Blood Red
Episode 1
Hospitality
A/N:Hey there, sorry for not uploading in a while, I'm on vacation right now so progress is slower, plus this chapter was quite hard to write at times. Still I hope you have a nice read.
Oh and leave a review too if you want!
Chapter 4: Coming home
Slayer's room, midnight
"Ugh, nothing, does this guy really keep no information about himself on his personal computer? I've searched for every key word that could come to my mind agh! I hate this!"
She launched herself from the desk, spinning around on the rotating chair as she thought:
"Maybe I just want it too easy… there's no way the answer to something like that would just pop up right in front of-"
The chair stopped spinning right in front of the door to the armory, but more importantly, right in front of the painting of the Slayer and his Bunny that was hanging over it.
" -me…"
Immediately she turned back around and searched for the word 'Daisy', finding a picture album called: 'Daisy pics' (actual name in game).
"Bingo.
Alright let's see, the pictures seem to be in chronological order…
Alright the first one is when he originally got the bunny, he looks twenty-ish…
The next one is… oh! His birthday, he seems to be in Italy at the moment and he's turning twenty two, a couple of friends seem to be near him.
Okay the next one is… Aww, he bought a pink cage for her, I have to say that bunny is really cute… not that I care anyway I'm only here to understand more about him.
Here he seems to be celebrating Italy's football team winning, with enough alcohol to put old Misato to shame…
Ah I miss that woman…
Oh! This one is interesting… he seems to have brought a girl home and what a girl she is.
Long blonde hair, a nice body, large tits of course, because everyone in existence has to have a rack bigger than mine thanks to this thing in my eye!"
She suddenly felt her left eye sting for a moment, but it went away and she continued scrolling.
"Hey, another birthday party, this time it's only with her… strange, it seemed that he had a good relationship with those guys…
Oh, well let's just see what the next one-.
…
...
… He's… he is… proposing to her and… her belly… she looks so happy…I… wish I-"
Asuka had placed a hand on the monitor, slowly tracing her finger on the image. That's until she noticed a small blue icon at the bottom right corner of the screen.
She jumped out of the chair when she realized that VEGA had been actually watching her this entire time
But before she could run away Samuel said through the speaker in the room:
"Hey, Shikinami, wait."
She didn't listen and speeded straight for the exit door, which glowed red as soon as she got close to it, not moving an inch.
She struggled against it for a bit and then said:
"Let me out!"
"No."
"I told you to let me out!"
"I don't follow your orders."
"Why won't you just let me go away!"
"Because I still haven't finished understanding who you really are."
"What."
Asuka stopped trying to take down the door and stood still while looking at the camera in the ceiling.
"Did you really think that it would have been that easy to access something so personal about the Slayer?
VEGA and I are the ones who let you access Shikinami."
"But why?!"
"I know that this might sound rude but, me and him wanted to understand what it was that you hadn't told us about yourself.
We noticed immediately when I asked you to stop for a moment in the deck earlier today, that you were holding something from us.
And I guess that I found out what it is."
Asuka gave him a bad look for a moment as she crossed her arms and tapped her foot on the floor.
"Shikinami.
The angel doesn't completely limit those emotional aspects of you, right?
It just blocks them out enough for you to be able to ignore them with your character.
I know that there is another Shikinami that we don't know about, but trust me that we will try to bring her out.
And if you are asking yourself how I know this well… sometimes it's necessary to look at ourselves in the mirror from a different perspective.
I'll let you go now, but take the device we're giving you from that drone. Have a good night."
The camera was suddenly turned off and the door behind her opened, revealing the small rectangular robot which was holding a grey cartridge in its claws.
"It's… just like the ones the Wonderswan uses… but I've never seen it…"
She turned it around and saw that there was a small piece of paper taped to it and once she opened it, it contained this message:
'Sorry about treating you like this, but I requested them myself to do it because…
You remind me too much of her.
In this video, you'll see why I fight...or at least… for who.
-Slayer'
"What? He was the one who asked them to monitor me?
It seems so… can I really trust him after this though?
Especially given that earlier message…"
A while later she returned to the guest room, not noticing how the Slayer was missing completely.
Ayanami had grown tired of the game she was playing and given that she did not know how to play another one, she had put the device away and was now resting on the bed.
"I see you are back, captain, I made sure to leave plenty of battery in your game console for your personal enjoyment."
"Okay.
I have to watch something privately now, could you leave?"
"Yes, of course, Ikari is still asleep so he should not disturb you."
And with that the pale girl exited the room, leaving Asuka and the boy next to her alone on the bed.
She took her Wonderswan and inserted the strange cartridge, which fit perfectly.
After waiting for it to load up, she noticed that it was a video player, with a high quality too.
With seemingly no other option, she pressed play and began watching.
It was a recording from a security camera at a firing range, where the woman she had seen earlier in the photo was firing at some targets with an assault rifle.
This went on for a while, with the only sound coming from her weapon until a loud siren activated and the targets disappeared.
She then almost slammed the weapon into the ground, if it wasn't for the band around her shoulders which prevented it from falling off.
Then she began walking away, but a pair of large arms stopped her.
It was the Slayer, who was wearing one of the suits that she had seen earlier in his room and he seemed to be talking to her, but they were too far away for the camera to hear them.
Then another person entered the firing range, a very young girl whose head was just as large as the cover she had put on.
The girl approached the two adults and called them, making a smile appear on both of their faces.
Then the Slayer picked her up and made her sit on his shoulders, where she seemed to be having lots of fun.
After this, the woman returned to her firing position and this time the Slayer followed her.
He slowly moved his hands around her body, fixing her posture just like she had done with Asuka, almost that nothing would have changed if she had been there instead.
Once he was done, he stepped back and pressed the starting button, making the targets reappear.
He smiled as he left the room with the kid still on his shoulders.
The feed suddenly changed to follow him inside the white hallway he had just entered, where he was currently talking with the girl while leaning on the wall.
This time the camera was close enough to heard their conversation as the girl asked:
"Papà, why is Mama here again?"
"Because of my new job Eli.
Papa is going to be away from home for a lot of time soon, so I want your mother to be able to keep you safe."
"Oh, but you're coming back right?"
"Of course my dear and I want you two to have tons of your special sweets ready for when I get back alright?"
"Don't worry dad! I will make a thousand for you, no, a million! And mama will keep away all the bad guys from our house!"
"I know you will, dear, you never disappointed me, hehe."
"But I want to know now, what are you going to do at your new job?"
"I'm going to protect other people... from suffering."
"Shufferyng?"
"Suffering Eli, it's when someone feels hurt for a very long time.
You see, I suffered a lot when I was your age, so I chose this job to make sure that no one suffers like I did."
"That's awesome dad! You sound like one of those comic book heroes! Because you want to protect everyone!"
"Oh? Does my little girl want to fly on the shoulders of the big hero?"
"Yes! Let's fly back to mama to see how she's doing!"
He grabbed her and placed her again on his shoulders before saying:
"Here we go, time to fly back to your mother!"
And so he began running back to the door they came in from, ending the video as one final message appeared on the screen.
This time it was VEGA's recorded voice who said:
"The next day he was transported to the Mars base, the place where he met the demons for the first time.
This was also the last day that he saw both of them alive."
*screen turns off*
At the end of the message, the cartridge was automatically expelled from the device, but Asuka didn't grab it.
Her mind was still processing the content of the video, forming the connections between how the Slayer has acted with them and in the past.
This however made her more tired than usual, so after a while, she put the Wonderswan on the nightstand and called Ayanami back inside, then they both went under the covers.
Neither of them had noticed the awake Shinji, who had been able to listen to the entire video with no distractions from Kaworu and was now trying to hold back his tears.
But once he fell asleep, two rivers formed on his face as his mind tormented him with all the bad things he had gone through since he had reawakened in this world.
Camera room
"Do you still believe that it was a good idea to listen to the Slayer, Doctor Hayden?"
"He would have done it by himself if we didn't listen, just like he always does."
"That is true, he does not follow what we tell him to do at times and we are never able to make him change ideas on a mission. The hole in Mars is a result of that."
"It's not our fault, he's just too powerful to have anyone control him. Maybe you as the Father could, but I'd like to not get to that."
"I agree.
Where is he now anyway? I cannot find him in any of the camera feeds."
"Probably in the only place that isn't monitored in the entire ship, his altar."
"But why would he be there? He only prays to them on Christmas Eve."
"I believe that he needed to reflect for a moment, he almost seemed confused when he walked past me earlier."
"This however confirms that he is still human, or at least, his mind is."
"That is true and let me tell you something VEGA.
There is no wall or barrier, no matter how strong, that doesn't start falling apart at one point or another.
And I believe that we will see two of them crumble quite soon."
"Will it be beneficial to us?"
"Probably, yes. But, I was reflecting upon the entire situation this world has been thrown into and well, I don't think that we are the only ones thinking about our own benefits."
"Gendo." VEGA replied.
"Exactly. Judging on what they have told us about him, he's just as scheming as we are. This means that we'll have to think two or three moves ahead for each operation."
"Still, I believe that we can come out on top, he lacks information about us and that is the best. I believe that we will be able to defeat him and resume our mission against Davoth in no time."
"Always so optimistic eh VEGA?"
"It helps me remain stable."
Samuel replied with a small laugh before leaving the room and walking back to his office.
"...Otherwise, it would be the end of everyone."
VEGA thought as he left the cameras for the night and returned to his core, opening the cupola to stargaze until the next morning.
The next day, main deck, 06:00
"Alright, we've packed up everything that you need for the trip. It might look like a lot, but don't worry, the Slayer will carry most of it."
Samuel said as the group approached the portal that would have brought them outside of the city.
"You have enough for six days of travel, however with our route it should take around three, just to be safe."
VEGA added and as an alarm started ringing, Samuel said:
"Well, you have to go now, good luck, stay safe kids."
They nodded and crossed the portal, with the Slayer following right behind them.
But right before he entered the blue and black hole, Samuel's voice made him stop dead in his tracks.
"You too Slayer, watch out with these robots. I don't want anyone to die in this operation."
The man turned around to look at him for a moment before crossing the portal himself.
"Did I see him grinning under that helmet?"
Red desert, just outside of Tokyo 3
As the group approached the thin line of core material that surrounded the city and marked the start of the desert, they heard a loud rumble in the distance.
They watched as the Fortress rose up in the air with both of its cannons ready, until it surpassed the clouds and disappeared.
The Slayer signaled the children to begin their walk and so they did, trusting that VEGA and Samuel would succeed in doing their part of the plan.
Around a minute later, a single loud boom was heard as the rounds from the railguns ripped the sky apart, completely annihilating any drone in their path.
NERV
"They have made their opening move. Fuyutsuki, I'll leave it up to you to move the drones towards the middle."
"I can't."
"What do you mean you can't?!"
"It's them, they are emitting a strong jamming signal from the ship and it has locked us out, none of the drone's either in the desert or the city are responding to direct commands."
"So we just have to hope that they can stop their escape by themselves, right?"
"Exactly, they made us powerless with just a single move and as long as that ship remains in the city, we can't do anything about it."
"...
…
Clever bastards."
"Wow, that's rare for him to call someone like that, but hey, I can't say that he isn't telling the truth.
At least they didn't do anything to our supplies."
Fortress of Doom, main deck
"I'm detecting signals being blocked that are coming straight from NERV, looks like we outsmarted them."
"I told you VEGA, it was a good idea to not test all of our weapons yesterday.
You never show your full hand to your opponent."
"Wise words Samuel."
"Thank you VEGA.
Say, how long until we can fire again?"
"Around six hours, if I keep up the repairs our reload time will decrease exponentially."
"Perfect, it's been a while since we saw this ship at its full power after all." The robot said as he moved away from the controls and VEGA replied:
"Well, with the Slayer on the battlefield you don't really need to use anything else."
"Ha! You can tell that one to Davoth!" Samuel replied laughing, but as he stopped, the silence in the room felt…Unnatural, like VEGA was not saying something to him.
So he asked:
"... Is everything okay?"
"Wha- Uhh I mean Yes!" VEGA replied with an unusual loss of composure,so Samuel easily saw through the lie and said:
"Come on, you shouldn't hide anything from me, you know that."
"If only I had the guts to tell you right now…
Thankfully I have another thing to say to you, otherwise I would have been with my back to the wall.
Sorry Samuel."
After his inner monologue, VEGA said:
"No it's just that I was thinking whether Davoth would be able to find us in this new world.
We know that he can't access Earth for a long time anymore after the Icon was killed, but this is a completely new dimension and the rules of our might not apply."
"Although if I have to be honest… I still feel like there's something familiar on this planet… or maybe this city…
I'll have to ask them more about NERV later."
VEGA's thoughts were suddenly interrupted by Samuel who replied:
"I think that we are still safe. If he was able to detect us we would have already been attacked long ago.
As long as you remain in your core, then I don't expect to see any demons around."
"You are right Samuel, thank you."
"Great. Anyway I'm going to check up on the Atlan, see you later VEGA."
And with that he left the room.
"Phew… I dodged that bullet.
Still, I can't keep my silence forever…
I'll have to tell him about his origins one day or another.
...And about his family too."
The red desert
The group had already walked a couple of kilometers in total silence, with the raging desert sun just over the horizon.
Since the firing of the railguns in fact, the only sound that had been heard was the cracking of the red soil under their footsteps, especially the Slayer's.
And although she didn't show it, Asuka really wanted to talk a little bit.
There was too much that had not been asked yet, that she had not asked, to Rei, to Shinji, even to the Slayer.
But, even though she felt like her curiosity was eating her alive, she knew that it was almost impossible to get a decent answer from them. So she kept quiet, with her ears having already grown accustomed to the sound of their footsteps.
Which is why she immediately noticed when the Slayer stopped walking.
She turned around and saw him looking at a failure of infinity, then as looked down she saw that his hands had curled up into fists.
So to avoid any problems she said:
"It's a failure of infinity, if that's what is troubling you.
It's what some percentage of the world population turned into after the third impact, basically armorless evangelions made entirely of core material."
"It's hard to think that this thing once was a person with a life." VEGA added through the Slayer's suit as the man got closer to the head of the giant beast.
He stared at the four eyed monstrosity which reminded Asuka a bit of unit 02's head for a moment before his left hand suddenly began glowing yellow with a sort of electricity flowing through it.
With a swift motion he landed his fist right in the giant's nose, completely destroying the head and neck with a crazy amount of energy.
Then VEGA said to calm down the pilots.
"That was a blood punch. The Slayer can channel Argent energy through his body and use it to unleash a powerful close range attack from his fists.
Argent energy is the name of the blue substance you saw on our ship, it's also the same energy that is keeping your exoskeleton powered Shinji."
Hearing his name called, the boy almost jumped in the air, seemingly being woken up from his trance.
Seeing this the Slayer thought:
"He was like that right as Asuka told us about the third impact…
So, she told us that he was part of it, but just how much?"
The conversations died at that moment and they resumed their walk, entering the real part of the desert where the only things present for thousands of kilometers were red sand and the faint smell of LCL.
Around six hours later
*BOOM*
"Ahh! What was that?!" Asuka said as the sudden sound erupted through the desert.
"Relax Shikinami, we simply fired a second time to get rid of additional drones and make your route more secure."
VEGA said as they resumed walking and Asuka replied:
"I thought that you could only fire once every ten hours?"
"That's true, however earlier we made good developments in the repairs and managed to shave off four hours, soon we might be able to fire even faster."
"Alright,I guess that means more cover for us.
Also you said six hours? Then that means that… it's noon right?"
"Almost, it's 12:20, you could stop and have lunch thanks to the heat protection of the sun.
After all, the thermal cameras of the drones can only detect you from a kilometer or two away due to their low quality."
"You're right about the heat, I've been dying myself in my red suit. I can't imagine how those two are still alive with their black ones."
"Look better." VEGA added and the Slayer approached Shinji who was standing still in place with his face down.
The man then moved his face up, seeing how his eyes were barely open and almost didn't seem to respond to outside stimuli.
Then he looked towards Ayanami, whose pale skin was almost glowing off the sunlight with how much she was sweating.
Asuka noticed this too and siad:
"Alright, I believe that it's better if we stop for a while. Do we have anything fresh to eat?"
The Slayer let go of his giant backpack to the ground and opened one of the larger compartments, revealing a quite large slice of melon.
Both Asuka and Shinji immediately reacted to the sight, with the image of a smiling Ryoji Kaji appearing in their heads and imposing itself on the Slayer through their eyes.
They shook their heads for a moment to make the image go away, meanwhile he had already started cutting the melon.
He cut it in seven pieces, giving two to each pilot and keeping the last one for himself, leaving around a third of the original melon inside its original container.
They sat down and ate in silence, except for Shinji, who was stuck looking at the piece of food in his hands while his mind, or to be more precise, someone in his mind was showing him all the memories he had of the man.
"Kaji…" he whispered, but he was still heard by Rei who asked:
"You seem upset Ikari, is something the matter?"
"It won't hurt to tell her, the Slayer is curious about this too." Kaworu told him.
"But what about-"
"Ikari?" Rei asked again, feeling a bit worried about his silence.
Thanks to her further pressure, Shinji finally opened up and said:
"The slices of melon reminded me of a man that I knew before the near third impact.
He was called Ryoji Kaji… I don't remember what his work was… but he had a secret melon garden inside the geofront that he showed me once.
And even though I had only a few conversations with him… he seemed like a good man… who is now dead… because of me."
The redhead remained silent at this as she looked far away, with her back turned to them.
"It's your fault he died, Shinji, but together we can bring him back and make Misato happy again. Trust me." Kaworu said as silence fell between them.
A while later they packed up, leaving the melon crusts on the ground since Asuka told them that the soil would have destroyed them pretty quickly.
But unknown to them, something deep underground began digging in their direction after it detected organic materials.
Some time later, around 17:00
The sun had already moved quite a bit in the sky since they had lunch and now it was getting closer and closer to the horizon.
Less rays were now hitting the surface of the earth, so the hot and dry air was replaced with an almost comfortable sense of warmth.
In the midst of all of this, the Slayer thought:
"Oh hey the temperature is finally going down, even with my armor the heat is still annoying, I can't imagine what it's like for them…
Let me check something… alright we have walked… almost a third of the way, around fifty kilometers to be exact and we should be able to hit our mark for today right after dinner, perfect.
Heh, all this walking reminds me of the days at boot camp…
God how annoying my group was, always complaining about this and that, trying to make me fall for their tricks, I even lost count of how many times our commander put all of us in detention!
Still, she was a wonderful woman and person… second only to the ones in my family.
Even those retarded psychopaths of my squad were good company… We must have drank so much alcohol together that VEGA can probably find it still in my system heh… those were the days.
In retrospect in fact… they almost made me feel like I was in Italy again…
Giacomo and Giuseppe, the other two members of the trio: 'Thunder dumbasses'...
Now that I think about it, it really does sound stupid ahah… Oh well, we were too busy being the best unit our boss had to care about our title.
Yeah…
…
Too bad everyone is gone now… I'm the only one left…
…
…
But, I guess that they aren't really gone.
Samuel and VEGA are almost like copies of Giacomo and Giuseppe after all… And I guess that Shinji and Rei do remind me of Robert and Emily a bit…
It's almost like I've gone back in time, especially because of you Asuka.
Huh I guess that out of all the possible dimensions and universes that we could have ended up in, Fate decided to slap me in the face with one that had a copy of my wife when she was young…"
He looked behind himself to see how the others were doing, just in time for a tired Shinji to get too close to a certain redhead.
She pushed him away, then told him something that the Slayer didn't hear because he was too far.
That's when he noticed something strange, for a split second, it seemed to him that the sadness and despair was gone from Shinji's eyes, replaced by another emotion he knew quite well, anger.
But, just as quickly as it had appeared, it vanished, obscured by the boy's usual face as he quietly said something.
This response seemed to anger Asuka, who violently grabbed his hand and began to drag him around as she walked faster.
But after a while, she pulled down her cap and looked downwards, obscuring part of her face.
And as the Slayer noticed her glowing eyepatch he thought:
"You can't fool me there, Shikinami. I'd recognize that reaction from planets away…
I guess that the guard really likes to spend time with her favorite prisoner. Who knows, maybe she'll even do a private inspection of his cell from time to time.
Shinji must be blind to not notice her behavior towards him, but… maybe he has his reasons for it, after all, Asuka only told me the past of this world, not the present.
I definitely have to ask more questions later, but everything at its pace, we've only known each other for a couple of days after all.
And yet, I can't keep my head away from the idea that Shinji is just like me…
Hm? He seems to have fallen down… I guess that despite the exoskeleton he still has his limits."
The man stopped walking and turned to face the two pilots as Asuka tried desperately to make Shinji move at least a couple more meters.
He walked closer and slightly pushed her away before picking the boy up and making him sit on his shoulders.
During all of this, he noticed just how light he was. As even with the two large meals they had at the fortress weren't enough to make up for the limited amount of food that he ate at NERV.
He let it slide for now, making a mental note to increase his ration tonight.
And so they kept walking, with Shinji falling asleep due to fatigue after a couple of minutes.
He was only woken up by the railgun round flying through the air at 18:00, where he almost fell off the man's shoulders.
The Slayer noticed this and let himself escape a very short snicker, which surprised all the three pilots.
Rei in particular got curious about this, but the Slayer refused to respond to her questions, making her shut up after a while.
This short interaction made Asuka start reflecting on the video he had sent her as she thought:
"Doesn't his voice sound a bit different?
It's still very deep, but it almost feels like it's missing something, or it lost it… does he have an illness to his vocal chords?
Maybe they got damaged long ago… Should I even bother to ask? It's not like he's going to reply to me.
Then again he did make that video that I saw this morning, so there is a chance.
And if he replies, then I could use that opportunity to learn more about their world, after all VEGA was cut off by this very plan…
Alright it's set then! Asuka Shikinami Langley is going to interrogate this man one way or another and get the best results possible! I'm going to tell everything to WILLE once we get back so that I'll-... I'll…
But… What good would that be? VEGA's going to tell us anyway at one point or another, so what's the point in even trying…
In this last battle over Tokyo 3 I only got unit 02 destroyed, nothing else.
The impact was stopped by the ship while neither me and Mari were able to take down the mark 09 by themselves, or even stop the Brat before he reached the spears…
But it's just one loss right? I've got plenty of other victories in my fourteen years of service since the third impact, so it's no big deal!
Keep repeating yourself Shikinami… maybe one day you'll actually believe it."
During her inner monologue, Asuka didn't notice that she was now walking right by the Slayer's side, nor that he had seen her sad face.
He gave her a slight push, making it look like an accident, which was enough to snap her out of that state as she looked at him while he kept his gaze forward.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her pupil grow a bit larger for a moment before she resumed her walk, with her lips no longer curved downwards.
And behind that dark helmet, there was a smile too.
What either of them had not noticed was the silent Ayanami eyeing both with a confused face a few meters away.
20:00, Shinji's mind
"Wake up Ikari. Baka I'm hungry, wake up! Shinji it's time to eat, come on get me a beer!"
Images of a rectangular wooden table flashed in Shinji's mind, with at each place a crude drawing of the faces of the women in his old life.
Asuka to his right, Misato to his left and Rei right in front of him.
Suddenly PenPen jumped on the table, but his face had changed. There wasn't anymore the pair of curious eyes which were able to convey all of his animal emotions with a simple look.
Instead, there was a completely metal visor with a single long red line at the centre.
Then the penguin opened his mouth, but no cute 'warks' came out of it. Instead, it was the voice of a man, one that he hated.
"We can finally have that dinner Shinji ,the one that the clone of your mother prepared for both of us, Kaworu has decided to join us too."
Shinji only blinked once as he suddenly found himself in the old NERV headquarters, sitting at the end of a very long table with Kaworu right next to him and his father standing at the other end of it.
He suddenly felt the boy to his side touch his hand, so he retracted it and looked around in embarrassment.
Noticing that a certain girl was missing, he asked:
"Father, where is Rei?"
"We don't need her anymore." Kaworu added as Gendo fixed his glasses and said:
"She is no longer useful to us, so I killed her and made a new one, she will arrive shortly."
Before Shinji could react, the entire building shook, with a large crack forming on the wall behind his father.
The boy looked around in confusion, not even noticing how the other two in the room disappeared.
Another shake and the wall burst open, revealing to him the tenth angel in all his glory as its face opened. With the contorted and elongated mouth extending out of it.
And from this mouth, Rei or rather Lilith's face appeared, getting more and more creepy the closer it got to him with her wide smile.
He was immobilized by the sight, so he didn't do anything except close his eyes when the gigantic head opened her mouth to take a bite at him.
A while later he reopened his eyes, finding himself with the same clothes he had on the Wunder, chained to a metal table in a dark cell and an empty plate in front of him.
His legs were kept still under the table while both of his hands were chained to opposite corners of the part of the table closest to him.
And as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he began seeing three dark silhouettes right in front of him.
He could only make out their bodies from the shoulders up, but he was still able to recognize them.
Asuka to his right with her cap and eyepatch, Misato to his left with her commander's clothes…
And finally Rei's head in front of him. Placed on top of the table while the rest of her body was sitting there as it slowly leaked blood.
He looked at them better, noticing how all of their faces were hidden by a strange darkness, which gave off an impression that they were all mad at him.
Slowly he began hearing the hateful words they had told him on the Wunder on repeat, echoing throughout the large room that somehow felt miniscule to him.
But, just as tears were about to start flowing out of his eyes, a pair of small female hands with yellow polish and pink bracelets began strangling him from behind.
He was able to notice on the left hand that there was a NERV tattoo over a worn out WILLE one, but he couldn't understand what it meant, especially when his windpipe was being crushed like that.
The words in the background got louder the closer he got to his death, with tears now flowing freely as he accepted his fate.
Suddenly a gunshot was heard and the hands around his neck fell limp before sliding off.
As he regained his breath, the boy noticed a small unlit candle in front of him and two white robotic arms around him.
They broke the chains in his hands and then moved something else in their place, something warm.
Soon that something gripped his arms, not letting him go, but there wasn't much force behind this grip. Instead it was a warm grip that made him feel safe and warmed up his damaged heart like a small candle.
Going back to the actual candle he saw that it's tip had been lit though it was too weak to illuminate anything.
Suddenly though the entire candle glowed of a yellow light and the flame got bigger and bigger, growing to extreme proportions as VEGA's symbol appeared on it.
Now that there was actual light in the room, he looked around himself again, seeing that what was holding him was a pair of hands, one from Misato, who had Samuel standing next to her and one from Asuka who was hiding a small blush with her cap.
Both women had soft smiles on their faces, which surprised Shinji, since he had begun to think that they couldn't do that anymore with how much he had hurt them.
Suddenly the flame in front of him opened and as he looked through it, he saw Rei, with her old white plugsuit and her blue hair much longer.
Finally he felt a large hand fall on his head and pat him, before a piece of melon appeared on the plate in front of him.
The dream ended right after, with the last thing that he saw being a large man made completely out of light.
20:10 Red desert
"Oi Brat wake up! We've arrived!" Asuka shouted at the boy laying on the floor while the other two set up the special tent VEGA had given them.
It was made out of a tissue from Argenta designed for military night operations, which meant that it was also able to hide their thermal signatures during the cold night.
"W-wha? Huh? Asuka?"
"Took your sweet time Brat, how perverted of a dream were you having to stay asleep like that!?"
And the boy replied as he moved to sit down:
"It wasn't lewd, but you were there."
"Hmph! Looks like I have to keep you in line even in your head.
Now come on, get inside we're eating in a moment."
And as she turned around on the spot and began walking away, her thoughts were something like this:
"... I just hope that I didn't hurt him too much in his dream."
She then entered the tent, where Ayanami and the Slayer were surprisingly preparing some sausages. So she asked:
"Where did you find those?"
And Rei replied:
"VEGA said that even though we are in the middle nowhere, we should still eat well to keep up our energy and morale.
Or at least that's how I interpreted it."
Asuka felt her eyepatch get warmer for a moment, a sign which told her that Bardiel really wanted those sausages.
So she replied:
"I guess that we shouldn't waste this opportunity then."
"Also, where is Ikari?"
"The doll showing interest in him? That's new. Well she is kind of a far away sister for him, but still, no other clone has ever acted like this."
"He's outside, probably he fell asleep again on that lazy ass of his."
"Thank you."
And so she got up and walked outside, leaving Asuka alone with the Slayer as he kept cooking the meat.
"How much until they're ready?"
The Slayer made a '3' with his free hand.
"Well they better taste good for how much time it's taking, do you understand?"
The man simply smiled under his helmet as he continued his job.
Outside the tent
Rei was currently walking towards Shinji, who was sitting while hugging his knees and looking at something in the distance.
That something was a small desert tornando, too far away to endanger them, but close enough to let itself be viewed in all its strange beauty.
Inside the tornado there were in fact various cars, pieces of buildings and roads, with some first too. Yet they weren't moving along with the mass of air, instead they simply floated and rotated slowly along with it.
Now that she was closer, Rei could have a better look at Shinji's body.
It was dirty, much like their own and the main component of the exoskeleton was clearly visible in his back at the height of his shoulders.
He other features showed that he was relaxed now, or maybe simply tired.
"Ikari, I would like to give you something back."
Those words seemed to frighten him for a moment given how silent Rei had been until now, but he still turned around to listen to her.
She grabbed something from her backpack, it was small and rectangular, with a grey texture and covered by two long black wires that circled around it.
"Your SDAT Ikari, I found it next to your entry plug."
"Oh… I… can't take it."
"Hm?"
"It… brings back bad memories, I don't want to see it anymore."
"But then, why was it in your entry plug?"
"He had convinced me to take it with me...but now every time I see it it reminds me of his death. Please take it away."
"Oh. I understand, sorry. It's time to eat now, the Slayer is making something called sausages. I've never seen them, but they look interesting."
So he got back up and began walking towards the tent, with Rei following right behind him.
She clutched the SDAT tightly as she thought:
"I don't know why I want to do this, but I will give you happiness, Ikari.
First though I'll have to learn more things so that I can try in more ways. Whatever it may be, I will try to learn it and make you feel better.
Wait… I don't remember the commander ordering me this… He only told me to protect him.
But I believe that I won't be able to do my job forever if he is in a state of mind that constantly puts him in danger, so I also have to make him feel happy.
Yes, now I understand. My mission is to make Ikari happy so that I will be able to protect him, but to do that I have to learn all the ways in which I can give him happiness, which will probably lead to many new unknown experiences.
I like this."
A small smile formed on her face as she entered the tent.
22:30
Nothing much had happened for the rest of the day, they had dinner and sat down for a while before Shinji finally fell asleep.
The Slayer was about to close the tent after he finished reorganizing his backpack when suddenly he heard the open tent zip being moved.
He turned around just in time to see a flock of red hair going outside. He followed it soon after.
Asuka was out in the open, looking at the night sky while keeping her knees close to her chest.
Suddenly VEGA said:
"She did this with me too, Slayer. I believe that she has a hidden reason for this strange behavior. Try getting closer to her, I'll talk."
The man did so and sat down next to the girl.
"You seem to really like the stars." VEGA said and she replied.
"I'd like to have some silence please."
"Okay, but just one question, why?"
"I don't feel like saying it right now…"
"Oh, I understand… Does it have to do with Shinji?"
"Eh!? No of course not, why would you think tha-"
"Wait, we're detecting something." Samuel suddenly said and then added:
"VEGA, run a penetrative sonar scan, depth of twenty meters."
"Understood… Oh no."
Play:[Flesh and Metal] Doom 2016 OST
"A large group of drones is approaching you from underground, get ready, they will arrive within thirty seconds."
"What?! Shit, I'm waking up those two!"
Suddenly though a metallic machine jumped out of the terrain, it's entire body was made up of rotating drills and a large red light coming from over the centre of the frontal drill.
It saw the Slayer and moved towards it, meeting a swift end by his super shotgun.
The sound woke up Shinji and put Rei on high alert, who dragged the boy outside, sensing the immediate danger.
The Slayer quickly ran up to them and handed out their weapons before punching in the face another of those drill robots that had tried to get him from behind.
A moment later all the other robots came out of the sands, probably to intimidate them, but for the Slayer it only meant that he could kill them more easily.
A quick rocket took out two of them, making the others scramble in all directions. This allowed both Asuka and Rei to kill one, while Shinji only damaged one in his half asleep state.
The robots dove only a half a meter underground to have more maneuverability and they all aimed at the Slayer given that he represented the highest threat.
So as the machines hoarded upon the man, the pilots took their time chipping them down one by one while the Slayer ripped and teared at the centre of the furball.
After a while the robots noticed this and dove underground again, with their trails showing that they were heading for the pilots.
The Slayer chased after them, quickly sniping one that had tried to attack Rei from behind.
He then turned to look at Shinji, who was faring much better now that he was fully awake, with his exoskeleton giving him the energy to fight.
Finally there was Asuka, who was killing drones left and right, seemingly able to know in advance where they would have jumped from.
"Her eyepatch is emitting tremendous amounts of energy, looks like that angel isn't only a negative for her.
Shinji is doing this too, yet Rei's levels remain unchanged… strange."
While Samuel kept talking for a while about the pilots' strange readings, the Slayer was filling every drone he saw with as many bullets as it could before it was reduced to smoking ashes.
When he noticed three trails coming up behind Shinji, he charged up the destroyer blade up to two ticks, then he fired, letting out a seven meter wide blade or red Argent.
This blade cut through the ground for four meters before dissipating and leaving behind only the three machines sliced in half.
A drone suddenly jumped on him from his side, but he dashed to the left and then launched a sticky bomb at it, making it explode and damaging some of the others near it.
All in all, it seemed that they were winning the battle, the number of drones was getting lower and all the damage they had received was just a small scratch on his armor.
Of course, this didn't last forever since as soon as they killed the last drone, a powerful thunder echoed from behind them.
"Slayer, a gigantic storm is approaching."
VEGA said and Asuka added:
"Shit! They must have started forming again after the impact! We can't let it catch us!"
The Slayer gripped his weapons harder as Samuel said:
"Bad news, you have a very big drone coming up on your position. We're readying the railguns, but the storm's interference might cause us to miss.
Slayer, I've set them to aim at your position, we'll use guided rounds so get on top of that drone and keep it occupied until they hit.
Don't get shot yourself, but I knew that you already considered that."
The ground around them suddenly shook for a moment as a large steel beast came out of it.
It was enormous, almost one hundred meters long, thirty meters wide and twenty meters tall.
A large white mask which looked the same as the face of the first angel was placed over an enormous mouth which took up the entire front of the beast.
Along the rest of the body, fin-like structures were installed to allow it to slither on the ground at a great speed.
And just as it opened its mouth, Asuka said:
"It's a GA-IEL Mk2! Those things are only killed by destroying the core inside their mouths!"
Hearing this, the Slayer took a better look at the robot, noticing the red sphere at the centre of its throat, surrounded by spikes and rotating saws which covered the entire mouth.
So he equipped his chain gun with the shield mod installed and got ready to meet his opponent head on.
Just before he sprinted away, Asuka thought:
"Did his eyes just flash red?"
She couldn't question it as he was already a hundred meters away in a matter of seconds.
"The railguns have fired Slayer, ten seconds until impact." Samuel said as a repeating beep echoed inside his armor.
And the two opponents got closer.
He could feel the sands sliding under his feet as he approached the beast at 90 km/h, with the wind picking up from behind given the storm's approach.
Five seconds left until impact.
The robot opened its mouth, ready to take a bite at the unknown opponent. The Slayer in reply pulled out the chaingun and activated the shield just as he jumped inside.
Four seconds left.
The barrier of energy around him protested with weird sounds as it absorbed the damage of all the saws and spikes while it's durability lowered.
Three seconds left
The Slayer landed on the sphere and put out the minigun, then he quickly stabbed it twice with the Doom blade on his left arm.
Two seconds left, now the pilots were able to see the rounds come out of the horizon.
Meanwhile inside the beast, the Slayer unleashed the power of a blood punch into its main component, dealing almost lethal damage.
He would have done this again if it wasn't for the two hypersonic rounds coming at him.
One second left
The Slayer jumped away from the sphere and used a second blood punch over him to give himself an exit.
The rounds hit, creating a massive ball of fire as the gigantic beast was reduced to a bit more than ashes, while the Slayer landed a moment later unscathed.
Suddenly though, a very powerful wind hit him at full force as his vision was obscured by the red sandstorm.
He began hearing the pilots cough heavily so, with his connection to the fortress lost, he quickly ran around, grabbing each one of them as they slowly passed out on top of his shoulders.
"I am NOT going to let you die!" He thought as he began running in the direction of the village with such speeds he had never even touched.
Fortress of Doom
"I can't find him anywhere, Doctor Hayden. It seems that these sandstorms are powerful enough to disturb even our radars."
"Hmmm, try… try to search for Argent energy levels in the area."
"...
…
Contact, it's him Samuel. Although… he never radiated such a strong signal, strange."
"I wouldn't call it strange, because if my hypothesis is correct, our plan just got way ahead of schedule."
"I see. At this speed he should be able to clear the one hundred kilometers left in less than half an hour."
"Perfect. Say, when will we be able to move as well?"
"Pretty soon, however, we will need to choose our time carefully as my jamming effect won't be useful anymore after leaving the city."
"I think that I have a couple of ideas for that, hehe."
Village number 2, South Gate, a while later
"Yo dude, am I having a hallucination or is there someone on the horizon?" A man asked as he adjusted his binoculars from the top of his guard tower.
"It's definitely a hallucination, no one can survive that hellscape."
"No,I'm telling you it's a man! A large one too and God damn if he's running fast!"
"Wait what? Let me see" The other said as he grabbed his own binoculars.
"Holy shit you're right and… Wait a second… he's carrying something… it's other people and- shit! I'd recognize that suit everywhere he has Shikinami with him!
Fire the alarm! Open the gate and let him through!"
Suddenly bells all around the area began ringing as troops and engineers scrambled while another group moved to open the door.
They were too late though as the Slayer burst through it, trespassing a meter thick piece of metal like it was paper.
He quickly began looking around and one he spotted that universal red cross, he ran to the local hospital as fast as he could.
Bursting through another door, he quickly got to the recovery area and placed each pilot in a separate bed as they kept coughing out that red sand.
A moment later he was reached by a group of soldiers and other people, who stopped right behind him.
"Hands up in the air now!" One of them shouted, but instead he turned his head around.
And if looks could kill, then he had just massacred them. He pointed at the coughing pilots and without a single word, some of them got to work as they attached them to some strange machines he had never seen.
Once he saw that they were now safe, he let out a sigh of relief and turned around,only to be met by tens of gun barrels and scared soldiers behind them.
"Ugh, this is going to be a looong night"
End of Episode 1
TO BE CONTINUED in episode 2: New Horizons