Tokyo 3 sat like a mountain above the surf, slabs of concrete the size of city blocks sloping up toward a tangle of casemates and defensive structures. After a couple of miles of tunnels and killing fields, you would reach the city proper. At least, that's what the map said.

Miss Misato's car shot down the single coastal road, the slope of Tokyo-3 on their right and a tangle of massive concrete wave-breakers on the left. Spray from the waves shot up and landed on the car's window as the wind howled. It was a monster storm, of the sort that happened immediately after second impact.

Even then, nothing in the history books said anything about the storm clouds glowing blue on the inside. Shinji stared at the clouds as they were split up by blades of lightning; the strokes were so frequent, so brilliant, that the low-hanging clouds were constantly lit up.

"Miss Katsuragi? Are we heading to a shelter?"

She chuckled grimly. "Something like that, Shinji. And please, call me Misato."

Before he could form a response, the near constant rumble of distant thunder was covered up by a nearer rumble. Above them, on the slopes, heavy guns fired, rocking in their casings as they sent a hail of fire… towards the storm?

"Misato?" He squeaked.

"It's moving faster than they said it would." She growled. "There should be an access tunnel… there!"

She spun the wheel and the car swerved, it's back end nearly clipping the wave-breakers as she shot up a maintenance road that was carved into the slope. Heavy concrete walls rose around them and they quickly got under the cover of a roof. There was a rumble behind them as some sort of door closed behind them.

The tunnel was tight and claustrophobic, surrounded by a web of piping and chutes. Flickering orange lights passed by them in a constant stream, and above them machinery rumbled- maybe to get more shells to those monster guns overhead.

"Did you bring the paperwork, Shinji?"

Shinji set down some crumpled- but properly filled- forms on the dash and Misato sighed. "Phew. Rits would have chewed me out if I lost it."

"Rits?"

"Ah, a friend on mine. You'll meet her soon. We're about to hit the geofront."

She didn't elaborate, but before Shinji could ask- or stew in his awkwardness- they shot out into open space. Well, it wasn't open, but the space was so massive it felt open.

Massive spurs of concrete and steel held up a roof far above them, one that was spotted with vents and massive lights shining down from above. Miles of scaffolding led up to the guns, weaving between giant metal silos.

Misato nearly crashed the car about three times as she drove them toward a sort of pyramidal building that was covered in miles of piping and wires. It seemed to be sitting dangerously close to the oceanic side of the geofront… but Shinji supposed they built it that way on purpose.

Despite all the machinery humming away, the place was without any human movement. The checkpoints were all empty, the rare sidewalk completely barren. It felt… wrong, somehow.

After just barely avoiding crashing into a wall as they parked, Misato almost pulled him from the car and led him into a maze of corridors. Left, right, left again, up a stairwell, through a blast door that looked a meter thick… he got lost practically immediately. Misato didn't seem that much better.

They were intercepted by someone who climbed out of a maintenance hatch… in a swimsuit, for some reason. Misato smiled. "Rits! I was just looking for you-"

"You're late, Misato."

"Well, the weather was-"

"The weather was predicted a day in advance, Misato." The blonde woman- Rits had to be short for something- turned to look at Shinji. "You must be Shinji Ikari. Follow me."

Honestly, Shinji didn't really have any other options. What was he supposed to do? Wander off into a military base?


After another tangle of confusing hallways, they reached another open space, and this one was weird. Almost all of the space was taken up by a massive pool of some sort of blueish liquid, and in that pool sat a warship. Not only that, but a warship with big guns. Shinji was no expert, but he was pretty sure they didn't make those anymore.

Then his father showed up, and suddenly naval history was a lot less concerning. Well, until he was told to run the battleship. Himself.

After his rational- although muttered objections- that there was no way he could possibly operate a warship all by his lonesome, with no military training, his father shook his head. "Get Rei to do it, then."

A heavy door slid open and a blue-haired girl was wheeled in. She would have been kind of cute, if she wasn't covered in blood-soaked bandages and struggling to breathe. His throat tightened as he thought of that poor girl having to do... whatever it was they wanted from her.

(Shinji didn't think he had the build to lift a naval shell, but this girl definitely didn't.)

He volunteered. It barely felt like he was the one doing it, but in Shinji's defense, he had been feeling out of it for the whole day.


Shinji figured he would be escorted onto the bridge while being given a basic intro to how to run a warship. That was not the case.

They proceeded to shove him into something called an 'Entry Plug', which had all the floorspace of a closet. The seat was shockingly ergonomic, actually… at least until a blue liquid poured from the piping above him, soaking him and filling his nostrils with a smell like blood and metal.

Shinji leaned toward the mic. "There's water!"

"Don't worry Shinji, you can breathe it! It's oxygenated!"

Before he could form a response to that, the blue slime- which was strangely hot- was about up to his mouth and he was scrambling to keep his head above. Eventually,the was forced to take a gulp of the stuff, and it was a genuine struggle to get it down into his lungs.

After a few moments, breathing got a bit easier- it was as if the liquid suddenly thinned- and he could start to process all the radio chatter that was coming through. Shinji reassured them that he hadn't drowned, and then he was basically told to sit back. They didn't trust him to start it by himself, apparently.

(That, at least, made some sort of sense.)

Then the plug was lodged into the battleship, and the walls suddenly lit up to reveal… the exact same room the battleship was in already. No surprise there.

Misato and Ritsuko stood behind a group of uniformed people who were shouting all sorts of things, and they all looked very serious. They told him to start the ship moving, and he did. Sluggishly, the ship moved forward, towards a door that was rising up into the ceiling.

Through there was another passageway. (Shinji was getting a little tired of these.) A maintenance path or two ran along the sides of the water as he drove the ship towards another door.

Fortunately, there wasn't another hallway behind this one. Unfortunately, he was guiding the ship into the storm from earlier. Immediately, the ship was being batted around by heavy waves…

"Alright Shinji, sail towards the light!"

The light? Shinji looked into the storm and saw the same blue glow as before, even brighter than before. He looked behind him and saw the great walls of Tokyo-3. Or what was left of them, rather. All the gun emplacements had been ruined, and smoke mingled with the heavy clouds above.

Sailing towards whatever had done that seemed like a bad idea. He didn't want to get closer, but disobeying also seemed pretty bad…

Thankfully, he was spared having to make a decision by a blinding flash of light that filled all of the screens around him with white light, light that still hurt his eyes even when he tried to close them-

Stabbing, vicious white, white that made his eyes burn-

"Oh, you poor thing."


There was blood in the water, some damage to the superstructure and the sensors were pretty bad, but the armor held. She would have launched her floatplanes, if the wings hadn't been burnt clean through…

She sailed towards the storm- now crowned with a vicious halo of lightning- and began to turn. The ones on land were shouting about something, but she ignored them. Whatever was inside that storm deserved twelve fourteen inch shells to the face, immediately.

Her first few shots vanished into the clouds, flashing orange as they exploded. The constant rumble of the storm was pierced by the animalistic cry of something that limped from the bank of clouds, blue spotlight eyes staring dead at her.

Another lance of light which burned away a whole bank of anti-air guns. She flinched, but continued to turn. Her guns were her best feature, she needed to bring them all to bear.

At the very least, that boy was behind her thickest armor belts. He didn't deserve to get dragged into this. (To their credit, at least a couple of the flunkies back on land were trying to check if the kid was alright.)

She released another volley, and the enemy stumbled, waterfalls of blue-black blood pouring from gaping wounds. The weather got worse, Saint Elmo's fire dancing around her superstructure as the rain fell sideways.

They were charging, probably thinking they had the advantage up close.

Heh. Pennsylvania would like to see them try. It had been a long time since she had been in battle- her heart was pounding!


When the storm cleared, repair ships and tugs made their way out to find the ship. It wasn't that hard, not when the already massive battleship was still lodged in the flesh of an even larger monster.

The damage was horrific. Where it hadn't been torn clean off, the superstructure was melted, and long stretches of the armor belts had been torn clean off, allowing severe internal damage.

"Dermal damage is exceptional. Stomach and intestines ruptured, three ribs broken. Repair will take three weeks, at least."

There was blood in the water- incredible amounts of blood. Blood from the enemy, and then from the ship. They'd add more before it was done, unfortunately; it seemed that the entry plug had gotten lodged inside the ship after a particularly vicious tackle.

They would have to recover Shinji Ikari with bonesaws and hard work. Diagnostics seemed to say he was unconscious but alive.

Honestly, it turned out better than they expected. Damage to the city proper wasn't much worse than flooding, and no one was around to witness what exactly had happened to the battleship. The exact workings of the ship were to remain as secret as possible. Couldn't have the poor civilians getting mixed feelings about the warships being alive.