You erroneously claim that humanity's use of technology has halted our evolution, for now we can change the environment to suit us, rather than the other way around.

Evidence against this claim is rather self-evident. Humanity and its hominid ancestors have, in one way or another, possessed tool-making for 2.9 million years, and yet we have evolved considerably from the diminutive, hirsute, and nonverbal Homo habilis that first learned to craft the hand-axe.

Indeed, our use of tools facilitated this evolution- stone tools that could kill prey and efficiently remove meat from the carcass gradually turned our largely herbivorous foraging ancestors into omnivorous pursuit predators, with the changes in jaw structure and heat management said development requires, and the later development of fire allowed for greater nutrition to be gained from our food, and thereby allow bigger brains.

Even in our comparatively recent history, Homo sapiens has adapted to its diverse environments. Epicanthic folds to protect from sunlight, shortening of the limbs to reduce heat loss, and more efficient blood oxygenation to cope with rarified air are just a few of these examples. While these changes are so minor that, were humans dogs, we would all still be the same breed, it nevertheless demonstrates the continuing ability of our environment to mold us.

Ultimately, technology is a tool of survival, fundamentally no different from fangs or webbed feet. Its uniqueness is in its capacity for self-improvement, and its detachment from the actual bodies of the species that uses it, which can be both its greatest strength and its greatest weakness.

And like any tool for survival, it cannot completely conquer and change the environment, and prevent the species from having to adapt, whether that adaptation be physical or social.

The emergence of Godzilla has forced humanity to confront that truth. After decades of advancement, we still are unable to rid ourselves of him, to make the world adapt to us. The only other option is to recognize our limits, and change our approach to developing our civilization, thereby adapting to the environment.

Whether we will learn in time is up to debate.

- Kyohei Yamane, in an open letter to the Human Instrumentality Society after their first annual scientific convention, 1993

†

The director of NERV Paris gently laid the orange brick of bakelite on Lorenz's desk with a soft clack. The chairman leaned forward to study it, and the effort of such a small act, the aching of his frayed muscles as they leveraged against an artificial spine, again reminded him of the suffering humankind had endured divided for far too long.

"It is a clever fake," the director said, hands folded behind his back. "They used a medical printer to even give the illusion of tissue, but the true genius of it is in the detail. They knew the exact appearance from acquired documents."

Ikari has shown his hand. He would not attempt something so bold unless he knew of the other vested parties that could give him a cover, and thus he has proven beyond a doubt his irreplaceability.

Lorenz leaned back in his chair, folding his arthritic hands in his lap. "Has the identify of the thief been uncovered?"

"As of yet, no," replied the director. "Inspector Kaji has been informed of the matter, and he will investigate en route to Tokyo-3."

Lorenz knew there was a very good chance Kaji was himself the thief, and undoubtedly the director was aware as well. He did not bother studying his face for a tell- the sun would scatter its ashes to the cosmic winds before so much as a twitch of the eyebrow or a ghost of a frown betrayed his thoughts.

"Speaking of that matter," he said. "I will meet with the Committee and the UN soon to discuss the transfer of Unit-02. Godzilla's reemergence, and his demonstrated hostility to Evangelion, has now made the seas too dangerous for transport."

"By train, then?" the director asked.

"Yes, and Inspector Kaji is to accompany the Eva. The fleet will continue its course, as a contingency."

"I presume, then, that I shall be sent to Tokyo-3 as well?"

Kihl nodded. "An important task awaits you there. Ikari will inform you of the details when you arrive later today."

The director placed a hand over his heart and bowed. "Of course. I remain your humble servant, till the day your moment of perfect joy arrives, and I am owed my due."

Kihl smiled. "And unlike the good doctor, my ascension to paradise will not leave you empty-handed."

"We see each other eye-to-eye," said the director. He smiled. "One of my favorite expressions."

With a final flourish, he turned about and strode out of the study.

Kihl sighed quietly, and cursed the fact that he could not close his eyes as felt proper for such an act. At least then he could be spared a moment of staring unceasingly at a room his visor painted in stark outlines and simple hues. Leaning forward, he poured himself a cup of Bohea tea, grateful that age had not lessened his ability to appreciate the smoky aroma.

The saucer clattered as he lifted the delicate porcelain cup to his lips. Then a hand of fine marble slipped into view, supporting the saucer on its palm.

"Allow me, father."

Kihl took the teacup in both hands, and drank his fill. Setting it back on the saucer, he let the hand place it back on the desk, and he turned to look at its owner.

"Thank you, my son."

"Am I to go to Tokyo-3 as well, father?"

"In due time. You will do good to be wary of such a city, my son. Be wary of the Mother in the East. Watch carefully the chosen Daughter, whose despair must come to bring the joy of rebirth."

"I understand."

Kihl tented his hands. "But fear the Son most of all, for his role in this has become unraveled by unknown hands, and the unknown is the most frightening of all."

Kaworu Nagisa smiled. "Of course, father."

†

Shinji stopped walking to play with the strap of his backpack again. Try as he might, he couldn't seem to get it to cover the stain on his shirt.

"The more you do that, the more likely someone's gonna notice," Asuka said, not even looking his way as she passed him on the sidewalk. "Besides, what kinda idiot only has one school shirt anyway?"

"I have two, actually, but the other one's in the wash," Shinji replied. Giving up, he hurried after her. "Also this idiot got the stain making you a continental breakfast."

Asuka looked over, batting her eyelashes. "Which was delicious, thank you."

Shinji blinked in surprise. "Oh. Um, thanks? I-"

"-wasn't expecting such magnanimity from the great Asuka Langley Sohryu?" She smiled wanly. "Well, when one saves the world, one has plenty of room to be magnanimous."

Hᴍᴍ... Hayata hmmed.

Shinji returned the smile. "It's good to see you in a good mood."

"Why wouldn't I be in a good mood? I finally killed an Angel and reminded the world who their real hero is."

"The countless brave men and women of NERV?" Shinji asked.

Asuka snorted. "Yeah sure, that. Which also just so happens to include one me."

"And what a you you are," Shinji said, absentmindedly.

He became aware of Asuka looking at him with a strange expression, but before he could make sense of it, a soft voice behind him said, "Classmates Ikari and Asuka."

He jumped, then craned his neck to see that Ayanami was behind them. He didn't know what was stranger: seeing her bandage-less face out in the open, instead of a secret he wasn't meant to know, or the fact that her red gaze no longer made his skin crawl.

"Oh, good morning, Ayanami," he said.

"Good morning," she replied, nodding slightly. "You have a grease stain on your shirt."

"Yeah..."

"Morning, Wondergirl," Asuka said. Shinji felt she had suddenly gotten closer to him, now. "How does it feel to be the ultimate wingman on Earth?"

"I do not follow, Classmate Asuka."

"Just Asuka. And I'm talking about keeping the power cables for the positron rifle safe so I could take the shot."

"I see." Ayanami paused, then said, "Then wouldn't the 'Ultraman' entity and Godzilla also be your wingmen?"

"Pffft. Who gives a shit about some silver dork and an overgrown lizard?" Asuka raised her hands up to the sky, arms wide. "We're gonna be the talk of the school, I just know it."

†

The classroom was quiet as they walked in, with only a handful of students even looking their way, yet Shinji knew the hushed crowd was thrumming with an electric excitement. Some were cloistered together, speaking in whispers, while others typed frantically on their laptops, glancing at one another with knowing looks.

Ayanami seemed utterly oblivious to it as she took her seat by the window and started gazing outside. Asuka, however, visibly tensed at the lack of reception, and as she sat at her own desk Shinji saw it skid back an inch.

Iᴛ sᴇᴇᴍs ɴᴏᴛ, Hayata said.

Shinji sighed and made his way to his seat in front of Ayanami's. Tried as he might, he couldn't help but notice the fearful looks on some of his classmates' faces as they spoke, a look he had only seen in pictures and old tv before, and a pit formed in his stomach.

Then Kensuke barged into the room, Toji on his heels, and Shinji saw that he was waving a newspaper in the air.

"They finally printed it! Everyone, come look!"

At once the classroom seemed to converge on him, and reluctantly Shinji stood up as well. Glancing back, he saw that Ayanami was still seated, still looking outside.

"Oh my god, it's actually him!" someone yelled, and Shinji finally joined the throng that surrounded Kensuke and his newspaper.

The entire front page was just a single picture. Godzilla stood in the middle of Tokyo-3, surrounded by flames as he raised his head in a triumphant roar.

HE'S BACK, the headline read.

"-he looks even scarier than the old pictures-"

"-the entire shelter was shaking when he roared-"

"-my dad wants to move now-"

"-are we safe?"

One of the students folded her arms. "Aida, what about the other thing?"

Kensuke grinned and pulled out another newspaper. "Oh, they printed a whole other issue for him."

Oh boy.

Shinji stared at the photo the newspaper used. It wasn't taken from the fight with the crystalline Angel just a few days ago- no, this one was from when he fought the red Angel, a giant of red and silver shown fully in the broad daylight, arm reached skyward like some grand statue. It was then that Shinji realized he had never seen himself in full. This, this was what Misato and Asuka and Ayanami had all stared up at.

BEHOLD, THE ULTRAMAN

A wave of excited oohs and ahhs rolled over the classroom.

"-he looks so human-"

"-it looks so alien-"

"-a thousand yen says it's from outer space-

"-maybe he's a superhero-"

"-you think he could beat Godzilla?"

Kensuke folded his arms. "Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the coolest thing to happen ever, and I came up with the name for it."

Shinji peeled away from the ever-growing crowd, pinching the bridge of his nose. It was then that he saw Ayanami wasn't the only one who hadn't bothered getting up. Asuka sat with folded arms as she glared at the throng, her face turning as red as her hair.

What caught his attention more, however, were the white knuckles as she dug her fingernails into her arms.

Then Hikari came in ahead of the teacher, and the crowd reluctantly dispersed as class began. Asuka seemed to relax, releasing her arms and revealing bloodless marks in the pale skin, and Shinji realized he had been holding his breath.

Sʜɪɴᴊɪ... Hayata began.

"I know," he said quietly. He glanced her way again. "I know."

Dᴏ ʏᴏᴜ?

†

The plug felt colder than usual.

She gripped the yokes tightly, eyes closed shut as she tried to concentrate. She breathed in deeply, ribs creaking under the pressure of LCL, then exhaled slowly. She was the Eva, and the Eva her. It was her muscles that strained against hydraulic braces-

HE'S BACK, the headline had read.

-her bones that ached from the cold metal bolted into it, made frigid by the bath of unoxygenated LCL-

That placid, alien half-smile.

-her skin made one with metal and ceramic and synthetic fibers, the greatest armor ever made-

BEHOLD, THE ULTRAMAN

She became aware of the beating of a heart. Not the Eva's, inert and atrophied, made useless by fans and pumps implanted into the larger blood vessels. No, this heart was fragile, human, a child's.

It was beating harder and harder, a drumming in her ears that drowned out the personal mantras she had taught herself for the past nine years, and it said-

"You're done, Asuka."

She opened her eyes. Dr. Akagi was looking at her from the control room for the cage, a tiny figure only distinguished from the others by the blonde bob of her hair.

"You're finished with today's sync test. Forty-eight percent."

Asuka sat up. "That's three percent lower than last week's."

"It's within the standard variation for pilots." Dr. Akagi sounded more tired than assuring. "You're free to head to the changing room. Major Katsuragi will take you home when you're ready."

The plug went dark as the connection was cut remotely, and Asuka heard the familiar whirring of pumps as the LCL began to drain. Sliding to the side of the chair, she stared at the hatch, waiting for it to open.

"You're done, Asuka," she said to herself, a bitter whisper.

†

"You done, Asuka?"

She stirred out of her thoughts, and realized Shinji was standing over her.

"Hm?" she hummed.

"Your dinner," he said, playing with the edge of his apron. "Are you done with your plate?"

"Oh." She looked down at her half-eaten plate of yakisoba. "Yeah, I'm all set."

Shinji frowned slightly, but simply took her plate and walked over to the sink. She watched him start to wash the dishes, and thought about offering to take over, if only so she would have something to do.

"Talk about lucky, huh?"

She looked over at Misato. The esteemed head of combat operations for the most important organization on the planet took a swig of beer and leaned back in her chair, scratching at her exposed stomach like some content hillbilly.

"Lucky about what?"

"That it's already the weekend again. You were only back for, what, two days? It's like the Angels want you guys to fall behind in school."

Asuka reached for her water, drumming her fingers along the glass. "It's not like I need it. I graduated college."

"Then it's like the Angels want you to fall behind on the magical experience of interacting with your peers," Misato replied, smiling as she swished her can.

"What a loss," Asuka muttered.

Misato said nothing, but a funny look came over her face. Then she took a swig of her beer and set the can down with a wince, and the look was gone.

"If anyone's not lucky here, it's me. You actually get a day off on the weekend, but tomorrow I gotta go see that stupid science presentation up near Old Tokyo."

"Science presentation?" Shinji asked from the sink, craning his head.

Misato waved dismissively. "Oh, just some dumbasses in the old MIC trying to show off an 'alternative' to the Evangelion program. Something about a purely mechanical war machine with no pilot or whatever. No way in hell it can actually take over."

"I dunno," Asuka said, staring at her water. "With how we've been getting shown up every time an Angel attacks, maybe they have a point."

Shinji turned the water off, and seemed to almost slink out of the kitchen and towards his room. Pen-Pen looked up from his food bowl, warking after the boy.

Misato frowned, leaning forward.

"Something up?"

Asuka snorted. "Oh, nothing. Just the fact that I saved the world this week, and everyone's talking about Godzilla, and that's when they're not talking about some bulging-eyed silver freak that could be from outer space for all we know."

Misato shrugged. "People tend to talk more about what they're scared of than what keeps them safe. I know I must sound like I belong in hospice care when I say it, but your generation has no idea how terrifying Godzilla was... how terrifying he is."

She slid her beer to the side, and clasped her hands together on the table. "Asuka, it's not a popularity contest. We're protecting the planet. Does not getting credit suck? Well, yeah, it does. Not like anyone's talking about the military genius who came up with the sniping plan, after all. But it's not the end of the world."

She grinned. "Besides, that's not happening on our watch."

Asuka leaned back, hands flat on the table to secure herself. "Or their watch, anyway."

She glanced at the hallway that led to Shinji's room, and let out a dry laugh. "Definitely not his, though."

"Hey now, that's not fair," Misato said.

Asuka looked back her way. "Oh come on. The only reason you haven't sent the washout home is because his dad's our boss. The most intimidating thing he's had to tackle since he got here was your backlog on the dishes."

"That's not-" Misato clicked her jaw shut and averted her eyes, suddenly studying the label of her beer.

Asuka made a small huff, a wry look on her face. "What? It's not like he's had to face an Angel or anything."

"Not in an Eva, anyway," came the muttered reply.

There was a moment of quiet, broken by the creaking of Asuka's chair as she leaned forward, brow scrunched.

"What?"

"Nothing," Misato said. "I shouldn't have said anything."

She swished her beer. "Man, how many cans does this make this afternoon? It's been a hot day, I guess. I might turn on the AC before I tuck in for the night."

Asuka ignored the obvious attempt at a diversion. "What did you mean by that?"

Misato sighed and set down the can. "I shouldn't be telling you this if Shinji hasn't brought it up, but... the spot I was supposed to pick him up from turned into ground zero for the fight between Godzilla and the Third Angel. That 'washout' got the oh so amazing privilege of being the first human being to witness the King of the Monsters' grand return."

Asuka sat up. "Holy shit. How come I wasn't told about it?"

"This might surprise you, but pilots don't exactly have the highest security clearance. And even if you did, it wasn't your business. Isn't. Isn't your business. And clearly, Shinji doesn't like talking about it, and I can't blame him when he almost died from-"

Misato blinked, then looked at her beer. "Fuck, I think I actually had too much."

"Almost died from what?" Asuka half-lifted out of the seat, peering down at her.

Her guardian sighed and downed the rest of her beer in a painful-looking gulp. "If you needle him about this, I'm giving you all of his chores for a month."

"Uh-huh. Fair." Asuka sat down. "Almost died from what."

Misato leaned back, looking at nothing in particular. "I don't know what caused it. Goddess knows there's plenty of shrapnel and flying debris going around when you're between an Angel and a quarter million tons of angry kaiju. All I know is that something hit him in the head. Tore it open so badly I'm shocked some of his brain didn't fall out."

Despite the summer heat, the room felt cold. Pen-Pen seemed to agree, waddling towards the warmth of his freezer.

"He lost consciousness before I even got him in the fucking car. The cleanup crew had to change the interior lining of my car before I could drive it, that's how much he bled all over it. I did what I could with the first-aid kit, but..."

Her hand went to the cross around her neck. "I didn't think he was going to make it. He was so pale when I got him to the medical team, like he was already dead. And then all of a sudden, just two hours later, he looks like it never happened."

She looked back to Asuka. "Ritsuko tried to tell me the cut was shallow, scalp's super vascular and bleeds, blah blah blah. I know the difference between something that hurts and something that kills."

Misato's hand went from the cross to her chest. "He didn't even get a scar, Asuka."

"Then..."

Misato shook her head. "I don't know what happened. Maybe Ritsuko was right, and it just looked worse than it was. Maybe she just didn't want to tell me about some science project the medical team's been cooking up behind the scenes, in case it's something that'd land her in the Hague. If that's the case, let's hope you never find out."

She stood up, wobbling slightly. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go sleep off this future hangover before tomorrow's big stupid robot show."

Asuka watched her shuffle towards her room. As soon as she heard the door slide shut, she looked down at her hands, and realized they had been clenched white-knuckle without her even noticing. Sucking in a breath, she forced herself to relax her grip, and as she breathed out her hands reluctantly obeyed, the palms marked by her nails.

She decided some mindless inactivity was in order, and went over to the living room. Grabbing the remote, she turned on the tv, saw that the channel it'd opened to was doing a big news special about Ultraman, and turned it off.

She tapped her foot for a bit, then stood up and made her way to her room, only to pause when saw that the door to Shinji's room was slightly open. After a moment's hesitation, she tiptoed closer, and peered inside.

The boy was sitting against the wall, focused intently on a sketchpad. He was listening to something on his rickety old SDAT player, head bobbing slightly to the beat as he drew. She couldn't see what he was sketching, but the haphazard pile of colored pencils by his side indicated it was more than a little doodle.

She thought about knocking and going inside before she even got an answer. She thought about asking him about what happened the day he came to Tokyo-3, even if it meant a month of chores. She thought about at least finding out what he was drawing. Instead, she pulled away from the door, and let him be.

She stood in the empty hallway, and found herself wondering what the apartment would have been like if that rock had hit a little harder, and that room had stayed a storage room.

She found she didn't like the answer.

Turning to her room, she slid the door open, and turned in for the night.

†

"Did we really have to take a VTOL flight to this stupid thing?"

"Would you rather have spent two hours driving here?"

"If it meant not having to rent the slowest car in Japan? Yeah."

The tired-looking guard waved them through the gate, and Misato despaired in silence at how long it took the rental to lurch forward after she hit the pedal. It was only slightly less infuriating than the fact that the parking spot reserved for the delegation from NERV was farther from the entrance to the expo than she thought a reserved spot could be.

"Glad to see what the old defense industry thinks of us," Ritsuko said, dryly.

Misato parked the car and hopped out without a word. It was a hot day, the sun burning a hole in the pale blue sky, and instead of a cool breeze it seemed their proximity to the shore only brought humidity. And the smell of muck.

She fought the urge to pinch her nose. "I've been to field hospitals that smell better than this."

"You can thank the land reclamation projects the '05 government tried for PR," Ritsuko said, shutting her door. "Only about half as stupid as this little thing NHIS has going."

They made their way to the entrance. Misato tried her best to ignore the confused glances from the other attendees her dress uniform got, simply opting to hold her cap under her arm as they walked inside. NERV could make the most impressive feats of technology in human history, but a dress uniform that didn't make her look like a space pirate seemed to be out of the question.

"So, did you manage to get any deets on this thing through the usual suspects?" she asked Ritsuko, once they were past the security check-in.

"Not a lot," Ritsuko said absentmindedly, her eyes focused on the crowd. "The project is called Jet Alone."

"You gotta be kidding," Misato muttered. "You mean like-"

"Apparently they think it honors him."

"The famously anti-war robot getting a war machine named after him?" Misato sputtered. "Oh yeah, that's definitely a great honor. What's next, they're gonna have a hologram of Goro Ibuki on stage drone out some cherry-picked quotes?"

Ritsuko chuckled humorlessly. "Funny you should mention that. They actually tried inviting Maya as a guest of honor, and she told them where to shove it."

"Good for her," Misato said. A moment passed, then she spun around. "Hold the fucking phone. She's that kind of Ibuki?"

"She once showed me a baby picture where she was sitting on Jet's shoulders, just like papa Rokuro used to."

"No shit?"

"Yes shit."

They eventually found their table, conveniently in the middle of the massive ballroom, no doubt so everyone could get a good view of NERV getting put on the spotlight. There was a small microphone in the middle of the table, probably for some stupid Q&A session. Misato took her seat, and idly sipped from her glass of water as she surveyed the growing crowd.

There were representatives from Majida Industries, chief producers of self propelled masers; the CEO of Boeing was there, having spilled his drink on his pants; hell, there was even some generals from Saradia present, wearing sunglasses indoors and sitting as still as statues.

What seemed to draw her attention the most, however, was a man sitting alone a few tables down. He wore an all-black suit that looked as expensive as the rental she'd used to get here from the airport, which made the flimsy green visitor's tag hanging from his suit pocket look all the more garish. He sat still, not with the forced stoicism of the Saradians, but an odd tranquility, hands folded on the table as he watched the stage with a look befitting a child waiting for his favorite movie to start.

"Simeons," Ritsuko whispered.

"Hm?" Misato tore herself away from the stranger in black and looked over.

"At the front, near the podium. Simeon engineers."

Misato darted her eyes over, and indeed saw a quintet of Simeons sitting in front of the podium. The two of them in labcoats were old enough for their fur to go white, while another had shaved his neck and cheeks, styling the facial hair he had left into a truly impressive handlebar mustache. The others wore American-style suits that blended into their sleek coats perfectly, making them look like angular silhouettes.

"Those two in the coats almost certainly worked on the original Mechagodzilla," Ritsuko whispered, eyes focused on her glass. "Talk about poached talent. Their resumes are so big you probably need a big paperclip for them."

Misato snorted. "Hey Ivan, don't we have also some Mechagodzilla engineers working for us?"

"Not as many as you might think. Fundamental differences, remember."

"Fair."

Misato looked around the room again, studying the stern faces of generals and titans of industry alike. Then, quietly, she began to chuckle.

Ritsuko looked her way. "What's so funny?"

"Oh nothing, it's just..." Misato fought a giggle. "Half the planet's firepower is represented here, and yet they're all so helpless. Like kids trying to act tough. Godzilla comes a knocking, and they all have to scamper away behind our skirts, because we're the only ones here who can actually kill kaiju."

Ritsuko smirked at that, but said nothing.

The lights dimmed, and Misato looked to the stage to see an unassuming man in a freshly-ironed labcoat walk to the lectern. He tapped the microphone once, prompting an involuntary wince from all present, then cleared his throat.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I am Dr. Shiro Tokita, and I welcome to National Heavy Industrial Synthetics' testing ground for the new paradigm of anti-Angel operations, the Jet Alone!"

Light applause at that. Misato joined in awkwardly, while Ritsuko kept her arms folded.

"Before we begin the demonstration, I'd like to field any questions, and credit the brilliant team who has been developing the Jet Alone for the past ten years. The Jet Alone was only made possible by previous efforts by both the abandoned Mechagodzilla II and MOGUERA programs, of which National Heavy Industrial has been a leading contributor-"

"And the leading poacher," Ritsuko muttered.

"-resulting in breakthroughs such as anti-kaiju drill charges, or what we like to call 'spiral missiles', free-electron masers, and of course, the refined space titanium armor currently used by the competition."

Misato became keenly aware that half of the crowd was now looking at "the competition". She simply sat straight and raised her hand politely.

"Looks like we have our first question," Tokita said, prompting a handful of chuckles.

Misato grabbed the microphone before Ritsuko could snatch it away.

"What do you expect to bring to the table that the Evangelion program doesn't?"

Tokita smiled, clearly having expected the question. "Unlike the Evangelion program, which is reliant on young pilots and external power sources, the Jet Alone has an onboard power supply that can sustain operation for 180 days, and is operated remotely."

"You don't have any concerns about electronic warfare disrupting operations? I could list half a dozen kaiju who can scramble electronics or create EMPs."

"We have the finest counter-EW technicians on the planet working for this program, and both the operations center and the Jet Alone are sufficiently shielded against EMPs. Altogether, it is far more secure a system than relying on some hormonal teenagers."

Misato grit her teeth. "Our pilots have proven themselves in anti-kaiju and anti-Angel operations. We're fighting an enemy with unpredictable abilities, which will demand on-site improvisation, something your gaggle of techs haven't been trained for. That's not even getting into the defenses of Angels-"

"Ah yes, the 'absolute terror field'," said Tokita. "We're confident we'll lick that problem eventually."

Misato ignored the casual drop of classified NERV information. "You willing to hedge humanity's future on an 'eventually'?"

There were some murmurs at that, and Tokita frowned.

"Perhaps the best answer is a demonstration," he said.

He made a gesture, and behind him the walls slid open, revealing a massive window, through which a concrete pad could be seen. And, rather conspicuously, no war machine.

Misato resisted the urge to jokingly ask where the toy robot went. She had a feeling she'd end up eating her words.

Sure enough, the glass on her table began to rattle as the whine of an engine made itself known, and a shadow fell over the ballroom. A pair of stubby legs -at least, that's what Misato assumed them to be- descended onto the pad on four blue-hot jets blasting from the 'waist'. Not a moment later, a surprisingly slender torso came down, neatly inserting itself into the slot above the waist.

Then, at last, the shoulders came, a pair of wide arms dangling from the massive frame, and where there had been an empty pad less than a minute ago, now stood a towering machine. In comparison to the Evas, it was a lurching, clunky thing, reliant on brute force to accomplish what NERV could circumvent- the whole thing probably weighed more than than all constructed units. Instead of a head, it had a rectangular sensor array deep in its armored 'chest', as well as a pair of oddly iridescent panels on either side of its angled torso.

Just looking at the thing told Misato it could never hope to compete with the Evas. If an Angel could blast through the armored shields installed in Tokyo-3, then there was no way this thing's hull could survive without an AT-field, and she knew for a fact there was no way in hell they could do that. It was simply a mobile version of a static defense platform, without the benefits that came with static defense.

Still, given the enthusiastic applause from the audience, it seemed the demonstration was blinding everyone to that. Misato saw out the corner of her eye that the man in black was clapping the most energetically, a wide smile on his face.

"Oh god, it even has Jet Jaguar's colors," Ritsuko groaned.

Tokita's face twisted into a shit-eating grin. "Ladies and gentlemen, the Jet Alone! Space titanium armor capable of resisting a 16-inch naval shell or three minutes continuous fire from a Type-92 self propelled maser tank, a three gigawatt power output, and a mechanical lifting strength of forty-thousand tons! Modular design means that it can be outfitted with any weapons it requires, and its artificial diamond coating can reroute directed energy attacks to capacitors powering its four built-in masers."

A pair of dull black rods emerged from armored protrusions on the machine's shoulders, and Misato's eyes widened.

You can't be fucking serious. Those are-

"Control rods?!" Ritsuko barked, standing up so fast her chair fell over. "You mean to tell me you put a fission reactor in that thing?"

Tokita shrank back in surprise. "Volume was a greater problem than mass, and we all know how much a logistical issue deuterium is."

"Deuterium wouldn't render Tokyo-3 uninhabitable for centuries if an Angel blows your toy to pieces! Not to mention the risk that comes with making your 'new paradigm' walking Godzilla bait!"

Tokita waved at her dismissively. "We've reviewed the risks and found them minimal. Now, if you'll observe the demonstration..."

Worried murmurs began to echo in the room. Ritsuko pulled out her phone and began to type hurriedly.

"Misato, you need to contact headquarters and inform them about this. This thing is a walking time bomb."

Misato dug through her purse for her phone, only to feel the floor shake. Looking up, she saw that Jet Alone had taken a step forward, steam firing from some slots in its shoulders, likely to maintain balance.

"As you can see, it is ambulatory-" Tokita continued, only to fall silent when Jet Alone took another step forward.

Then another.

The machine raised its arms high, like a man playfully scaring a child, and continued stomping towards the expo hall. The room fell quiet, save for a single utterance from Tokita.

"Aw, shit."

†

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シン・Leviathan, Chapter Nine: Folly of Man, Part I