Infinite Stratos: Operation BLAZE

by Infinite Fiction Writer

Ichika was kidnapped by some unknown group. They changed him and he lost his memories. Now in the care of the BSAA and Natasha Fairs, how will Ichika or in this case Seth Fairs deal with the I.S. academy. Canon, Very powerful Ichika. There will be several video game elements in this Fanfiction. Poll active on profile.

77. Ville des Ombres

I Don't Own Anything I'm Just A Crazy Fan.

Chapter 77: Ville des Ombres.

With the Dunois sisters.

The two sisters had received a message asking them to dock aboard inside the hangar of the Star Destroyer. Once the small hanger door opened the two landed their machines and got out. They saw that the hanger was bustling with activity.

"Diana! Charlotte!" A male voice shouted in the hangerbay and the two girls saw their father, with his wife following behind her.

"Mom! Dad!" Diana ran towards the two adults. She embraced the two and was overwhelmed with relief after the horror they witnessed in the city. Charlotte watched the interaction and had a light smile on her face. She decided not to interfere and turned to make her way elsewhere.

"Charlotte, wait!" Albert said as he caught up to her. Behind him was his wife and her sister.

"Charlotte, can we talk please?" Rozenta said to the young woman. Turning to her father with a questioning look, he spoke up.

"While you two were out there, we had a long overdue discussion regarding us as a 'family'. Though I'm wondering if that's even the right word to use given how we've acted." Her father spoke. Before he continued. "I wanted to apologize for my absentee actions as a father. They were the actions of a coward and of a pathetic man who failed and abandoned his daughter for his own selfish reason. It was too painful for me to see you Charlotte, you look so much like your mother, when she was your age, I-i couldn't handle it." Her father apologized, surprising the young woman. Though her shock was just beginning as Rozenta spoke up.

"I realized now, that I have been unjustly cruel to you Charlotte. I was taking out my anger on my husband for cheating on me, on you, an innocent child. You had no say in your creation and who your parents were, and it was beyond wrong of me to take it out on you. I've loved your father since we were young children and the hurt and betrayal I felt when I learned of his affair broke me as a woman." Rozenta stated as tears began to swell in her eyes.

"Even after all that you, without any regret or remorse, rushed to my little girl's aid and protected her."

"You saw that?" Diana asked.

"Your mother was so worried, she annoyed dozens of the robots walking around here, until one was able to set up a live feed of the battle. When one of those drones IS was about to land a potentially lethal blow she was petrified with fear. When you saved her, she broke down in tears and began to wail about how she could have been so cruel to you." Albert said as Rozenta gave him the stink eye. Now that Charlotte looked at the older woman, it was evident that she had been crying, her makeup was streaking around her eyes.

"I know this one apology doesn't make up for our horrible actions, but we wanted to know if you'll be open to the idea of us one day being a family. My wife and I will be attending marriage counseling, and once we sort ourselves out, I'm hoping you two will join us in family therapy, because there's much I need to atone for." The head of the Dunios family said.

"I think I'd like that very much." Charlotte said with a small smile on her face. Only for her to be hugged by her younger sister. While she was hugging her older sister, the hanger above them opened and five starfighters entered the bays, one of which had a familiar III in purple. The pilot of the starfighter got out of the cockpit, showing that he was shorter than his squadron and removing his helmet showing he was of Japanese descent and relatively young. Removing herself from her sister, she ran towards the pilot who was sipping a drink through a straw.

"Umm excuse me?" The French girl said in English to the pilot with a thick French accent. Turning around the young Starfighter pilot gave her a once over before noticing the IS suit and determining she was one of the pilots who were out in the field. But she wasn't an Imperial pilot.

"Yes, can I help you?" The boy responded in English with his own accent.

"Were you the one... flying this in the battle?" She asked, struggling to find the right words since her English needed work.

"I am the pilot of this star fighter. Shinji Ikari, nice to meet you." Shinji answered as he held his hand out for a handshake. Shinji's English had improved significantly over the past few months, since it was the spoken language for the Empire, but he wasn't completely fluent just yet. This unknown girl to him took his hand.

"I wanted to thank you for saving me!"

"Thank me?" It was at this moment the purple and neon green astromech strolled behind the young pilot and let out a series of beeps and whistles. Shinji listened for a moment before understanding what the droid was saying.

"You were the IS pilot I saved?!" Shinji said with a little amount of shock.

"Yes! That's me!" Shinji was surprised to see her being so young.

"I'm happy to see you are well. I was worried when I saw you in trouble." He commented.

"Thanks for saving me, my chevalier. I believe you deserve a reward." Before he could respond, he felt a pair of lips land on his cheek. His face immediately took a crimson hue and seeing his reaction, Diana let out a few giggles before running off to join her family. Leaving the young pilot bewildered, only to be knocked back to reality by his astromech who gave him a slight shock from his arc welder. He soon heard howerling from some of his squadmates.

As Diana joined up with her family they saw the President of France along with a few members of her cabinet enter a meeting room with the Emperor who had a stern look on his face.

Inside the meeting room.

Seth had brought aboard the President and her support staff to discuss the next course of action. Lelouch and a few officers from the [Nobunaga] arrived into the room. After all were present, Seth activated the holotable.

"Over the last half hour, we've deployed recon probs into the catacombs. So far they have discovered the hollows are swarming with infected former citizens of Paris." The table displayed a hologram of the city, with glowing dots all over the city. Green and blue were for the Imperial and French forces, while red dots were the hostile infected that were spotted in the exclusion zone. The hologram raised the city up and now showed an expanding network of tunnels running throughout the city. Large numbers of glowing red dots were lining the pathways of the catacombs.

"As our probes show, the halls are infested with the infected citizens, making a return to the city dangerous. They could jump out of the tunnels at any time. We have no choice but to purge the tunnels of all infected." One of the officers of the Empire stated as the hologram showed footage that the probes captured as it roamed the tunnels.

It showed the infecting, which were now becoming more mutated. Some had long but thin appendages protruding from the back. It was giving Seth some flashbacks to his time fighting against necromorphs on titan station. It showed that some of the infected had their jaws split apart, and were capable of independent movement. A few of them were spitting up a form of wedding. A poor rat that was a local resident was captured in the webbing and let out a series of shirks, before they quickly faded as the rat was dissolved by the acidic webbing.

The footage shifted to a probe that was far deeper into the tunnels and showed a large open chamber where a mass of flesh was. It had a somewhat similar appearance to a fetus, but it was nearly translucent, the inner structure such as the organs and skeletal structure was visible. The whole structure was pulsating, and the sound of a heartbeat could be heard.. The probe droid recorded one of the infected citizens come close to the mass, before it was grabbed by a tentacle, which erupted from the massive being. The group in the room saw the mass absorb the infected citizen.

"My God, what on Earth is that?" One of the cabinet members whispered as the room was in shock.

"Unknown, though we have suspicion to believe that this creature is similar to the Haos project, the Emperor encountered in an underwater base during the Lanshiang bioterror attack." The hologram shifted to the datafile the Empire had on Haos, as another one of the officers spoke.

"Haos was created with the ability to unleash an airborne toxin with the capability to inject all those who inhaled the toxins. If this being is similar in that aspect, we must destroy it before it has time to fully develop." Seth added as the room was beginning to murmur with members of the French Cabinet talking with their president.

"Based on how much time has passed since the missile struck the city, we estimate we have 44 hours until the creature is developed enough to reach a mature enough state, if the data we recovered from Haos is accurate." A super tactical droid let out in its deep robotic voice.

"This situation is becoming far more dire by the hour. We need to launch an expedition and destroy this massive B.O.W. Before the whole continent is lost." One of the Imperial officers stated.

"How in the name of all that is holy are we gonna travel down the tunnels and destroy this monster." One of the French officials muttered in French.

"If the situation is as dire as the Empire is making it, ma'am we have no choice but to use all means of destroying this creature. I'm even thinking of using Nuclear weapons to completely vaporize this beast." The Defence secretary somberly said before as the French president looked at the hologram grimly.

"Before you decide to irradiate French soil even more, we may have a solution." Seth answered.

"Even though I was initially against this, the Emperor made some valid points." Lelouch stated before the hologram shifted towards the design of a container. With several other smaller windows around it.

"We call it the Defoliator weapon system. It is capable of wiping out all organic matter within a set radius." Lelouch swapped the main image from the diagram of the Defoliator to a weapons test where it showed a flock of Moa birds on Reach surrounded by several buildings and battle droids who were in a docile state. In the distance stood a modified [AAT] with a massive cannon on the back. It fired the shell from the cannon mounted in the rear and engulfed the group of alien birds. The explosion that followed left no organic matter. The building and droids were unharmed and unfazed. Silence filled the room as they witnessed this weapon system in action.

"You developed this type of weapon! Why on earth would you create such a thing?" One of the cabinet members said, horror evidently clear in her eyes and voice.

"In the event of all out war, we would implement these, the Imperial Grand Droid Army could advance unopposed. We would only use this in certain circumstances and most likely never use it on a Human military target. We developed this in the event of a major bioterrorism outbreak as our droid will be unaffected and wipe out the possible surviving infected. This is the exact situation this device was made for." Seth responded to the concerned cabinet member.

"This is a horrific weapon system, but I have to admit, it could be perfect. I assume you intend to use this device within the catacombs." The French President Jeannette already knew where this was going.

"Yes the current plan is to escort a large payload Defoliator into the tunnels and detonate it, wiping out all infected. It just so happens that the perfect location to detonate the device is directly below the growing mass." Seth finished off.

"And just how do you plan on getting down there? It's a damn maze of twisting halls and deadends. Not to mention, how are you planning on containing the blast." One of the cabinet members asked, Seth believed this was the head of the department of architecture. This time it was the super tactical droid who spoke up.

"Shield generators that the Empire uses are capable of preventing the blast from expanding. As for the device delivery, the plan will require at least 150 thousand battle droids, I recommend using at least 500 thousands."

"500 thousands! You want us to allow you to deploy 500 thousand of your killer robots into the city! You've lost your mind." The Defence minister was astonished by the pure audacity of the Empire.

"It's either you allow my droids into the city, or it's not gonna be just Paris that will be infested. We must destroy that creature before it matures." Seth stated flatly.

"He's right. I understand your hesitation, but this is the easiest way for us to secure the city with the least amount of casualties and the high amount of success we need the Empire's droid forces. I know the political fallout will seem immense, but I do not care. We have already lost far too many civilian lives." The French president now firmly on Seth's side said vehemently in opposition to the Defence minister's wishes.

"It is not as though the French forces will have no role in this operation. It will take at least 12 hours to have the droids deployed. Not to mention we will need possibly 21 hours to construct, test and deploy the shield generators, or I need to ask one of my pilots if he is willing to operate an Evangelion. That could shorten the time to match the droid deployment."

"Evangelion?" One of the French officials asked. Leouch and Seth both looked at each other before nodding and changed the hologram to a projection of Unit 03.

"The Evangelion weapon system is capable of deploying a very powerful shield barrier, which will be able to contain the blast from the Defoliator. It can project a much larger shield than even our capital ships. We would only need to use the [Napoleon Bonaparte] and the [Nobunaga] with the Eva to cover a good portion of the metropolitan area. If not we'll need to use a series of shield generators and getting the power source will be the tricky part." Seth revealed the two plans. One had the two Star Destroyers with the Eva in a triangle pattern, deploying their shields to cover the entire city. The second diagram showed the two Star Destroyers facing each other at different ends of the city with a series of bubbles representing the shield generators. Each had a projected time estimate. Both well within the time prior to the maturation of that massive being underneath the city.

"Why would your pilot be unwilling to operate and is this diagram to scale?" Another cabinet member said, noting how the Eva was about the size of a small to medium skyscraper. Taller than most of the buildings in Paris.

"Operating one of these can be an unpleasant experience. As for the height, from the shoulder pylons, it's about 90 meters tall." Seth stated bluntly, causing a silence to take over the room, while allowing the question of the pilot to be ignored from the shock of the statement.

"Did you say 90 meters? I'm not even surprised at this point." Jeanette said with a sigh. There were many, seemingly endless technologies, the Empire had to show.

With the plans laid out, Seth told the members of the French government he would inform them which plan would be chosen. Immediately lifting up his wrist, he called Shinji asking him to come to the Captain's office. It took less than 10 minutes for the young pilot to arrive in the requested room.

"Aniki, you wanted to see me. Ah Admiral Lamperouge, forgive my rude behavior. Ensign Ikari, reporting as requested by his Majesty!" Shinji stood up straight and raised his arm in a salute.

"Shinji, behind closed doors there's no need to be so formal." Seth spoke, causing Shinji's body language to go from rigid to relaxed.

"So why did you wanna see me? Was it because I was too hard on my starfighter frame?" Shinji recalled in his mind how the Starfighter would blare warnings that he was taking too tight of turns putting unnecessary stress on the frame of his starfighter.

"No, it's not that, though we will have a discussion regarding that another time." Lelouch said with a slight amount of annoyance.

"Shinji, I have a request for you. This is not an order, you can refuse if you want."

"A request?" Shinji suddenly got an idea of what Seth wanted.

"I want you to pilot Unit 01 for an upcoming operation." Seth's words took a few moments to register in the young pilot's head.

"I thought that Unit 01 was unusable? Isn't it Wunder's power source?" Lelouch handed Shinji a tablet he was holding that showed the Empire, after the decommissioning of the massive airship, had extracted Unit 01.

"The Evangelion was deemed to be salvageable and we began work at once to remove the red material that covered the unit. After the clean up we started intensive cell regenerative therapy, and it became fully fixed last week." The right hand of the Emperor spoke as Shinji was scrolling through images of the recovery process.

"We need the Unit's AT-field for an upcoming operation. If we can use the Eva, the time table can be greatly shortened and we can begin Operation Light fall sooner." The Tablet shifted it's display to show the upcoming operation using Unit 01.

"Shinji, I want to restate that this is a request. We have a second plan that will succeed if you say no. This plan will end this nightmare sooner." Seth stated, waiting for a response from the young pilot. Shinji took a long pause before he spoke.

"The longer this operation takes, the higher the chance of stronger mutated infected in the tunnels underground right?" Shinji asked.

"Don't worry about that. The Droids and I can handle it. I doubt the remaining infected can handle 500 thousand battle droids. Mutations be damned." Seth said, trying to assure the pilot that the choice was his to make alone.

"I'll pilot Unit 01 again!" Shinji said with clear conviction, causing a smile to form on the Emperor's face.

"Good, we'll leave for the moon at once and begin the reactivation test. I have you loaded out with type F gear and have you on the surface just before the beginning of the operation." Getting up from his seat, the Emperor made his way to the door with Shinji in tow, but the sound of Lelouch clearing his throat caused both men to stop in their tracks.

"And just where do you think you're going?" Lelouch asked, already knowing the answer.

"To the moon? I wanna be there while Shinji reactivates Unit 01."

"You've been up for over 24 hours! I fought with you over letting you enter those infested tunnels and I'll be damned if I let you go while sleep deprived. You need to rest."

"Lelouch, I've fought for days on end before, during the clone war. I'm sure this won-"

"I've reviewed your combat data from back then. Around the 28th hour, your combat performance takes a drastic decline. You are asking for trouble if you go down there without sleep." Cutting the Emperor off, Lelouch was clearly not letting this go.

"There is so much to do. We need to get the teams in order, map out the best path-"

"I can handle that while you rest. You must sleep." Shinji saw that Seth was about to protest, so he played his only card he had up his sleeve.

"Aniki, I won't pilot Unit 01 if you don't sleep." The words caused both of the arguing men to turn to the Ensign.

"You just said you would pilot it."

"And I will, if you sleep."

"Even you agree with Lelouch." The weary Je'daii said with a small amount of shock in his voice.

"Sleep is vital for anyone Aniki. Even my regulations state I should receive 8 hours of sleep prior to extended operation. Please trust us." Shinji commented, referencing the Imperial Pilot regulations he and all pilots in the Empire had to abide by. Shinji's words seemed to get through the stubborn man's head, as Seth took a few moments to pause, before he gave into the demand.

"Very well, Shinji, Lelouch, I will trust both of you. I'll be in the captain's quarters if you need to get a hold of me." Seth turned towards Shinji and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Shinji, I know you'll do great, I have the utmost faith in you. Good luck."

"Yes, aniki!" Shinji replied with conviction in his voice. Giving Lelouch one last knod, Seth left for the Captain quarters, leaving the two alone in the room.

"Admiral Lamperouge, I will take my leave for the moon at once." Shinji saluted as he stood to attention.

"Ensign Ikari, do you have a moment to speak with me before you leave." Lelouch saw that Shinji was staying in the room.

"Yes Admiral." Shinji affirmed that he would stay. Lelouch was surprised by Shinji for being so obedient to orders. Imperial Military training was more effective than he initially thought. Or was it the sheer devotion Shinji had for Seth, with their past.

"I have a proposal for you, Ensign Ikari."

"A proposal, Sir?"

"I understand from your combat records that you have a slight aversion to piloting an Evangelion."
"Sir, I will not be backing down. I will pilot Unit 01."

"I know you will get into the Unit, but I would like to offer you an insurance policy."

"I thought I had an insurance policy from the military."

"Ah, that's not quite what I meant." Lelouch said as Shinji saw a glowing patterning begin to form on the Admiral's eyes.

Meanwhile With Charlotte.

After grabbing a meal with her family at the ship's mess hall, the family split up into 3 groups. At first their parents had an urgent meeting with the French President after her meeting with the Emperor, leaving the two half sisters together. However, Diana said she wanted to look for her chevalier, leaving her sister alone. She let out a yawn and soon felt exhaustion taking over. Remembering that Seth told her that the droid could assist her if she had any questions, she approached a gray protocol droid, asking where she could find a room to sleep.

"Mistress Dunois, please wait a moment while I locate your quarters on the ship." The droid responded in a feminine synthetic voice. After communicating with the ship AI aboard the Star Destroyer.

"Please follow me to your chambers." The droid said as she made her way towards one of the turbolifts. Following behind the droid, the young french pilot watched it interface with the control panel and soon felt the lift moving up. It was a relatively fast elevator, and a few seconds later she was guided into a section of the ship with far less activity. The droid led her into a relatively large room and once she stepped into the room, the droid left her.

Looking around, though the room was spacious there was barely anything of note in the room. There was an empty desk and some new clean white sheets, but it was evident that no one had been using the room. It was brand new. Sitting down on the bed, she brought up the hologram interface and began messing around with her nanosuit settings before she found the setting to retract the nanomachines back into the necklace housing. Her orange plugsuit vanished, leaving her as naked as the day she was born, aside from the large necklace housing unit. Feeling the nanobot housing unit on her bare skin, she now realised how uncomfortable it was.

"Shall I change the appearance of the housing device?" An unseen female voice said to her, causing her to jump up and look around for the source of the voice.

"Mistress, it's Jeanne."

"Jeanne, I thought you were inside the IS core?"

"I reside in the necklace as that is now your new IS closed form. I can change my appearance if necessary. Here are a few designs I thought of." The AI forced a hologram screen to appear in front of Charlotte and showed several designs. Her attention was grabbed by the design made up of A collar, and 4 bracelets one on each of her ankles and wrist, each of them having a smaller blue glowing gem to house the nanobots. After selecting, the necklace changed and became its new form.

"It's gonna take me a while to get used to this. Hmm, isn't Seth's a lot smaller than this?" Noticing how much thicker her collar compared to the thin one she saw Seth wearing earlier.

"The Emperor's unit does not have the containment shells for the nanonite on the control collar, instead hiss are embedded within his body and come out of his sweat pores. It's possible for you to do the same if you're willing to undergo a surgery, given how the Emperor fancy you, I'm sure he'd allow it." Jeanne answered the blonde's question.

"I think I'll pass for now." She sheepishly responded. It was a few moments later that she finally noticed that all the recent action had caused her to sweat a bit and a shower sounded like the perfect thing for her before she slept on the bed. Already reading her thought Jeanne told there was a private bathroom and shower in the door on her right side. The AI took control of the room, opened the closet and showed her there were towels inside.

"Have fun." The AI sang in a singsong tune, much to the confusion of the girl. She pressed the button, causing the door to slide open only for her to be hit by a wave of steam.

Was it soon after that the steam began to dissipate, allowing Charlotte to see inside and see who was inside. She dropped her towel in shock as she stared at the man in the shower. Hearing the door open, Seth turned around and his orange eyes met violet.

"Hi, you wanna join me?" Seth said with a smirk, causing crimson to erupt on Charlotte's face. Then she screamed.

"Uwahaaa!" She shrieked once her brain processed what was going on in front of her, as she tried not to stare at the nake man in front of her, but her eyes refused to look away. She seemed to freeze for several seconds before her body became limp and fell to the floor.

"Char?!" Using the force, Seth caught the naked girl and saw the nanomachines reappear on her body, forming a simple white dress.

Ten minutes later.

The blonde girl awoke in the bed a little later, noting that she was not nude anymore. She brought up her head, scanning her surroundings before she spotted a familiar boy sitting at the lone desk in the room, working on something. Sensing a pair of eyes on him, Seth turned around and locked eyes with Charlotte.

"Hey, you doing alright? Sorry, I guess that was a little too much teasing." He sheepishly admitted. "The shower is free by the way if you wanna use it now. It's better than the public ones on the lower floors. One of the perks of being the captain of the ship." Seth said.

Although she was a little hesitant to shower now, she made her way to the bathroom. Once the warm water hit her body, she allowed her mind to process what was happening around her.

"I just walked in on him in the shower! How is he able to look me in the eye and make small chat after that?!" She squirm in the shower as she remembered what just happened and how her body refused to stop staring at his juicy-

"AAAHHH! Stop thinking such dirty thoughts! He's gonna think I'm a pervert! Ok girl, calm down." Washing her face with the water coming from the shower head, she knew what she had to do. She started to prepare herself emotionally.

"He's an adult, so I need to act like one too! Ok, be brave!" She slapped herself gently on her cheeks before continuing.

Seth was busy at work at the desk working on a few last minute items. The coming operation was potentially going to have a massive amount of structural damage should the situation within the city get back. There was gonna be a refugee crisis not seen since the last world war. Several million Pariasan were displaced and if things don't go more south, last night's mobile suit battle had already done a number on the city. Several hundred buildings were most likely beyond saving and would need to be rebuilt.

The Empire was constructing prefabricated housing units. The camps would not be viable housing conditions for an extended period of time, and due to the dire need for this massive undertaking, all droid factories were ordered to begin production of these prefabricated housing. A team of engineers had finished designing a few blueprints for the temporary housing and Seth was giving the final approval. It should be able to meet the needs of a person with some level of luxury. Only real issue was the power generation. He could risk placing one of the Empire's Red Markers as a power source, but should something happen, the current situation in Paris will seem like a cake walk. A hypermatter reactor was safer and easier to set up, but would need fuel, which the Empire would have to provide, as connecting these housing units to the French and European power grid could take a while.

Hearing the door slide open behind him, Seth closed the holopanel that he was working on, after giving his final approval and signing off. He turned around, only to be met by a naked blonde woman in front of him. He stared blankly at her for a few moments, before he spoke.

"Charl, you're naked?"

"Y-y-es!" The brightly blushing French pilot squeaked out as she refused to break her eye contact. It took Seth a few moments to process what was happening and what she wanted. He raised his right wrist and took control of Charlotte's nanosuit, ordering the countless bots to form pajamas.

"Huh! Wait, did I do something wrong?!" Seeing the growing confusion and panic on her face, Seth placed his hands on her shoulders.

"Relax Charl. Take a deep breath, ok." He guided her to the bed and once they were both seated, he spoke up.

"Look, you're an absolutely beautiful woman and any other day, I'd be relentless with you especially after coming out like that. But I'm tired, and we both have had an exhausting past 24 hours. It's not the right time for us." Looking into his eyes she was starting to see his point. Her first time should be a special event for her. Doing it after the intense battle that had left her homeland capital in ruins would leave a sour taste for later on.

"That's not to say I would be opposed to you sharing a bed with me. Would that be alright with you?" Seth asked and he got a nod in response. Though it was a little awkward for Charlotte at first, since she never had shared a bed before, she soon found herself finding Seth's arm to be fairly comfortable. Plus the bed felt good, and she had a slight suspicion it was heated. Even in the darkness she was able to make out some of Seth's features and soon heard his breathing becoming far more relaxed.

"He really was tired. He's cute when he's sleeping." She thought to herself as she soon felt sleep overtake her.

Meanwhile on the Moon.

"All systems across the board are giving green lights."
"Pilot's heart rate and brainwave activity are within normal parameters."

"Evangelion Unit 01 regenerated limbs are showing a solid connection. Reaction time is 300 milliseconds."

"The Nest teams have cleared the area, we can now begin the activation test, Admiral Lamperogue." The control center for the Evangelions within the moon was alive with activity. Seth had been preparing for the reactivation of the purple titan for weeks now. It was simply a matter of going through the activation checklist that was made from old NERV plans. The only members of NERV or WILLE that were present were Makoto Hyuga and Shigeru Aoba. The two were some of the few members of WILLE that did not hold any grudge against the young pilot.

Seth wasn't sure if he could trust Ritsuko or Misato regarding the reactivation of Unit 01 since it was the catalyst for Near 3rd Impact and it's pilot was the trigger. Now both were reunited for the first time. Lelouch had studied every document the Empire had in regards to the Evangelions and though not considered an expert, he was taking every precaution he could. Seth had faith in Shinji to not immediately cause an impact upon the activation of the Eva, and Lelouch was placing his belief in the young pilot.

"Ensign Ikari, we are about to begin the reactivation, are you ready?" Lelouch spoke into a mic in front of him.

"Ready as I can be Admiral."

"Very well. Begin the activation." Lelouch ordered. The room grew with activity as the technicians were typing away. The room had a clear duraplast covering that protected the teams along with an internalized ray shielding. It should in theory protect them in the event of something going astray, long enough to use the emergency abort.

"Now reaching the 400th barrier. All systems are nominal." A woman reported as the Evangelion connection was being established.

Lelouch watched his command console show all greens. There was a slight issue though. Shinji's sync ratio was already reaching close to 200% and climbing rapidly.

"Aoba, reset the sensor for the sync ratio. Make sure that number is not some sort of technical issue."

"Yes Admiral, resetting sensor." The older man responded.

"Hyuuga, how's the pilot's vitals."

"All biometrics are within acceptable ranges and staying stable. Slightly higher heart rate, but non life threatening."

"Reaching the final check marks!" A male technician reported.

"Sir, the calibration is complete. Sensor is fully functional. Pilot sync rate is stabilizing at 280%"

"At this level, he might receive physical damage should the Eva be damaged. Decrease entry plug depth, try to see if you can keep him in the 90s." Lelouch ordered.

"Yes sir. Changing settings in the Entry plug."

Inside of Unit 01

Shinji felt conflicted. He was a little terrified being back inside the purple mecha, but a part of him was glad to be back. It felt like he in a sense belonged inside the Evangelion. That it had been incomplete without him, as had he. 14 years prior, he awoke the Eva only to nearly wipe out humanity. Though not entirely his fault, he had wished for the Eva to give him the strength to protect everyone and in turn the Eva ascended.

There was another reason he felt such a nostalgic feeling inside the Eva, his mother. When vice director Fuyutsuki told him the truth about how his month vanished. He didn't believe him. He thought it had to be some sort of ploy to get him to side with him and his father against Aniki, but when they had control of the remnants of NERV they found some data files that collaborated with what the older man had said, and now being inside the Evangelion once more, he could feel her presence within the machine.

"Mother….you were in here the whole time through everything." In a sense, his mother was protecting him the whole time fighting the angels, but he wished he could see her once more. After fighting against Wille and NERV, then arriving in Seth's world he had come to terms that he had no blood related family left. He had Aniki, and it was nice living alongside the other Eva pilots, and Touji's little sister. It helped him to not feel alone, since Seth was so busy. He focused on his school work and tried to live a normal life.

It was when he was given an amusphere headset and started messing around with a few of the simulators, notably the starfighter simulator that his life changed once more, and he met his new family. His Starfighter squadron were full of unique members but they were all good people and they would fight to the end for one another.

"I'd bet you love them if you could meet them, mom." Shinji said out loud, unsure if his mother's soul could hear him.

"Did you say something Shinji?" Makoto said over the comm channel hearing Shinji speak out loud.

"It's nothing. How's the activation coming? Huh, Hyuga-san?" He asked, finally seeing who he was speaking to. The man was older then he remembered but that's to be expected after 14 years had passed.

"It's going great. You're almost done. Great work, keep it up and it's good to see you again Shinji. You should have said high to us old NERV guys. We missed you!" Hyuga words caused some confusion in the boy's mind, this caused him to lose a few sync points, but it was so high that it wasn't too much of an issue.

"Aren't you the least bit concerned I'll cause something to happen, like the last time I piloted Unit 01?"

"Shinji, the last time you were inside of Unit 01, things were bad. The geofront was penetrated with an Angel which was holding off 4 Evangelions and someone was inside of the stolen Unit 04. If you hadn't done what you did, I don't know if anyone would have survived that day. You had to do something and we adults are to blame for putting all our problems on someone so young. So I don't hold any blame on you and there are plenty who don't. Of course there are those who do blame you, but they are too blind to see how desperate we were that day or weren't alive then."

"Hyuga-san…"

"He's right Shinji, we owe you our lives and we'll help you as best we can." Shigeru chimed in.

"Thank you, I appreciate it." Holding back the tears that threaten to stream down his face, he focused on getting Unit 01 working. It was needed for the upcoming operation and he was gonna do everything he could.

It was soon after that Unit 01 finished its reactivation test and was cleared for operation. Lelouch ordered Shinji to rest for the upcoming operation and told the ground teams to load up Unit 01 with the Experimental Type F armor.

Several hours later Reach with the IS teachers and trainees

With their training on pause for the time being, the teachers were inside of a common rest area. They had swapped out of their pilot plug suits and were wearing Imperial issued track suits.

"What's the TV saying?" Iris Calling asked as she was currently enjoying some sort of salted chip snack that we left out in the room.

"Nothing new yet, News is replaying footage and speculating on the attack." Caaren Roberts was the first to respond. The whole group had been glued to the holoprojector that was playing the video feed from News crews in Paris. There was repeating footage of the massive battle that just took place. The clash of iron giants within the streets of Paris, knocking down buildings and structures in their wake.

The footage of Infinite Stratos engaging in live combat showing just how much destruction two IS can unleash, was of great interest at first, but then video of Imperial weapon systems, from their star fights or mobile suits, to the handheld weapons of his droids or troopers clad in white armor, seeming to be able of not only damaging an IS, but defeating them shook up the governments of the world. The seemingly invincible to all weapons exoskeleton suit was now just dethroned.

The guest on the host's show was blabbing on how the Empire, which to the general population of the planet appeared out of nowhere, had super advanced weaponry that made the IS into just another weapon system. This would cause the governments of the world to shift their focus away from the development of their IS program and now try and catch up with this nation that can field ships the size of which have never been seen before and they were flying.

"The Empire is a threat to all nations that cannot be ignored!" The guest on the show roared out. That was when the second guest chimed in.

"Though the technological prowess of the Empire is vast, we need to look at their action rather-"

"Their so-called Emperor is a damn warmonger who is mad with power, someone so young cannot handle such a responsibility! He's a damn child who-" The first guest interrupted the second with his outburst.

"I'd disagree, the Empire has opened diplomatic relations with several nations and were in the process of opening formal relations with the French state, and was only put on hold after this tragic terrorist attack."

"If you call launching a full scale military invasion against a sovereign nation diplomacy then I don't wanna get on your bad side."

"The former North Korean regime was not gonna last forever and was the target of international condemnation. And according to the new Korean government it was mostly an internal revolution with some assistance from the Empire." The two news guests began to babble at one another and the original topic was lost as they started insulting one another.

"I really hope Ikari and Fairs are alright." Maya said to no one in particular.

"I'm sure those two are fine. They've been through much worse and got out on top." Asuka said surprising the group who had seen the interaction between Shinji and herself and hearing high praise from her was the last thing they expected. The teachers were certain that she hated him.

"Oh hime, I didn't expect you to say such nice words about our puppy." Mari said as she came from behind and gave Asuka a surprise embrace, which she quickly rejected.

"As much as I hate to admit it, when those two are together they can do anything. They did save me, but if you tell them what I just said, I'm going to kill you." Asuka added on while giving Mari a death glare with her one eye. Mari responded with a smug smirk.

"Well it is good to see you two are in good spirits." A familiar voice to the Eva pilots spoke up. The group turned and saw a purple-haired woman wearing an Imperial Admiral white uniform.

"Admiral Katsuragi.." Rei greeted the woman entering the room.

"Hello Rei, everyone." Misato returned the greeting.

"What are you doing on Reach, weren't you tasked with Lunar security?" Kuroi, the second of the blue hair clones asked, knowing that was her previous posting.

"Well since his Majesty decided to decommission Wunder, I am a captain without her a ship."

"Wunder was decommissioned?" Asuka said with surprise.

"Wunder was brand new, why on earth would he order it to be decommissioned? It was just retrofitted to exit the atmosphere." Mari was just as surprised. Wille had put in a lot of work just to get the flying ship working and it performed great during the North Korean invasion.

"The Emperor and his new buddy told me that Wunder was costing too much in maintenance and it didn't fit the composition of the Imperial Navy. They're giving me command of the [Avenger] once it's completed. Eventually they want to do a complete overhaul of the internals. Add a Shield generator, Marker reactor, Hyperdrive. The whole works." Misato added.

"It has an AT-field, why would it need a shield generator? Isn't unit 01 the power source?" Sakura chimed in. This caused a stir of conversion with a lot of terminology that the teachers, and Houki had little to no idea was. Angels, AT-field, it all sounded jumbled, so they ignored them for the most part.

"It is sad what has happened to our French neighbors, but why hasn't the French government given an update." Emmely Olsson, questioned as most governments would be giving updates as soon as possible.

"It's because the situation isn't over." Natasha added.

"Hmm, what makes you say that?" Tatiana Kozlov was curious as to what could make the young woman so certain.

"During the Lanshiang incident, immediate operations in coordination with the PLA took around 24 hours. Officially operations ended then. But according to the BSAA Far East branch, it took weeks to clear out all the infected. Total casualties were around 33 thousand."

"I thought that there were only 10 thousand deaths reported?!" Tokko Sun-Hi said in clear shock.

"They didn't want the real number reported. Just how the US under-reported the last bioterrorism attack victims." Truth be told, Umbrella bio weapons attacks were being suppressed to the general public in order to maintain social order. The conversation would have continued until the live feed from the holoscreen came with a breaking news alert.

"Good afternoon everyone, thank you for joining us for this breaking news report. Just moments ago, a second one of those massive Imperial warships descended from orbit and is in motion alongside the [Napoleon Bonaparte] wait, what is that?!" One the live feed the news crew shifted from the massive ships floating in the air to something entering from the atmosphere. The blazing ball of fire soon faded showing the silhouette of a large humanoid object descending from orbit. At first they thought it was some sort of experimental IS unit. However it became apparent that it was significantly larger than any IS or a mobile suit. Using a new type of thrusters that the world had not seen prior, the massive purple titan slowed its descent until it came to a gentle landing.

"Unit 13? No, that's Unit 01!" Mari stated as she saw the eyes.

"Baka-Shinji is piloting Unit 01, after what happened last time?!" Asuka said with some anger but more horror clearly in her voice. The looks of concern were clearly evident on the rest of the group's faces.

"So this explains why he decommissioned Wunder, to extract Unit 01." The white hair girl with red eyes said out loud, saying what was evident in the minds of those around her.

"Ikari promised me, he would never enter Unit 01 again." Sakura said quietly but there was a clear undertone of anger in her voice.

"What the hell is that?!" Iris Calling shouted.

"My God, that thing is massive." Tatiana shouted in complete disbelief.

"You know what that thing is? You were calling it Unit 01, and Ikari is in that thing?!" Zania Hamed asked as she looked towards the Eva pilots. Misato was the first to speak up to the group.

"It appears we are no longer keeping the Evangelions a secret." She determined that telling the teachers now rather than staying quiet. She'll deal with any fallout from the Emperor later on. To learn that the students, minus Sakura, were pilots for these giant cybernetic weapons were a shock and that the Empire had seven Evangelions were a major surprise. Misato had decided to hide the fact that they were from another dimension as she felt that would do nothing for their current situation. Needless to say there were many questions that would need answering soon.

Back In Paris.

Unit 01 was loaded up into a Evangelion size drop pod and was launched towards the surface of the planet. Once the pod broke through the stratosphere it opened up and Shinji leaped from the remainder of the pod, which would land harmlessly in the ocean, unless it hit some unlucky vessel or a sea creature that was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Using the Type F armor, the Eva's AT-field was used to slow the descent of the massive being. It acted like a thruster, producing a counter force, fighting against the natural pull of gravity from the planet, yet seemed as though it was being slowed down by a flashy light pattern. Given how it let out very little sound or no distinct heat.

Once the Eva landed on the ground, the Imperial Forces and French military mobilized. Thousands of Droid gunships, [LAAT] gunships, and French Helicopters took to the sky. The Empired deployed thousands of droid ground transport to this operation. Earlier 40 of the Empire's C-9979 landing craft were working overtime getting droids down to the surface, along with all their support craft. The sight of these aircraft carrier size ships, landing, deploying their content, then ascending to space was awe inspiring for the General population and terrifying for the governments of the world. The Eternal Empire's transport and logistics network put other countries to shame. It would take days if not weeks for most nations to transport this much equipment and manpower. Though with the Empire's main workhorse being fed by electricity instead of food, and not requiring rest, aside from a recharge, this allowed them to move their forces much faster.

The French government was not standing by, allowing a foreign force to do the fighting on their homeland. They called up a massive amount of reservists to complement the active duty personnel alongside any police special units to assist with the search and rescue of any citizen that was still alive after the hellish event that just took over.

Of course they had called up all available IS pilots and several neighboring nations had offered their support, with the BSAA Eurobranch ready to deploy its teams, but the government had refused for now. The city was yet to be secure. Seth launched from the [Napoleon Boneparte] in a [LAAT] gunship along with a squadron of IS, both manned and droid. Troopers from his legion would meet him on the field. Looking towards the [Nobunaga] he saw a [Nu] class shuttle surrounded by dozens of IS and several armed gundships departing from the lower hangar of the ship. A beeping noise was heard originating from his right wrist. He lifted and accepted the incoming call. A hologram of a trooper from the 121th inside the shuttle appeared on his wrist.

"Sire, the defoliator is stable and ready for it's deployment."

"Good, have the recon teams scouted out a path?" Throughout the time Seth was resting, Imperial Commandos had been scouting the city looking for the path with the least amount of resistance and finding an entrance to the catacombs with a pathway large enough to transport the device.

"Yes sire, team 5 found an entrance to the ruins near the Norte-Dame Cathedral. It seems a section of the structure was damaged by the mobile suit battle over the city. AI determined the best location to stage a landing site would be the bois de boulogne park." Shifting the hologram projection to one displaying a map of the city with a path highlighted in red.

"We got 5 minutes until touchdown!" The lead trooper in the [LAAT] shouted out to the troopers inside the gunship. Lowering his wrist Seth looked towards the troopers inside the gunship.

"Alright men, once we land, we are in hostile territory. We don't know what will be there, so keep your eyes open. We need to secure the opening for the entrance for the bomb."

"SIR YES SIR!" The troopers in white and orange armor said in unison.

"Sir, we are ready to dive into hell with you. Lead the way."

"Thank you for your eagerness, but there's no need, Commander Boushee. Once we land and secure the zone, it will be strictly droids and myself entering the catacombs."

"Sir, I respectfully disagree, we can't let you go alone down there."

"I have faith in my abilities to escape the tunnels quickly if needed. I won't be able to do that if we need to pull troops out of there. I will not abandon my men. After all, if a king will not lead, how can he expect his subjects to follow." Giving a sly smile to the trooper, uttering words he heard Lelouch utter while in the Black Knights.

"Understood. We will protect the entrance at all costs." As they got closer, the sliding doors of the gunship opened allowing them to see the massive Evangelion walking down the streets of Paris.

"Holy shit, that's a big motherfucker." One of the less tactful troopers spoke out loud, in awe of the massive being. Deciding that it would be a good check in before landing.

"Shinji, how is the Eva feeling for you? Anything wrong with it." Opening a call with Shinji, who instantly answered it.

"It feels like I remember. If anything, it feels a bit more fluid if that makes any sense." Responded the young pilot.

"Glad to hear, you still remember how to generate an AT-field?"

"Yup, I'll be ready when the time comes." He responded immediately. Giving a nod in approval before cutting the call, he looked towards the landing sight that was now in view. The Imperial gunships were faster than the French helicopters and as such arrived first to their target locations first. Seth was part of the main force that would deliver the bomb to the location of the growing mass under the city, but they had over 500 hundred thousand battle droids and they were gonna use every last one of them. They would be using multiple entrances into the catacombs to establish the shortest path and clear out any infected. Other teams were tasked with rescue of any non-infected citizens that were still alive within the city.

Once the [LAAT] touched down, the troopers disembarked. The shuttle carrying the defoliator bomb landed a little bit away and lowered it's boarding ramp. What appeared to be a six legged droid with a large container on it's flat back descended the ramp, and had a few royal guards walking alongside it. A trooper colored in orange and yellow highlights held a tablet in his hand as he was doing some sort of work while it walked down the ramp. Seth made his way to the droid and its escort. Once the technician saw the Emperor approaching, he paused his work momentarily to salute.

"At ease. What's the status of our little friend and his package?" Seth quickly saluted back and shifted focus to the droid.

"Sir, the droid is working and should have no issues with its journey. I barely had enough time to read up on this transport droid, but even though it was hastily assembled, it's shield generator seems to be working at full capacity if needed. Please note that the generator consumes a large amount of power but you should be able to recharge it with your suit. Walk crawling ability showed good results in the lab, but given the known composition of the walls down there, I'd recommend against relying on it."

Getting closer to take a look at the insect-like droid, he saw that the engineers had taken the legs of the smaller crab droid model, and stuck a few of the Droideka type shield generators in the machine, they gave it Droideka head as well. The shield barriers were not the same as the ones on the droideka but were far more powerful, hence the increased power consumption. The 3 red eyes of the droid locked onto Seth. Very crude but it should be more than enough to transport the bomb.

"Very good. I'll take charge of it here."

"Yes sir, transferring ownership to you." The tech said as he pressed on the tablet he was holding. A message showed up on his HUD saying he now had control of the Ladybug droid. With everything looking good he ordered the droid to follow him. They had 7km before they reached the entrance near the ancient church.

Earlier with Charlotte

After waking up in the warm embrace of a certain man, she felt like she was ready for anything. Having met her younger sister and her parents in the mess hall, who were wondering where she had been and where she slept. Somehow able to answer their questions without actually answering them, the two sisters broke away from their parents and found themselves in the main hangar of the star destroyer. The floor was alive with activity as they watched the personnel and the droids rushing around arming, fueling and emergency maintenance on the machines in the hangar. Charlotte and Diana spotted a familiar face. It was the leader of the IS squadron they had joined last night.

"Hmm, Dunois, what are you doing here? If you got no business here, you should go back up. Floor is way too busy to have a few kids running around." The woman spoke up.

"Sorry miss..." Struggling to remember her name, Charlotte paused awkwardly for a few moments, before the woman spoke up.

"It's Lieutenant Samatha Edwards. You can call me Sam if you like." The woman said as she extended her hand out to shake Charlotte. "Sorry if I sound a little off, my French is not the best and I'm trying to learn Japanese too at the moment, so I haven't been practicing." She added on.

"It's fine. Say what's with all the activity?" She asked after taking the hand of the woman.

"His majesty has an operation in the work. Some sort of payload delivery. I didn't ask for the specifics." Sam said as she was observing her team of IS pilots, making sure their machines were functioning properly. "We're tasked with wiping out anything on the surface and the rescue of any survivors still in the city. Are both of your machines working? If so, feel like helping out your fellow countryman?"

The two sisters looked at one another before silently agreeing to help out. Samatha handed the two spare plug suits, but Charlotte used the nanobots to make a plug suit much to the surprise of Samatha.

"Well shit, that's new."

"The Emperor gave it to her."

"Is that so? Now I'm wondering when I can get one of those." The older woman said, this conversation was cut short by an over speaking over the intercom system of the hangar.

"All pilots' operations will begin in 5 minutes. Please enter your machines now and finish final checks." A female voice spoke over the comms.

"Diana, let's get ready." Charlotte said who got a nod in response.

The two girls suited up, and joined Sam in her squad. The large ventral door of the hangar opened up and the Imperial forces took flight.

Now the sister flew alongside the Imperial IS pilots, waiting for orders. The slight of the massive Evangelion descending from orbit was a shock to see and then seeing such a massive being move was even more shocking for the two girls and most of the Imperials as Evangelions were a non publicly known platform. Few people within the young nation knew of their existence, let alone seeing one in action.

"Hey, your boyfriend is over there!" Diana said in a teasing tone while pointing to the direction of Seth's location. Using the camera's on their ISes, they saw him descend the ramp and walk toward the weird droid. They soon received a message telling all IS pilots to look around the city for any survivors and be able to assist any local ground teams should they find themselves being pinned down by infected citizens.

Watching from above the two sisters saw Seth along with a group of men clad in white and orange armor walk down the damaged streets of Paris. Soon they saw a large number of infected Parisians rush out of one of the buildings towards the group. From his waist a metal curved cylinder was summoned to this hand and an amethyst blade of light ignited from the device and the Emperor slashed towards the injected.

The flesh showed little to no resistance to the blade of plasma and dismembered limbs and body parts fell towards the ground. The men around him raised their blasters, unleashing a barrage of blue lances of energy towards the infected. One of the infected launched a projectile from its mouth. The trooper that spotted the projectile coming his way, rolled to evade the yellowish green blob. Once he recovered, he fired 3 blaster bolts from his DC-15, striking true on the infected. The flesh of the infected burned as the force of the blots knocked them back. Looking back where the infected had fired the blob, a section of concrete dissolved and hiss as the blob of strong acid ate away.

"Holy hell! Don't let them spit on you! I don't know if our armor can protect us from these things." The trooper cried, out gaining the attention of the squad. Looking at the blob melting away the concrete caused the men in the squadron to grow fearful. Seth could sense his men's will wavering.

"It's like those spiders back in the Sarashiki manor." Noting this must be a progression from the BOW that they had encountered prior, though what was concerning is that those were engineered. These were mutations created in the field showing that Umbrella had perfected the process. "Remain calm! Don't let those blobs touch you and you'll be fine. Keep moving!"

"SIR YES SIR!" The troopers shouted in unison, regaining their focus. They sent out a warning through the comms to avoid the acid attack.

"Any IS units in the area available to assist? We found a group of survivors but they're under attack by a hoard of the infected." A voice came to life over the comms. The squad Charlotte and Diana were a part of were the closest to the requesting trooper's location. They flew towards the location, a squad of five troopers with their droid supports fighting off several dozens of infected citizens who had mutated. Noting the group of survivors, a mother with two small children, a boy and girl, as they flew towards the group, Charlotte saw one of the more mutated infected leap onto the side of the building with unnatural strength and was about to pounce on the troopers.

With no time to think, Charlotte materialized one of her rifles and shot toward the infected. Though she still felt bad about firing on her own countrymen, even if they were long lost, last night events had made the process of shooting infected a little easier on her mind. Following her example, her sister and the other members of the squad open fire on the attacking infected, wiping them out into a red mist and the smell of charred flesh soon permeated the air.

"Thank goodness you ladies showed up. Not sure how long we could have held out or fought our way out."

"Sargent is anyone injured." Samatha spoke up.

"Aside from losing a few B1s, we're good. Family looks clean too. Called in a transport to evacuate them to the quarantine site, can you spare a pilot to cover us till it arrives?"

"Sure Sargent. Jamie, cover the boys till the transport gets here. Ladies, let's keep moving!"

"Yes ma'am!" A chorus of voices came from the Imperial IS pilots, while one stayed behind to provide support.

Soon enough the report of another squad finding a survivor soon crackled over the comms, giving the girls a new mission. This one was reporting that they were inside the upper levels of a skyscraper. They arrived on the scene and saw that they were not the first to respond. The giant purple mecha was peering into the building, spotted the squad of five troopers, alongside the droids with them, with a group of civilians behind them as a hoard of infected approached.

The civilians had made a makeshift shelter with the office furniture. The troopers in order to get to the group of survivors had to make a hole in their barricade, but the infected had followed them. The current hole was being used as a choke point, but the infected seemed to be endless and grew more ferocious. The infected seem like they were about to knock down the only thing keeping them away from the survivors, when a purple, black and neon green massive arm shoved itself into the building. The words 'Imperial Evangelion Unit 01' were labeled on the forearm of the massive cyborg. The action of shoving the evangelion's arm had crushed a few of the infected but more importantly, it created a solid barrier between the survivors and infected.

"Move towards the windows in the back!" Shinji spoke over the built-in speakers of the Eva in his moderate English. He soon messaged the IS pilots to begin carrying the survivors. Each IS could safely transport 2 survivors and the group was not too large regretfully. The troopers were the last to evacuate the location aboard an IS. Once the floor was cleared of the survivors, Shinji swept the floor of the building with the Eva's arm, killing the infected and launching a few towards the ground where they exploded on the floor from the fall.

"Nice work with protecting the survivors Ensign, however the work is not done. There is a group of troopers reporting sounds of survivors trapped under some rubble. Move over to assist them if possible, and try to keep the damage to a minimum." A hologram of one of the officer's aboard the [Napoleon Bonaparte] spoke to the young pilot, who moved the Evangelion towards the troopers' location.

"Attention all Imperial and French forces! We are beginning the descent into the catacombs, remain focus on the rescue of all survivors!" Seth spoke over all active comm channels to report the status of the operation.

With Seth.

Having arrived at the opening of the massive tunnel of the network of tunnels, Seth gave one final look over the droid. It was forced to activate the barrier to protect itself at one point as one of the advanced infected fired several acid blobs. Seth and his surrounding forces had made quick work of the infected, continuing their journey.

"Flame, give warning to the forces above. The trooper's armor won't survive one of those acid attacks."

"Done Master, gave out the warning to the AI on the ships. They'll relay the message to the Imperial and French forces." Flame said with a noticeable tone of dejection in her voice. She was hoping to be used during this operation in the underground, as she was specialized in close quarter combat, but Seth said it was too dangerous to use either IS underground, as the soft limestone and brittle human bone walls wouldn't stand a chance against her weaponry, or Blaze's for that matter.

The droid seemed unharmed from the recent attacks and the batteries were at a high level for the moment. Looking toward the hole caused by last night's battle. It was at a gentle incline downward, and was big enough for the droids to enter unimpeded. Pressing several buttons on his wrist the bomb carrying droid began to follow Seth as he descended with his additional droid forces.

With the force it was easy to sense the infected as they were still alive, but they had a swirl of emotions. Confusion, anger and despair were the most common emotions he sensed from those lost below, along with an intense hunger coming from that large mass forming in the depths of the catacombs. The only thing he could do was to release them from this horrible fate by unleashing the bomb.

As he walked down the dark halls of the catacombs, a group of infected had charged towards him. Seth ignited his lightsabers and slashed at the incoming infected. The amethyst blades of plasma tore into the flesh with no resistance as they diced apart the attackers.

The sight of their fellow infected being cut down like trees in a lumber yard did not phase them one bit and charged with the same ferocity as before. Though they were quick with the muscular limits of the brain being shut off, Seth was far quicker and hacked away as they approached. Though he had no trouble killing them as they approached the body parts of the infected began to pile up at his feet and then he heard the sound of blaster fire from the droids behind him. They were being enclosed.

He heard the droid fire rapidly along with the increasing roar of the infected. Due to the softness of the stone walls, the blasters the droid had equipped were scaled back in their power output. They still had enough power to penetrate flesh and clothes but if there was an infected with some form of kevlar or an advanced mutation with hardened skin, they should still be able to take down the infected after several blaster shots.

Seeing as they were being swarmed from both behind and in front, he used the force and launched a powerful force push wave. The body parts on the ground were thrown forward and the incoming infected were tossed back and slammed into the walls. He saw once they hit the walls they stayed in a place for a moment. Undoing his mask covering his face, he unleashed a massive plume of blue flames from his mouth. With enough power to leave the pileup infected as a pile of charred flesh.

"Droids move up!" Seth commanded the 6 legged machine to move forward with him as there was now an opening. The commando droid behind him increased their walking speed as they moved up, while firing at any infected that got too close from behind. The group made their way the force screamed at Seth, warning of incoming danger. Exiting the hallways into a more open area of the catacombs, he took a moment to gather his bearings. Looking around he saw a group of 3 advanced infected that seemed to be shaking violently. As he looked at these twitching infected, their legs seemed to gain muscular mass and two blade-like arm growths erupted from their shoulder blades, in a manner that reminded Seth of a Necromoph transformation. There was this dripping brown-yellow fluid that seemed to leak from any opening on the infected.

While they were seemingly in the middle of their transformation, Seth leaped up and ignited his blade. In one swipe he bisected the group of three. Though as their bodies hit the ground the two parts of the infected continued to move. Needing to make sure they stayed dead, Seth lifted his left arm up and unleashed a plume of blue flames from his palm. Only to learn that the leaking liquid was highly flammable. The flames ignited the bodies, causing an explosion. Instinctively, Seth raised a barrier in the force and the nano suit raised an energy barrier allowing him to tank the explosion with little to no damage. However the blast damaged the surrounding area, causing the ground beneath Seth to collapse.

"Ahhhhh!" The man yelled as he fell into the dark void beneath him. A commando droid attempted to grab Seth's arm but missed it. The droid was forced to turn around to fire on the infected charging towards it. They got so close that it deployed the vibroblade on it's back and slashed away.

"Fuck, my armor locked up!" Seth roared as he found himself unable to move. As Seth fell into the new hole that was far deeper then he had expected, he felt the suit safety features kick in. His suit had a safety feature from the Spartan Mjolnir armor. When a large fall was detected the armor locked down preventing movement, while the layer between the skintight suit and plates of armor filled with impact gel, which in theory, should absorb the shock of the fall. Finally after what seemed to be a good 20 seconds, he impacted the ground. The suit did absorb the impact and the fall barely registered for the young Emperor.

"Damn, how far did I fall." He questioned while gathering his surroundings. He brought up a holomap and using his last known location he was in an unmapped location that the recon probes missed.

"Around 2000 meters." Blaze chimed in.

"Master, you really have some bad luck sometimes. Landing in a section that wasn't mapped. Also I'd recommend looking back up" Flame said, causing the Emperor to look up.

A droid scream caught his attention. Faint at first, but soon increasing intensity as the origin got closer. Finally realizing what it was, Seth held his arm up and caught the ladybug droid as it had obeyed Seth's direction to follow him regardless of its own reservation

"Droid, that was a close call." Seth spoke to the droid. The droid in question let out a series of annoyed beeps and boops as it had the same vocal unit as the astromech series.

"I know I order you to follow me, but you need to make sure the defoliator on your back stays in one piece." Seth swore the three red eyes of the droid rolled but the droid agreed that it needed to prioritize its survivability. The droid's three eyes could see clearly in the dark and behind the Emperor it noticed something that looked like a large tree root, pulsating.

The droid beeped at Seth giving him a warning. Turning around, Seth spotted the large black pulsating object behind him. It was on the ceiling of the area they were in. Waiting several seconds to try and figure out what this object was, it suddenly moved. The black root retracted deeper into its hole allowing the tip of the tentral to appear. It suddenly opened up at the tip to reveal rows of jagged teeth. Several additional tentacles erupted from the main body and launched towards Seth and the droid.

"Droid, barrier, now!" Putting himself between the droid and this attack, he ignited his lightsabers and slashed at the tendrils as they approached. The ladybug droid did as ordered and a blue semi-transparent barrier surrounded the machine. Seth slashed at the secondary tentacles as they launched toward him. The flesh being easily severed as they came into contact with the purple blade of plasma. A high pitch screech came from the mouth at the tip of the main body, before new tentacles appeared and the ones Seth cut began to regenerate. The main body let out a wrenching sound before it threw out a torrent of acid. Using the force to catch the fluid, tossing it back to the creature. As expected, the acid did little to no damage to the body of the mutated creature, however the surrounding limestone began to dissolve.

Gathering the darkside of the force within his body, lightning began to arc between his finger, before firing a powerful blast of force lightning. The blue lighting raced towards the creature, making contact, the results were immediate. It let out a roar in pain as the lighting coursed through its body. Seth did not let up, and continued the attack. The beast writhed in pain and retracted back into the hole it came out of. Seth knew it retracted far, as the sounds of the beast grew distant. Then the catacombs began to shake violently.

On the Surface of Paris.

The cleanup operation between the Empire and French forces were going smoothly, and so far had recovered more civilians than they had anticipated. Shinji inside of Unit 01 looked towards the ground where he had just lifted up a large piece of debris, where the sound of someone trapped had come from. He saw the rescue team pull out the trapped man and loaded him up on a [LAAT] gunship. He suddenly felt the ground shaking from the feedback Unit 01 gave.

"An Earthquake? Aniki!" Panic filled Shinji's mind as the thought of the catacombs collapsing with Seth inside of them formed. However something far different happened. Only six streets away from Unit 01 location a large black tentacle erupted from the ground and started destroying the surrounding area. The tentacle smacked the surrounding buildings as the local troopers fired a barrage of blast blots. The creature did not like this and started targeting the attacking troopers.

"REQUESTING IMMEDIATE ASSISTANCE! WE'RE TAKING CAULAITIES!" The commanding trooper spoke over the emergency line before his line cut to static. Imperial units rushed towards the call for help. Shinji ran towards the tentacle, using the F-type armor to accelerate his movement. Unit 01 arrived near the black tentacle, spotting it under attack from the local IS unit that arrived first.

"Out of the way, coming through!" Unit 01 charged towards the Black tentacle, deploying a red energy blad from it's wrist. The tentacle noticed the charging titan and changed its attention. It thrusted towards the larger Evangelion, with unnatural speed. With mouth agape, it was intent on fighting, but to the confusion of the creature, the Eva was at one moment charging straight forward, but now was above.

Shinji used the Type-F armor to boost above the tentacle, and deployed one of the Eva's wrist mounted energy blades. Bringing the energy blade down on the tentacle, the creature screeched in pain as it was severed from its and the section connected to the main body retracted back down it's hole. The other section wriggled around causing destruction as it slammed into the buildings and leaked an acidic liquid.

Shinji brought out an Eva sized beam rifle, firing at the severed section. It tore through the flesh before the creature stopped moving. Looking down at the dead creature, Shinji soon witness the corpse of the tendril dissolve into a pool of black goo.

In the Catacombs.

Seth knew that the large tendril had to be attached to the main body of whatever was forming underground. He had to get to it and kill it before it was allowed to mature even more. Luckily a shortcut had been made for him. Climbing into the hole that was made, with the droid trailing behind, they descended deeper into the depths of the tunnels. Soon they arrived into the large open cavity with a large pulsating mass of glowing red flesh hanging in the center. To the Emperor it looked like a developing mammal fetus with its curved spine being evident. Ordering the droid, Seth walked over to one of the nearby smaller 'veins' of the mass. He used the storage device of his suit to bring out several empty vials and a scraper. Gathering a sample of the bio weapon for study as once the bomb goes off, nothing would be left of this new type of infected. A sample would be vital for combating these new types of infected when the need arises.

Sealing the samples into the tubes, and placing them into a plastic bag with a biohazard warning on it, he looked towards the droid. Said droid was now in position and was getting ready to arm the device on it's back. He pressed several buttons on his wrist and gave the order for all Imperial troopers to evacuate Paris, while the droid would continue the search for anyone left in the city, but at this point it was highly unlikely that there were few if any living people still remaining in the city.

The force cried out to Seth, as a sense of dread filled his entire being. Looking towards the droid, it was releasing a bright blue light as its barrier was activated. It would only do that if it determined there was a major threat to the well being of the unit, because of the massive amount of energy consumption. Looking back towards the hanging mass, it had grown a face that was staring right at the former Sith Lord, but there were no eyes, only a wide grinding mouth. Its started generating arms and legs. It had awoken. Without hesitation he raised both his hands and readied a powerful blast of force lightning. Bomb be damned, he had to kill the creature now. But as he was about to unleash the blast a warning appeared on his HUD.

WARNING!

BLOOD TYPE: BLUE

POTENTIAL ANGEL MANIFESTATION.

"You have got to be shitting me!" After firing the lightning, it came in direct contact with a hexagonal orange barrier, confirming the presence of an AT-field. Cursing in his mind, Seth was attempting to think of anything he could do to break the barrier. Using the Holy Lances was an option, but in the catacombs he could lose them, and if he destroyed the core, both the droid and he would be vaporized from the blast. [B.L.A.Z.E] or [F.L.A.M.E.] had the firepower to break the barrier, but again the firepower needed would either result in the collapse of the tunnels, or again destruction of the artificial Angel would result in a massive explosion resulting the loss of the droid at least, and at worst the collapse of Paris, from the resulting sinkhole. They could rebuild if the ground was intact, but not if there was a giant hole where the city once stood.

There was only one thing he could do, and that was get this creature onto the surface. Once on the surface, there would be a lot more options, not to mention Unit 01 was there ready to go. Once more the force screamed at him. Looking back at the beast, he swore he saw a glint in the creature's teeth? No it wasn't a glint, it was a flash of light from its throat. It was charging up an AT-field blast.

"Seth, fly up-"

"I was thinking the same thing!" Seth interrupted Blaze and deployed her. He flew upwards toward the ceiling at an angle. The newborn beast took the bait and fired at the flying machine.

"FEM ZII GRON!" Seth became intangible with the material world, causing the AT-field blast passed harmlessly through Blaze and he. However the same could not be said of the walls of limestone behind him. The AT-field blast tore through the layers of stones, forming a hole towards the surface. Light from the surface bled into the catacombs. Now that the route back to the surface was cleared, Seth opened fire on the man-made angel with his minigun. This did no damage, but caused the AT-field to manifest and gained the attention of the beast. It roared in agitation and began to follow Seth. Just as he wanted.

With Shinji.

Having seen Seth's order for all living personal evacuate the city, Shinji was making his way towards his designated spot to deploy his AT-field once the bomb goes off. He was watching a squadron of IS flying overhead, and he spotted that blue IS from last night he saved. His attention was dragged away as a beam erupted from the ground.

"The hell was that?! Huh!?" Alarms blared inside the entry plug as a window message appeared, stating Blood Type: Blue.

"Pattern Blue? What the hell is goin-"

"SHINJI! We got trouble! This thing has an AT-field!" Seth interrupted Shinji. Imperial channels quickly filled with activity.

"Aoba!" Now that Seth was on the surface, he opened a call with the Evangelion command on the moon.

"Yes, your majesty." Aoba responded once the call connected.

"Deploy Unit 03 with the dummy system with type-S gear."

"We haven't done a live test with the dummy system. It's too reckless to use it!" Aoba protested.

"Simulation gave us a 70% sync ratio. It should be enough. We need it now, the situation is too dire!"

"Understood! ETA 15 mins."

"Thanks!" Seth said as he closed the call. Aoba began to order the Eva Nest crews to prepare Unit 03. A blue Entry plug with the words 'SETH' embroiled on the side was inserted and the eyes of the Eva came to life with a green glow

Shinji had to wait a second to see the creature in question. It had taken a albino pigmentation skin tone, its head was semi-transparent allowing him to see the skull underneath the flesh along with the fact there was no eyes on the creature. Not even eye sockets, just a white face with a vile grinning mouth. The other thing he noted was the height of the creature. It was crouching but at it's full height it was either equal to or a little taller than Unit 01, given the humanoid body. He finally noticed the Black tendrils sticking out the back of the creature. These were much longer than the actual body of the creature.

He spotted Seth flying in [B.L.A.Z.E.] firing a storm of blue blaster bolts at the creature. Seeing that it wasn't paying attention to its surroundings, he charged in. Grabbing the massive vibroblade on the back of the Eva, he leaped towards the creature once close enough. The creature noticed at the last moment and deployed its AT-field. The massive blade came in contact with the AT-field, but Shinji used the Eva's own AT-field to neutralize the barrier allowing the blade to come down on the creature. It came down on the right shoulder tearing into the flesh. The beast arc back and fell backwards, carrying the Eva with it. The ground underneath was not made to hold up to and a section of the road collapsed. Looking down at the beast up close, he finally saw what he was looking for. A red object inside the beast's body, but unlike the Angel's of his home world, this one was not spherical. It was misshapen, lumpy and one side was clearly larger than the other. Letting go of his hold on the massive sword, he deployed one of his energy blade and plunged towards the red object.

Unit 01 failed to notice 3 black tendril heading his way. The tendrils smack into the purple titan with an amazing amount of force. The purple titan was thrown off the Umbrella creation and flew over a few buildings. It crashed into a few buildings and continued to roll, crushing several more buildings.

The beast used one of the tendrils on it's back to pull out the blade lodged within its body and threw it out, landing a bit away, causing more destruction. Once the blade was removed from its body, the creatures revealed it had impressive regenerative abilities. Seeing it's attacker down, the creature ran towards the Evangelion with the intent on killing it before it had the chance to get back up. However it felt it's AT-field being attacked once more. This time actually breaking it. Seth used the S2 organ within [B.L.A.Z.E.] to make an AT-field, neutralizing the creature's own. Seth had fired a round from Blaze's Beam magnum targeting the chest. It tore into the flesh, but did not reach the core. The beast now gave it's new attacker its full attention, but that's exactly what Seth wanted.

"Open fire!" Seth yelled over the comms. Blue lances of light impacted the beast. With it's AT field neutralized the turbolaser fire from the two vendors tore into the creature. They had to be dial down in power, as a full power barrage from the Venator would have decimated the city. At full power the turbolaser had a max output of 12 gigton per bolt and could have broken the AT-field on their own, but the entire city would have been destroyed. Seth wasn't certain that if they did destroy the entire city, it wouldn't spread whatever virus was inside the creature, or potentially spread it across the continent if not globally.

Realizing that staying close to the small black fly being was causing its barrier to disappear, it moved away as fast as it could, using some of the buildings for cover. But not before the turbolaser fire had severed one of its arms. It screeched in pain so loud that Seth was momentarily stunned as he covered his ear, even though he was in an IS suit. While he was stunned the mouth of the creature opened and fired an AT-field blast towards the [Napoleon Bonaparte].

The Star Destroyer's sensor array detected a large build up of energy, and Neo took control of the ship. She made an emergency rapid descent of the ship, causing the klaxon alarm to blare. The AT-field made contact with the ship's shield while it descended, draining it. The creature had aimed for the main body of the ship, but because of the AI's actions, it only grazed the portside of the ship, melting several of the portside turbolaser batteries along with some of the top layers of the hull plating.

"NEO REPORT!" Seth shouted over the comms. The call instantly connected and he could hear several alarms in the background.

"Shields depleted! I've lost most of my portside guns! Fires reported in sections 231, 334, and hanger 3. Power is stable, Marker containment measures are reporting normal." The AI instantly stated.

"Status of the shield generators?"

"Blast damaged them, but we should be able to make emergency repairs."

"Pull back immediately, we cannot lose the ship or allow the Marker onboard to be exposed!" A city with close to 50 thousand corpses would be the perfect material for a necromorph outbreak.

"Understood. Another energy surge detected!" The man-made angel began to build up more power, readying to destroy the damaged ship. It was at this moment that Unit 01 leapt towards the eyeless beast, weidling it's massive Eva size blade. Slashing into two of the six massive tendrils the beast had, Shinji focused his AT-field into that of a sphere shape and rapidly expanded the side facing the beast. It threw the creature upwards. The pilot of Unit 01 didn't let up his moment and the Type-F armor had a few secrets to it.

The armor in front of the shoulder opened up to reveal the [Impact Bolt]. Two black spheres generated by Unit 01 AT-field appeared. Creating a massive change in electrical potential between the atmosphere and the inside of the AT-field, it created massive whip bolts of lightning, which had the firepower to tear into AT-field and attack the main body of the Angel. Though it was designed to kill other Evangelions by targeting the pilot as the Eva could survive the shock blast, but not the pilot inside.

The whips of lightning slapped into the man-made angel as a bright white light was generated by the attack. The creature recoiled in pain as the blots impacted tearing through its AT-field. Shinji didn't let up and swung with the Eva size sword, severing the remaining arm, while the other had already begun to regenerate.

Seeming to gather its composure the beast tentacles shot towards the purple Eva. Shinji evaded the ones that speared toward him, but ones that the creature swung, slammed into the Eva, forcing launching the giant. Shinji grunted as the Eva was thrown, crushing several buildings from the momentum of the attack. The beast mouth opened as several flashes of lights emanated from inside. Unit 01 AT-field blared to life as it tanked the repeated blasts, but it was pinned down. Shinji knew that these blast wouldn't break his AT-field as long as he kept his focus. But that meant he couldn't move.

As the beast pinned Unit 01 on the floor a shadow appeared above the distracted creature. The black body slammed into the back of the beast, giving Shinji some breathing room. Looking at his would be savior he saw the black Evangelion with green light emanating from the eyes.

Unit 03 stared down towards the body of the false Angel, narrowing its eyes before deploying its energy blades. It began to savagely stab and hack at the creature repeatedly. The white being screeched in pain was repeatedly attacked.

"Sangoki?! Aniki, who's the pilot?"

"It's using the dummy system. Shinji distract it again, I need 30 seconds to get inside Unit 03." Seth said, flying toward the back of the black titan. The pilot of Unit 01 got back on his feet, grabbed the blade to his side and charged once more at the man-made angel.

Unit 03 via the dummy system received orders to back away and leapt off the creature before one of the tentacles had a chance to attack. The creature tried to understand it's situation as its attacker had suddenly stopped its onslaught. But this was quickly disregarded as Unit 01 slashed at the creature while it was distracted. It roared out in pain, however the core of the being was still intact. Shinji had purposely missed the core, but he was aiming to lop off a good portion of the creature. He had noted the being got slower when it was focusing on regenerating, and it seemed to be incapable of firing an AT-field blast when that happened.

The 3 fully working tentacles and the one partially regenerated one, shot towards the purple Evangelion at point blank range. Releasing his sword and rolling to avoid the attack, Shinji grabbed the Eva size blaster rifle on the Unit's back and fired several bursts of plasma at the beast.

Realizing that it was in trouble, the creature ran from the incoming blast firing, using several of the destroyed buildings as cover. This was a mistake as it was soon attacked by the black Evangelion whose eye had shifted from the autopilot glowing green, to white. And in his hands was a golden two prong lance.

With no warning, the Black Eva thrusted the [Lance of Longinus] towards the core of the creature. It raised an AT-field to protect itself but the lance ignored it as though it was a sheet of paper. The twin points of the lance penetrated the misshapen red core, digging deep into the creature. Seth forced the lance through the creature as it tried to fight back, its body wriggling around. The tentacles on its back thrashing around as it grasped its hands on the shaft of the lance.

Unit 03 forced the holy lance deeper while the beast attempted to force it out, but the beast grew weaker with every passing moment. The tentacles on its back soon stopped moving rapidly, but still moved. The lance broke through the back of the creature, andSeth pressed it forward until it stabbed into the ground. Once the lance was settled into the ground, Seth released the Eva's grip on the weapon. The man-made angel was skewered to the ground, unable to get up or pull the lance out. However, it was not dead nor stopped moving, much to the surprise of the young Emperor.

"It can still move even with the [Lance of Longinus] inside of it?" Any Eva struck in the core with the lance was rendered immobile, and the lance in theory should have been the same on the beast, but yet he could still see the creature twitch. He checked the sensors on the HUD the entry plug had and saw the beast was no longer generating an AT-field. Meaning the defoliator would vaporize it.

"Aniki! It's still moving?!" Shinji said as he walked up to the black titan in Unit 01. Turning the Eva's head to look at Unit 01 Seth answered.

"I'm just as surprised as you are, but we can proceed with the plan. Neo, what's the status of the ship?"

"We've completed emergency repairs though shield generator output has been diminished. We cannot cover the area we were assigned at this time." The AI reported.

"Master with 2 evangelions and the [Nobunaga] we can cover the city easily. The plan can still work." Flame answered. She was right, the Eva's could cover the entire section of the city the Star Destroyer would have covered.

"Blaze inform all Imperial assets that are not droids to get out of the city. Flame do a double do a final check on the [Nobunaga]. We only get one shot at this."

"Right!" Both girls responded. Seth told Shinji to get into his position and watched the Purple Eva move away. As he made his way towards the area the [Napoleon Bonaparte] was assigned to cover, he kept getting updates. Loss of life was estimated to be within 92 thousands civilians, 2 thousand battle droids were no longer responding. So far only 10 Imperial trooper vitals had ceased responding. But there were dozens injured from the acid attacks the more mutated infected had. It reportedly ate through the armor his troopers were equipped with. He had no clue on the exact number of French troop casualties but there were far too many reports coming in and his medical droids were working overtime treating them as they came in.

This attack was a disaster on the French people not seen since the second world war. It would take years to rebuild and decades to figure out all the dead if that would be even possible. Then was the matter of logistical issues they would need to address. The Empire had to devote every logistical ship to this cause and it was impressive to say the least. The most rapid movement of military supplies in history, but Seth knew they could do better. The CIS logistics were far surperiro then that of the Republic and he would do everything he could to replicate that capability.

He arrived at this assigned location soon enough and looked at the incoming flow of information. All seemed good. There was a final check for any living being within the city that were not infected, but the droids had found nothing. All Living beings were out of the city and the bomb was armed. Seth generated Unit 03 AT-field to maximum coverage and a large orange hexagonal barrier cut into the metropolitan space. Unit 01 deployed its own AT-field at its maximum coverage. A second orange hexagonal barrier appeared within the city and one end connected with the first barrer connecting their fields. Lastly the [Nobunaga] diverted all power towards her shield generators while keeping the ship's repluser at the bare minimum to stay afloat within the city. It generated a blue barrier that expanded until it intersected with the two orange AT-fields. From above the 3 barriers formed an acute triangle that covered the city of Paris.

With the barrier set up, Seth brought up his wrist and a hologram screen appeared starting a 10 second countdown.

"Countdown complete. Voice command required. Speak the voice command exactly as displayed." An AI voice said to the Emperor. The word STAY HUMAN appeared.

"Voice command authorization. 'Stay Human'."

With the voice command given, the droid within the depths of the catacombs detonated the payload on its back. The container on the back glowed bright white before the explosion erupted. An orange blast wave traveled throughout the tunnels, destroying any organic matter they came across while leaving inorganic matter unharmed. The tunnels filled with the infected soon grew quiet as the screams of the infected died down. It did not take long for the blastwave to leak out of the tunnels and work its way throughout the city of Paris. The orange wave of death covered the capital, leaving no organic matter left, leaving parks of the city barren. All plant life that adorn the city streets were vaporized. It finally reached the barriers, and the blast was contained . All three barriers held the blast within the city. It had taken around 2 minutes for the blast to die down, but once the wave dissipated, the Eva's and Star destroyer dropped their barriers.

The [Napoleon Bonaparte] opened up her hangers and deployed a few recond Vulture droids with Biosensors onboard. They soon reported that there was no life left in the city.

An hour later, Paris refugee camp/temporary Imperial forward operating base.

The Evangelions arrived at the campsite along with the two floating kilometer long warships. Shinji and Seth popped out of their entry plugs. Using the cable line deployed from the entry plug, the two landed on the ground. Using the nanites Seth transformed the plugsuit into more comfortable Jedaii robes, though he would need a shower as he reeked of blood from the LCL.

Seth and Shinji parted ways as he had to speak with the French president, leaving the young pilot alone. He knew there was a mess hall nearby but before he could make his way, he was grabbed by several pairs of hands, and was lifted up in the air.

"Wa-huh?!" Exclaimed with genuine shock. Looking down towards the people lifting him up, it was his squadmates, the squadron's ground crew and a group of other members of the starfighter corps of the Empire.

"Let's give a round of cheers for the Empire's new Ace of Aces!" Daria said as she held a cup filled with an unknown liquid to the sky.

"Ace of aces?" Shinji asked, puzzled.

"Ikari, you are currently the pilot with the most air-to-air kills in the Empire. You alone shot down 74 aircraft last night, and 2 of them were Infinite Stratos drones. We confirmed the data from your astromech." A brown-haired woman in her mid-20s said. She was one of the ground crew members. It was one that worked on Shinji's fighter.

"It was that many?" The aerial battle over Paris was a little bit of a blur for Shinji. He was just trying to save as many lives as he could from the air.

"Just you wait Ikari, you won't be the top ace for long. I'll be gunning for that title!" A man in his early thirties said as he proudly proclaimed his rivalry to the young pilot. Shinji saw that it was a member of Cyan squadron.

"We'll see about that. In the meantime it's time to party!" Diego said as he and Eduardo placed the young pilot on their shoulder, dragging him to the makeshift party they had made in celebration of their squadmate's impressive feat.

End of Chapter.

Author Note: Hey guys, the world is pretty wack atm isn't it. Man after I posted my last update we had major uptake in Covid at my hospital delta hit hard, then came omicron. So sorry for getting this chapter delayed but my patients come first. I think it's long overdue for an arc in a different universe, but I'm torn on which one I should do. I was thinking either the Fire Emblem arc with the Tatenashi sisters or a Azur Lane arc. After these two arcs, I'm thinking of doing the Star Wars rebellion arc followed by a time skip. I was going to plan to do a World war 3 arc, but given the recent events I think that would be in bad taste. I might do a world wide umbrella arc instead. I'll have to revisit my old notes. Till Next time stay safe out there.