Blood Red

by Greg242

As the Fourth impact is ongoing, the Fortress of Doom and its occupants are catapulted right into the planet and without any information about their location, they have to resort to the only ones left in the area, initiating a series of events that will shape the ruined world forever. You don't need to know too much about either franchise, I explain things along the way.

18. Chapter 18

Blood Red

Episode 3

Bloodlust Crusaders

A/N: Haha, we're finally here! The chapter I initially teased at the beginning of episode 3!

Have fun :)

A/N 2: Hell yeah bois, I'm back! Sorry it took so long to get this chapter out, but life caught up with me and I had to leave writing for a while, plus I had a couple of problems with the chapter itself when I got back to writing it.

But hey, that's enough. You're not here for that. Ladies and gentlemen, let's jump right back to the story!

Chapter 18: Invincible

Balcony on top of the Wunder, 3 am.

Maya slowly opened the door as she stepped outside, fully covered in heavy clothes and with a cup of warm chocolate in her hands.

She sat down on one of the chairs as she watched the storm rage on in front of her, having turned back into regular rain due to the temperature rising near the lake.

As she was about to take her first sip from the hot liquid however, she was surprised by the door being opened again. Aoba appeared from behind her, almost making her drop the mug. He said:

"Looks like I'm not the only one who couldn't keep an eye shut tonight eh?"

Maya breathed out as she recovered from the shock, then said:

"Well, we almost got killed just a few hours ago, so I'd say it's normal… How did you know that I was up here by the way?"

"A stroke of luck, it's a nice place to hang out after all."

"Yeah I guess it is..."

A long pause followed as a small frown formed on Maya's face, so Aoba asked:

"You look like something's on your mind. Does the wound still hurt?"

"Oh. No, no… It's just something else." Maya said as a memory rang in her mind:

" 'Hello, my name is Ritsuko Akagi, it'll be a pleasure working with you Ms. Ibuki.'

The first time I met her… The first time my heart told me something, with so much passion behind it.

And after fourteen years… It feels like I don't even have one anymore."

Suddenly she heard her crewmate open the door, and when she turned to look at him he said:

"Wait here. I think that I have something that might lighten your mood."

And so she did, taking another sip of her chocolate in the meantime as she watched the Fortress hover near them,which was watching over the valley for enemy activity.

Around a minute later, Aoba came back, this time holding a large acoustic guitar case in his hands.

"Where did you find that?"

"In a broken house a couple of years ago, during a mission. It's not electrical, but I can still make it work."

Maya crossed her legs as she turned to face him while he sat in a chair and got the instrument out. Then after regulating it he asked:

"Do you have any songs in mind?"

"Hmm… Oh! Do you remember that Spanish one which was quite popular in the summer of twenty-fourteen?"

"I think I got an idea… Alright let me try to see if I can get the melody right."

Play:[Near the Border] Ace combat Zero OST

The rest of the night passed smoothly for the two of them, as they enjoyed each other's presence accompanied by the soothing sounds of the guitar.

Neither of them ever noticed how the fortress had slowly turned to look at them, with every light on the bridge turned off while a cold breeze flew past the lake.

Soon some light fog settled in, obscuring the Fortress as it remained staring at the giant ship.

The next morning

Misato woke up in her room feeling better than she had ever been in the last two years, and after some arm stretching, she jumped off the bed ready to start her day.

Just before leaving the room however, she took a glance outside, noticing Samuel on the bridge of the Fortress as he did a routine check of the systems. This made her mind bring up the incident of the day before, which immediately turned her face red.

She quickly got ready and left her room with half a smile on her face, carrying it all the way into the main deck. And after she entered Ritsuko said:

"Great to see you back, Katsuragi, I guess that I don't have to be captain anymore now."

"Yes, I'm healthy now and ready to get back to my job."

Ritsuko let out a short sigh before moving a hand towards the ship's command post, which Misato gladly walked towards.

She then looked down at her crew and asked:

"Alright, how combat ready are we?"

And Hyuga said: "About 70% Captain. We should reach full capacity after the repairs and the acquisition of Unit 02 in Bruxelles."

"Great, let's get this hunk of metal back into the sky then. And open up a channel with the Fortress, we don't want them to be fired upon again."

"She's really lively today." Hyuga thought as he carried out her orders.

Soon a video window popped up on the Wunder's main screen, showing Hayden playing around with the Demonic Crucible activated, coming really close to cutting the floor.

This lasted until he noticed the active screen to his side, which made him jump as he hid the Crucible behind him in embarrassment. He then looked up at the ceiling and said:

'VEGA! Why didn't you warn me!?'

'Hehehe.' The AI replied, and Samuel let it drop as he looked back at the screen and mentioned their planned route towards Bruxelles.

Misato confirmed it as the engines of the Wunder came to life, along with the S2 engine. As they lifted off, Ritsuko noticed some strange readings coming from the core, but they disappeared before she could make anything of them.

On the Fortress, a while later

"So tell me Katsuragi, what kind of city is Bruxelles?" Samuel asked as the two ships flew side to side in the clear sky.

And Misato replied:

'We didn't really have the chance to visit it very much during our previous missions, but I've heard that it's a beautiful city, where the reconstruction efforts really paid off.'

"Hm,interesting… What about the leaders we are going to meet? Do you know them?"

'Yes. However they've not been too fond of us recently… Especially after the failure of the fourth impact.'

Something suddenly clicked in Samuel's body as he moved a bit closer and said:

"Well, technically that was our fault. We're the ones who fell from the sky and broke your evangelions."

Misato let out a sigh as she replied:

'I guess you're right… Say, how is Ikari doing?'

"He's recovering quickly. This morning he was able to walk again, but he still has some trouble climbing stairs."

Misato stopped herself from trying to grab her heart as she learned about his condition, but it was especially hard given the next question that she was about to ask.

'And… What about his mental state?'

Samuel stopped for a moment as he noticed the rest of the crew turn slightly towards Misato as if she had just insulted them. Then Maya asked:

'I fail to see how that is going to be relevant for his interrogation.'

Misato was trying to reply while also hiding her nervousness, but Samuel stopped her as he said:

"No. It's a good point. If these people want to talk to him about what he has presumably caused, then Shinji should be able to talk clearly, so as to avoid confusion or misunderstandings."

The captain looked up at him as she heard these words, feeling both surprised and grateful for getting her out of the tricky situation. That's when the girl with the pink hair said:

'Why should we even care about it? It's not like it's going to change anything. All of this is just bureaucratic shit.'

Samuel did not even care about replying as the Slayer entered the room from behind, motioning at him to follow him.

He let the screen turn to black as the Slayer waited for him at the entrance of the room then, once he reached him, the man led him down towards the medical room, where Shinji could be seen walking around, searching for something on the walls.

"I don't understand why you wanted to show me this, Slayer." Samuel said as they stood behind the glass door, and the Slayer replied:

"Look at his eyes, he's sleepwalking."

They saw Shinji bump his head against the wall and turn in their direction, where they found his eyes closed shut. So Samuel figured out what was happening as he said:

"Looks like Kaworu is trying to control him… It's best if we intervene now."

As the robot and the Slayer got closer to the door however, VEGA said:

"He received a shot of Argent energy recently, so any damage should be mitigated. I propose that we use this opportunity to figure out more of Kaworu's intentions, however trying to intervene directly would cause him to hide again.

Let's wait for now."

They trusted VEGA's judgment and went back to their previous position. From there they saw Shinji move his mouth as if he was shouting something, but not even VEGA could detect any words.

Suddenly a punch was thrown in the air, then another one, and another, all getting ever closer to hitting Shinji himself.

The Slayer decided that he wanted to avoid him getting any injuries, so he decided to step inside, thinking that his presence would scare Kaworu away.

Instead, the exoskeleton on Shinji's back suddenly activated and launched him towards the closest wall.

The Slayer was close enough by mere centimeters, but he was still able to stop Shinji from completely smashing into the wall, only hitting his left shoulder instead.

The boy woke up in his arms and started to cry almost immediately as his nerves relayed to him what had just happened in the real world, trying to find some kind of warmth in the Slayer's embrace.

The fortress moved a bit to the side as VEGA said:

"There's a big thunderstorm up ahead, so prepare for turbulence. Once we get out of it we'll be right over the city."

The Slayer didn't reply as he kept Shinji in his arms, watching as the Argent from earlier repaired the tissue on his spine.

On the Wunder, inside Mari and Asuka's room

"No, you cannot eat these with that hole in your chest Mari, how many times do I have to tell you?" Asuka said as she held an energy bar in her hands while pushing away her friend, who kept seemingly ignoring the fact that she had a healing bullet wound in her chest. Eventually the redhead got up and left the room and walked out of the containment area, heading towards the top of the ship to distract herself with the storm around them.

When she reached the closed balcony, she was presented with the spectacle of a group of lightning bolts constantly hitting the top of the Fortress' iron crown, almost making it look like a candle in the middle of a dark cloudy ocean. But she didn't focus on this too much as she moved a hand to her eyepatch, feeling the faint warmth coming from the blue light. And she thought:

"Please… To whatever or whoever might be hearing my thoughts… make sure that tomorrow is not the last time I see Shinji."

She looked up, noticing how the fortress had gotten closer to the top of the ship,casting its shadow on it. That sight sent a chill down her spine, which grew in intensity the longer she looked at it.

"It's all useless anyway. Maybe I should just move on…"

Asuka thought as she left the area, not noticing that a shadowy figure had been looking at her from one of the sides of the room.

It moved outwards into the wet roof of the ship, carefully observing the fortress and the energy that flowed along its structure.

And then the fortress turned around as well.

The main deck's lights had been turned off once again, leaving only a dot of red light coming from VEGA's core. The ship and the dark figure exchanged a prolonged stare, before the creature vanished into thin air, just as the sky started clearing up.

Bruxelles airport, a couple of minutes later

'Wunder this is flight control speaking, we have visual contact, proceed to hangar 7B.'

"Roger." Hyuga said as he relayed the information to Nagara, who moved the ship towards the area.

The radio came to life once again as the man said:

'This is flight control… Can you connect us to the other vessel? We're trying to figure out a place where they can land.'

Suddenly VEGA's emblem appeared on the flight controller's computer as he said:

'Don't worry, I've found a suitable location already. My name is VEGA by the way, I'm the ship's computer.'

'O-okay.' The man said nervously as he watched the Fortress fly over the city's tall walls, ignoring the giant defense turrets mounted on top of it. It then went over the large artificial river that flowed through the residential area, connected to the outside world by two large steel gates inside the walls. The ship stopped right over one of the city's central squares, with the largest skyscraper presented right in front of it.

A crowd immediately began to gather under the ship, but the local police intervened quickly to disperse the disorder as Misato watched in disbelief while the Wunder landed.

The Slayer, Samuel and Shinji gathered at the main deck, looking at the building where the various european leaders were waiting for them as it stood higher than the Fortress by several tens of metres.

The Slayer moved his eyes to the boy next to him, seeing his hands shaking, so he placed a hand on his shoulder as Shinji replied to the gesture by grabbing his arm tightly.

"We'll get you through this, don't worry Shinji." The Slayer thought as VEGA activated the portal in front of them.

At the Wunder's hangar

Misato was shaking hands with Switzerland's representative as a large blue portal appeared behind her group.

The various leaders suddenly turned around as they saw the Slayer, Samuel and Shinji walk out of it.

The German representative approached them and said:

"Ah, welcome to Bruxelles, it's a pleasure to meet you. I've read the report about you that was sent to us from Berlin, and I am eager to learn more.

By the way, do you perhaps know if anything happened at the base? After the report was sent we received no further communication."

"The base has been destroyed completely." Samuel replied coldly, watching horror take over their faces as he continued:

"A hostile group took control of the base's systems after murdering the entire crew. They planned to take us all out during the night, but we managed to escape just in time.

I suggest you put the defenses of the city on high alert, who knows if they haven't found a way in here as well?"

One of them turned towards one of the guards, who nodded and left the room running.

"Ahem, anyway please follow us. The trial has yet to begin due to some…Complications, but if we could get there already it would be great.

There are limousines waiting for us outside."

The man led the group outside of the hangar as they walked towards their rides, but already the halls were littered with reporters and paparazzi.

The Slayer shielded Shinji from most of the attention, especially as he heard some of the things they were saying to him. When he saw Misato and Samuel entering in the first limo, he handed the boy over to them, ignoring the angry faces of the rest of the crew.

Samuel noticed this too, but when he saw that a certain colour was missing from the crowd he said:

"Wait, where's Asuka?"

"She went to get her evangelion, you should have seen the smile on her face when I told her she was going to test it out soon."

Misato replied, feeling her heart split in half once hse noticed the radiant smile that formed in Shinji's face when he heard this.

She quickly got inside the limousine to avoid being seen, however Shinji and Samuel followed her in, with the boy sitting between the two of them.

He gripped the fabric of the seat with all his strength as his mind went crazy from being this close to Misato.

Thankfully Samuel's hand was able to calm him down, but when Misato attempted it too, her eyes shot towards the guard who was coming with them, reminding her of her mask. But despite how much she tried to force herself to ignore him, her past self came knocking on her door more and more loudly with each second that passed inside that car.

The passed over the large river in no time, reaching the European Parliament building soon after, with the Fortress hovering right over them.

As they made their way towards the entrance, an enraged man managed to get past the guards thanks to the enormous crowd, heading directly towards Shinji with a broken glass bottle in one of his hands.

Samuel was about to stop him when a gunshot echoed through the area and the attacker's brain was splattered all over the stairs at the base of the skyscraper.

Everyone turned around to see the Slayer holding his heavy cannon in the direction of the attacker, having clearly kicked the limo's door open.

He then pointed the gun at the crowd, quickly dispersing it until there wasn't a single unwanted person left.

Some of the guards had tried to stop him, but simply being near him had frozen their limbs, so they decided to instead start removing the body, whose death had happened right in front of Shinji's eyes.

'Perfect.' Kaworu thought inside Shinji's head as they entered the building.

Unit 02 hangar, inside the entry plug

'All systems are normal, initiating the starting procedure.' The radio inside Asuka's entry plug said as she rested in the darkness while they moved her inside unit 02's neck.

And as she gripped the plastic of the new entry plug, she closed her eyes and thought:

"We're finally back together… Once I used to call this my home, but now? After the accident in Berlin…

Unit 02 is not my home anymore."

A small grin formed on her face.

"It's become part of it, along with everything else. And it'll help me protect the rest of my home at all costs."

The walls around Asuka turned into a rainbow as she felt part of herself shifting further downwards, into the core. It was a bit warmer than she remembered, but she couldn't think about it too much as the screens around her came to life.

She looked around, noticing some of the workers being happy for the successful reactivation of the unit, while others simply looked amazed at its new design.

And as Asuka felt all these eyes on herself she thought:

"I guess that they really like the new chassis huh? Well the green limbs and rocket launchers do indeed look awesome, but now that I think about it they're probably just hypnotized by the face. It has so many sharp teeth… I can't wait to see how that idiot will react!"

A sudden blush came to her face as that last sentence bounced around in her head, so she thought while trying to get rid of it:

"I-I guess that all this attention has gotten to my head. I'm really not used to it..."

"Pilot, we are starting the synchronization test." The radio suddenly announced, shutting down her mood as she said:

"Roger."

The lights around her dimmed a bit, while she closed her eyes and let her soul sink a little deeper inside, trying to ignore the constant reminder of the choker on her neck.

And as the outside noises gradually dissipated, Asuka enjoyed the sensation of lightness that the LCL made her feel.

At some points, she even felt like she was about to start dissolving. Her mind was at peace, and her body too.

There was only one disturbance that made it through to her ears, it was a sentence overheard from the radio which said:

'Have you heard? They are delaying Ikari's trial.'

Asuka's heart went into overdrive upon hearing this, making her lose concentration and lower her score by about a couple of points. A quick call of her name however brought her back to her normal levels, but it wasn't able to clear her mind of all her worries.

As she tried to refocus, she heard the radio say again:

'I've heard that they've even parked their ship right in front of the Parliament, don't these guys have any decency?'

A small smile formed on Asuka's lips as she viewed the image in her head, but then her memory brought up a particular conversation.

" 'You can go now Asuka, your body is fine. I'll analyze the tissue of the monster and tell you what I find as soon as I can.'

You better hurry up VEGA… I'm not sure I'll survive the wait much longer.

I mean what if I actually become like that monster? They'll certainly get rid of me… But given that even the Slayer had a hard time killing it, will he kill me if he knows it's me? Or… O-or will they have to lock me up, in a bunker, where I'll never see anyone else until the end of the world?

Chained to a wall, unable to move and with my mouth closed… Is this how my eva feels?"

A sudden shock traveled through her body as Bardiel flared in her eyepatch, trying his best to keep her alive. Her body relaxed soon afterwards and as she breathed out air bubbles in the LCL, she raised her eye, noticing that her synch score had gone up by a few points.

Parliament waiting room

Both the Slayer and Samuel stared at the clock on the wall, trying to not kill one of the guards due to the extreme boredom.

On the other end of the room Shinji had been put in a lone chair and surrounded by soldiers, causing him to tremble constantly like a jackhammer.

Near Samuel, Misato was very tense, along with Ritsuko. The only other person in the small room was Mari, who managed to keep a smile on her face and by reading a magazine she had brought with herself.

And as the clock ticked to 11am Samuel thought:

"I wonder how VEGA is doing… Will they try to give him a parking ticket? Ahahah.

Still, it was a really good idea to park the Fortress there, even though we can leave it anywhere we want. I bet that those old men shat themselves upon seeing it, which was the desired effect.

However, now that I think about it, the Slayer went a bit too overboard with shooting that guy. It didn't help to set up our image all that much and it wasn't planned either, but then again, he was dangerously close to hurting Misato… Oh and Shinji too of course,yes. It's strange though how kind they've been to us so far, despite what they told us during the trip.

Is it all a mask, or is the WILLE crew exaggerating?"

Suddenly a man opened the door and talked to one of the guards, who said:

"They are ready. Follow us."

The group stood from their seats as they followed the squad of guards who carried Shinji towards an elevator,and once inside they all headed to the top of the building.

As they looked outside through the glass walls of the elevator, the Fortress presented itself to them as VEGA followed their every move, waving at them with one of the railguns before they disappeared inside.

Parliament hall

As they walked past an empty desk, a large double wooden door presented itself before the group, which led to a completely dark room on the other side. The guard led them along what seemed like a corridor, before stopping at the centre of a barely lit circle. The armed men then separated Shinji from the rest, putting him in the middle as a large circle was illuminated right above them, showing each member of the Parliament.

"Reminds me of those SEELE meetings from years ago…" Ritsuko thought as she noticed the two shining barrels of the super shotgun in the Slayer's hands, while the golden meathook underneath longed for blood.

"Let's hope he doesn't kill everyone…" She thought again.

Then, suddenly a voice came from over them:

"We are reunited here today to discuss the matter of Ikari Shinji's actions from fifteen years ago. Now, first and foremost. Ikari, how aware were you of th-"

"Let's just lock him up already!" Another voice suddenly interrupted the man.

"Yeah! Guards take him away! We don't have to waste time here!" Another added again, followed by many more until the man's voice from before echoed through the room:

"Silence! I will not stand for this! The European union was built on the concept of equal rights, and this is the moment where we need to show the world that this union still exists!

What will Gendo think of us when he hears about a botched trial? That we aren't united anymore, that we are weak. And so he'll send his armies against us, ending the last hope of a better world."

He paused for a moment before saying:

"Gentlemen, I understand your frustration. I was forced to watch my country get flooded again after the near third impact, along with my family. However, I sit here today and ask you to do the correct thing, and put away your emotions so that we can preserve justice in the world."

As his words faded in the room only silence remained, with Shinji having considerably calmed down.

The rest of the group felt glad that they had one on their side, except for Samuel, who had been through enough court proceedings to read through the lines.

The man up above cleared his throat as he said:

"Anyway, let us resume. Activate the monitors please."

A large screen presented itself in one area of the circle, followed by other three so that everyone could see clearly.

A video feed started, showing a burned forest near the destroyed remains of the NERV pyramid as a group made up of Misato, Maya, Ritsuko and other NERV elements walked out of an elevator in the distance. Meanwhile, next to the camera, Gendo, Fuyutsuki and Kaji appeared, all staring at something beyond the camera's field of view.

That was until unit 01 came flying across the screen, smashing into the side of the destroyed building as the angel Zeruel floated near it.

"He looked menacing already from Matarael's drawings, but seeing it for real is an entirely different thing… It's almost like he radiates an aura of strength and power. A bit like the Slayer." VEGA thought after he silently hacked into the room.

When unit 01 fell silent and the angel began to fire away at its armor, the video was stopped by the men above as one of them said:

"Up until this point Unit 01 had been running on its operational power, with you at the controls. However, after failing to stop the angel, you became stuck inside of the entry plug, am I correct?"

"Y-yes." Shinji replied as he took every moment available to observe what he had done that day from another perspective.

"After that, despite being no longer able to move, you called out to the evangelion, which reactivated it and allow-"

"It was my mother." Shinji suddenly said, then continued:

"A-at NERV, Fuyutsuki explained to me that my mother is inside the core of unit 01, that's why it- it responded like that."

A short pause followed before another member said:

"Yui Ikari… The creator of the evangelion project, and mother mad enough to grant such power to her son. So it is fair to assume that she entrapped herself inside the core of the evangelion purposely, to eventually grant you this power in a time of need." The man said as Mari tried to hide her annoyance for their opinion of Yui.

"I-I'm not sure… I mean I-" Flashbacks of the contact experiment flashed before Shinji's eyes thanks to the angel in his head, making him quickly experience again the last smile he ever saw from her.

However this was interrupted when a member said:

"Choose your words carefully, Ikari. You might not have many of them left.

Resume the video."

As they saw unit 01 get back up and shift its green lights into red ones, VEGA felt something strange going on inside of him, but he ignored it as he kept collecting data on the evangelion.

The video was stopped as a member said:

"Ikari, how conscious were you of your actions in these moments?"

"I-" His hands felt that burning sensation again even before he was able to get more words out of his mouth. But still, he forced his way through as Rei's grey body appeared.

"I was… I couldn't see what was going on outside. The entry plug was covered in… Rainbows and I guess that I went inside the core."

A short surprised silence followed before a member said:

"You guess? Be more precise, as you are giving us completely new information."

Everyone got a bit closer to the centre of the room as Shinji continued:

"I felt drawn to the bottom of the plug after the rainbows came. At that moment I was only interested in saving Mol- Rei, after she had been eaten by the angel.

I called out to her and she replied, so I mustered up what strength I had left and crawled forward, eventually reaching a blue wall of fire."

Shinji paused for a moment as he slowly felt his insecurity start to go away. Then he said:

"I pushed through that wall somehow and I found myself inside a dark place, where Ayanami was sitting on the bottom of it.

My skin began to tear off as I called out to her, but eventually she came up so I was able to pull her out of there.

I-I was so happy that I was able to save her that I hugged her immediately…But after that I don't remember anything."

The members above him looked at each other through the dark, until one of them nodded and said:

"Are you sure you do not remember anything else? Like a strange feeling in you?"

"No…" As Shinji said this, a brief pause followed before the man said:

"Resume the video, please watch closely Ikari."

The boy nodded as he watched the awakened unit 01 rise up further in the sky as its armor broke off around the core and in the back, from where two thin wings of light sprung forth.

It then pressed both hands on Zeruel's core, making energy travel through them which slowly got rid of all the external flesh. The angel exploded in a huge storm of blood, which recomposed itself into a giant red body that resembled Rei's and unit 01 hugged it. A bright light came from the evangelion's core when it touched her, starting the fusion which elevated the giant mech into something closer to a God.

However, just as the Doors of Guf reached their maximum extension over it, Shinji started feeling nauseous and dizzy until his entire world turned dark and he fainted.

He fell down from his chair, making the commission stop the video immediately as one of them asked:

"Ikari? What's going on!?"

Suddenly Samuel Hayden made his way through the guards and towards him, crouching next to him as he checked for his heartbeat. He found nothing,so he said:

"Shit. VEGA open up a portal now!"

In just a moment a blue circle appeared in the middle of the room, which allowed Samuel to quickly carry Shinji to the ship's medical bay, handing him to VEGA who reactivated his pulse with an electrical shock. He was then placed in stasis inside the vertical tube rendering him safe for now.

Back in the Parliament

Samuel let out a sigh of relief as he crossed the portal once more, not expecting to be surrounded by guns from all directions. So as he gave a quick glance at the Slayer, who was smirking because of his situation, he said:

"Give me a moment and I'll explain everything."

The soldiers didn't move their aim, but no bullets were fired, so he said:

"Okay, so. Me and VEGA believe that Shinji fainted because of a malfunction in the exoskeleton that is keeping his spine intact. I have now brought him back to the Fortress' medical bay to prevent his death."

"An exoskeleton? What?" One of the members said and Samuel replied:

"After the fourth impact, Ikari's entry plug failed to activate and fell a great distance, causing his spine to crack in various places. He was only able to survive thanks to Shikinami and our help. You weren't able to see the machinery because the shirt covered it…

Could you move those guns away please?"

Just as the soldiers started moving away, they were stopped by the same member who said:

"Before that, answer me Samuel Hayden. If your technology is advanced enough to save him in such conditions, then why did it fail?"

The robot let out a short sigh before VEGA appeared on the giant screen, scaring all the members as he said:

"We believe that the malfunction did not come from the machinery itself, but from Kaworu Nagisa, the angel living inside Ikari's mind."

A short pause followed before VEGA continued: "My name is VEGA, It's a pleasure to meet you members of the European Parliament, also forgive my sudden intrusion, but waiting in silence was starting to get quite boring."

The members looked at each other for a moment before one of them said:

"An angel inside his head? Like with pilot Shikinami?"

"Close, but not quite. Their connection is deeper than that."

VEGA then started playing a video of Shinji sleepwalking from earlier along with the night at the village during which they had been attacked. Then he said:

"Kaworu Nagisa has shown various times that he is able to control Ikari's actions to a limited degree, especially when he is unconscious or sleeping and from what I have gathered, he might be able to speak to him as well. I would like to focus your attention on this particular incident."

As he said this he extended the video of the attack in the village to the entire screen and they all watched how Shinji easily overpowered Asuka and brought her to the ground, before the Slayer smashed him into a wall.

"He was able to defeat Asuka that easily?" Misato thought as her eyes moved to Mari, noticing the frown on her face.

When the video ended, a member said:

"But what was he trying to accomplish by doing this? Does he want to kill Ikari and sabotage WILLE?"

And then Samuel replied:

"No… It's more personal. Correct me if I am wrong, but Ikari was taken by NERV shortly after his reawakening, right?"

"Yes, we barely had time to interrogate him before Ayanami arrived." Ritsuko said while trying to hide her harsh tone.

So Samuel said: "Then, if NERV somehow convinced Ikari to start a new impact after what he has seen, I believe that Kaworu is at the centre of all this."

"What do you mean? Couldn't NERV have just forced him to do it? Gendo certainly had the means to." A member said and Samuel replied:

"No, Shinji would have revolted as soon as he was inside the evangelion. The only way to convince Shinji to start the fourth impact was to really make him believe that somehow it would have made things better and given his relationship with his father, with the sub commander and Ayanami's passivity, Kaworu Nagisa is the only one who could have possibly grown close to him enough to convince Shinji about that possibility, taking advantage of his disoriented and confused state.

Which is also why he is inside of his head right now.

He's trying to keep that dream in Shinji alive, by talking to him and by cutting his connections with others, so that he can manipulate him even better.

His first target indeed was Shikinami, who, despite her harsh methods, was still trying to make him understand his mistake."

"What about today's incident then? Shikinami is inside her evangelion right now, so I don't see why he would have acted like that."

"I believe that we will find our answer in the video of the near third impact.

As I said, Nagisa isn't just cutting off his connections with others, he also needs to get closer to Shinji again, so if we find something during the near third impact that might have compromised Kaworu's image, then it makes sense for him to have stopped Ikari from seeing it."

"Very well, Iet us proceed then."

VEGA resumed the video as he said this, showing how unit 01 rose up further into the sky while its body was engulfed in white flames, leaving only the red details of the two cores and its face visible.

Suddenly the feed of the video split in half as the clouds moved away, while the colorful pattern around the Doors of Guf was shattered. Something red moved through it, but it was too fast to be made out clearly by the naked eye, which could only recognize it as a two pronged spear once it impaled itself in the back of unit 01, interrupting the impact and deactivating it.

From above the unit, another evangelion descended, seemingly suspended in mid air. It had a sky blue armor with grey decorations and a single V shaped visor in its head, while a giant halo hovered above it.

Moments later, the video ended, leaving both Samuel, the Slayer, and especially VEGA in quite the surprised state.

And after a moment the robot said:

"W-wait what? So the impact didn't happen?"

In that moment Mari decided to finally speak up as she said:

"It did, just months later. That unit up there, it was Nagisa's, he's the one who stopped the impact."

Hearing this, Samuel calmed himself down and said:

"Alright… I guess that now we know why Shinji fainted… But, if that's really what happened, then what caused this world to be in this state?"

Mari replied:

"We don't really know. After the impact was stopped, SEELE took over NERV and made Kaworu the commander, who promptly kicked us out of Tokyo 3.

Thankfully, Kaji Ryoji had been made the sub commander, since he was playing on everyone's side and he kept us updated.

His last message was on the day of the true third impact, he told us that Shinji had reawakened unit 01 and finished what he had started.

When we arrived there, there was a giant white evangelion fusing with Lilith and in a last effort to save humanity, Kaji crashed an helicopter with an N2 mine into the creature, limiting the effects of the impact with his sacrifice."

Samuel's eye immediately moved towards Misato, who had hidden her expression behind her hat. The Slayer was looking away too, though he couldn't understand why.

"By the way Samuel, about your theory." Mari continued, grabbing his attention again:

"I think that you are right. When me and the Princess were down in Terminal dogma trying to stop Shinji and Kaworu, I heard him say various things over the radio and well, yes. He truly believed that he was going to fix the world by removing the two spears that had been put inside Lilith, the same ones that had been used on him before."

At this point Samuel expected VEGA to ask a question about these special spears, but instead, he found him strangely silent, almost lost, even if it was just his gut telling him this.

The ice that had suddenly formed in the conversation was broken by one of the Parliament members who said:

"So… Is there anything we can do about him?"

Before anyone else could reply, another member said:

"Why don't we just lock him up somewhere or kill him? If Kaworu needs Shinji then we'd get rid of two birds with one sto-."

"That is the worst option imaginable." VEGA said, interrupting him abruptly and surprising Samuel with how nervous and angry he sounded.

The AI then said:

"We do not have enough information to deduce that Kaworu wouldn't be able to move into someone else's mind, plus Ikari's death would play right into Gendo's hand. He has no more uses for his son, so by killing him we would just do him a favor.

There's also the fact that Shinji's mother is inside unit 01 and can still react to him. Now I don't believe that I need to tell you what killing Shinji would make her do, right?

Locking him up is not a feasible solution either, since we can never be sure about the loyalty of everyone, as highlighted by the incident in Berlin."

"But what opinion is there then?" The same member said and VEGA replied:

"Double synchronization. With Shikinami."

"Wait…Are you suggesting putting him back inside an evangelion?! My toaster is smarter than that!"

"Your toaster cannot blow a hole through this building and kill you with a railgun right?" VEGA replied as they heard the Fortress of Doom move closer to the building, causing the Slayer to make an evil smirk as he thought:

"Finally taking out the claws, eh VEGA? Hehehe."

Then VEGA continued:

"Ahem. My idea is that by using the double synchronization, Shikinami would be able to prevent Ikari from awakening the evangelion, by using her influence to keep the situation stable."

"And what about Kaworu?"

"That's the reason I've chosen Shikinami. Because of Bardiel, the angel in her eye.

Since it has a deep connection with her, I believe that its influence will prevent Kaworu from taking over. This however needs to be tested."

"Tests, ideas, theories… is there anything concrete that we can rely on?" That member from before said and Mari replied:

"No, but I can say this. When we were fighting unit 13,which had this double arrangement, Shinji was still able to take over and control it himself, despite Kaworu trying to stop him after realizing the trap prepared by Gendo that he had fallen in.

However, VEGA, as I reflected on your theory, I realized something.

In that moment, Kaworu had gone 'out of synchronization' with Shinji, to be more precise his intent, his ideas and his emotions weren't anymore the same ones that Shinji had, making him lose the connection. It's also why a few years ago, when me and Asuka tried this system too, we were never able to synchronize despite our best efforts.

Our interests were different at the time, and so we couldn't make the eva work.

What I'm trying to say here is that the double synchronization isn't simply about linking two pilots to an evangelion, but also linking the two of them with themselves.

And I believe that that's exactly what happened with Shinji and Kaworu in the days between his kidnapping and the fourth impact.

They have to have done something together that made them have the same ideas, the same spirits and the same will to carry out that mission. We have to do the same thing, if we want the synchronization between Shinji and Asuka to work."

A deep silence filled the room before Ritsuko said:

"But where would we even start? We tried different approaches already with you and Asuka."

The Slayer suddenly replied:

"Molly."

Hearing this Samuel picked up his idea as he said:

"That's right. Molly Ayanami, she was with them the entire time at NERV and and probably even before, so she's our best source of information."

A quiet chat began between all the members, before one of them said:

"Very well. The session for today is closed, we shall continue tomorrow. About the ideas proposed today, they will be discussed and the decision will be made known to you by tonight, along with any instructions we deem necessary.

That is all, you may go now. Please update us on Ikari's health."

"It will be done." Samuel said as they started to slowly get out of the room.

And as the group entered the elevator, he noticed that a small smile had formed on Misato's face,then once the metallic doors closed and they started to descend, he also noticed that their two hands were dangerously close and hard to see in such a crowded elevator.

So, he slowly moved it closer and closer to hers, until they were centimeters apart, then millimeters, then the distance couldn't even be determined anymore.

But a deep feeling of regret filled Samuel as he remembered about Kaji's death and his son left in the village, causing him to retreat, without her even having noticed anything.

At the base of the skyscraper

Samuel let out a short sigh once the elevator reached the bottom floor and then said:

"Well, that went better than expected… Apart from Shinji that is, but he should be alright soon."

"Now let's go back to our respective ships, tomorrow it's going to be a big day." Ritsuko said while they approached the main entrance, but as soon as the Slayer opened it, a tsunami of flashes came at him in full force.

He quickly slammed the doors back closed, as he motioned to the others to avoid going that way.

"There's an emergency exit we can use. I'll guide you there." One of the guards said.

The Slayer immediately looked at him with a suspicious gaze, but after walking for a bit the guard said:

"C-could you stop that Mr Slayer? I'm not going to turn against you. I'm not that stupid… Plus it's not like I'd gain anything from it, our situation is desperate already."

The Slayer calmed down a bit as Samuel asked:

"What do you mean? The situation seemed stable enough in this war."

"Yes,but…For us soldiers, we don't have much to fight for anymore. Nowadays conflicts are won by who has the most and best equipped evangelions,regular troops are just for holding captured territory."

"Wouldn't that be a good thing? It keeps you out of the battle."

"Yes, but it makes it feel like I've wasted my life, that I've trained to defend for what I care about only to stand around in a large city and wait until an eighty meter giant steps on me in the next attack.

Many of my squadmates already resigned, to go help their families survive across the red earth. Others gave up completely on life, there's always a lot of suicides after each NERV victory and especially after last June they have risen dramatically."

"What happened last June? If you can share that information." Samuel asked, noticing the Slayer having gotten closer to him.

"They tried to invade the United States and got destroyed even before landing. It was a crucial operation to our war effort, as seizing the factories there would dramatically ramp up our production and give us an edge in the war, to finally break the stalemate."

The Slayer's body froze as he heard those words, recalling a particular individual he had met in the village.

Then the guard continued:

"When they arrived, they discovered that NERV had built a gigantic tower that shot lasers and one by one, their ships were torn in half.

Only a single one survived, thanks to its captain, the Eminent Domain. It'll reach us soon, which I guess confirms the rumor of the planning of a second attempt…"

"That… does not sound reasonable at all." Samuel added and the guard said:

"Ha! You can say that again.

But it's our only hope, everything else has already been tried once."

"...You said that the others went to their families?" Samuel said, trying to change the subject a bit.

"Yes,they did, but I've remained… Where would I go anyway? My last relative was my father, and he died fighting with the German army… Now even the concept of nations has become blurred, it's either us or NERV. Borders don't have much meaning anymore."

"Why are you still fighting then?" Samuel asked, giving a glance to see how the Slayer reacted to this question, as it was partially addressed to him as well. Then the guard replied:

"There might be a lot of reasons, for the enemy soldiers it's the belief that instrumentality will be like heaven for them for example. But for me? It's because I don't have anything else besides this, so I want to protect what's left in the best way I can, even considering the sacrifices it forces on me."

A short pause followed before the emergency exit appeared before them, so he said:

"Sorry for speaking so much… I'll let you go now."

"Goodbye." Samuel said as they began leaving the building one by one, leaving the Slayer for last as he stopped by the guard and looked at him in the eye.

The man was about to retreat when he put a hand on his shoulder and said:

"Yours is a noble goal, keep following it, keep fighting, and you will be rewarded in the end."

The Slayer left immediately after, shutting the door behind himself without leaving him any time to respond. What he had left however was a strange sense of security and determination, which made the man think:

"Does this happen to every person he touches?"

He found no answers, so he just left the area and walked towards their break room to go grab something to drink.

On a street in the suburbs of the city

"Was stealing a car really the best option we had?" Maya asked as the Slayer sat next to him and Samuel in the back of the SUV, while Misato drove in the front, with Ritsuko to her side.

"Unless we wanted to be drowned by the reporters then yes, it was." Samuel replied and then Ritsuko added:

"Good thing we found one with darkened windows at the back too, otherwise it would have been impossible to hide you two. Wait Misato, wasn't that the turn we had to take for the Wunder?"

"And enter from the front gate by running over a hundred people? Not my thing. Don't worry, I know another way." The captain replied.

"Let's hope it doesn't involve some of your crazy driving." Ritsuko said as a traffic light in front of them turned green.

"Hey! I have improved over the years!" Misato said, taking her eyes off the road and almost crashing into another car if the Slayer hadn't grabbed the wheel at the last moment.

Misato fell in an embarrassed silence as she resumed driving normally, so Ritsuko turned around and asked:

"By the way, why are you two here? Couldn't VEGA just create a portal and bring you to the Fortress that way?"

"They are way too loud, the reporters would have jumped on you in no time."

"Couldn't you have brought us on your ship?" Ritsuko said abd Samuel replied again:

"You'll have to wait some more time before I let you roam around my deck. Plus I doubt you would have brought us on your ship if the positions were switched."

As Samuel said this, Ritsuko didn't reply, agreeing with him on the fact that they still didn't trust each other enough.

The car suddenly came to a halt as Misato greeted the soldier at the checkpoint, when suddenly both of them were distracted by a huge shadow coming over them.

They looked up, finding the fortress moving over the Wunder while several news helicopters followed it closely.

"Looks like we're not the only ones at the centre of attention." Misato said as the gate in front of them opened and she began to drive towards her ship's open access ramp.

And as the Fortress was hidden from sight by the Wunder's wing, Maya asked:

"Excuse me for saying this, but how does your ship actually fly? Those four engines below shouldn't be able to make it move the way it does."

And Samuel said:

"That's true, in reality those four engines are there to assist the main Argent generator of the ship, which manipulates gravitational fields to make it move in all directions. Then if it has to go somewhere quickly, it either uses the engines or a hyperdrive, though that takes a lot of energy, so it's not that useful for short distances."

"Wow…" Maya replied, feeling like she had just heard someone read a page of science fiction to her, while Ritsuko kept watching outside, secretly very intrigued by these details.

The car was stopped one final time and they all stepped out of it, just as a portal appeared next to Samuel and the Slayer,who entered it soon after.

Misato looked at the portal for a while, standing still until it disappeared, when Ritsuko placed a hand on her shoulder and said:

"Don't worry Katsuragi, we'll get Ikari back on our ship in one way or another soon enough."

Misato did not like at all the tone of her voice, but she said nothing as she straightened her cap and began climbing up the ramp.

That night, in the sky over the Atlantic Ocean

"Sir, the airborne troops are ready!" A soldier said as he stood before his commander, who replied:

"Very well, what's our time of arrival?"

"Tomorrow late morning sir, if we were to go any faster our concealment would fail and we'd lose the element of surprise."

"Hm… Okay, tell the troops and the eva pilots to get some rest, say that to the other two ships too. It might be just a single city, but that Fortress and the Slayer have capabilities we don't yet understand. I want to be careful."

"Understood sir!" The soldier replied as he left his office, leaving him alone to think.

"Alright Slayer… Let's see if you'll recognize me without my wheelchair."

As he thought this he felt the two swords vibrating in their hilts, while the small mechanisms inside his armor filled his ears with white noise.

Suddenly a light began to turn on and off on his desk, accompanied by a ringing sound. He clicked the button next to it and a screen revealed itself from the body of his desk, showing Gendo's face.

"Isn't it a bit late to call at such hours Ikari? Especially for a man your age."

"I do not need to sleep anymore. Now, what is your progress?"

"Everything's on schedule, tomorrow we'll attack."

"Good. However, your tone seemed to hold something from me." Hearing this, the man got up from his chair and let out a sigh, before saying:

"It's the Slayer. I still don't agree on how little importance you have given him in this operation."

"He is simply a very skilled fighter, eliminating him before he can acquire his mech with your resources should be easy.

You had that armor built for you exactly for that purpose after all." Gendo said, watching as the man sat down again and said:

"I know that, but he's not just a fighter, he's beyond anything a human could ever hope to be, watching him in the village confirmed that to me. I still have that scar from when he cut my leg in half…

Look, the thing is that he has an aura around him, which makes thinking about defeating him almost impossible.

He permeates pure rage just by being close to him, and in that condition no fighter can operate optimally, because that rage brings fear to his opponent."

"I have long gotten past the concept of fear, it hindered the scenario." Gendo replied as he closed the call.

"Yeah sure, scenario and all that… But he still hasn't been that close to him."

The wound in his leg suddenly came back to life despite having closed itself long before, causing him to throw some random curses into the air as he thought:

"God dammit… Even thinking about him too much might be a death sentence."

The next morning, 6 AM, European Parliament

"Ahem. Very well, this court has reached a decision. Ikari Shinji, Shikinami Asuka, stand up."

The two of them rose from their seats at the centre of the room as the man continued:

"I believe that both of you have been updated on what was discussed beforehand, correct?"

They nodded, so he continued:

"This court has decided to consider Ikari Shinji partially guilty of his actions during the near third impact and the fourth impact, based on the testimony of those present. However, given the additional information that was provided, along with the current geopolitical situation, we sentence Ikari to a prolonged stay on the AAA Wunder warship, with supervision assigned to captain Katsuragi Misato.

In this period, he and Shikinami will partake in a series of activities similar to the ones practiced by Ikari and Nagisa in order to test the possibility of double synchronization.

Supervision of this program is handed to both captain Katsuragi Misato and Akagi Ritsuko.

That is all, this court is closed."

A loud slam of a wooden hammer was heard as the guards escorted the group in the waiting room just outside the Parliament, where the receptionist was missing again. One of the guards noticed this too as he said to his colleague:

"It's been a couple of days that no one has seen Claire, did she quit her job? I remember that they paid her well."

"Who knows? I've heard thar some people from other areas have disappeared too.*

Suddenly the door was opened again as a man appeared and said:

"Hayden, Slayer, your presence is required once more."

The two of them looked at each other for a moment before walking inside once again, where all the lights had now been turned on, showing every member present.

"What's the matter?" Samuel asked and the German representative said:

"Now that we are done with Ikari, we would like to discuss about our plan of action for the future and if you would like to help us."

"It's about the United States, right?" Samuel said.

"Ah, I see you've heard the rumors. Yes, we would like to ask for your help in the coming operation.

You see, yesterday night we also reviewed the footage that we received from the village along with the report from Berlin, and we concluded that the operation would have much higher chances of success if you were present."

"What about the american government? During our stay in the village we encountered an individual which the Slayer helped escape from Japan to reach the states, on the idea that the president there was rebuilding a fighting force. But if both coasts are so heavily defended, then how was it possible to have an ally there?"

Hearing this the French representative said:

"Ah yes, he informed us about such a project. You see, after the first failed landing, some resistance groups formed inside the country. They are well equipped and well trained, especially in carrying out stealth missions like the one you described."

Samuel paused to think for a moment before he said:

"If this happens to be the case, then the only thing stopping the landing is that tower we heard of, right? What do we know about it?"

Play: [Briefing 1]Ace combat Zero OST

The screen from before was turned on again, with VEGA already present in the bottom left. Then a 3D model of the area was loaded as the Italian representative said:

"From what we reconstructed by the testimonies of the survivors and surveillance data, the tower, classified as 'Excalibur' is one kilometer tall and is able to fire steerable lasers from the rotating tip."

The model was zoomed in, showing a huge vertical structure surrounded by various pillars. The thick metallic plating that covered it made it resemble a sword stuck in stone, with the laser weapon situated at the top of the handle.

"It had a range of over one thousand kilometers, however, thanks to the recent destruction of the reflective satellites in orbit, its range has dropped to around two hundred kilometers. The pillars at the base are AT field generators, made out of core material from destroyed evangelions.

They make the tower immune to long range attacks, and the energy required to power them comes from nuclear plants underground, too deep for us to target them."

"However, it takes a lot of energy to power a laser, so do they really have that many reactors?" Samuel asked as he moved closer to the giant screen.

"No, from our recorded footage, the shield around the tower lowers right when it's about to fire, as they need that energy for the laser itself. The enemy knows this too as well, otherwise the destruction of the tower would have simply been a matter of timing. So they made the outer shell several meters thick of hardened steel, while an extra AT field protects the lens up top, which activates just as the shield is about to go offline, providing the weapon constant security."

"We would need a weapon powerful enough to penetrate this AT field and then hit the lens, right?" Samuel said and the Dutch representative replied:

"Yes, it's being brought to us right now."

"Then why do you need our help if you already have the weapon and a strategy?"

"Well… It pains me to say this, but lately WILLE has disappointed us many times, even before the fourth impact. Every time it seems that Gendo is one step ahead of us, even after we checked seven times for any spies on their ship."

Then the German representative spoke again:

"If you were to escort the cargo alongside WILLE, it would lower the chances of a successful sabotage… And… Because otherwise we are out of options."

Samuel paused to reflect for a moment, but was surprised when he heard the Slayer say:

"We'll help you."

A sigh of relief echoed in the room as the man turned around to leave, but he was stopped by VEGA who said:

'Isn't it a bit too early to come to this decision, Slayer? I don't really see many ways in which it benefits us.'

He looked back at Samuel who was starting to discuss the various ways they could attack the coast, and he whispered:

"The guards and soldiers of this world… They are suffering, they are confused,they are losing hope and their will to fight."

'They need something to believe in, right?

They need a victory.' VEGA said as he read through the Slayer's words.

"And we're going to give them just that."

The man said as he got inside the elevator, staring at the shining water of the city's river.

"If this operation goes smoothly then he'll become their idol, just like back on Earth…" VEGA thought as he went back to the Parliament to discuss the strategies.

One the city's walls, near one of the turrets.

The Slayer stood over the giant triple gun battery as he gazed towards the horizon, wondering how far the red wasteland extended before another piece of civilization could be found.

Behind him, the Wunder was brimming with life as the workers finished outfitting Asuka's hangar with the new equipment needed by her evangelion which she had gone back to finish the final tests.

As his suit's clock sent out a short beep, telling him that it was 11 o'clock, he looked around the top of the walls and thought:

"They are… strangely quiet, I'd expect such an imposing fortification to have some spotters as well. Maybe the system is automated?"

He stepped down from the turret and reached its back, where a door had been carved through the armor.

He went inside, finding no one there to control the guns, only some screens and a map hung up on the wall.

He checked out the area a bit more as he thought:

"Reminds me of the turret of a battleship, just a lot more modern… Oh look, there's a seat here, I guess that they can be manually controlled as well."

As he sat down and inspected the various controls, he turned his attention to the map on the wall, which showed the entire defensive complex and the various tunnels connecting everything. But, after looking at it for a bit, he realized something:

"Wait, why is there a path leading from the wall to the AT field generators below the city? It's a massive weakness…The Death Star can't even compete with this one.

I mean, if a well equipped squad was able to get inside one of these four tunnels, they could disable the shield network and leave the city completely exposed!"

His thoughts were interrupted when he heard the sound of something metallic impacting the wall outside, so, as he instinctively pulled out the super shotgun, he slowly walked outside of the turret.

And his gut had been right once again, since not too far away from him a group of soldiers dressed in dark mimetic clothing was trying to cut their way into the tunnel using a blowtorch after having grappled up the wall.

He took them out without a second thought, but he knew that it wasn't the end of it. By using the scope of his heavy cannon he found three more teams on the top of the wall, with no alarm having been activated yet.

He tried to contact VEGA, but he soon found out that something was blocking all radio signals in the area, which also explained the missing alarms. So he thought:

"Dammit, I can't get all of them in time due to how big the walls are, at least one of them is going to get through if I don't figure out a way to defeat them from-"

He then turned to look at the three forty two centimeter wide barrels sitting in the giant turret next to him.

"-Over here…"

He was about to get inside of it when an active radio from one of the dead bodies caught his attention and he figured that it had been set to ignore the jamming. So he grabbed it and brought it inside the turret with him.

On the other side of the wall

"How long until we get inside?" The leader of the squad asked to their engineer who said:

"Almost done, give me another minute. Besides boss, we're in no rush, with the secretary working for us she'll keep the Parliament inside the room for long enough to let the bomb blow up. I doubt that anything will be heard from outside given how soundproof that room is. If we get that robot as well then it's even better."

"Yeah yeah, I know how the plan is supposed to go. Just hurry up now, the sooner we finish this the better."

Just as he said this, he turned around to look at one of the other soldiers, who seemed to be lost in thought. So the leader said:

"Hey! It's no time to get lost in dreamland, stay focused!"

And the man replied:

"I am sir! I was simply wondering why that turret over there is not turned outside like all the other ones."

"Say what now!?" The leader said just as three fires erupted from the giant guns, sending high explosive shells to obliterate that entire part of the wall's surface.

Back to the other side of wall

The Slayer grinned like a maniac as the guns reloaded and he fired another salvo at the other squad, with the last one following soon after.

The massive explosions had alerted VEGA, who left the Parliament in between the confusion of the members and approached the Slayer's turret. And as the man left the gun, he said:

"There's a bomb in the Parliament! Bring me there!"

The AI followed as he unloaded one of the railguns and the Slayer went where the shell should have been, then, he took aim and fired him right at the building, just as alarms blared all over the city. Just then the jamming intensified, blocking him from contacting Samuel, while in the background various swarms of helicopters from the local forces began to take off, while many others appeared from behind the walls.

He reloaded and approached their position, ready to give them a warm welcome.

Near an elevator in the Parliament building

*ding*

The two doors opened as the man pushed the cart with his cleaning equipment inside, whistling a tune from his earbuds.

The music muted out the slow ticking of the floor counter over him as he watched the light from the various floors pass by at regular intervals. But then it suddenly stopped, and the two doors opened once again.

The Slayer walked inside, covered in debris and still smoking from the impact as he selected the top floor and then laid on the side of a wall.

The caretaker did not have the heart to look at him, for he had heard the things he was capable of, but he also wasn't able to survive with such high tension in the air.

So, in attempt to break the silence, he said:

"Top floor? Aren't they having a meeting right now?"

"I have to intervene. The city is under attack."

The man was taken back by this, but after living with war for so long he calmed down and said:

"Hm, I see. Just please try not to make the floor too dirty, this job of mine is already a pain."

Doomguy nodded.

The elevator opened, letting the caretaker quickly walk out as the Slayer remained by himself inside the grey box.

And he thought:

"Let's hope that those empty heads managed to come up with some way to attack the United States. At least with Samuel they should have made some progress."

The doors finally opened for one last time, inviting the Slayer to the reception that preceded the meeting room.

As the woman sitting behind the desk noticed him, she said:

"Uhm Sir you are not allowed to enter at the moment, I'll let you know wh-"

She couldn't finish her sentence as the Slayer blew her brains out with the super shotgun.

He kicked down the large door, surprising everyone inside the circular room, even Samuel who said:

"Slayer? What are you doing here?"

He was about to reply, when suddenly two VTOLs rose up outside of the glass as they got ready to fire.

Two huge beams of energy from the fortress of doom obliterated them as VEGA said to the Slayer:

'There's no more time! I've detected the bomb and it is about to explode! You need to jump!'

So Doomguy grabbed the cyborg just as the last person exited the room and, while ignoring his protests, ran into one of the windows, breaking it as they began freefalling.

Despite the loud wind, he was still able to hear Samuel say:

"Slayer what the fuck is going on?!"

Play:[Mayhem] Ace combat Zero OST

The man didn't reply as he used his dash to push both of them into the side of the building, slowing down their fall enough so that his robotic body wasn't destroyed upon impact.

Once they landed, the top of the building behind them finally exploded, sending huge pieces of debris to fall on the crowd of people in front of them while the air battle raged on overhead.

The Slayer immediately got in the middle of the trajectory of the debris as he got ready to destroy it with a blood punch, but that wasn't needed as a huge red hand suddenly appeared in front of him, catching the debris and letting the crowd escape.

He immediately turned around, seeing Asuka's rebuilt evangelion in all its glory standing over him.

"I like the teeth." The Slayer said as he began running up Unit 02's replacement arm, taking his time to look at the huge minigun it had also been fitted with.

"Wait, Asuka, weren't you busy doing tests with the eva?" Samuel asked and she replied while pointing at the destroyed hangar in the distance:

"Well, I was. Let me just say that a couple of reinforced metal walls aren't enough to stop me."

The robot let out a short laugh before a portal appeared next to him, so before entering he said:

"Alright, you two keep the city safe down here, me and VEGA will try to figure out what's causing all the jamming of communications. Do you think that the Wunder will be able to help us?"

"I don't think so, that ship is good at a lot of things, but starting quickly is not one of them."

"At least Shinji will be safe there." Asuka thought as the robot crossed the portal right before it closed.

On the Fortress

Samuel calmly stepped inside the deck as VEGA greeted him while the railguns reloaded.

He was about to reply, but then a barrage of missiles hit the flying Fortress, which remained unscathed thanks to its shield. However, as VEGA looked around at the huge amount of helicopters which were surrounding them from all sides, he told Samuel:

'The rate of fire of the railguns might prove insufficient at clearing this large group quickly.'

Samuel paused to think for a moment as he looked at the data on the battlefield, and then he said:

"Let's use the multiple launch system."

'But weren't we still testing it?'

"Well, I see no better testing ground than this, don't you agree?"

Samuel couldn't see VEGA's smile as he said this, but it didn't matter as a moment later all the helicopters over the city had been locked on by the ship's radar.

On the outside of the hull, the portions of rock which separated the four engines opened up, revealing hundreds of missile tubes, divided in four racks, one for each side of the ship.

VEGA gave Samuel the honor of pressing the fire button, which he gladly took as a moment later all those missiles were making their way towards the flying enemy units.

What followed was the largest firework show the city had ever seen, but unfortunately only a few were able to witness it as most of the population had already reached the bunkers.

Just as the calm seemed to fall upon the city however, a massive earthquake shook the earth, and a moment later the entire AT field of the city fell away.

A large shadow similar to the Wunder appeared from the clouds above, followed by another two. Seeing this Samuel said:

"Wha- There are more ships like the Wunder?"

'It seems so. The best hypothesis is that the Wunder is actually a stolen member of these vessels. They were hiding over the city, jamming communications while waiting for the AT to get destroyed.'

"But the Slayer defended it by killing the incoming soldiers, right?"

'It appears that it was only a distraction…

Here they come!'

As VEGA said this the three gigantic ships moved closer to the city, revealing themselves. They had the shape and same design as the Wunder, but their hulls were sharper, their wings more closely resembled bat ones instead of the Wunder's eagle-like ones and a very dark black covered every part of their hull.

Three spherical turrets came out of each ships' insides while their cargo bays opened to let out an army of Mark 05 evangelions, prompting VEGA to tell the Slayer on top of unit 02:

'Atlan will be dropping now, all weapons are available this time.'

The front of the Fortress opened up, as VEGA controlled the mech and made it jump outside to land right in front of the Slayer.

He jumped off from Unit 02 and got inside, but just as he was starting it up, the three warships began firing at the Fortress of doom, causing enough of a distraction to let a group of evas surprise the two.

Both Unit 02 and the Atlan were pushed through numerous buildings and while the red evangelion was able to free itself from the enemy's grasp, the Slayer's mech had just transferred control over to the pilot, opening up an opportunity for many more evas to attack the Slayer.

Asuka quickly pulled out her minigun to give him a hand, but more enemies surrounded her as she was forced to deflect the bullets from their pallet rifles with her AT field.

The rocket racks on her unit's shoulders activated as they fired at all the enemies around her with enough force to break their own AT fields.

Now defenseless, they all started to meet their demise as the car sized bullets from the minigun broke through their skin and into the cores.

Asuka let out a cry as she finished the last enemy, watching it fall to the ground with 9ne of its arms blown off, while three columns of smoke rose from her hot weapon.

She turned her sights to the Atlan once more, finding that a huge cloud of dust had appeared where it had been previously attacked, with no trace of the enemy evangelions in sight either.

The ground shook as suddenly a bright red long light appeared in the middle of the smoke, taking the exact same shape that she had seen on the Slayer's sword back in Berlin.

"Wait, so even his mech has one of those?

… Lucky bastard."

She thought just as a mark 05's head flew past her eva's own, while a fountain of blue blood erupted from within the cloud as the Slayer weaved through the enemy's attacks as his gigantic crucible let out red lighting and thunder each time he cut in half the other giants.

All of which was making Asuka more and more envious of him as other evas began approaching them.

Up above them, Samuel and VEGA couldn't catch a break as the three NERV ships continuously fired at the Fortress, with their AT shots either exploding on their shield or in the middle of the city.

In return, Samuel kept eroding their AT fields thanks to the two railguns, but it wasn't enough, and he needed to figure out something quickly before their protection was overloaded.

A couple of shots flew past their ship, impacting an area full of Mark 05's, killing them in the process, which gave VEGA an idea.

'Samuel, let's fly over them, they don't seem to have Identification for Friend or Foe.' VEGA said as he moved the ship to avoid five glowing projectiles.

"Alright let's go!" Samuel replied, understanding what he wanted to do.

He suddenly felt a strong force push him towards the ground as VEGA used the additional engines to fly in a gap between two of the NERV warships, leaving a thick column of exhaust behind them.

Once above the warships, the turrets reappeared after a mechanical system had moved them through the body of the ships.

However, without any walls blocking them anymore, VEGA started to circle the ships, flying at the same height as the turrets.

This caused the desired effect as when they passed next to the ship on the right, its left side was blasted by six AT shots, greatly damaging its AT field.

In that moment Samuel opened fire with both the railguns and all the four missile racks, finally destroying the AT field completely.

"Alright, let's go for a dive attack!" Samuel said as the Fortress flew high above the weakened warship, stopping right above it as VEGA increased the strength of the shield on the bottom and said:

'Activating reverse thrust.'

The four engines of the Fortress were suddenly blocked by metallic plates while two openings appeared on the outer sides of each engine compartment. This made it so that the thrust produced by these engines was sent upwards, pushing the Fortress down as it was covered in flames like an asteroid about to hit the earth.

The soldiers on the other two ships watched in horror as the ship penetrated the upper hull, crushing everything in its path before it broke through the bottom as well.

A huge hole was left where the Fortress had just passed through, causing the NERV warship to crumble as explosions began appearing all over it while it fell gracefully towards the city.

It crashed next to the area where unit 02 and the Atlan were fighting, killing many mark 05's as the two fighters stopped for a moment, to look at its carcass.

They did not enjoy the sight for very long however, as a couple of seconds later the S2 engine which powered the ship finally exploded, creating a huge column of fire as big as the entire ship, which resembled a cross at the top.

The Fortress emerged unscathed from the flames, taking on a much more sinister look than usual as it re-engaged with the other two warships, noticing that the Wunder had finally gotten in the air.

On the bridge of the central NERV warship

As the ship shook beneath them after being hit by another barrage of missiles, a man on the bridge said:

"AT shields at 60%, we won't resist much longer! The Nuremberg is damaged too as it has lost one of its turrets!"

And so the captain said:

"God dammit Ikari! I had warned him...

Get my evangelion ready! All we have to do is keep them distracted until the corruption gets into the city.

As soon as I land, focus all the fire on unit 02, the Atlan's mine."

"Sir yes sir captain! But what about the Wunder and the Fortress?"

"Use hit and run tactics by hiding in the clouds, fly in formation so that you can bait them into favorable positions. All we have to do is buy time for the red plague to cross the walls."

"Roger!" The deck crew collectively shouted as the man walked out of the room towards his hangar.

A while later, as the doors below his eva mark 06 opened, he thought:

"Alright Slayer, time to really show me what you've got, because Davis is back in action!"

On the city below

Asuka gritted her teeth as she recoiled from a hit, as her mind started to get tired from the long fight.

The unit in front of her lunged forward once again, but this time she gripped her gun tightly and used the barrel as a mace, hitting it in the head.

A second swing came as she brought the gun back down, revving it up in the meantime. The unit had no way of escaping her bullets, which tore it apart with ease as blue blood was spilled everywhere.

Asuka let out a sigh of relief once she noticed the last blip on her radar disappear, courtesy of the Atlan's giant sword.

He turned around to face her too, giving her a thumbs up for fighting so well. She was about to reply to the gesture when suddenly several huge explosions went off all around her as the AT shots impacted from above. One of the shockwaves pushed her minigun out of her hands, which in the confusion made her trip face first.

She managed to stop her fall, but this left her back exposed, just as Davis' mark 06 landed right behind her.

And with the Slayer too far away to intervene, Asuka felt her connection being forcibly shut off as her entry plug was pulled out of unit 02.

Memories of the Bardiel incident began to invade her mind as that same angel tried its best to keep her calm, but it was no avail, as the girl started screaming as soon as the lights went out.

The Slayer felt pure anger flowing through his veins as he smashed through houses and buildings without a care, but just as he was about to get within range, Davis said from the mark 06's speakers:

"Stop right there Slayer, one wrong move and she's dead!"

The Atlan came to a sudden halt as Doomguy recognized his voice.

"You." The Slayer said.

"Exactly, me, John Davis, the one and only. I bet you wish you had shot down my plane back then at the village eh?

I mean you were such a nuisance, coming in to mess up the fake identity I had created. I mean do you realize how challenging it is to fake yourself disabled?"

He did not reply as his vision focused entirely on the hand that was holding the girl hostage, until Davis spoke again:

"You know why I still haven't killed her? Because I want to fight with you, one on one, without any giant mechs or evangelions.

However I needed something to make you agree, and this is the perfect choice."

The Slayer did not reply as he kept listening, while explosions could be heard from the battle above.

"The deal is simple, my eva is programmed to crush her as soon as I give it the command so you'll have to do what I say if you want her to live.

Now, we'll both get out of our mechs and fight, if you win, then she lives, if you don't, well you can already guess what happens, can't you?

Get out of your mech, if you accept."

As Davis said this the Slayer saw the back of his evangelion opening up, and while the idea to attempt a surprise attack passed through his mind, he remained calm, realizing that his best chances at saving her weren't going to come from the Atlan.

So he pressed a button which opened the canopy, then jumped on top of the green giant, with his mind constantly asking him if it had been the right decision.

Thankfully, he was relieved to see the mark 06 pull out its entry plug, though made every attempt to not show it at all costs.

A dark silhouette jumped high in the air, landing on top of the blue evangelion's head before jumping down to a flat circular ground that the battle had created.

The Slayer followed him, landing a few meters away as he started making out the details of his armor.

It was dark black on the torso and the arms while shining grey metal was placed on its joints, all accompanied by a sharp red helmet without a visor made of flat plates of metal.

Six robotic appendages extended from the back, each one of them having a dark red plate at the end, which shined of a faint orange light.

Finally, two sword hits sat at the sides of his thighs as Davis finally said:

"You like it? It's the first ever man sized armor designed to use AT fields, and not just defensively."

Davis suddenly pulled out two swords which had the same orange shine as the red plates, making the Slayer think:

"That AT field won't let me cut those blades, alright then, I'll just have to push them away."

He pulled out his super shotgun as Davis said:

"Let's see if you can actually kill me, Slayer, because with this armor…

I'm fucking Invincible!"

Play:[Red Sun] Metal gear rising OST

Davis rushed forward to try and stab the Slayer, but he stopped when he saw the super shotgun pointed at him. One of the red plates moved in front of him, absorbing the shots as the AT field became visible for a moment.

Noticing that the Slayer was pulling out more weapons, he activated all of his shields and then dashed towards him.

They ended up less than a metre apart as the Slayer stopped for a moment to move the red plates away given how surprisingly strong those robotic arms were.

Davis took this opportunity to pull away the shields and attack the Slayer with both of his swords, making him cover his head as he felt the vibrating AT fields damage his armor.

He endured the pain and extended the blade on his wrist, blocking one of the swords and messing up the other one's movement.

He kicked it away from Davis' hand and let it slice right through one of the metallic arms, before impaling itself into the ground. Then, the Slayer used his free hand to punch Davis right in the face, propelling him away as well.

The Slayer then started running after him, but Davis used his other sword to cut apart a piece of road and pull it up in the air.

Then he kicked it right into the Slayer's face, stopping his pursuit as he rolled on the ground before coming to a halt.

He didn't even have a second to rest however as a ballista shot was fired towards him, with the shields barely managing to stop the blast.

Davis held his ground as he reclaimed his second sword, then a click was heard in his armor just as the Slayer ran towards him.

"Dodge this you fool!"

He then started spinning rapidly, using the two blades to push himself towards the Slayer as he cut him again and again.

He had to stop however as the Slayer then pulled out the minigun and its energy shield, unleashing a barrage of metal which broke off one of his robotic arms before it could get in position, leaving his shoulder exposed.

So the Slayer dashed forward, delivering a blood punch to the shields which disabled them for a moment. This allowed him to pull out the super shotgun and place it right on David's chest.

Then, as he held his head with one hand, the Slayer used the other one to fire the two slugs, which took away a large portion of his armor and damaged one of his lungs before stopping.

Davis managed to push him away by making his eva kick him, and as he looked up at the walls of the city he said in between the coughs of blood:

"You-*augh* really pack a punch there."

The helmet retracted behind the armor as the Slayer looked Davis in the eyes, pulling out the heavy cannon and placing it on his forehead.

"But… I'm not done yet!"

As Davis said this his evangelion used its AT field to push the Slayer away, giving him enough time to grab his sword and for his armor to regenerate.

He then placed the sword on his wrist with the other one, fusing them together to create something resembling an open pair of scissors. He dashed towards the Slayer as his evangelion blocked the gunshots, allowing him to get in close enough to deliver a mean cut through the Slayer's armor. Some of his blood flew out of the wound right before it was healed, but Davis had already managed to place the Slayer's head in between the two blades.

He closed them to try and cut it off, but a moment before the blades hit the armor, a red dot appeared behind the dark visor as the Slayer grabbed the swords with his hands and stopped them just in time.

Sparks flew everywhere for a moment before the Slayer launched Davis away with a kick to the chest as the equipment launcher on his shoulder set the dark armor on fire, while also launching two grenades and an ice bomb.

All of this stunned Davis for just enough time to let the Slayer fly in with another punch in the face, which sent him flying backwards until he crashed into a building, destroying it.

"Looks like I've made him mad, great." Davis thought as he got back up, noticing the Slayer pull out his dark red Argent blade and sprint towards him.

He grabbed the second sword and blocked his swing by putting them in a cross formation, but the Slayer overpowered him as his suit began to whine as it tried to hold him back.

Noticing the impending danger, Davis made a short hop backwards as he launched a piece of the destroyed building at him, which was immediately cut in half.

But, what the Slayer hadn't noticed was that Davis had jumped behind the flying piece of debris, using it as cover to hit the Slayer while he was recovering from his swing.

The three swords clashed again, letting out flames and rays of light from the combined power behind them.

The ground broke beneath the Slayer in the form of a cone behind him as he gritted his teeth while trying to resist the abnormally high amount of force Davis had. This made him angry. Not angry, but enraged, enraged as if a demon was standing right before him.

The Slayer let out a cry of rage as Davis remained surprised by his reaction, letting go of their stalemate as he was slammed into the ground.

He opened his eyes, finding his head touching the two barrels of the super shotgun while the meathook dug in his cheeks. So he said:

"There's… No need for that, Slayer… I'm a man of my word after all."

Suddenly the mark 06 above him crouched down, gently placing the entry plug on the ground as it opened its hand for Davis to climb onto. The Slayer turned to look at it for a moment, while still keeping the man at gunpoint.

"However… This battle is not over yet…"

The Slayer turned around and pushed the gun harder against him.

"If you kill me, the Dummy system in my eva will attack you, but… look at the walls."

The Slayer did so, surprised to see a sort of red dust making its way down into the city:

"If that reaches the ground, this whole city and the people in it are done for. They'll be turned into bakelite just like the billions before them. So, are you going to fight my evangelion, or let me leave and reach the emergency generator down below the city through an elevator near the river?"

"What the? Is he trying to help me now?!" The Slayer thought as Davis said:

"The clock is ticking, Slayer, and I'd really enjoy fighting you again in America. As you're the person I have been searching for all these years."

Davis closed his eyes, waiting for a bullet that never came, as he then saw the Slayer rescue an unconscious Asuka from her plug before jumping back to the top of the Atlan.

"That hate I felt in him… I have no doubts.

He hates something as much as I hate evangelions."

He slowly and reluctantly climbed back into his mark 06 as he heard from his radio:

'Sir, we can't hold out much longer! The Eminent Domain is within range as well! What are we going to do?'

"Full retreat, I don't want to lose any more men. Blame Ikari for our defeat, he underestimated the enemy."

'But Sir! The corruption is still spreading! Soon it'll reach the city! We can still win th-'

"No. No we can't, full retreat. That's an order." Davis said as the vision of the Slayer's eyes shining a deep red through his visor came back to his mind as he thought:

"As long as he takes part in a battle, there's no way we'll ever win."

"Drop a cable, I'm climbing back up from the walls."

'...Roger.'

As the radio message ended he moved his mark 06 forward, with the Atlan having sprinted towards the river long before.

Davis wondered where he had failed himself during the fight as he climbed the concrete, but every time he came to the same conclusion, he was too weak.

Near one of the river's bridges

The Atlan came to a sudden halt as VEGA said to the Slayer:

'Okay, based on what you told me I have been able to find a maintenance elevator fifty meters in front of you. Further analysis shows that it leads to the main fusion reactor of the city, which has gone offline because of a lack of coolant.'

Suddenly a second voice came through in his helmet as Ritsuko said:

'If you can reactivate the flow, the fusion reactor will restart, recreating the AT field which will protect the city from the contamination. You don't have much time, the contamination propagates much faster on the ground, so be quick about it.'

'I have marked the way forward on your HUD.' VEGA added as he tried to open the entrance, but suddenly the ground shook near him.

He looked around, seeing a mark 05 which had escaped the carnage digging through the road, right next to a sign which said 'shelter'. Even from up there, he heard hundreds of people screaming as the evangelion ripped away the metal roof and threw it near the Atlan.

He sprinted in their direction, crushing some houses as he pulled out the Argent crucible and activated it. It roared through the air before screaming as it tore through the metal and flesh of the mark 05, coating in evangelion blood the terrified citizens below.

The Slayer pulled out the sword, letting the enemy fall to the side as he checked the status of the bunker.

He noticed that several security personnel had gathered here, along with a face that he recognized quite clearly.

'That person in the middle, he's the same guard you talked with in the Parliament, perhaps he could help us.'

As VEGA said this, the Slayer was stuck looking at his feet as some of the residents had already started getting out and were walking very close to the Atlan. He was about to move away, when suddenly the mark 05,with its last dying breath, crushed the base of a nearby skyscraper, making it fall in their direction.

The Slayer moved the Atlan to stop the falling debris, feeling the hundreds of tons of concrete fall on top of the mech as the people below were terrified once more.

"Run, now!" The Slayer said through the speakers as he felt the skyscraper starting to disintegrate, while the glass windows were already falling towards the street.

He waited as he watched the horde under him run for their lives, up until the last one had crossed the Atlan's legs.

He dropped the building once they were all safe, finding a crowd behind the Atlan once he turned around which were all looking at him with awe in their eyes.

He would have liked to remain, but the corruption had already started going down the walls, so the Slayer said:

"We need to restart the AT field generators to save the city, help me if you can."

He then ran away to the previous spot VEGA had marked for him. Leaving the mass of people confused and unsure of what to do.

That was until the Parliament guard got in top of a piece of concrete and said:

"Everyone! You heard him right!? This is our chance! This is the moment we've all been waiting for! A chance to finally make our jobs mean something, a chance to help others!

He has already done his part… Now it's our turn to help him and save our city!"

A wave of cheers followed as they all began moving towards the closest entrance to the underground network, fueled by a determination that had remained silent in their bodies for far too long.

"Thank you Slayer." The Parliament guard thought.

"Whatever you are… For us you'll always be a hero."

Down below the city

He ran through various corridors, all of which were riddled with rocks from the terrain above. And once he finally reached the coolant facility, Samuel said:

'The console over there will allow you to restart the blade which regulates the flow of the liquid. Hurry, there's only about two minutes left before it reaches the ground.'

The Slayer wasted no time as he dashed towards the console, quickly working his way through the various menus and finally found the option to reset the flow.

He tried to activate it, but only bright red emergency errors appeared on the screen as one of them said:

"Warning: Foreign body present."

He immediately got the hint as he jumped up to a platform which had a door to access the tubes, but it was locked since there was liquid inside.

He did not care as he quickly pulled it open and jumped into the freezing liquid nitrogen, then he closed it again to stop the leak.

He swam towards the blades inside of the liquid as the thermometer of the suit read minus one hundred and seventy degrees.

He could feel small patches of ice forming all over his armor as some of it started making its way inside, but nonetheless, he pushed forward, finally reaching the giant blade with only thirty seconds left to save the city.

A huge boulder had somehow got inside and was keeping the blades stuck, so he got right on top of it and used a blood punch, cracking it into very little pieces and freeing up the blades.

They remained still however, so, with only fifteen seconds left, the Slayer put his feet down and began pushing them himself.

He punched them once, then a second time, then a third with just five seconds left.

As he landed the fourth punch, some debris which had been stuck inside the system finally broke, allowing the blades to move freely as the current inside the liquid resumed.

He would have celebrated, had it not been for the fact that he was now being dragged along with the coolant liquid towards the reactor.

He endured through the sudden shift in temperature, from the freezing cold to the boiling hot instruments of the fusion reactor as he managed to find his way outside the system and into the sewers of the city, eventually resurfacing right outside the west gate of the city's river.

Suddenly Samuel's voice came through the radio as he said:

'The guards you rescued have been able to stabilize the situation, the main reactor is online again. Without their help the city would have been lost.'

"We're all winners today…" The Slayer thought while floating aimlessly through the water.

He let out a sigh of relief as he saw the red material evaporate from the walls when the AT field reached full power once again.

Suddenly a lifebuoy floated next to him, and as he turned around, he saw the bow of the battleship Eminent Domain right in front of him, as a man stood at the tip of it.

This man then said as the sun behind him hid his appearance:

"Get on board ya skallywag! Heroes aren't supposed to stay wet. By the way, nice to meet you Mister Slayer, you're looking at the one and only, Johnson Woodward! Proud captain of this beautiful beast of the seven seas! Yar Har har!"

TO BE CONTINUED