': The guy had his arm around the woman, and she looked very proud of this fact.
"Hi. This is my sister, Cryska, and her boyfriend, Yuuya Bridges. I told you she liked him!" Inia bubbled. Shinji nodded. The couple in question looked a little awkward at being called out so directly.
"You were right. From now on I won't doubt you." Shinji smiled, before turning to Cryska "I'm glad that you could come visit – Inia has missed you."
Inia rolled her eyes, "I'm ok. Though I always like to see Cryska. And her new boyfriend!"
"Are you heading in for the live fire exercise?" Shinji asked.
"No, I'm not signed up for that, as I am a Spetstnaz certified marksman, grade II, but I'll walk with you." This was the first chance Inia had to talk to Shinji in days. Somehow, having Cryska and Yuuya around made it work. Asuka still looked aggrieved, but she just walked silently by Shinji's side without trying to tear him away.
/\ PoC /\
The test ran long, and it was almost eight o'clock when Shinji finally changed into his civvies and stumbled out of the locker room, to find Asuka waiting for him.
"Hey, lets head home."
Instead of replying, Asuka leaned against the far wall, staring down at her crossed arms. "We should break up. You don't want to be with me." she blurted out.
"What?" Shinji asked, floored.
"You're here because in your spineless, dweeb-ish fashion, you feel responsible for me, and you are trying to take care of me. I won't deny it's kind of nice, but it's not going to work for a relationship." Asuka pushed off of the wall and walked off. "Good by, Shinji."
Shinji slid down to the floor, at a loss. On the one hand, he felt free at last. On the other, how dare she break up with him!
He leaned his head back against the wall. It had been a long day, first school, then the training, now this. He didn't know what to think. And he hadn't even had dinner yet.
/\ PoC /\
It was shortly after 9 that the alarm began blaring.
"This is not a drill. There are intruders in the geofront. Go to lock down / defend in place."
"Repeat: lock down / defend in place."
Shinji sat up. He had zoned out in front of the pilots locker room. This wasn't the typical Angel alarm, and it wasn't something that he had trained for. He wasn't certain if he should go get back into his pilot uniform or what.
There was the sound of gunfire in the distance.
Shinji turned and ran for the Evangelion cages. He still had no idea what to do, but having a thousand tons of armored fighting machine around him would make him feel more secure. It was too bad that they had been training in the simulators today, so the cages were several levels down instead of just around the corner.
He got as far as the elevator when several men in black military gear came in from a cross corridor.
"I think that's a pilot," one of the men called out as Shinji dove back the way he had come, racing as bullets ricocheted down the corridor. He dove back into the locker room and then scrambled up onto a toilet seat before pushing out a ceiling tile. He had just pulled himself up into the ceiling when the men burst into the room.
"He's up in the ceiling!" they sprayed the ceiling with bullets as Shinji crossed over into the ceiling above the girls changing room, and kept going, scuttling like a crab across the support beams of the ceiling tiles. The walls were solid enough to stop the bullets, so he was free.
Or so he thought.
He heard somebody climb up behind him.
Shinji wasn't certain where he was, but he kicked out one of the ceiling tiles under him and drop down.
It was the simulator lab. He ran across the room, heading for an exit in the far side. He burst out and dropped to the side, in case there were more soldiers there, but the corridor was empty.
Shinji jumped back up and ran over to the first door he saw and dived in. It was a broom closet.
/\ PoC /\
"We have intruders on the lower levels – they must be coming in through the sewers." Makoto announced.
"Ma'am, there are tanks coming in along the ridge." Maya called out when Shigeru interrupted: "We just lost contact with the security station! But the last video I saw showed at least ten tanks and a column of soldiers."
"Section 2, Section 3, repel the intruders." Misato paced. Why did shit always happen when the commander was out? "Where are the pilots? I want to launch the Evas to deal with the tanks."
Everything went dark. "The outside power has been cut," Makoto announced. "We have backup power only."
"We just lost all radio transmission to command." Maya added.
"I will send somebody out to get Asuka and Shinji. Where is Rei?"
"Her phone reported in Terminal Dogma, right before we lost radio."
"There is no way we can get somebody down to her – she's below the level at which the infiltrators are coming in at."
Maya perked up, "Major? Shinji and Asuka had simulator training today. It ran long, and I saw Shinji was still there when I left about fifteen minutes ago."
Misato grabbed a handgun from the weapon locker, "I'm going to go get Shinji. The rest of you, grab weapons and take defensive positions – there's not much you can do without power." And without any pilots.
/\ PoC /\
Misato made her way down the emergency stairs. They were at end of the corridor, almost hidden behind storage lockers. She wanted to run down and get to Shinji as fast she could, but instead she advanced cautiously, gun at the ready. She checked every intersection before crossing. Once, she heard voices, and she went down another floor to get around them – her job was to find Shinji, not engage the enemy.
As she turned one corridor, she saw a flash of red disappear into a room. Advancing carefully, she pushed open the door.
"Asuka?" The red head was holding a broom handle, which she had been about to bring down on Misato's head.
"Oh, thank god. I don't know what's going on, but first there was that ominous announcement over the PA, and then I heard gunfire.." She stepped forward, like she wanted a hug, but couldn't quite bring herself to give one.
Misato gave the teen a quick, one armed hug anyway. "We need to get you over to Unit 02. You will be safe there, and you can do some good."
"What about Shinji?"
Misato frowned, "I'll get him next. My priority is to get you to the cages first." It was the logical thing to do, but it still galled her.
/\ PoC /\
"Rei, it is time to begin," Gendo pronounced as he pulled the glove off of his misshapen hand. The two of them were in Terminal Dogma, standing on a spit of land that jutted into the pool of LCL under the crucified form of the second Angel.
Gendo had led Rei here to finally initiate Third Impact under his terms. The old men were too late.
All of a sudden, another voice rang out. "Step away from her!"
Gendo turned – Ritsuko stood at the entrance to the room, a pistol in her hands.
"Why am I never good enough? I did everything for you, but you treat me like I was nothing, just a tool, and here you are going to try rewriting reality to get Yui back. Why?" Ritsuko demanded.
Gendo shrugged, "because you're not Yui." He pulled out his own pistol and shot her in one fluid motion.
/\ PoC /\
Shinji dropped through the ceiling as the support he was sitting on snapped. He rolled clear of the rubble, but it made a huge clatter, and he twisted his ankle.
"There is somebody over here" came a yell. It didn't sound friendly.
Shinji hobbled over to a staircase and hid underneath, hoping that they wouldn't find him. He still didn't know who 'they' were, but they were heavily armed, and had been chasing him all over NERV for what felt like hours.
He jammed himself as deep under the stairs as he could go, and then tried not to breath, taking tiny sips of air.
Boots approached his hiding spot – it looked like three men, and they were being thorough. Very thorough. One was looking right, one was looking left, and the third was keeping watch.
"There you are," Shinji looked up to see a soldier pointing a rifle at him. "Sorry, kid, no hard feelings." Shinji watched as the solder raised the rifle to fire.
BANG.
BANG BANG.
The third soldier just had enough time to pivot before the bullet took him in the head, above his armor.
Shinji peered out as Inia came walking up, a pair of pistols in her hands. "We need to get out of here."
Shinji stood up and pulled her into a fierce hug, before stepping back and following it up with a kiss.
Inia stepped away. She was still hyped up on adrenaline, but now.. She hadn't expected this. As much as she wanted to, she couldn't deal with Shinji right now. "Later. We need to get out of here."
"I'm sorry for being such a bad friend, for ignoring you" Shinji apologized. He gestured to the three dead soldiers, "I just.. I'm glad I have the opportunity to apologies, and to tell you how important you are to me."
"Later," nevertheless, a smile broke through on her face - for the first time in a long time, everything was right with the world. Now all she needed to do was kill those those so-and-sos who were threatening her Shinji. She reloaded her pistols, a huge grin on her face.
Shinji shook his head, "We should head to the cages – if we can activate Unit 01, that will be the safest place to be."
"Here, take this," Inia pulled a rifle loose from the dead body of one of the soldiers, handing it to Shinji. He looked at it, clearly uncomfortable with looting it off of the dead. "He doesn't need it any more and you do, or his buddies will kill you." Inia held up her pistols, "that's how I got these."
Shinji's mouth pressed into a hard line, but he took the rifle. The two pilots turned and ran towards the elevators leading down to the Evangelion dock.
"Cryska and Yuuya are heading for the heliport – my Berkut TSF is parked there, and they're going to use it to clear a path out of here." Inia explained, before peering cautiously down an intersection and motioning for Shinji to follow. "If they can establish contact with the rest of NERV, we can get people out."
They were almost at the elevator when there was a noise behind them – A trio of soldiers had come in from a side corridor.
"Get to cover!" Inia yelled as she opened up with both pistols, forcing the soldiers to duck back around the corner.
"What cover? It's empty!" Shinji ran the last five feet and hit the button for the elevator before crouching down behind a flimsy trash can.
There was the sound of more gunfire as Inia moved to one side of the hallway, trying to make herself as small a target as possible. One of the enemy soldiers spun around and fell.
A second soldier popped around the other corner and opened fire.
"Aaah!" Ina slammed into the wall as a bullet tore through her stomach. But the soldier who shot her paused too long to inspected his handiwork, and Inia shot him as she slid to the ground.
"Bing" The elevator door slid open.
"Shinji, go."
"NO." Shinji sprayed the far end of the corridor. There was one more soldier there. 'Three shot bursts. No full auto,' Shinji fired and took a step forward, then fired again.
The soldier stayed around the corridor, waiting for Shinji to run out of ammo.
Shinji kept advancing. Fire, step, fire.
Finally, Shinji stopped, crouching low.
The soldier whipped around, aiming down the corridor, only to be surprised to see Shinji just five feet away.
BAM!
Shinji checked – there were no more soldiers.
"Go. I'll hold them off from here," Inia gasped.
"Like hell." Shinji pulled her into the elevator.
/\ PoC /\
"Rei, let us continue" Gendo turned away from the prone body of the woman he had been sleeping with and plunged his hand into Rei's chest.
As the Angel on his palm fused with her, Rei gasped in pain, her motions mimicked exactly by the giant figure pinned to the wall behind her.
"And so it begins."
BANG
As Gendo dropped to his knees, Rei looked up over his shoulder in confusion
Ryouji Kaji stepped over Ritsuko's sprawled body, "Sorry about this, kid."
BANG
Rei collapsed, a bullet hole going through Gendo's hand into her heart.
/\ PoC /\
Asuka bared her teeth as her Evangelion rocketed to the surface. She was having a real shit day, and these jerks were coming, attacking her home. She SO needed this now!
She plugged in the power cable and charged the first row of tanks, deflecting their shells with her AT field. She smashed through the first column like a two year old having a temper tantrum on their LEGOs.
The advancing army stopped and began to buckle under her assault. One armored assault vehicle roared forward, heading for her power cable, only to be met by the Berkut TSF coming out of the NERV hanger. The mech's cannon was more than enough to shred the wheeled vehicle..
"UN Berkut-1 to Evangelion, we have your back," Cryska transmitted.
Asuka's grin became wider and more feral, "thank you much!" She flung a tank into missile carrier.
/\ PoC /\
Misato had just reloaded her rifle and was about to set out in search of Shinji when the elevator into the Evangelion docking cages opened up, and the teen in question staggered out, half carrying pilot Sestina.
"Shinji! Are you ok?" As Misato ran over, she evaluated the situation. She pointed to a closet with a red cross on it, "We can get her onto the med-evac gurney."
"No. Nowhere here is safe. Help me get her into the entry plug." Shinji made his way up the stairs leading up to Unit 01.
Misato took Inia's other side "Are you certain she will survive this?"
"I'll be fine," Inia replied, trying to support more of her own weight. "I'm not going to leave Shinji."
"I hope you're right" Misato lowered Inia into the second pilot chair before turning to leave. "Good luck. Asuka already launched, so you can back her up. She was going to try to drive off the main body of the JSSDF. If you can hold them back long enough, we can clear out the ones in HQ enough to make a retreat" She was about to go when she turned around and added, "Shinji, take care of her. And Inia, don't die, or I will kick your ass."
"Yes, ma'am" Inia smiled weakly.
"And grab one of the extended 'battery' packs – the ones based on BETA mini-reactors."
/\ PoC /\
Ryouji lowered his gun as he approached the body of Gendo Ikari. He was pretty certain the commander was dead, but he was a tricky bastard, so it payed to make sure.
Kaji was just reaching down when he heard a noise above him. He glanced up to see the Angel ripping its arm off of the spear that had been pinning it to the wall for millennia.
"Oh, shit!" He dived to the side just as the huge hand slammed into the spit of land, knocking everything on it flying.
The faceless giant stood up and stared at the rubble of the room. When Ryouji did not resurface from the LCL, it turned its 'face' up towards the ceiling and the sky beyond.
/\ PoC /\
Shinji had just reached the surface when the ground began to shake. His Evangelion dropped down to one knee for stability, and several buildings, already damaged in the fighting, collapsed.
The ground under a platoon of soldiers cracked open, and Lilith, the second Angel, burst forth like some demon hatching from an egg.
"Why now?" Why did did an Angel have to attack now, while they were dealing with human problems? And how did it get inside the geofront in the first place? Shinji was having a hard time processing what was happening, or why.
Woodenly, Shinji grabbed a pallet rifle and opened fire. He was just reacting, without any human comprehension. He was an automaton.
/\ PoC /\
Asuka turned around. For the moment, she was alone. The JSSDF were hot footing it away and the Berkut TSF, being far more mobile, was savaging their retreat.
The ground began to shake - something was happening on the other side of Tokyo-3 - but before she could investigate motion above her caught her eye. She raised her AT field just in time to deflect a spear. She whipped around as a white deformed almost-Evangelion landed where she had been, and others dropped down around her. Each was armed with a spear of some sort.
"So you want to play?" She lunged forward, her progressive knife taking the head off of the first one so fast that the startled creature had no time to react.
The mass production Evangelions fought hard. They had superior numbers, and their weapons were longer. But they weren't Auka. They lacked the will to fight, the will to win that Asuka had. They were the enemy, and she would destroy them.
Asuka grabbed the spear from a dead unit and rammed it into the back of the head of another whose clumsy attack she side stepped.
Her AT field deflected another attack.
"Oh, shit!" One of the white monstrosities opened up a shark like jaw and bit through her power cord, 'I knew I should have grabbed one of the extended power packs like Misato said.'
Asuka pushed herself faster, killing a third and fourth, one after another. The five remaining units stumbled over themselves trying to get clear, But Asuka dropped them one after another. They didn't have AT fields, making them nothing more than glorified JET-ALONE units. They were no match for her Evangelion. The true Evangelion.
She was down to the last enemy, and her timer was ticking down the last 20 seconds when the white monster's spear twisted and reshaped itself into a duplicate of the spear of Longinus.
"What?" It stabbed forward, piercing Asuka's AT field and going right into Unit 02's eye. "Yeaah!" Asuka lunged at the last enemy, only to be grabbed from behind – the other mass production units were reforming, reaching for her Eva.
Realization dawned, 'they have cores, like Angels.'
/\ PoC /\
Shinji fired and circled, fired and circled. The Angel kept trying to reach out to him. So far it hadn't attacked with any weapon but was trying to grapple Unit 01, which to Shinji's mind meant that he had to avoid contact at all costs.
He glanced over at Inia. She was semi-conscious at best, moaning in pain as the Eva jarred her wound. He had messed up so badly with her. Maybe even worse than with Asuka. He didn't know what to do, but he couldn't let her get hurt more. Asuka was right. He was in love with her.
He moved to better spot and extended his AT field, meshing it with the Angel's, and opened fire. Truck sized bullets ripped chunks off of the Angel. As the the Evangelion shook from the recoil, Inia gave a gasp.
Shinji glanced over to see Inia lolling unconscious in her seat. He couldn't tell if she was still breathing. He looked back at his enemy right away, but the moment's inattention cost him. As he turned back to his opponent, it's finger tips brushed Unit 01, and the world dissolved.
/\ PoC /\
Unit 02 ran out of power as all the mass production units encircled it and began to rip at it with their teeth and clawed hands,
Asuka screamed in pain.
With her last conscious thought, she grabbed the handled labeled 'self destruct' and slid it to the side, flipping the three switches that were revealed underneath.
"See you in hell!"
/\
Ok, guys. The story is almost done, and I am embarrassed to admit that I have hit a wall. What a place to get writers block, huh?
I am not certain how exactly to finish this story off