WHAT IF

…we hadn't just said goodbye

Shinji woke up in the dark. It was so dark he couldn't see anything, but the sensations and smells in the place felt somewhat familiar, like he'd been there before. Whatever he was lying in felt rustic though, like straw was poking him in his back instead of a normal mattress. The only thing he remembered was trying to walk out on to the street from Mary…Maria…whatever's apartment in Tokyo-3 and then…

Something of note must have happened because there was a hole in his mind where a memory of how he got here should have been. Unless he'd been kidnapped or something. Shinji wasn't sure he was worth kidnapping. Sure, his father helped commit mass murder on a scale never seen before, nearly finished the job by ending the world before backing out, syphoned money out of aid programs and was very much in gaol. Shinji himself was a middling musician and chef who was largely kept out of the limelight by se carefully orchestrated and selective erasure of records. That his surname had been legally changed to the obscure Rokubungi helped keep people off his back.

The only other reason he could think of was…

This was it right? The studio was ready, all the lights were on again. The boppy beat had started up once more. Now it was down to him and only him.

Now this is a story all about how
My life got flipped turned inside out
And I need to take a minute, just sittin' right here
To tell you how I became the prince of Tokyo-3

In Tokusane born but not raised
On the floor is where I spent all of my days
Chillin' out, mopin' about and veggin' out
Was livin' with my sensei outside of my school
Then a letter arrived while some Angels
Started bangin' and stompin' in my daddy's neighbourhood
I got in one giant mecha fight with my chichi unfazed
And he said: "you're movin' in with Yebisu girl and her bird over there."

I begged and pleaded with her day after day to clean up her place
But she gave me a smile and in rock paper scissors, she did totally slay
She blew me a kiss, then plugged me in a suit
Her friend yelled "Yo for this training, centre the target and pull the switch."
First class, yo, these holograms ain't bad
But dunkin' on these Angels like isn't at all rad
Is this how the people of Tokyo-3 live?
Hmm, this might be all right

On day I went on a trip and when the chopper landed
There stood a red flame, looking like an angel
I silently whistled at the sight and when she came near
My reward for the vision awakened something within me
If anything I could say that this bird was rare
But I thought "Nah, forget it, yo, back to Toyko-3!"

We pulled up to all the Angels and wrecked all their asses
And I yelled to my daddy "Yo yo, smell ya later"
I looked at my kingdom, I was finally out
So I could sit on my throne as the Prince of Tokyo-3

For some reason that could not be explained by the known laws of science, people really took to the song Shinji performed under a pseudonym. Aside from being more of a classical musician, he thought the lyrics were crass and silly. But his audience adored it. Maybe it was so silly and catchy nobody really heard the pain that was embedded in them. And it being out shortly after the near calamity of the Last Battle of Tokyo-3 helped out to popularity.

He couldn't complain after all. He'd never imagined having so many zeroes in his bank account. Before he recorded the song, his life had been comfortably provided for by the United Nations as a former Evangelion pilot. He even had a salary plus benefits and pension now that he was an ex-pilot.

His father only told him about all this after he'd been in gaol for a few months. Though he now understood how Asuka could afford all of her stuff.

Shinji wasn't that well off from the song's royalties. But that income plus the pension meant he was more than comfortable. But that didn't explain what was happening now. The darkness and silent ambience was strangely calming, especially since he realised he wasn't restrained in any way.

Shinji rose from his uncomfortable bed and walked carefully around the space. His eyes hadn't adjusted to the darkness yet and the last thing he wanted was to stub his toe on anything solid. He quickly came upon some very solid metal bars.

This is starting to feel strangely familiar. But I haven't been trapped in an Angel in…five years.

"Hey!" he shouted out. "Anyone out there? Why am I in here?"

It took a little while for anyone to make their presence known. Shinji could hear heavy boots and metallic armour begrudgingly trudging towards him from somewhere beyond the inky darkness.

A thought occurred to Shinji that he might be back in Summerise. If he was, then that meant…

Anna. I haven't thought of her in a long time. I hope she doesn't hate me. I hope…she's happy.

As the footsteps drew closer, two guards emerged from the murk, each carrying a torch and halberds. Shinji recognised the armour as belonging to Summerise. They did not look happy in the least, but opened the door efficiently and led Shinji out without uttering a word. The climb up the many, many stone stairs of Summerise was like walking back into a dream world. As they ascended, he could hear loud noises outside. Noises of battle.

Shinji's heart sank. There was another battle happening here just as he arrived. He hoped he wouldn't accidentally decimate a wall this time. As he attuned his hearing to the noise, it was clear that the noise was relatively far away. It seemed that whatever was happening, Summerise was still holding its own, much to his relief.

Thankfully, not much seemed to have changed about the castle. The flags and banners of House Greendrake were still there, as were paintings of various members of the clan. Anna was there too, resplendent in a gold and green dress with a bejewelled tiara in her hair and a ceremonial sword in her hands.

He'd never forgotten how beautiful Queen Anna Greendrake was, though her face had faded somewhat from his memory. Here was a stark reminder of who he fought for five years ago. It felt like a completely different life, or he'd watched someone who looked like Shinji Ikari experience it. Back then, he had only the urge to get through life with minimal fuss. But being in Summerise allowed him to understand that there were indeed things and people he wanted to fight for.

Shinji hadn't forgotten his promise to find a way back here. He just didn't have the knowledge or expertise. But it seemed that Anna had found a way to fulfil that promise.

Spending the time contemplating things allowed Shinji to pass the time quickly. Before he knew it, he was already at the top of the castle where he assumed Anna was. As he stepped closer to a very familiar door, he heard two people arguing. He recognised both their voices; one was Anna Greendrake, proud and passionate but trained in the art of diplomacy and another was also proud and passionate but…

Shinji was rushing to the airport. Why was she at the airport? Was her father visiting again? He cursed the afternoon Tokyo-3 traffic impeding his progress. Despite the highly efficient public transport system, it seemed like every man and woman was picking up their children from school or doing shopping or just generally milling about. Misato was also getting antsy in the driver's seat. She was used to having her way in traffic, but even she was finding barriers everywhere.

Shinji hadn't noticed her acting strangely lately, but then again it was Asuka. He'd never really understood her in the time they'd fought together, lived together, even loved together. Ancestors knew he'd tried.

Just thinking about the timing of the flight, Shinji realised she must have timed it for this time just to make sure he had the smallest chance of catching up to her.

She had always been smarter than him.

Shinji would have laughed if he wasn't worried sick about the whole situation. Did he do something wrong? He hadn't been yelled at for…a few days. It felt like an eternity actually. Maybe that was it; he had done something wrong but he just hadn't realised it yet.

He thought back to the last few months they'd spent together-together. He hadn't realised just how worried he could get about someone until Unit Two absorbed Asuka when it went berserk against the Fourteenth Angel. It had also eaten the angel's S2 Engine for good measure, just like Unit One a few angels earlier.

It took a month for Unit Two to spit Asuka back out of itself. For those thirty days, Shinji was listless. He didn't even realise he'd lost weight until Kensuke mentioned one day that he'd been playing with his bentos instead of eating them for a long while. He was at her bedside when she woke up and, forgetting that she was pricklier than a rose, hugged her instinctively.

Shinji was surprised he hadn't become a eunuch there and then. What surprised him even more was that Asuka hugged him back without any barking or kicking or biting remarks about her superiority. It was just a that, a hug. Shinji knew that she was physically strong from all her combat training with him as the punching bag, but being hugged by her was a whole different feeling.

It felt good.

And the last few months had been good too. Though the two of them never brought up the subject of officialdom, they understood they were together.

There were some dark days, like when the Fifteenth Angel messed up both their minds before Rei dispatched it to hell. They held each other in morbid silence that night. It was a while before they could speak to each other normally. And they'd been good for months now.

So why was Asuka running away now?

Misato parked her car within a space – or two – and the two of them sprinted to the international departures hall. Misato was not above using any authority was available to her to get them to where they needed to go; past the check-in counters, past the identity checks, past the security scanners and stiff-faced customs officers. Eventually they found her having her ticket for Berlin being scanned at gate 2, fitting for Asuka Langley Soryu.

Out of breath, Shinji caught her hand gently, and looked into her blue eyes. There was surprise there, but also determination. It was the look he first saw in her eyes all those months ago on board the Over the Rainbow.

"I have to go, Shinji," she said to him simply. He was aware that a high-ranking military officer and a skinny boy was making a scene. He didn't like making a scene, but maybe this one scene was worth it.

"Why?" he asked her, afraid of the answer. "I'm sorry if I…"

"Stop it, Baka," Asuka said quietly. He got the idea that something had been seething inside her for quite some time now. "I thought I'd slapped that habit of yours out of you. But...this…is about me, not you. I realised I've become dependent on you, and you on me. And I don't like it one bit."

"But we're not dependent on each other…"

"Aren't we? We wake up together, we eat together, we go to school together, we go home together. We…sleep together," she retorted with a flushed look. "When was the last time we did something apart? When did you see your friends at the arcade and talk about disgusting boy stuff? When did I go shopping with Hikari last? The while thing feels like a dream…a drug induced coma. And I have to wake up from it."

Shinji couldn't think of anything to argue against her points. He was sure something would come to him in the fullness of time, say a week from now. Also, she was right. He felt like he needed her with him every waking moment and every blissful night.

"See? You know what I mean. It's unhealthy for both of us. So I'm leaving."

Asuka shot a withering look at Misato. "There's no stopping me, don't come after me until I'm fixed and ready. You'll know when."

She turned and walked away; Shinji let her hand slide out of his with little resistance. He knew it was pointless trying to stop her, she would have kicked him in a sensitive area if he did. And then she would have left regardless. That would have been much more embarrassing.

He stood at gate two until he watched Asuka's Lufthansa Airbus disappear into the azure sky.

"Your Grace, you requested that we bring the other guest to you once he woke up."

The private guest room of Anna Laurel Greendrake had changed little in the intervening five years. There was still the lovely wooden furniture with framed pictures of her parents on the stone walls. Very few people had ever been in this room, and Shinji felt privileged to have been one of those few.

"Thank you, lieutenant, please leave us."

Shinji saw Anna for the first time in five years. She, like him, had grown into a young adult, her figure had filled out into her ornate green and gold dress. She'd take her tiara off and her hair was shorter now but remained that lustrous gold colour he remembered so fondly.

Also in front of him was a mirage of a red waterfall holding a designer leather bag, dressed in a grey suit and pants. It had to be a mirage. Otherwise, what was she doing here?

Anna stood from her throne and walked down the steps and up to him. "Lord Sir Shinji Ikari, Knight of the Colossus, Combustor of Slimes, Tamer of Wolves, Slayer of Dragons, Keeper of My Heart. It's been a while."

A sudden warm feeling on his lips made Shinji falter somewhat as he remembered a certain American cartoon character chuckling ironically that he was in danger.

Asuka Langley Soryu watched with an unreadable expression on her face. "Shinji, do you know this b-?!"

…memories come flooding back

Sirens blared on the bridge of the Wasp and sailors communicated with utter confusion. Misato saw nearly every computer screen throw up some kind of error after the blinding flash. More than that, her stomach felt like it had been turned inside out. She looked for a bucket just in case but found none.

Her XO, Captain Sato, ran up to her in a panic. "Sir, we've lost all satellite and datanet feeds, including GPS. All we have is the local net with the rest of the fleet."

"Any other signals?" she asked tersely. She was tense given the situation.

"Nothing apart from fleet-wide radio," came the reply.

"I guess the whole fleet has had the same issue?"

Her XO nodded. "Aye sir. Rainbow and Sagarmatha reporting injuries on their bridges. Admiral Williams is unconscious…"

"Which leaves me in command?" asked Misato. The situation was dire if the marine Colonel was in command of a fleet of warships.

Sato nodded nervously. Misato could only shrug and fall back on standard procedure. "Have the Rainbow recover the original CAP if it can and launch a new one, plus put AWACS and anything else we have that can give me data and information. We need to know where we are and what happened."

"Aye sir," saluted Sato and left to disperse the orders.

Misato hoped that her orders would give the crews something to concentrate on and distract them from whatever strange disaster had occurred. And it was strange. One minute the attack was proceeding smoothly and the next minute all hell had broken loose. There was a flash and then…what? It felt like she's lost five minutes or five hours.

It wasn't long before status reports started to flow in, as the crew adjusted to the situation and remembered their jobs.

"Sir, Over the Rainbow reports new CAP is flying off now. They're still trying to contact the last flight. AWACS will follow."

"Have Wasp and Essex launch helicopters to see if there are any crew in the water and inspect for damage to ships. Prep the SNR skiffs too."

"Aye sir. Fleet has checked in and reported no exterior damage but still checking systems."

"Keep me posted," Acknowledged Misato. She flicked the commlinks on her chair. "Engineering this is the bridge, how's the ship going?"

"We seem to have blown some fuses but we're replacing those. Nothing out of the ordinary so far. The guys are checking all around to make sure we don't have any surprises when we least expect it."

"Alright, keep it up Chief. Let me know if you find anything so much as a screw loose. Bridge out."

"Aye sir."

Misato sighed. She was temporarily in command of the most powerful surface fleet the world had ever seen. It had recently been upgraded with advanced technology derived from the Evangelion program. So why were they completely blind to this disaster? She smirked as the navigators started breaking out their sextants and instruction manuals.

Don't panic. You don't know what happened. Yet.

This wasn't like her first trip to Antarctica. There was no massive alien creature ripping apart the very ecosystem upon which humans depended on to thrive. But it did feel somewhat like the hand of God had picked them up and thrown them somewhere like dice on a board game.

"Wasp, this is Essex," said the tenor of Captain McAndrews. "We're launching a flight of armed Reapers to scout out the area, Search Pattern Alpha. We'll link the feed to you."

"Understood Essex. We'll do the same and send them 90 degrees away from your pattern. Let's see what's around here."

The initial reports weren't promising. They were in the middle of the ocean before the phenomenon hit them and in the middle of the ocean they remained. It took nearly forty minutes before one of the Reapers saw land. All the planes and drones in the air were directed to the area to start mapping it out.

As video came in of the beach and surrounding areas, it was clear that people lived there, though the shape of the land didn't match anything in the databases. Despite the fleet being made of a very international crew, the pictures bore only a superficial resemblance to places they had been, and nobody could be certain of where they were.

More footage from other drones found more evidence of settlements and life, but little beyond basic agriculture and animal husbandry. It looked idyllic if anything. No pirates, no Angelic impacts, just people going about their daily lives.

"Uh sir, you'd better take a look at this," said one of the communications officers. He was called Chen…or Zheng…Misato could never get the pronunciation right. But he was a good officer, if a little meek and mousy. Nevertheless, he was pointing at one of the screens at his station. Of all the things that Misato had expected to see, a giant grey stone castle with tall spires perched on a cliff was pretty low on the list.

"That's new," Misato said absently. "I don't think we're in Kansas anymore…"

"Sir, Kansas is a landlocked state," said Chen (or Zheng). "I don't think the fleet would be functional there…sir."

"It's just a saying lieutenant. Bring the drone in for a closer look please. There seems like some kind of activity around the castle."

"Sir, yes sir."

The drone banked and turned closer to the castle. It was clear something was happening around the front of it, a large crowd was clustered around what seemed to be the main gates.

And the main gates were shut. In her gut, Misato knew what this meant. The place was under attack. But she had to be sure. The castle seemed similar to what Shinji described on his debriefing too. He said that…

"…it's called Summerise. And it's on a cliff next to the sea. It's made of stone with tall spires where the queen lives."

"You've met this queen?" the NERV officer asked curtly, professionally. It was a debriefing after all. Misato warned him before he went into the room to only answer the questions he was being asked and nothing more. Maybe having the debriefing in a Spartan white room with nobody to support him was a bad idea in hindsight.

Shinji flushed a little at that question but nodded after a second. "Please remember that you need to answer verbally."

"Yes, I met the queen."

"Then how did you get her to agree to help you?"

Misato zoned out of the debriefing. Shinji wasn't going to say anything in there that she didn't already know. He'd already told her the day he woke up in the hospital room. The debriefing was a mere formality, though if he'd told anyone outside of NERV, Shinji would probably be thrown into a mental asylum for madness.

The door behind Misato slid open, revealing Ritsuko in her customary lab coat and blue turtleneck.

"Rits, did you get anything off the Eva's computers?" she asked as said scientist friend sat down next to her.

Ritsuko opened her laptop and spun the screen around to show Misato. On it was an image of a stone castle with tall spires sitting on top of a cliff by the sea. "Well, I'll be damned. He wasn't hallucinating the whole thing?"

"No, he wasn't going crazy," said Ritsuko as she shook her head. "In fact, the way he's described his bonus adventure in that other world, I'm surprised he came back. Sounds like…"

"Paradise?"

"Except for the dragons and undead monsters," joked Ritsuko. "Better the Lovecraftian monsters you know, I suppose."

"Right," replied Misato sarcastically. "So what do you make of it all? Shinji's testimony, I mean."

"Well, the Dirac Sea is theorised to be another dimension in space-time," Ritsuko said as she lit up a brand-new cigarette. "It stands to reason that whatever method Unit One used to destroy the Angel could have opened an Einstein-Rosen Bridge between universes. Logically it should have returned here, but perhaps the link was misdirected and dumped Shinji and his Eva in some strange parallel universe."

"Sure, but according to Shinji, the Eva kept…working. By rights it should have run out of power by the time our operation to nuke the Angel was scheduled to start. But he apparently spent months in there. His physical proves it too, he's measurably taller, more muscular, and even his voice sounds deeper. Those aren't things he can fake."

Ritsuko paused as if she wasn't sure if she could reveal to Misato anymore. But she did anyway. "We've run our diagnostics of Unit One. Shinji wasn't lying, it had been active during that time. And you're right, it should have run out of power. In fact, the logs show that it did run out of power at some point. But on its way out of the Angel, the Eva somehow ingested and then incorporated the Angel's S2 Engine into itself. That's how it's been able to keep going. It has, for all intents and purposes, unlimited energy now."

Misato turned the implications over in her head. Her friend the scientist seemed perturbed that this had happened at all. Ritsuko obviously knew more than she let on, but this was as much as her friend was willing to reveal on a need-to-know basis. However, Misato's own mind understood that Evangelion Unit One was no longer shackled to umbilical cables. That meant more operational freedoms.

"So what now, Rits? Can I have Shinji back home now? This interrogation won't give us any new information."

"He'll be home in time for your Curry ala Nuclear Apocalypse, Misato. Don't you worry about that."

"You just don't appreciate good food," teased Misato.

"What I appreciate, Misato, is my digestive system not feeling like it's been napalmed."

The castle on the screen looked exactly like the one from Unit One's records.

"Now it makes sense…"

"Sir?" enquired Chan (or Zeng).

"Nothing, lieutenant. Just trying to understand the situation."

The drone was close enough to show detail on the ground now. And it was definitive that the castle was being attacked. The armour the attacking forcr was shiny and plated, but the defenders had the advantage of the high ground with arrows and other archaic weapons. And if the defenders were friends of Shinji's, then they were a friend of Colonel Misato Katsuragi too.

"XO, get me the Rainbow. Looks like we have to help the good guys," ordered Misato. "And let me know what ground attack ordinance is already in the air."

…there's still this mystery that's hanging over me

Blackbird hadn't woken up in the wilderness for a while. In fact, the last time was when he was hiding from his brother's killers. But the feeling was familiar, the tickle of insects crawling inside his clothes, the smell of fertile soil and the call of wildlife. Above him was the wide blue sky framed by trees with nary a cloud in sight.

He was sure he had just been conscious and walking away from the laser guidance equipment used against the pirates. The explosions from Sagarmatha's main guns had been pretty spectacular, and this was coming from someone who had seen Evangelions fighting Angels up close.

However, there was no smell of explosives or smoke anywhere. There should have been, since he was in visual distance of the former pirate base. There was, however, a lot of shouting and screaming coming from… somewhere near him.

Blackbird checked his extremities for any damage. There was no pain or discomfort anywhere and he was thankful that he was lying on some soft green grass.

But what happened? This was not close to where he'd been just moments – was it moments – ago. This was flat land, whereas he was on a mountain before. Had he been found out and captured? He wasn't restrained in any way. Was it divine intervention like when…

He leant against the rusting wall in an abandoned building's courtyard and enjoyed what was likely his last cigarette. At least this place was nice and peaceful after the stressful day he'd had. After working for and quadruple crossed three separate organisations with opposing agendas, he was pleasantly – or perhaps scarily - surprised that his comeuppance was coming so far down the track and not earlier in the game. Maybe he was just a convenient and useful idiot for those holding the puppet strings.

Perhaps today was the day he had finally run out of usefulness. Either that, or today he had made someone angry enough to make his being alive untenable.

Well, such is life.

Blackbird was a practiced spy, and his ears were especially attuned to any sounds, particularly in a place such as this being quietly being reclaimed by nature. Every drip of water, every whisper of the wind, even insects flitting about was audible to his senses. Such was his sensitivity, that he heard the agent's approach minutes before he arrived.

Appropriately, the agent sent to kill him was well appointed in all-black, black suit, black pants and black tie with a shirt so white it felt like the sun was shining from his chest.

Blackbird smiled at the agent in front of him and remarked in his usual casual way: "you're a little late, aren't you?"

The agent said nothing. His only response was to pull a well-polished Glock and point it at Blackbird.

Blackbird, or Ryoji Kaji before he was known before adopting that new codename, kept up his smiling exterior as he braced for what was to come. Pain, death and oblivion all neatly packaged up into the final few seconds of his life. An anonymous end for a man who had worn more than one face. He wished he could hold Katsuragi one last time and hoped the data he gave her would be enough to cut through all the onion layers of this game NERV was playing.

He also hoped for a quick and painless end. Kaji closed his eyes and heard the shot ring out and echo around the courtyard. He felt...light and wondered if getting shot was supposed to feel so gentle.

He also become aware of other sounds, like a man groaning in pain, a wet smack like a sack of potatoes had just fallen from the sky and a high-pitched ringing noise slowly fading away. But it wasn't him making the dramatic sounds. In fact, nothing hurt at all. It wasn't at all like in the simulations.

Kaji cracked open his eyes and saw the agent who had fired the shot laying in a slowly expanding lake of his own blood. There was a clear gunshot wound on his chest, from which said blood was pouring out.

He had been prepared to embrace eternity, but it seemed like someone had other plans for him. The site smelled of ozone, which was strange. Gunshots didn't make that kind of smell and as far as he knew nobody had ever started leaking copious amounts of blood from their chest by smelling ozone. But Kaji thought he did hear some quiet footsteps heading away from the building.

He didn't hesitate and followed the soft sounds carefully. Whoever was there must have seen what happened, but why did they intervene, if they did at all?

As he rounded a corner, he thought he saw a sliver of hair, light in colour and unkempt. But following this half-seen sight, Kaji never did see or hear anything else. The dilapidated building had returned to its previous state of silent decay.

This left Kaji with a big question: now that he had a second lease on life as a dead man walking, what was he to do?

That same question returned Kaji to the present. The sounds of battle were getting louder and louder. He poked his head up just above the long grass on which he had fallen. An enormous stone castle loomed over the world and silver clad men were trying to break in.

Kaji was privy to details of after-action reports from all over the UN, including from NERV during his short stint as Special Inspector. But no report ever mentioned a castle, and certainly not something as impressive as this one. The battle sounds were more evident now, a small army of silver-plated men and some very large humanoids, also dressed in silver ate armour were forcefully banging on the gate. The castle's occupants were hardly idle, raining rocks, arrows and other primitive unguided missiles down upon the attackers.

Blackbird was confused. This was clearly a mediaeval society, but since when did the Second Impact result in this kind of outcome? The world might have lost half its population, but it didn't regress five hundred years technologically. Though he still couldn't figure out how he always put USB cables in the wrong way on the first and second and third attempts.

Ever aware of his surroundings, Kaji also became aware of the sound of drones overhead. Reaper drones. This was even more confusing; the level of technological imbalance was astronomical. Especially when the guided missiles and bombs started dropping on the attackers.

High explosives weren't the most powerful weapons Kaji had ever witnessed. That honour went to Evangelion Unit Two when Asuka somehow awakened it after the defeat of Shinji and Unit One in the Geofront and then proceeded to demolish the Fourteenth Angel within thirty seconds. Kaji figured there was love there.

But against a mass of soldiers on the ground, high explosives were devastating. At the epicentre of the explosions, plants were uprooted from the soil and men were thrown into the air like toys, their limbs flailing comically as if they could steer their way through the air and to a soft landing.

One unfortunate soul thudded next to Kaji, the man's helmet rolling of his head, revealing his lifeless face. Kaji took pity on the man but stripped the armour off his body and put it on as a disguise. While he was doing so, a flight of Super Hornets appeared overhead and dropped even larger guided munitions on the scene. They were from Over the Rainbow, so that meant they were close to his position.

The bombing was devastating and made Kaji's ears bleed. But it provided good cover for him to don the dead soldier's armour. He checked his pockets and confirmed he still had his pager to the fleet. A great number of soldiers were retreating, and he took his chance to blend in with the chaos. Kaji had to find out who these people were and why they decided a huge castle ostensibly under the protection of the UN Pacific Fleet was a target to be attacked.

More importantly, where had he and the fleet been taken and why were they here?

A/N:

Howdy folks, author here. Hope you enjoy this chapter. This story will take some more time to set up and the wider cast of Evangelion characters will feature, so bear with me.

And now for the mail:

ZG468 - hopefully this is a nice surprise. I had originally intended to write an alternate version of Evangelion from after Leliel to EOE, but it's been done to death. I figure I can do it just as effectively through a series of vignettes.

Guest - we're back in Anna's universe! And I think impact based weapons might work in space, like in The Expanse. But in atmosphere, sub-munitions work really well. ICBMs are a kind of hypersonic weapon after all...

Anyway, stay tuned for the next chapter!