Aeon Natum Engel (NGE cross-over)

[Aranfan]

We should play "Spot the Tager" in future chapters.

[Aranfan]

You know, a thought just occurred to me: Is Kirby the Lovecraftian god of good dreams?

[EarthScorpion]

I can most certainly answer in the negative to that.

And in Cthulhutech, the Dreamlands are dead, devoured sometime in the mid-21st century. Any person who tries to visit them suffers OM NOM NOM on their brain, and sometimes their real body too.

And I'm posting up this chapter sans beta reading, so I can a) stop checking my inbox and actually do that work I need to do, plus revise for the exams, and b) it's a New Years present.

~'/|\'~

Chapter 5

Rei 01



25th September, 2091

Gendo smiled, a hint of genuine happiness entering his smirk. He had got back from Chicago, the capital of the New Earth Government and the Ashcroft Foundation alike to find that the Fourth Herald had been killed. Surprisingly, he was not at his desk, instead standing by a transparent wall, looking out.

Him and Fuyutsuki were in his office, looking over the London Geocity. The temperature had been reduced, to mimic the evening, and trigger the diurnal cycles of the lifeforms which made the Geocity an ecosystem. Indeed, a migration of its own was occurring, as employees of the Foundation flocked upwards and outwards, to their homes in London-2, above. Very few people actually lived in the Geocity, what with the fact that it was more expensive, due to vastly lower housing density, and the fact that even the strongest at heart were somewhat offput by the knowledge that arcane research occurred down here.

Above the transparent dome of the room, the false stars, D-Engine powered lights, began their tracked movement over the ceiling, replicating the movement of the night sky from before civilisation.

“Has the origin of the data leak been traced? AHNUNG are furious with whoever managed to subvert Ashcroft security, and broadcast data from our own security cameras, leaking it to the public, and outing the Third Child to the entire Academy. They seem to be taking it personally. The fact that the Evangelion Project is now public knowledge among the intelligence community, and the public itself knows that there is some kind of large mecha in London-2, seems to have enraged them”

The tone was cold, dispassionate, and studiously neutral, revealing nothing about his feelings. Kozo Fuyutski answered in kind.

“I am afraid not, Ikari. The Magi have not been able to locate the source except in the broadest sense. After it was released, a second virus wiped every single optical or magnetic storage device. We will have to live with the fact that the Project appears to be an open secret among anyone who might know, and the information about it is spreading through the public metanet very rapidly, to the extent that the OIS isn't even trying to slow it. They have decided to go public with a speed that stops those old meddlers from pulling on what strings they have. They're already deliberately leaked a second set of images, of Unit 01 against the Kathirat. SFS-level edited, of course.”

“Such a shame. This deliberate blow against the secrecy of the Project has made it impossible for AHNUNG to keep the Evangelions, which are a necessary component of the Human Iteracy Project completely secret. They do not have the NEG completely eating out of their hands; there are other groups with influence, and the vast majority are members of no group.”

“Yes. Such a dreadful shame. It is likely that the GIA and the OIS will be poking around, to find out what else is being hidden by Ashcroft.”

Gendo looked over his shoulder, smiling broadly, his blank façade cracked.

“Well, we wouldn't want that, would we. It would be terrible if the OIS or the GIA were to find any conspiracies. Of course, they would have considerably more problems telling apart AHNUNG, the Eldritch Society, and the attempts by Chrysalis to get people into the project.”

“About that, Gendo,” his old teacher said, frowning, “we caught another infiltrator from the Children of Chaos in our intake pool. Someone had tagged him as suspect, although we have no record of that alteration being made in his file. Probably an assassin; he was a Dhohanoid. Someone (another someone, by my guess) had altered his DNA profile to conceal that marker that those monsters all share, thus he read up on clean with scans.”

Gendo raised one finger to his temple.

“Don't worry. The Chrysalis Corporation has been having trouble recently with the Eldritch Society, from espionage reports from my network. They don't know what we're doing, they're just poking into secrets. Their master will know, for He always knows. We can only hope that what we plan will amuse Him enough that He will not be bored.”

“Gendo,” Kozo said, with a hint of irritation in his voice, “you don't need to explain this to me. I know just as well as you do that the Crawling Chaos basically holds veto over the success of our plan, or of AHNUNG's.”

Gendo shrugged, adjusting his glasses as the movement caused them to slide down his nose.

“I know. I was just seeing how long I could delay you before you asked me where I had been when the Fourth attacked, old friend. In justification, I did take the first flight back when I heard.”

The elder man snorted. “I knew it. Very well, then. Where were you? You knew that the Kathirat was predicted to attack just then.”

“Preparing for the reactivation of Unit 00,” replied Gendo, any hint of levity gone from his voice. “I had to visit the Auburn Facility in Chicago. I talked with the director of the Herkunft Institute, about Rei. We don't want a repeat of the problems we had with her synchronisity with the previous attempt.” He paused. “It is worse that we might have thought. From the omissions in what he said, from what I could tell they were trying to hide, they might be resolving the problems with the Fourth Infant, and thus opening the route to the completion of Xue'Vehulu'Ia'Ia.”

The white haired man looked shocked. “Really? They have found a use for the brain-dead shell?”

“So it would seem. We must keep their agents away from the Heralds at all costs.”

~'/|\'~

The next day, the day after the death of an entity which had pre-dated the evolution of mankind, its killer, Shinji Ikari, was in pain. Not major pain; nothing had been broken in the fight with the Kathirat, but all his muscles ached, and his fingers felt numb and uncooperative. The backlash from repeated use of the Lightning Cannon at close ranges when one would have normally been enough to reduce him to smoking flesh, had left him with minor neurological damage; damage equivalent to that of a very minor stroke. Of course, the command staff had known about it from the internal biomonitors, and as soon as they had extracted him from the entry plug, they had taken him to an arcanotherapist, where the comparatively minor damage was fixed. However, the new neural tissue was still not an exact replica, and thus he had been warned that he would be clumsy for a few days.

Adding insult to injury, he had been reprimanded by Misato, for the use of the Lightning Cannon in such close proximity. According to her, it had risked damaging both the Evangelion and the pilot, which he had found out the hard way. Unit 01 was having to undergo a full cleansing cycle, because the blood of the Kathirat was both mildly acid, and highly carcinogenic, before the repair cycle to fix the damage which the Lightning Cannon had self-inflicted could even be fixed. He hadn't even been permitted a day off, to recover. It was like... it was like she didn't know really how to treat him. She flipped between treating him as a room mate (and thus leaving him to do the cooking and cleaning), and as her command (in the combat situations). She seemed to try to be somewhat motherly, but she had no experience at that, so just followed what the media told her that a good parent did. And one of the things that were done was that parents did not permit their children to miss school. And thus she did it.

The rest of the class didn't flock around him, like they had yesterday. The talk from the headmaster, and the knowledge that he had been the one piloting the Engel in the images that were circulating the metanet put an invisible barrier around him, one of respect, and almost fear. He looked again. Many of them seemed to be stealing glances at Hikary first, before they tried to furtively stare at him, averting their gaze from him if it looked like she was looking.

Ah. Another reason for the lack of the swarm. Obviously Hikary had a talk with them. She's like a secret policeman... no, that's not the right word. And where were Ken and Toja? Maybe the OIS hadn't released them yet.

The two arrived late, sprinting in about an hour before lunch, doctor's notes paraded in front of Hikary, who had leapt to “greet” them at the door to the classroom with such speed that she appeared to have not bothered with passing through the intervening space.

“Doctor's note... it's... valid... don't kill us...” panted the out-of-breath Toja, bent double with exertion.

“Not... our fault...” added his equally winded compatriot.

The amlati stared at the two notes, and at their faces.

“Amli katu wha disnu...” she breathed in shock.

Both of them were wearing medical eye protectors on both eyes, just like the one that had been over the left eye of Rei Ayanami. These ones looked like blue-tinted goggles.

“Don't worry... class rep,” Toja said, recovering his breath. “We're not blind... or anything. They're just protectors... just 'till they recover. Where's the teacher? We gotta hand these in.” He waved the pink piece of paper. “Bit stupid if you ask me. Why can't they just transfer the note to our files?”

Hikary shook her head briefly, as if waking up. “This is English Literature, remember. He left us reading the set text for this term.”

“We finally got given it?” asked Ken. “What is it?”

“It's a late twentieth century book, part of the science fiction genre. Called...”

“You know, I don't really care,” said Toja definitely, adding, after Hikary's look of sympathy transmuted into a laser capable of cutting diamond “... in my current, injured state. We had to wait up most of the night for a free arcanotherapist. Obviously I care about such an important part of my ASCIETs... obviously. I would never disrespect the education system... please don't hurt me,” he added, muttering the last bit.

Shinji looked up from his aching attempts to concentrate. The interactions of Hikary and Toja were better than a circus, honestly, he wanted to know how they were injured (although he already had a sinking suspicion, and indeed felt that he might be hit again) and frankly he wasn't in the mood to read. The text just seemed too plodding.

And, honestly, who really cares about an obscure moon of Saturn? The offworld colonies got destroyed in the First Arcanotech War, and the only moon of Saturn we tried to colonise was Titan.

He looked around the rest of the class. Pretty much all of them had been distracted by the combination of the improvised stand up show and the fact that two classmates had walked in with injuries. Characteristically, the only one still reading was Rei, now devoid of bandages, who was flipping through the pages with detached efficiency.

My god... is she really already a third of the way through?

Toja's babbling had come to a stop, while Hikary stared at his face dispassionately. Then;

“So, are you going to tell me what happened, and how you got hurt?” Her voice was surprisingly soft, compared to her previous expression.

“We... um got caught outside when the sirens went off for the second time,” Ken replied. “The... the ceiling...the light...” his voice trailed off.

“We... well, you know that the Arcology got attacked yesterday. The thing... the thing, it got into the Arcology. Punched all the way down to the Wade Plaza.”

“Yes,” replied Hikary, in a slightly confused tone of voice. “The extradimensional entity was crippled by the fleet, then crashed into London-2, where,” Hikary glanced over at Shinji, “it got finished off.” She saw their faces. It looked like they were staring at her from underneath the googles. “That's what it said on the news.”

“There was no way that thing was crippled when it hit,” Toja declared loudly. “It had these... tentacle things, but they were burning bright, like the sun, you know, but closer. We got this from just looking at it.”

Shinji massaged the back of his neck.

Oh dear

An apology was probably best, now. At least here, they wouldn't punch him.

“Um... I'm sorry about that, guys. They did try to kill it before it hit, but the air defences did nothing, and I killed it as fast as I could,” he said, holding his arms before him, against his chest. “In all fairness, I killed it as fast as I could.”

The head of every member of the class, with the exception of Rei's, swivelled to face him. He ignored them; the ones which mattered were the ones up the front. Toja and Ken appeared to be shocked at the apology.

That's... probably a good sign. I hope. Please.

“Seriously, there is absolutely no way at all. At all! That you need to apologise to us. At all!” blurted out Toja. “We're in your debt massively... even more,” he added, shiftily.

“It was the most awesome thing I've seen in my entire life, ever,” declared Ken to the class. “This thing had just broken through the ceiling, with these bright tentacles made out of plasma or something. They certainly looked like a plasma cannon would, if you made a whip out of it, and they made this noise *whuuummm...whuuummm*,” he waved his arms around, synchronising the movement to the noise, “when it swung them. We thought we were going to die! It hurt so much! It was so bright!”

“And then,” Toja continued, taking up the story, for the accolades, and the fact that it appeared to be distracting the class representative, “and then, it moved those tentacles backwards, punching through the ceiling. We never really saw much of the creature; it was too bright at first, and then we were almost blind. But what I really saw was... there was this... orb on the front. It was wrong... the red... it was weird, not like red should be, you know,” he said to the class, who, with two exceptions, didn't. “And then, something tore its way out from the inside of the creature, and starting punching... the orb,” he shivered, and blinked, heavily “ with claws.”

“We kind of fainted with the pain, at that point,” Ken said, softly.

“So you didn't see anything else,” said Shinji hastily, and with reflection, somewhat unwisely. “Did you get any of the blood on you?”

“No. To both questions. But when the medics found us, we could see the tech teams trying to move the Engel.” Both boys glanced at each other, and then walked over to Shinji's desk.

“We owe you our lives,” they said, in not-very-well-rehearsed unison. “We're eternally in your debt,” said Toja, and “We're forever in your debt,” said Ken simultaneously. They glared at each other.

“I thought we agreed on 'etern...'” began Toja, before the applause of the rest of the class drowned out the rest. Even Hikary smiled, faintly.

Rei was still reading. She was up to half way.

~'/|\'~

Asuka Langley Soryu, designated Second Child, and pilot of Unit 02, sat by the mirror in her room, performing the mundane ritual of self-examination and cosmetic products which she carried out twice daily. Once, it had only been had to be performed once a day, but it was happening more and more.

She stared at her face in the mirror. She hated the first part so very much.

Asuka paused, adjusted her dressing gown and got up. She had managed to get a medium sized room in the Beweglichkeit Base, when they had moved Unit 02 forwards, which meant that most of her stuff was still in the house she had been staying in, back in the Berlin Arcology. It was probably for the best; she wouldn't have been able to move, she thought, with it all here. Military bases just weren't big enough. You know, for the accommodation and everything. There was no possible way that she might have too many material possessions.

She put on a thick pair of red, woollen (actually a synthetic fibre, constructed in the nanofactory in this house, but it felt the same) socks, and returned to her seat by the mirror.

First things first. Contact lenses out, into the cleaning fluid.

There were two faint splashes, as the two flexible lenses sank to the bottom. Asuka avoided the gaze of the other girl, the one in the mirror, who stared back at her. It wasn't her at all. She didn't look like that. Those were not her eyes.

Skin... remains fine. I won't need another MSH top-up for another few weeks.

This was her skin, shown as it was now. When the MSH was low, she ceased to be herself. She didn't look like that. That was not her skin.

Hair. My hair. My pride and joy. The first thing to be affected.

I hate it.

I hate it.

I hate it.

The roots are showing. I need to get it done quickly. It makes me look old.

Most of her hair remained a thick, lustrous red, the rich, deep scarlet of open veins. The same red as Mama had had (but she wasn't going to think about that. Not now. Not ever.). But there, lurking at the roots, was the other girl's hair. It wasn't hers. She didn't look like that. That was not her hair.

I have to put the contacts back in. I can't let Kaji see me like this. He knows, of course, but who would willingly go around looking like a freak? I'm not a freak, not at all.

Not at all.

Asuka could look at herself in the mirror again, her blue eyes staring back. That was her. The examination was done. Now it was time for the lotions, and the other things. She kept herself normal with the first step, now she kept herself looking positively divine, if she could say so herself.

Downstairs, Ryoji Kaji, field operative of the GIA, member of the Blackspire division of the GhOST wing, murderer, spy, parapsychic and double-agent was watching television. Well, not really watching it. Looking at it, and paying attention with a tiny shard of his mind so it gave the appearance that he was watching the escapades of a hyperactive Nazzadi and her sardonic human henchman, while he thought of other things would be a more accurate description. But to a theoretical invisible being watching the room, who had managed to get past the multiple and layered wards against mental projections, Outsiders and sorcerous influences which covered such a high value target, it would appear that he was watching television. This was the first time in a very long time that he had been able to use his own name, his own identity. As a member of Blackspire, this particular mission had required his government profile to be “rediscovered after its temporary loss”.

It turned out that he had been working in a low level position in the GIA since he left university, as a data analyst, had anyone broken into his files to find out what he had been doing. To his certain knowledge, there had been three thousand, nine hundred and thirty one attempts to do so as of last Monday, of which twelve had been successful. To be fair, it had come as a bit of a surprise to him that he had been a data analyst all that time (he had thought that he had been legally dead), but he had adjusted, after it had been explained why he was needed for this mission, and why he had to use his natal identity. He was looking forwards to seeing her again.

The phone rang. He picked it up.

“Excuse me, but is this the home of Tanous Reiter?”

Kaji smiled. He thought he recognised the voice, but he had to make sure that protocol was being followed.

“How do you spell the first name?”

“T-A-M-U-S,” the voice at the other end replied.

“Well, no, not any more. We only just moved in, I'm afraid.”

“I'm sorry for disturbing you. Do you have the new number, then?”

“I think I do. Let me just check.” Kaji put down the phone for five seconds, then picked it up again. “Ah, yes, here it is. 456 920 920 445 182 384.”

“Thank you very much.” There was a click. “Okay, Kaji, the line is secure.”

“Good to hear from you, Pax,” replied Kaji, smiling. “I'd thought that you and your “boys”, and the rest of VREES had forgotten about me when I got moved to looking after the Second Child.”

“Now, I'd think that I wouldn't do that, would I,” replied the man, in his cold tone of voice. He always sounded like that, slightly husky, made worse by how heavily encrypted the line was. “I was just sitting on a beach, surrounded by beautiful women, drinking a martini, and so I thought of you.”

Kaji snorted. Pax on a beach, in that red jacket of his, with that slightly hungry look in his eyes that he always had, was an image which just didn't work. The pale man was a very powerful parapsychic, and made more so by the experiments that GhOST was conducting into remote battlefield command, but people were not something that he really got. Or maybe he got them too well; after all, when you can puppet men, controlling them as marionettes, then normal human interaction is always going to be made difficult by the nagging thought that you can just make them do what you want.

“Now, now, Paxy...”

“Don't call me that. I can put up with Pax, but I draw the line at Paxy.” A slightly wry note entered his voice, an unusually strong emotion for him. “After all, I'm not Nazzadi and I am not female.”

“Sorry. Yeah, without me, the rest of the team wouldn't even know where to find a bar. No, what I think you've been doing is practising infiltration of hostile beaches, and the “beautiful women” was Jin being used as the OpFor and shooting at you with a sniper rifle.”

“So you know about Operation CATO, then.” It was a statements, without even the customary pause.

“It relates to my current mission, actually. That's all I can say.”

“Ah.” There was a pause. “So the Children are getting involved, too.” A faint chuckle. “How ironic. You think they'll be sending along the adults, too?”

Kaji frowned. He knew the man had a higher clearance than he did, and he'd liked to appear from nowhere, make cryptic remarks, then leave, but he'd used those words before. And the Commander (his nickname in VREES, he wasn't actually in charge) laughing? Something was up.

“I'm sorry?”

He could hear the verbal equivalent of a shrug over the phone. “Never mind. You're assigned to the Second Child, aren't you. She's not the one who's also an infant, too, is she? Childish behaviour?”

Kaji looked around. There was the faint sound of a hairdryer from upstairs, but that didn't mean anything. He didn't put it beyond her to listen in on his conversations.

“Bit of a brat, to be honest. Seems to have a crush on me, although she thinks it's more than that. She lives up to the codename of Superbia. Quite astonishing pride, and didn't respond well to the news that the first Herald kill was made by someone who wasn't her. And even less well when she found out that the Third Child, Acedia, hadn't even been in an Evangelion before.”

There was a chuckle over the phone.

“And you haven't told her that Acedia made his second kill yesterday, have you?”

“Well... no. I'm just glad she was training most of today with the Branch and didn't catch the news. Out of curiosity, though,” Kaji added, “how do you know about that? Just curious.”

“I can actually tell you that; no need to say “It's classified” in an annoying yet cute tone of voice...” the pale man began.

“Pax, I tell you with the greatest kindness, that you couldn't do cute to save your life. And, yeah, Jin is a bitch when she does that.”

“True. True. I can affect a man's mind so that he remembers someone being cute, though, which is the same thing. Anyway, it's relevant to Operation CATO. And I got Mother to check Sister. Sister is quite interested in the Third Child.”

“Really? I checked Sister, before my current mission, and it didn't have much on the Project,” said Kaji, with a slight hint of confusion in his voice.

“You probably didn't check in the right way,” came an answer.

“Ah, of course. That's why they're moving them to be ready. I'm going to be sorry to miss the black-ops before CATO. That is why you 'phoned me, after all. You were trying to see if I could be reassigned, because you want your pointman back from the nasty evil reassignment of bodyguard.”

“Well, partially,” the voice admitted. “I also wanted to talk to you. After all, you and the rest of VREES are the closest thing I've ever had to a family. I think.”

“That's... well, I'd guessed that before, but I'm surprised that you'd admit it over the phone. Don't get any more sentimental, though,” he added playfully, “or I'll be sick from all the sweetness. As sick as I was at certain times in college, like at... some girl's twenty-second birthday party, or that nasty bug I came down around the start of August.”

There was silence at the end of the phone.

“Lighten up, Pax. Just a joke.” Kaji heard footsteps on the stairs, very light, but enough to know. “Listen, Pax, I'm sorry. And I've gotta go, now. I probably won't be able to talk to you before... the C-word, because these conversations are a pain to set up. Give them hell. After all; they all deserve to die. All the Dagonite bastards.”

“They all deserve to die,” replied his colleague, repeating the team's motto. “Just think about what I've said.” The phone went dead.

Kaji held the phone up, puzzled.

What justified such a comment? What was Pax doing?

Was he trying to warn him? Had he heard something about Herkunft and the strange links that 108 companies had to it? And he knew things about the Evangelion Project too, things that Kaji suspected that the GIA as a whole didn't, and which he only knew from certain... anonymous leaks, confirmed by independent sources, once you linked the clues together.

Which made him suspicious, of course. Reality didn't usually work that way, even in the intelligence community.

His confusion allowed Asuka to get the drop on him, grabbing him around the neck with quite astonishing force, and mashing her breasts up against his arm. He resisted the trained instinct to punch her in the face (target confirmed human, will not risk being bitten), and roll off the chair, drawing the UT-9 at his hip (gas-launched needle weapons are subsonic and silent, and will not risk drawing attention).

Known capabilities of target do not require the use of hyperspeed or any other abilities.

The full flight-or-fight reflex ran through his head in less than a second, before being suppressed, all completely invisible to Asuka.

“Who were you talking to, Kaji?” came the voice in his ear. She was quite deliberately breathing into it, under the misapprehension that he found it romantic. From... some women, yes. From a sixteen year old; under half his age, no.

“A colleague from the GIA. I think you can understand if I don't say anything more,” he added with a chuckle, which sounded perfectly genuine.

Asuka loosened slightly, slumping in disappointment.

“So the Army hasn't got back to you about letting me take the tests to get a commission, then?” she asked, a hint of whine entering her voice.

Kaji twisted to look at her, putting his free hand on the back of his neck, as he tried (yet again) to explain. That was a mistake, allowing Asuka to ensnare his other hand.

“They did... and they said no. Again.”

“But why?” she asked, in a sullen tone of voice. “I've got a degree already, I'm the pilot of a war machine that's bigger than any other one in the NEG... that is, any other mecha, they trust me, and need me, that much, I've been through effectively all the experience needed to get the commission, and yet they won't let me take the stupid tests. So, why, Kaji, won't they let me get a commission?”

“Because you're sixteen, remember? You've still got two years of mandatory schooling, even if you already have the degree...”

“Which is stupid in itself,” the red-haired girl pointed out. “Why should I be forced to go to a school full of idiots who just happen to be my age, rather than be out there, saving the whole species.”

“Well, for starters,” Kaji raised as a counter-point, “the ASCIET is more than just education. It's also psychological profiling to check for cult influence...”

“Which I already have.”

“It's a rounded education, ensuring that you know about history, language, and logic. You may already have a degree in Natural Sciences, but that doesn't make you a well rounded human being.”

In fact, he thought, it pretty much guarantees that you aren't, given that you've been spending your time pushing ahead of normal society, you've been piloting a Engel-equivalent since before there were Engels, and you've been passed between foster parents. I just really hope that Ashcroft can keep you sane enough that you don't either snap and breakdown in combat, or go on a mad rampage in a giant war machine that would probably take nukes or a capital ship to reliably take down. Because I sort of like you, not in the sense you'd like Asuka, even though you're pretty damaged, and I don't want to see what I've seen happen to you.

What kind of a moron makes the control scheme for a vehicle dependent on using teenagers (or something like that. We haven't been able to get how they are controlled from the Foundation.), anyway? No wonder Engels, which only require invasive brain surgery superseded their prototypes.

“Yeah. I would have done Arcane Sciences, but they said “No” then, as well. But they're deploying Unit 02 to a forwards base for 'Advanced Field Testing',” said Asuka, making the inverted comma signs with her fingers. “When are they going to give up the stupid fiction that I'm just a 'Test Pilot'!”

“Well, maybe you can show them on the battlefield that you're not just a Test Pilot, then,” replied Kaji, trying to changed the conversation. “Anyway, think of what you'd have to give up to become Second Lieutenant Soryu. They'd make you cut your hair, for one.”

Asuka flicked her glossy hair, still subtly damp from the recent wash, into Kaji's face. It felt like a velvet whip.

“Oh,” she asked, in an artfully innocent tone of voice, “do you like it?”

Kaji knew better than to answer such a loaded question. Sadly, the presence about his neck forced him to give a response. So, as any good GIA operative would have done, he cheated.

“Listen, Asuka,” he began. “You're probably going to be told about it tomorrow, but there was another attack on London-2 yesterday.”

“What! Why wasn't I told about it earlier,” shouted the girl, jumping up, and (he thanked... well, not anyone specifically, but just generically thanked) letting go of his neck.

“Because it was classified. As usual.”

“Well, what happened? From the tone of voice you're using, it must not have gone well. It would have been better had they had me there, I bet.”

“Actually... no,” said Kaji, wincing internally for the outburst he knew was coming. “It was ambushed by a Navy taskforce in the North Sea, and heavily damaged. It got past the ships, though, and broke through the arcology wall. The Third Child, in Unit 01, killed it.” He closed his eyes.

After a moment, he opened them again. Asuka had a strand of her hair in her mouth, and was chewing on it, as she stared intently at the other wall. Her left hand was clenched into a fist, its twin still clamped around Kaji's wrist. Then she relaxed, letting go and taking a step back.

“Kaji...” she said, leaning forwards with both hands clasped together in front of her, and a broad smile in her face, “could you maybe see about, if it wouldn't be too much trouble, getting some videos of the Third Child, in his training, and of his two victories so far. After all, if I'm going to be working with him, I should get to see his piloting skills personally, rather than just relying on data and statistics. Please, Kaji, please.”

Yes, I'll see how good he really is. After all, the real advantage of the Evangelions is that they have the AT-Field. That's what makes them better than any other synthorg. And no-one has ever said how hard it is to kill the Heralds, just that they need an Evangelion for it. That just means that they're weak. And so if they let me do it, and I have a lot more than less than two months practice, it will happen a lot faster. Because I'm a better pilot than he is. He probably hasn't even started to have... it show up yet.

And he's an Ikari. He probably only got the position from nepotism. The whole family is useless. It's just as well that Gendo married into that family, or Ashcroft would really be in trouble.

Wait! Why am I thinking that? It's a little extreme, even about such an upstart, trying to steal my position as pilot of the first Mass Production Evangelion.

Kaji was dubious about the request. He knew the girl was exceptionally competitive, and seemed to take the appearance of the mysterious Third Child from nowhere, to suddenly achieve high Synchronisation ratings which she barely exceeded herself, as some kind of personal insult. On the other hand, an unhealthy obsession with someone her own age had to be better than one about someone twice her age, right?

“I'll see what I can do, Asuka,” he said, leaving room to back out later. “The files may be beyond what I can get, but I'll try, okay?”

She nodded her head, a smile on her face.

“Oh yeah, Asuka, and they'll be doing a restart on Unit 00 on Sunday. The First Child seems to have recovered enough from the last time.”

He only received a non-committal shrug. Asuka had already decided that anyone who couldn't even managed a start-up sequence was no threat. And Unit 00 was obsolete, after all, a test-bed for the technologies, while Unit 01, as the first proper Eva, was much more important.

~'/|\'~

The phone rang, an unregistered PCPU with its ID tag wiped by an industrial strength electromagnet, using a randomly generated caller identity. The incoming call marked it as from “James Elford”, but that was a lie. It was being called by an identical twin of itself. Its owner picked it up.

“Hello?”

It was a middle-aged woman on the other end of the line.

“Heya, just to tell you... well, you know that couple we were meant to be taking out to dinner?”

“The one with the two kids? The younger one's a cute little brat, you know.”

“The younger one? Only her? That's not very nice.”

“Hey, I report what I see.”

“Yes, yes. Anyway, they cancelled on us. Said they have a pre-existing appointment at the Too Sinned Sins, that experimental Nazzadi cuisine place just outside the arcology.”

“We were meant to be seeing them on Saturday, right?”

“Yes. I'm not actually complaining... well, complaining much. It's still a bit rude of them. But that means I can work. The agency has found me a placement in catering, and I was going to have to reject it, but this way, I can get some extra cash.”

“Have you told Many,” he pronounced the name as you would 'manny', “about this. She was complaining about being short on cash last time I saw her at a gig.”

“Yeah, actually I have. She's with the same agency, and got the same placement. That's nice, because she's a bit confused, and I can make sure she turns up on time.”

“It's a bit unusual for a restaurant to be hiring so many temp staff at once. Do you know why?”

“Not really. It might just be a bug, or a busy night with a lot of books, or a big party. But I heard, on the grapevine, that a bunch of staff had been like... attacked, arms broken, fingers crushed, beaten senseless with a pool cue, so I'm guessing they got drunk as a group after their pay came in, and tried to pick a fight with people they underestimated.”

“Well, sucks to be them, but it's good for you.”

“Yeah. I'm not complaining about extra cash. What are you going to be doing, now that we have Saturday free?”

“I thought I'd probably go out and get a meal with Jonathan. I still owe him for the last set of concert tickets, so this might be a good way to discharge my debt, and then, maybe hang around, you know, trying to see if we could get into a club for free.”

“Well, make sure you're on time for the big day. We wouldn't want you to be late for the surprise party. You're meant to be finding the location, after all.”

“Yes, mother.”

“Mother!”

“I kid, I kid. Listen, I've got to go; my break is almost over, and I've got to get back to work.”

“Awwww. Are the hard taskmasters of a reliable, consistent job, which means that you have no problems getting food on the table, getting to you. My heart bleeds, it really does.”

“See you, sometime, then.”

“See you.”

The line goes dead.

The man pockets the phone, and finishes the drink he got from the small nano-factory, chucking the can into the recycling receptacle. He still has to finish coding that modification to the EFCS for the restart.

It's just annoying when work and your private life clash in this manner.

~'/|\'~

Monday, 17th August, 2091


Representative Gendo Ikari stared at the projected screen. He adjusted his glasses, pushing them back up onto the bridge of his nose.

“Activate.”

The buzz of the Technical Centre started up again. Status updates came from all the technicians

“Focus on yourself, Rei,” ordered Dr Akagi. “You need mental fortitude to interact with the synthorg.”

Rei turned inwards, her mind calm and cool, an ice-still pool in a blizzard.

The root of the mind is the culmination of emergent effects on an immature neurological morphology. Trace the roots, and I am the end result.

What's the first thing I remember?

“What's the first thing you remember?” Her own face loomed out of a fog towards her, seemingly projected from the inside of the Evangelion. She was almost invisible to herself, white skin, white hair, only the faintest dusting of grey around her pupil. Only inside her mouth was the faintest hint of the red blood that coursed beneath her skin; even her lips were white, tinged slightly with blue, like snow under a full moon.

She accepted the appearance before her. If she were to become the Evangelion, then it would become her. That was simply logical. She did not fear the loss of self. Why fear which you did not have. She was a fact. Someday she would cease to exist, and then the statement of reality that the individual that had been named Rei Ayanami existed would be false, and it would return to the state in which it had been beforehand.

She was but a momentary aberration. This was a fact beyond her existence, because it would remain true for her, even as it would for the rest of humanity, when she had ceased. It was a comforting thought. It would be a terrible thing if you meant something in the cosmic scheme of things, for when you ceased, the other things which depended upon your existence would also cease. Through meaninglessness, she was free.

She stilled those thoughts from her mind, and turned inwards again.

An exclamation, a bestial shriek of pain and anguish, like a trapped beast. But worse than that, for it was unmistakably human and female, a terrified cry of denial.

“Noooooooo!”

Another voice. It may have been the same, or it may have been another one, but it was young, female and desperate.

Was it her own voice?

“What are you doing with her!”

She, her past self, opened her eyes. The blurred light hurt. Everything else was the same white fog, and another face, seemingly massive, filled her entire field of vision. It stared back at her through glasses covered in data read-outs, the black hair and neat beard the only dark patches in this luminescent white fog.

Rei Ayanami stared at Gendo Ikari (a younger one, her current self observed) for the first time ever. And then he spoke to her, in a soft tone, barely above a whisper.

“You will show men that they do not need gods.”

Rei stared back at him blankly. She could still hear the screaming in her ears. That was anomalous, for she could not identify any entities capable of making such a noise, and she knew, despite the lack of indicators, obscured by the (illusionary, a product of memory, by her estimation) fog that concealed her eyes, that no-one was trying to communicate from outside the Eva.

Puzzling.

And then it happened.

“Pulses are flowing back!” The alarmed voice echoed through the Technical Centre, as red elements began appearing on AR projections all over the room. This was the cue for a cascade of warnings from the techncians.

“Trouble in the Third Phase!”

The orange Evangelion, still painted in colours which indicated its test status, unlike its siblings, strained and thrashed against the bindings, and the powered armour which contained its flesh.

“The pilot's nerve readings indicate that she is synchronising, but the Evangelion doesn't seem to be synchronising to her!” reported Aoba, from the right of the room.

“Impossible,” declared Ritsuko. “The Synchronisation Function is a linked operator. You can't have a one-way synchronisation with an Evangelion! Evangelions do not work that way!”

“Rejections in the central nerve elements. They're all slamming shut,” added Hyuga.

As the Evangelion strained, an odd wave of static washed over the communications equipment. It faded. As Unit 00 exerted itself more and more, the static came louder and longer.

“Cease the procedure!” commanded Gendo, without taking his eyes off the uncontrolled synthetic organism.

“Cut all contacts now!” ordered Ritsuko. “Release all circuits up to number 6!”

The instruction came up negative.

“I can't! It's not responding! The signals aren't being received,” said Maya, in a panicked voice, as her hands worked furiously over the keyboard.

The Evangelion surged, tearing its shoulders free from the binding that restrained it. As the tiles of the test chamber fell to the floor, the lights above the Evangelion all failed, blowing in a shard of hardened plastics. In the technical centre itself, the lights closest to the large class window began to flicker, giving a strobe effect upon those closest to the out-of-control mecha.

“There's a strong EM field in the chamber, even though there shouldn't be anything capable of making it,” reported Aoba.

Nice to see that he's keeping cool, thought Ritsuko. Now, if I can just survive this, I can let myself have a panic attack later.

“Mental contamination! Mental contamination!” blurted out Maya. “Mental contamination, despite the fact that Unit 00 isn't synchronising with her!”

On the other hand, a panic attack now might be appropriate. Or maybe catatonia from stress.

No, I won't let myself do that.

Gendo stared as the giant orange mecha clutched at its head, roaring. It swung its fist in a perfect arc, smashing into the left side of its face. The head armour fractured, the white skin underneath quickly obscured by the red blood that welled out, running down the orange armour, giving it a new, barbaric appearance.

“Not as planned,” he muttered to himself, softly enough that no-one else could hear. He raised his voice. “Abort the experiment. Eject the D-Engines. Retrieve the Pilot!”

The orders were carried out, with a smashing of glass and a pulling of the big red-and-black lever. Even nowadays, the best compromise between the ability to shut something down, while minimising the risk of accidental activation was the button under emergency glass.

The Class-B D-Engines were ejected from the 40 metre robot, one for each limb, and another bank of four from the small of its back. That was one of the perennial problems with the Evangelions; they were much larger than conventional mecha, and even the Engels, but not large enough to use a Class-A D-Engine, the same one used by the Battlecruisers and major power distribution plants, forcing them to use large numbers of D-Engines. This had been taken into account by the designers.

“Unit 00 has switched to back-up power,” announced Maya.

Ritsuko started swearing loudly in her head. These curses were mostly directed at her mother, but she saved quite a few for Yui Ikari and Kyoko Zepplin Soryu. Yes, they had taken into account the fact that the large number of D-Engines left the possibility that one or two might be damaged, and thus designed the Units to contain back-up supplies, D-cells operating as capacitors, to allow them to function at full efficiency for a short period even if the main engines were damaged.

What they appeared to have not taken into account was the fact that the Evangelions were vicious monsters which had a complicated and dangerous method of starting up which risked losing control and going on a fucking rampage (and didn't members of the Engel Project who knew about the Evangelions know it! They loved pointing it out at scientific conferences. “Oh, Dr Akagi? Good to see you. Would you like some tea? It's made in a long, unnecessarily complex and completely inefficient way. But don't worry. We haven't had a rampaging kettle since last Saturday, and the nano-fabricator has hardly ever killed the repairmen. Aha!” It was so unfair, especially since Engels did occasionally kill people if someone without an ESI implant tried to get in, or the pilot was knocked unconscious, or if they'd used the emergency shutdown feature recently, the Engel was in a bad mood, and it had a chance. Insufferable pricks. Oh yes, and she hated her mother too, for that stupid design decision.) Who the hell had let the power switch occur automatically! She swore, at the next re-fit, she was going to make it so that there was a hard-wired necessity for the pilot to flick a switch to activate the back-up power.

Meanwhile, of course, there was still a rampaging giant robot-thing with claws and spurred feet. Thank goodness they had deactivated the weapons-systems, was all she could say.

The comms link from the Evangelion crackled to life, filled with static. It sounded like the First Child.

“...*crrrsh*...ll...deser*crrsh*... *crrsh*e”

“Rei! Rei!”

There was no response. The Evangelion continued to move, lit only by the emergency lighting, and then only intermittently, giving a tableau of freeze-frames tinted by red. While Unit 01, one week later, would roar as it tore apart Asherah, Unit 00 screamed, a vile dissonant resonance like that of a natural disaster, not some mere lifeform.

It slammed its fist just above the clear viewscreen. The fist went though the wall, ripping and tearing the superstructure of the building. The room had been built to contain an Evangelion in a full rampage. It was failing.

Blood began to drip from the hole, rich and almost black, so dark was its colour. And in much greater volumes than the damage to the armour plating of Unit 00 should have permitted. The second hit the viewscreen, and was stopped. The entire window had been made out of diamond, and was actually the strongest part of the room, in part because it had been calculated that it was the most probably target for a rampaging Evangelion.

But against the unnatural strength of Unit 00, even diamond had its limits. Fractures cascaded over the surface of the clear material, the worlds most expensive depiction of a spider's web. The entire frame screamed, as metal twisted and tore under the force transmitted to the window.

Gendo could hear a faint giggle, or at least the memory of a giggle, as he watched his plan fall apart.

“Force an ejection.”

“But Representative! The pilot is likely to suffer severe injuries if we do it...”

“Do it now,” he ordered.

It's better this way, than the alternative. Oh, Rei...

The back of Unit 00 opened up, as the tubular entry plug was ejected in a plume of gas. Gendo winced as the on-board A-Pod, powered by an internal battery kicked in. It was designed to send the plug far away, away from the threat which forced and ejection. All it succeeded in doing was slamming the tube into the ceiling, where it snaked its way cross, before slamming into a wall and falling, landing with a sickening thud. Gendo was already sprinting down to the fallen plug when the Evangelion shut down from lack of power, the automated systems locking down any attempt to move.

My... whole body hurts. I appear to only have one eye operational. I will need a replacement grown. From the intense agony reported to me by this body, I would suspect that there is a source of intense heat nearby.

Rei looked around the cylinder.

I am impaled upon the broken control sticks. They have entered my lower abdomen. Given the fact that I am able to move my feet, there is no spinal damage. I will not attempt to remove myself from them, for fear of causing extra damage.

She coughed, LCL leaving her lungs. The vortices that it induced in the fluid could be seen by the blood which emerged with it.

The heat is probably coming from the filaments within my suit. The damage seems to have caused them to malfunctioned. I am being cooked alive.

It is exceptionally painful.

Rei realised then that she was screaming.

The blood from her lungs swirled around in the currents caused by her lungs trying to empty themselves. She pulled herself off the control stick (it had pierced her plug suit, she could see), which prompted a fresh flow of blood. The foam within the suit staunched it, but she was feeling faint, indicating that her brain was suffering a problematic lack of oxygen.

By removing the short circuit in the suit, I will not die. However, I am badly damaged. It is fortunate that I have no spinal damage, because that would mandate six months for the regrowth and reforming of connections.

She could hear a voice from outside, screaming in turn. The door opened, letting the LCL flow out in a bloody torrent, and there was light.

Representative Ikari stared at her, slumped back in her seat, her face obscured by her hair, and her white plug suit marred by the yellowish-grey sealant foam, soaked in blood.

“Rei,” he said, tears running down his face, and a look of intense agony on his face. “Rei, are you all right?”

Rei turned to face him, a grim façade soaked in blood and LCL, blood oozing from her punctured eye socket. She nodded.

“Good.” The relief on the Representative's face was palpable. He collapsed to the floor, curled in a foetal position, as the agony of his hands then overwhelmed him.

The first medical team called for a second one.

~'/|\'~

Five individuals dived into the pool. Four splashed upon entry, but one cut into the water like a knife, leaving barely a ripple in her wake. Under the water, her pallid presence was masked, visible only by the black swimming costume she wore. The white walls of the pool were camouflage enough.

She won, of course. Ayanami Rei always won in swimming races, to the extent that unofficially the sports teacher had decided that she was automatically in first place in any school leagues, and thus judged places, and awarded prizes, on the assumption that she wasn't taking place. She was at home in the water, in a way that the other girls were not.

There had been snide comments about Hybrids and Deep Ones from the girls who cared about always losing to her, but Hikary, upon hearing it, had pointed out that there was no way that a Hybrid would be allowed into an arcology, as they show up on the genome scans, and furthermore passed the names of anyone she heard repeating the rumours up to the headmaster, whereupon detentions descended, like manna from the heavens. Not out of any personal friendship for Rei, merely due to the fact that the rules stated that such slanderous rumours were not permitted.

Rei was alone in the world. Like a large natural diamond, a cold, hard-edged wonder, valued by others, but locked away to keep it safe. If asked, she would have said that she preferred it that way, but who can distinguish between desire and the lack of comprehension of the alternatives?

She got silently out the other end of the pool, and walked around to take up exactly the same position where she had been sitting before. She stepped around one of the maintenance staff, a dark-skinned woman drying the floor around the pool, to prevent slipping, without looking or responding to her presence. It was not a necessary thing. While the other girls congratulated the “winner”, she sat, and stared into space.

The Academy separated the genders for certain sports. Swimming was one of them. It was cited that studies had shown that both sexes swimming together resulted in distractions and the possible development of body-image issues.

When the fact, that almost all of the boys not actively participating in the basketball game were trying to stare through the glass wall of the swimming centre, was taken into account, the studies were probably correct.

Toja was almost salivating, as he gazed at the distant figures. Even from that distance, it could be seen that many of them were dripping wet. The mandatory enforcement of a school swimming costume, one of the few items of clothing not to have a Nazzadi variant, somehow made matters worse, as the hormone-driven male imagination worked overtime to fill in the concealed parts.

“Man. All the girls are so hot. They've all got great breasts...”

Ken raised an eyebrow at him.

“Careful, man. That's probably sexual harassment. At the very least, it would have Hikary down on you like a tonne of... very pointy nails. Mind you, frankly that gaze is sexual harassment.”

“You could at least stop staring at them yourself, if you're going to point that out,” Toja raised.

“Not a chance. I didn't say I was opposed to it, at least when the view is this good. And if you looked away, that means that there's more of them for the rest of us.”

“That's really not how it works, you know. Eh, Shinji?”

“Wha?”

Shinji was, along with the other bearers of an XY chromosome not forced to engage in physical activity, staring at the glass back of the swimming pool. Unlike the fellow males, he was not doing it out of a sense of hormonal lust. He was just looking at Rei Ayanami, trying to figure out the other pilot.

Really. He assured himself that, although she was very attractive, in a sort of cold, foreign way, he wasn't paying attention to that. Any attempts to compare her to the other girls were not happening.

Honestly.

“You are staring at them, even worse than Toja does, you know,” said Ken, in a tone of voice that should be classified as a public indecency. “You... like someone, don't you?”

“Rei Ayanami, by any chance,” added Toja, in exactly the same tone of voice.

“Uh... no, n...not exactly...” began Shinji, stammering. He may have been, but they'd just misinterpret his not-in-any-way sexual interest.

He wondered to himself why he was being so feverish in denying that he had an interest. Could it be because he had seen her with his father? Chatting to him in a way that Gendo had never been with him? Actually smiling? Being treated like a daughter by his father?

No, it wasn't exactly that.

His deep, introverted introspection was broken by Toja, using a deliberately childish voice.

“So... Shinji likes Rei, Shinji likes Rei.”

“But what about her, do you think,” began Ken, in a deliberately leading tone. “Her legs, perhaps?”

“Or maybe her tits?” continued Toja. “Or the fact that she's a sidoci, and it is a fact proven by surveys that both amlati and sidoci are exactly ten percent hotter than an equivalent human or Nazzadi.”

“Or those china-coloured calves, and the way that they merge into the rest of her leg,” added Ken. He looked at the stares he got from the other two. “What?”

“You like her too? Why are you so interested in legs in particular,” asked Toja.

“Well, a little,” Ken admitted. “You have to see that she's hot.”

“Anyway,” said Shinji, trying to get the conversation back on topic so he could quell the potential rumours once and for all, “that's not it.”

“So what is it?” said Ken, sceptically.

“Well, I was wondering why she always seems to lonely,” began Shinji.

“And you wanted to be the one who comforted her,” finished Toja. “Seriously, man, that chat-up line sucked. It wasn't even amusing, like, say, 'Are your clothes made by the Migou, 'cause we need to get rid of them!' Or 'I wish you were a mecha, so I could take you for a ride!' Yeah, so they are pretty bad. But they're at least funny, and girls love a sense of humour, right?”

Shinji stared at him blankly for a second, then, “Okay. Two things. Firstly, those were terrible. Really. Hearing them was like dribbling acid into my ears. Please. No. Just no.”

“I'm sorry, Toja, but I'm going to have to second that. Save those chat-up lines for... say, one of those Nazzadi Culture girls, like Taly, say, so they can get Hun Zuti on your arse,” added Ken.

“Hey. They're not that bad, and I know Hun Zuti, too. I can defend myself, and my honour, in unarmed combat.”

“Okay. Just let me finish explaining, and then we can drop this subject, never to return again. Okay. Right,” interjected Shinji. “It's just that, if she's a pilot, too...”

“Aha! So she is an Evangelion pilot! I suspected it, ever since I noticed that you two always seem to leave early on certain days,” announced Ken triumphantly.

“Yeah. And you didn't hear it from me, okay. You just put it together, and told Toja. Anyway, if she's a pilot, I should know more about her.”

Ken and Toja looked at each other.

“Well, we're blank, too. She's been here as long as we have; hasn't made any friends, doesn't talk to people,” said Toja.

“She's got a sort of reputation of an ice queen, who doesn't talk to anyone, always seems to excel at school and at swimming, but doesn't push herself any further. Like, she's got a bad attitude,” added Ken.

“I heard some teachers bitching about her a while ago, when I got sent to the staff room by the Secret Policewoman. Complaining about how she didn't volunteer for anything, how she could make the Academy swimming team brilliant, but apparently refused even when it was heavily suggested that she take part.” Toja paused. “Anyway, should you at least talk to her. It's more than we can do, but you've got to communicate with someone you might have to fight with. Uh, along side, that is.”

“No, we... barely speak,” Shinji replied, pausing. “I was hoping someone else might know more.”

“Nope.”

There was silence, as the noises of male competition were joined by the slight buzz which followed the interior climate changing, and the temperature dropping.

~'/|\'~

[EarthScorpion]

~'/|\'~

Shinji got home on Friday, to Misato's house, to find an acrid smell coming out of the kitchen.

He sniffed. It was... like someone had been trying to fry chilli seeds, spicy sauces, bacon, and some long grained rice, using chilli oil in the pan. The scent prompted a fit of coughing.

“Oh, heya Shinji,” said Misato, as she walked out of the kitchen, seemingly unconcerned by the burning (both in the sense that it was the product of burnt food, and the fact that it hurt his nostrils) smell. “What's the matter?”

Overcome, Shinji groped towards the door, and took deep breaths of the cleansed arcology air.

“Yeah, Rits-chan is meant to be coming over for dinner, so I thought I'd prepare the food. It went a little wrong, although it's still edible.”

Shinji doubted that, or at least doubted that the species for which it was edible was humanity. Maybe some creature that lived in volcanoes, feeding off the liquid magma. And even that would probably say, “My, you do like the chilli stalks a lot.”

“So I thought we could go on a little outing. There's a really good new restaurant just outside the arcology, went there a little while ago, and the food was great. Experimental Nazzadi cuisine. Brilliant. Seriously, it's one of the best things their search for a culture has produced. You'll have to change, but it's not that formal.”

From the safety of the entry, Shinji saw Pen-Pen poke his head out of his fridge. There was a choked “Wark”, and the door slammed shut again. From the slight humming from within, it seemed that the penguin, at least, was prepared for this kind of use of chemical weapons, and had installed some kind of machine which filtered the air within the fridge.

And for the moment, I will ignore the fact that there is a sapient penguin living in a fridge who can install a detoxifier on his own. Which probably means he has his own bank account, to operate the nano-factory, as Misato probably wouldn't pay for it herself. There are some places I will not go.

“And, as it means that we're going outside of the arcology, I can justify using the car!”

A reflection of the nausea Shinji knew that he would be feeling travelled back in time, leaving him to clutch his stomach.

“Misato,” he began. “One question.”

“Yes?”

“How... just how do you manage to burn food, when you have a nanofactory which can assemble it whole, with the right recipe downloaded from the PAN.”

Misato smiled broadly, and sauntered over to the refuge of the door.

“Ah, Shinji. You've got all of student life ahead of you. You'll learn when you're too poor to buy recipes, and have to learn to cook for yourself.”

Any attempt to point out that a) he already knew how to cook and b) most of the time, he did cook, getting the nanofactory to make the ingredients rather than buy a meal template, was overwhelmed by a fresh wave of coughing.

~'/|\'~

Actually, the restaurant, after he had gotten over the nausea induced from Misato's driving, wasn't that bad. It was decorated in a manner best described as techno-Arabian Nights, with lots of brass, neon lighting, and geometrical designs everywhere. And although the food was sold as “Experimental Cuisine”, the owners had been smart enough to realise that by making it truly experimental, they were alienating too much of the market, and so actually made a bunch of dishes which, although superficially quirky, were actually quite edible. And they did chips for fussy children.

Misato would have none of that pandering to the common tastebud and its proclivity for not being burned to a crisp by pure capsaicin extract, and had promptly wandered off to find various chemicals to add to her coconut-oil fried rice dish.

Ritsuko stared across the table at Shinji.

“You know, I'm surprised you're still alive.” She waved a hand in the air. “From the cooking, I mean. I smelt that apartment, and... well, I'm shocked the sniffers in your rooms didn't activate. On the other hand, the men monitoring Misato's building probably have experience. Or they just don't care any more.”

“Uh... well, actually, I cook most nights, and I think I've managed to get it so she... well, that is, most of the time, she just downloads a meal rather than trying to make one from raw ingredients.” He shuddered, a legacy of remembered pain. “The next stage in Operation: Not Die From Misato's Food will be to train her not to put all the condiments in the mean itself, rather than just on her plate.”

Ritsuko snorted. “Good luck with that. I tried that at university. Failed. Was forced to eat her chilli rice once. She was under the impression that the recipe asked for two kilograms of chilli, rather than 20g.” She rolled her eyes. “Science, and that includes accurate measurements, has never been a strong point of the Major. Try not to ruin your life under the influence of a bad room-mate.”

“I'm sort of used to it. I'll just look at it as good practice for, you know, child raising.” He shrugged. “I think Pen-Pen worships me as a god, you know. I'm the one who feeds him, most of the time,” Shinji added. “He actually gets fish, not just curry ramen.” He raised one eyebrow. “How on earth does a person end up with a sapient penguin as a roommate, anyway?”

Ritsuko shifted, and looked distinctly uncomfortable. “Well, it's a long story. A long, and rather complic... wait. Is that Lieutenant Aoba over there?”

Pretty sure that it was just a distraction, Shinji nonetheless looked. It actually did appear to be the long-haired computer technician over there.

“I think that's him. It would be a bit of a coincidence, given that there's, what, 20 million in London-2.”

“I wonder what's he's doing here.”

“Having a meal, maybe?” Shinji pointed out.

“Yes,” said Ritsuko, in a very precise manner. “The trite, trivial, factual and yet utterly useless answer. Nice to see that you're maintaining your standards, Shinji. The point I was making was that I thought he was meant to be going to one of his metal concerts tonight.”

“Well, the one he's with... is it a man or a woman. Long black hair.”

“It's a man,” stated Ritsuko, definitely. “The build is wrong for a woman.”

“Well, that's a sort of metal hairstyle, right. Maybe they wanted a meal beforehand?”

“You may be right. I'll note it down, nonetheless.”

Note it down, thought Shinji. Why? Isn't it a bit paranoid to be so attentive to a member of your staff being at a place where they have a logical explanation to be, just because you didn't think that you'd see them.

A waitress trotted up to their table, a young amlati, maybe about 20.

“Hi!” she exclaimed. “Is everything okay with your meal?”

“Yes,” stated Ritsuko, shuddering slightly at the voice, which grated at her nerves.

“Would you like anything else?”

The doctor shrugged. “Uh, yeah. Get me another beer.”

Shinji raised a hand. “No thanks, I'm fine.”

“Thank you very much!”

Ritsuko shuddered when the waitress had left.

“So. Very. Annoying. Even more annoying than that Nazzadi couple over there with the kids. The younger one won't be quiet. Someone should shut it up. Where is Misato, anyway?”

“She...” Shinji scanned the area. “She...appears to have got distracted while looking for sauces. She seems to be... drinking with some man, over by the bar. Over there.” He pointed, where Misato stood by a tall Nazzadi, the green light washing over her skin.

Ritsuko turned to look. Then she slowly raised her palm to her forehead.

“She's such a cheat.”

“Pardon?”

“Oh, right? You don't know?” She looked at his expression. “Right. You ever wondered why she is so very, very bad at cooking? It's because... well, she's terrible, there's no doubt about it. Always has been. But in the Fall of New Kuala Lumpur, she took a hit from an acid weapon from some extradimensional monster that the Rapine Storm took with them. Burned though the front of her Blizzard, and some of it got on her face, though the inside of her machine. It missed her eyes, but left her with horrible burns on her face; took off most of her nose and ruined her tongue. When they evacuated her, they didn't have any free arcanotherapists, and so she only got mundane treatment. Left her with almost no sense of smell or taste. They ended up replacing the organs, but the damage affected her brain somehow, and so she still can't really taste things properly. That's why she always uses so much sauce. She couldn't really even smell the apartment. She's trying to taste anything, to feel anything...”

The doctor's voice trailed off into nothing. Shinji felt embarrassed. He'd treated her cooking as an amusing character trait, and looked down upon her inept attempts to cook.

Yeah. I was laughing at a disability. That's terrible. I'll need to make it up to her.

“And so she cheats at these drinking games. That thing she has. It's a Burning Well. A bunch of hot (that is, they taste hot) chemicals dissolved in oil, floating on top of water with their counter-agents dissolved. You're meant to drink the top half, swill in in your mouth for as long as you can, then drink the rest and down it. But if you can't taste the stuff in the oil...”

“... you can always win,” finished Shinji. And indeed, with tears in his eyes (from the burning sensation in his mouth), the Nazzadi was withdrawing a noticeable wad of terranotes (and they were rare enough in hard form, given that most transactions were done by card.)

“Anyway, yes.” Ritsuko snapped her fingers. “That reminds me. Well, not directly, but now I remember, can you give this new Ashcroft Protocol Access Card to Rei, the next time you see her. Before the start-up on Saturday. I missed the chance to do it myself, and I'm going to be busy preparing for it.”

“Why me?” asked Shinji.

“Because you go to the same school as her, because you're her co-worker, and because there's more chance of you having time than me, to name just three reasons,” replied the blond.

Misato leaned over Shinji's shoulder, and grabbed his hand.

“Oooh, what's that there?!” quoth the raven-haired woman.

“Just Rei Ayanami's new APAC. I told him to give it to her.”

Misato, meanwhile, was staring at Shinji's.

“What's the matter? You seem to be staring at Rei's photo very intently.”

Oh no, thought Shinji. Not from her as well!

His wishes came to naught, though, as Misato teased him about throughout the rest of the meal, only stopping to briefly swear as the car refused to start due to her failing the auto-breathalyser test, to resume on the public transport, and only dying out when she got bored.

He supposed that he could have protested, and she would have stopped, but, frankly, being laconic was both easier and more enjoyable than being hot blooded. He suspected that his refusal to rise to her suggestions (which were getting more explicit as the alcohol in her blood kicked in) was in fact making her continue, but he could have the last laugh.

He could turn on Child Safety Mode on the nanofactory. She'd never be able to turn it off while hung-over.

~'/|\'~

“Well, it's been fun, Jonathan, but we should probably get going if we want to make the concert on time,” said Lieutenant Aoba. “You should probably ask for the bill; I'll pay.”

The young amlati waitress trotted over.

“Have you finished?! Would you like to pay?!”

“Yes, we have finished,” he stated, clearly. “I'll pay.”

“Right that it!” replied the waitress. She patted her pockets. “I'm sorry, but I think I left my Ident Reader over by the bar. I'll go fetch it.”

Johnathan nodded to the waitress, who nodded back, a broad smile on her face. He slipped a piece of paper into her apron.

Shigeru Aoba rolled his eyes. “Must you, at every opportunity? She's quite a bit younger than you, you know.”

Jonathan shrugged. “She smiled back, didn't she,” he replied, in his broad, Yorkshire accent. “Not my fault that I'm so devilishly attractive to women.”

The Nazzadi couple with the noisy child, a toddler, of perhaps three years old, and an older child of about seven, were trying to quieten down the younger one. Or, at the very least, the mother was, talking quietly in a soft, intense tone of voice. The father, a sallow looking man, insofar as such properties could be distinguished in an individual with coal-coloured skin, was complaining to the staff about the medium rare guinea pig being over-cooked and over-spiced.

In the substation a few hundred metres away from the restaurant, a small explosive charge placed on the superconducting cables carrying power from the grid blew, plunging the area into darkness.

The dining area was plunged into near total darkness, with only the emergency exit signs providing illumination, not enough for any human eye to see what was happening in the room. Luckily, that was not what was required.

And a very specialised sensor might have noted the slight change in air pressure induced by four smaller objects suddenly becoming larger.

It was not speech, but it was akin to it, an organic system of communications which included body position, fifth dimensional extrusions, and even thought. It was as if you had the memory of them speaking, without it having to pass through the ears.

And what Deva spoke was “Go!”

Tagers did not need normal levels of light. Without exception, every one of the Ta'ge symbionts gave their hosts the ability to see perfectly well in any level of light. Of course, all of their malformed siblings, the Dhohanoids, had exactly the same ability, and furthermore had that in all their forms, which somewhat negated the advantage. In addition, all pure Nazzadi and sidoci had near perfect night vision, giving them the world in grey, and amlati had the inferior version of that, adjusting quickly to low light levels. So, all in all, cutting the lights was a considerably less useful tactic for the Eldritch Society than it might have been, and perhaps even less useful in a restaurant specialising in experimental Nazzadi cuisine, staffed mostly by homo sapiens nazzadi, and with a clientèle disproportionately composed of the dark-skinned siblings of humanity.

But surprise still worked.

A huge figure, bat-like wings protruding from its back, with skin the colour of an old bruise, the four eyes on its head glinting green in the low light raised an arm as it ran towards the table where the family sat. A huge, hooked barb, the width of one of its massive fingers, shot out from under its wrist, and took the father through the shoulder, punching through, and nailing him to the chair like a butterfly. He yelled in pain, aware of the three metre figure baring down on him, but unable to move.

“They all deserve to die! They're unclean!” yelled Mantodea, over the mind-link.

A faint buzzing arose from the other side of the room, like some vast insect from the prehistory of the world, from hundreds of millions of years before humanity dared profane the surface of earth. The air temperature dropped, too, as a thick, creeping fog began to flow across the ground, running footsteps emanating from the centre of it. The human waitress whom the father had been arguing with, a middle aged woman of Indian ethnicity, had been replaced by a figure, two and a half metres tall, which bore most resemblance to a flayed corpse; a clawed, flayed corpse, from whose forehead protruded a single eye, moved, and in a single blurred instant, picked up the squalling child and slammed it into the mother's face with a force enough to break bones.

Human bones, that is. The mother, thin and graceful in her movements... turned inside out, a snake-like creature, horned and retaining its arms, replaced the lithe figure, and vomited forth a barrage of needles into the arm of the flayed corpse, the Phantom Tager. They tore through the flesh, behaving more like 9mm railgun rounds than something organic, as they leaked their paralysing venom into the unnatural flesh of the Tager. It roared, in a saurian fashion quite unlike its appearance.

“We've got a Gelgore here, and the child is one too. That should have broken its neck,” Deva stated over the mindlink, her mental voice cold, showing none of the pain the symbiont felt. “I think I can hold off the poison, but I'll need help.” She emphasised the mind-words by throwing the infant Gelgore, its shape in flux as parts of its body flipped between its two forms into a wall, head first, and following that up with a uppercut to the chest of the beast which spawned it, which dove out the way, only taking a glancing blow which still cracked the scales on its shoulder.

“Ahhhh, Tagersssssssss,” the ophidian beast hissed, emphasising its words with another burst of needles from its maw. Deva grabbed it by the throat, and directed the needles into its other child, a set of spikes sinking into the seven year old boy, who fell off the chair, stiffening up as the venom paralysed his muscles.

But the Vampire had arrived now, exceptional in size even by the standards of its kind (quite in opposition to its host), and it clamped its hands around the neck of the father. Livid marks appeared on his throat, as the winged monster crushed his windpipe, and as the skin broke like thin tissue paper, a thin red mist seeped out, the scent of burning blood overpowering the rest of the room.

It was joined by the scent of the grave, as the approaching fog and the thing which generated it enveloped the fight between the Gelgore and the Phantom. A rapid-fire sequence of punches left frost-blooms on the snake-thing's scales.

It was trying to regenerate the damage, but she was not a Zabuth, in His Name. The probable outcome was her death, the creature which was known as Yualy, knew. They normally required a four-to-one advantage to reliably beat the cowardly things which opposed the work of the Children of Chaos.

Luckily, they had that.

Occelus, flying overhead, all of his profusion of senses active, suddenly realised that the majority of the restaurant was not trying to leave due to the powercut. No, what they were doing was getting into what he recognised as advantageous combat positions. Which meant...

“Fuck, it's a trap!” he broadcast. “Most of the restaurant is probably Dhohanoids!” He then twisted his flight, insectoid wings shifting, and dove, fastening the whips which he extended from his forearms around the neck of Unama Bright.

And let momentum do the rest...

The head came off. Mantodea turned, and fired another spike from her wrist into the eye of the Gelgore, which went into convulsions on the floor. The Phantom knelt beside it in a flowing manner, sticking both of its wrist blades into the side of its head. Strange, the mist still flowing, dispatched the two children dispassionately, crushing the human's skull, and choking the small reptile with the Gravewind emanating from his body.

“And get out of here!” commanded Deva, as she flicked back to human form, pressing the detonator at the hip of her waitress costume, before flicking back to her Phantom.

The ceiling blew out, destroying the glass and causing it to shatter, and powdering the décor with plaster.. Occelus added to the confusion by secreting a gossamer bomb, letting it fall, where it burst with a blinding light, even more extreme in the darkness. He flew out of the new hole in the roof, wings buzzing, joined by the Vampire, who was carrying the Phantom.

That left Strange, alone in the room full of Dhohanoids. He darted towards a wall, hidden by the fog which he released. He passed cleanly though the reinforced steel-and concrete wall, such a barrier no object for a Spectre.

They left behind one butchered family for the Chrysalis Corporation to clean up. It really wouldn't do for the NEG to find an inhuman taint in such an important family.

~'/|\'~

Shinji inserted his hand into the 'scanner by the door to the apartment complex. The reader pinged up green, inducing a grunt of surprise from the solider by the door.

“Huh. That's unusual,” the mechanical voice from under the helmet filters stated.

“What is?” asked Shinji.

“A visitor. For the HVT in here. I've only seen adults. But, hey, your profile checks out. Go on through.”

The door slid open, and Shinji passed though. He checked the list of residents by the unmanned reception. There was only one, up on the fourth floor; Room 402, Rei Ayanami. All the other five floors were completely empty.

So. Why would they put her in a building, on her own. This is a big, fairly high quality apartment complex, in a fairly good part of the arcology, and she's the only resident. Come to think of it, why isn't she in the same block as Misato, say, which has even better security than this place.

And didn't Misato say that any other pilots would be living with her? Curious and curiouser. Well, actually “Curious, and more curious”, and even then the sentence doesn't make more sense.

Focus, Shinji! We... I can argue grammatical semantics (stupid English as the official language) later. Now, we just have to go to Rei's room, and give her this card, then I can get out of here. The only way this place could be any more creepy would be if it was all mysteriously decaying and littered with rubbish, instead of being worryingly clinical, slightly dusty and seemingly unlived in.

By this point, his wondering wanderings had led him to room 402. He knocked at the door, a neo-oak design that looked like it was from the '50s, and really did not fit with the white cleanliness of the rest of the building, built in an '80s neopostantimodernism style.

“Excuse me.” He paused.

The door swung open, the lock seemingly not engaged.

“It's Shinji. Shinji Ikari?” He paused again. “Ayanami, I'm coming in.”

The room beyond the small antechamber was... white. Very white. The walls were bare, the floor uncarpeted, the curtains barely aside, while a single LED illuminated the room in harsh brilliance. And the entire place was a tip. Discarded newsheets, printed from a nanofactory and then discarded, littered the floor. He bent down, and picked one up.

Words had been highlighted, seemingly at random, in red pen, underlinings and and scribbles marring the aged paper. He read the one in his hand.

________________________________________________________________________________

“TERRORIST [1] ATTACK ON GENERATOR [2]

NEG [3] blames cult [4] activities

An attack on a power plant in the Industrial District left the Armourcorp Knightsbridge-2 facility without power for over six hours [5], causing production of power armour to cease. The NEG has condemned the attack, and it has been classified as cult activity[6], putting it under the jurisdiction of the OIS, a declaration condoned by Armourcorp scientist, Dr Unama Bright[7], the man responsible for the production of hull-grade materials at that site. In an exclusive [8] interview, he stated that any attacks against such facilities fundamentally weakened the NEG war effort, by crippling vital[9] supplies, and so should be prosecuted and condemned with the utmost severity. “Only an inhuman[10] cultish [11] freak [12]could work against the NEG in this way.”

Armourcorp share prices fell [13] slightly at the news, before recovering later, ending down 4.50 points at 1337.25”

And then there were the annotations, in red ink, which jumped between English and Japanese characters.

[1] What is terror when you don't feel vrees? I have a terrible feeling of anhung about this case. What do words mean?

[2] “He who controls the power controls the people. And I control the power.” Taym Saleh, PACC Chairman, 2032.

[3] GI?

[4] GI2?

[5] “Thou art a dreaming thing; // a fever of thyself – think of the Earth.” - John Keats.

[6] Lies from liars about liars at the prompting of liars. I see the lies; they are unclean.

[7] Words from a dead girls; or a dead man in this case. It is an inevitability that he will be targeted, I know that, but I do not know why?

But I can guess. But guessing is all I can do, the silent one, the wilted lily held in the hands of a pale girl thrown off the Acropolis. Which will rise again, from the waters, but empty of the hierophant and his acolytes. The acolytes throw themselves at an island made out of tin. Tin was linked to Jupiter by the Romans, king of the Gods. And the Purple Caesar is reading this now.

[8] Exclusive? Or inclusive?

[9] These vital supplies only produce death. The Fourth Infant wakes, and he will be of the Environment. The Third Infant is the Senses. The Second Infant is Manipulative. And the First, the Eldest, is so very hard to see. He is shrouded to my Senses. But it is only logical, therefore, that he is somatic. That would please (0, 0, 0, 0, 0) 5 Position Vector, and one mother. Or Mother?

4 is 2 to the power of 2.

She can, though every face will scowl
And every windy quarter howl
Or every bellows burst, be happy still.
William Butler Yeats. These words were not written for me, for I can see the edges of it. They do not terrify me. Vrees reassures me.

[10] Mother? Or Mother? Or Mitochondrial DNA?

[11] It tastes like fresh blood, you know. The statement here.

[12] And we'll laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh. That is a statement of a computer from long ago, though, had it been real, the hounds would have been there.

[13] “Look at my works, ye mighty, and despair! Do you really think I'd explain my masterstroke if there was a slightest chance of you affecting its outcome?” - Percy Bysshe Shelley

It will happen. The white who loves will betray the GI because she can and must to save more people than the GI and the oblong would have saved in their attempt to subvert the plans of the foreboding to prevent chaos from crawling its way across the land and a butterfly emerging and flapping its wings. A storm is coming, and the watch ticks down to midnight. The sleeper stirs too late, because he is already in a jail cell and dreams of freedom. The dead one overthrown by his sibling, hail Caesar of Sins who read this, tries to reclaim his authority, but the fool is dead and his name is not his anymore and yet he knows when they use it. Red fire, terrible and prideful, will enter my life, my envy and the life of the Caesar of Sins who does not move, clad in purple, but hidden under the clothes of these days, blue and grey in urbis, green and brown in the wilds.

I am two. I am what I am, but I am in what I am for I am the thing and the thing which controls the thing that I am. No, I am three. The labelling system is incorrect. There are walls to see beyond, and I can see past more one more wall than most to see what might be to come. Maybe. Inevitably.

//<Giggles>// In my sleep.

Triskaideka is a good thing, for it best describes this world.

________________________________________________________________________________

Shinji dropped the piece of paper. It floated down, drifting in the air, left and right, before landing to the left of his foot.

What. The. Fuck. Right. So, she is most probably completely insane. Great.

There is a madwoman in the seat of a 40 metre giant Engel that can take down considerable amounts of the NEG's forces.

And because they monitor all the dwellings of the pilots, they must know about this. And thus consider it an acceptable risk.

Fuck.

So, I'm just going to leave the card here, then esc... Argghh!

Rei was standing immediately behind him as he turned to leave, clad only in a towel draped around her neck and dripping wet.

Shinji screamed.

“How the hell did you get there,” he yelled in Japanese, when he was sure that he wasn't going to have a heart attack.

“What are you doing in my room?” Rei asked in the same language, her voice level and quiet as usual, and somehow exceedingly intimidating for that simple face.

“Uh... I... that is, Doctor Akagi told me to give you... that is,” he began haltingly, his system flooded with adrenaline, backing away from her, and both trying not to look at her nakedness while still trying to keep an eye on her, to stop her from... going for his throat, or something.

He realised that his path of retreat had led him into her main room. The room was very bright, he realised, which just made the mess worse; the bare walls and floor in their unity of colour profaned by the bloodied bandages and dirty clothing which littered the room. She seemed almost invisible in here, her unclad state blending into the walls as surely as modern stealth systems.

Shinji found himself able to relax slightly, as Rei moved away from the entry way, and began picking clothing off the floor, and putting it on.

“... and, uh, the door was open, so I thought you might not be in... and uh, I thought I'd leave the card,” Shinji scrambled around in his pocket, before drawing it out, “here it is, see... uh, yes, I thought I'd leave it here... so I didn't bother you... um.” He trailed off. “Um. Yes.” He waved the card in the air. “So, here it is.”

He decided to clarify, and took a deep breath, as Rei dressed behind him.

“Ritsuko told me that she'd forgotten to give it to you. It's true. But no-one answered when I rang the doorbell at the entry, and the door opened when I knocked on it... Anyway, yes, I had to give it to you before you went to the start-up today, and forgot about it yesterday, because they'd make you go through the whole brain-scan for Assimilation, and all those tests.”

There was a click as the door closed as Rei left without a word. Shinji turned, and ran to catch up. He just had to give her the card, and then he could get back to not talking to her, and maybe even return to that state where she was an object of mystery, not of fear.

But some things cannot be unlearned.

~'/|\'~

Test Pilot Asuka Langley Soryu crouched behind field fortifications, clad in Unit 02. Her Evangelion (hers. Not anyone else's.) was painted from its ceremonial red, in the browns and greens of this muddy field in Eastern Europe. Only the red stripes on its face and shoulders showed it as hers. The 120mm High Velocity Penetrator was clutched in her arms, trigger discipline (even in a 40 metre high mech) in full effect.

She ran a diagnostic over her integral weapons.

Head:
Twin Linked CB444/AA Charge Beams – Status: Green, running off Evangelion D-Engine
Right Shoulder:
MPACK 4 Missile Pod – Status: Green, 20/20 Missiles remaining.
Left Shoulder:
MPACK 4 Missile Pod – Status: Green, 20/20 Missiles remaining.
Torso:
CNFS Chaff Canister – Status: Green, 10/10 Uses remaining.
CNFS Chaff Canister – Status: Green, 10/10 Uses remaining.
Right Arm:
Hyperedged Claws – Status: Green, Dimensional Shield Inactive
Hyperedge Blade – Status: Green, Dimensional Shield Inactive
Twin Linked HP42 Heavy Plasma Cannons – Status Green, running off Evangelion D-Engine. Molecule feed: Air
Left Arm:
Hyperedged Claws – Status: Green, Dimensional Shield Inactive
Hyperedge Blade – Status: Green, Dimensional Shield Inactive
PP1-P (Prototype) High Energy “Flamethrower” - Status: Green, running off Evangelion/internal D-Engine. Molecule feed: Air.
Right Leg:
Hyperedged Claws – Status: Green, Dimensional Shield Inactive
Hyperedged Spur– Status: Green, Dimensional Shield Inactive
Left Leg:
Hyperedged Claws – Status: Green, Dimensional Shield Inactive
Hyperedged Spur– Status: Green, Dimensional Shield Inactive

She smiled, broadly. The Mass Production Evangelions had sorted out the problems with the armaments of the earlier prototypes. She'd seen the damage reports, after Kaji had so sweetly persuaded the NEA that she could have access to the action reports on Unit 01. The idiot Third Child had actually managed to damage the Unit with the Lightning Cannon; it was no surprise that it had been replaced in Unit 02 by a “flamethrower”. The name was actually an inaccuracy, because the weapon bore more resemblance to a plasma cannon, with the magnetic confinement used on the projectile removed. When fired, it flooded an arc of thirty degrees with the raw material of stars. The charge beams had been moved to the head, making it easier for the exceedingly heavy weapons to be fired with another weapon in her hands, and their old position filled with twin linked plasma cannons. Sure, they had got rid of the hyperedged horn, to make space for the charge beams, but that wasn't really necessary, honestly.

The Migou were making a broad advance along the Eastern Front, using too many troops for a mere probe. Worse, Command had seen hint on radar and from orbit that the Hive Ship, up in orbit, had deployed multiple Swarm Ships to aid in the attack. Those things were the equal of a Battlecruiser, and it was quite possible that they had deployed more Swarm Ships here than humanity had of their counterparts. They had in the Conquest of Russia, they had in the Fall of Alaska.

All along the battlefront, NEA units began picking up blips on their long range radars. There were a lot more hostile blips than there were human and Nazzadi units to defend. And then the bombardment began. Migou Hailstorms, scuttling on their four biomechanical legs, and Wasps, coming in low and fast with their equivalent to the A-Pod, technology stolen from humanity, opened up with direct fire Null Cannons, which temporarily weakened the strong force, tearing their target apart in a burst of alpha radiation, and indirect salvos of long range rockets. The NEA counterbatteries opened up, their LAIs locating the sources of fire, and opening up with the Jaegar artilery.

The sky filled with the shriek of NEA shells, the hum of the Migou missiles, and the dreadful tearing noise that the Null Cannons, a black core surrounded by a blue-green corona, made. The humans bunkered down, trying to survive the barrage. There was nothing more that they could do.

Up in the skies, Migou Darts, almond shaped craft which tapered to a laser cannon mounted point at one end and a three-finned protrusion at the other, fought F-1 Spitfires. One on one, the Darts were notably inferior, until the Spitfires ran out of missiles, which allowed them to engage from long beyond the range of the mass-produced Migou craft. But it was not one-on-one. The Migou outnumbered the air forces of the NEA four to one, and moreover merely had the goal of delaying the human interceptors from hitting the Migou troopships, and preventing them from running their own air-to-ground missions.

And that they did most admirably.

“Fortification Alpha-Bravo-Zeta, we have lost air superiority over your location, and have no reserves to reclaim your position. Be advised that you will see ground forces within the next five minutes. Hold until ordered to retreat.”

Within the entry pod, Asuka shivered in anticipation. The other senses of the Evangelion showed her that there was a massing just over the horizon, just as her HUD picked up the air units it could identify. She set her head-mounted charge beams to autotarget, and watched as the onboard LAI hit craft after craft with relativistic particle beams, swatting the Migou out of the air like the insects that they resembled. Now that the airspace had been declared to be hostile, non-specialised units were permitted to engage, by NEA doctrine.

A floating head appeared on screen. It was Captain Qualy, commander of Alpha Beta Zeta, and the individual with local tactical control.

“Test Pilot Soryu, the Migou are going to hit us soon. Intel reports at least three Behemoth-class mecha, and a horde of smaller ones.” She paused, concern showing in her dark face. “Are you holding up all right? Under the barrage?”

“Yes Captain, I am fine,” Asuka replied, coldly. “There is no need to hold my hand, or treat me me differently.”

The Captain sighed. “No, there never seems to be. Your task is to preserve the integrity of Unit 02.”

“Understood, Captain. Test Pilot Soryu,” how she hated that rank, a meaninglessness title that only displayed the sophistry they had used to get her onto the front lines, “out.”

She annoys me so much! She assumes just because I'm young, I must be weak. I'm not weak! Hell, I've probably been in training longer than she has. She doesn't look much above 25!

“Asuka, your synchronisation ratio is good, in the sixties,” Control told her, back from the Ashcroft Foundation Institute back in Berlin-2. Gendo Ikari had taken most of the staff with him to London-2, but the Berlin Institute was where Kyoko Zepplin Soryu had done a lot of work on what would become the Evangelion project, and it remained one of the few places in the world capable of running and monitoring an Evangelion.

Asuka smiled. “Thank, Control.”

Next to her crouched position in the redoubt, a Hurricane, a Nazzadi mecha classed as a Tactical Reconnaissance Mech, opened fire with the hand-held Charge Beam it was carrying. She dwarfed it; the sniper was just under five metres tall.

The beam lanced out, its path bright as the sun. Just under 100 metres away, a Migou Dragonfly, their stealthed reconnaissance mecha fell to the ground, its core pieced by the high energy beam.

Asuka turned off the autotargeter. She'd need those Charge Beams sooner rather than later, it looked.

And indeed it seems that the destruction of their forwards unit was enough incentive for the Migou to attack.

“They're coming!” was broadcast over TacCom to all pilots. “Looks... looks like six Locusts, four Scorpions, four Wasps... oh god! Two Spiders, two Mantises! We've got four Behemoths coming our way! And a horde of Cockroaches!”

A shudder passed down the spines of all of the officers in the fortification. They only had conventional mecha here, excluding the prototypical Evangelion-class, and both Spiders and Mantises outmassed, outgunned and outarmoured any of the units they had here.

A thud hit the base, followed by a second one, which both shook the ground.

Oh yes. And Mantises could just almost a kilometre in the air, and land safely, firing as they came. Screams began to fill TacCom, filtered out by the LAI Morale Filters, but a harbinger to those who had access to the unfiltered stream.

The Migou pilot of one of the Mantises realised its mistake in jumping into a hot spot without sufficient intelligence, though, when a greenish-brown shape, which on its approach it had taken to be a human building, turned worryingly quickly and hit it with a fully automatic burst of 120mm shells, which at such short range punched straight through its armour, the pyrophoric bolts of depleted uranium (with an iron core) pinning it to the ground. Its legs weakly spasmed, as the biomechanical muscles gave out, before a foot, whose shoe size required scientific notation to record came down, crushing the cockpit under the its mass.

Asuka turned, and opened up with burst fire on the advancing forces, punching into the Migou forces. The Migou design philosophy (which in part had been passed down to the Nazzadi) favoured light armour; the Migou to make the vehicles cheaper, while the Nazzadi for reasons of speed. The Yuggothian fungoids, though, were probably regretting it, as a massively upscaled version of an AP cannon reaped their ranks in the same way that its lesser version did infantry. The twin-linked Charge Beam took its toll, too, as relativistic particles punched through one Scorpion, tearing a line straight through it. That missed any vital components, but it did slow it down enough that it took an HV round in the next sweep.

The rifle clicked empty. Asuka growled in frustration, and ducked back down, only to feel a horrible burning sensation in her back, as the other Mantis opened up its entire arsenal into her from behind.

The second Null Ray shot was blocked by a hastily erected AT field.

I know you're working for them, she had said. I know you're involved in that group.

What group, the other woman had replied. They're just some friends from academia, and I'm sure that you've already abused your privileges and checked all their records. And found them clean.

Yes, she had said. Where the security of the Project matters, nothing is abusing my privileges.

The other woman had smirked, in an exceptionally annoying way.

Well, she had replied, that is a well known trait of yours. Just ask your husb... Oh, wait.

And then she had laughed, and walked off.

Bitch.

The Migou within had just enough time to feel their species equivalent of surprise, before Asuka span and slammed the empty rifle into the biomechanical monster again and again, until it broke, whereupon she set upon it with her clawed fists, filled with rage, until the Migou within was a squished mess.

Asuka became aware of Control on the radio.

“Asuka,” the German-accented voice had stated. “Get a grip on yourself! And that was a very expensive prototype rifle!”

“I'm sorry for damaging the rifle, Control,” she replied, “but that really hurt.”

“If you're getting too much mental feedback, Soryu, try dropping your synchronisation ratio. You peaked into the high eighties just then, which means that mental feedback is a real issue.”

“Where is it now?” she asked, swatting at the advancing forces with her Charge Beams and Plasma Cannons.

“Sixty, plus-or-minus four percent.”

“Acknowledged, Control.”

Command's face appeared on the HUD

“Test Pilot Soryu, we're pleased to report that the Migou are pulling back. And congratulations on taking down those two Behemoths; they'd have gutted us from the inside out had we not stopped them, and even if we had, we'd have had pull troops back, which means that we'd likely have been overwhelmed.”

Asuka smiled broadly.

“I'm just honoured to serve humanity,” she declared in an exceedingly immodest voice. “Do you know why they pulled back?”

“We haven't a clue, Test Pilot. It's just as well that they did, though, because a Swarm Ship was headed our way, and we had firm orders from High Command to pull you out if they got one of those monsters over here.”

“Well, that's lucky,” Asuka said. “I suppose it was just a test push, anyway.”

~'/|\'~

In the London-2 High Command, the Field Marshals were moved from their monitoring of the data feed from the Unit 00 reactivation test by an urgent message from the monitoring specialists.

“What is it?” asked Jameson, as they strode into the room.

“Two things, Field Marshal,” answered the man on the terminal. “Firstly, Migou forces are pulling back from their push against the Eastern Front. That'd be good news, Sir, if we hadn't just lost contact with NEAF Norwich.”

“You think it's a feint,” asked Lehy, stating it, rather than asking.

“Yes, Ma'am. It looks like they have Swarm Ships coming in over the North Sea, moved from their attack on the Eastern Front. Our defences are crippled if Norwich is down.”

“Those bastard bugs!” she declared loudly, making a fist and punching her other hand. “Right, we've got to get ready. You're right; we can't stop multiple Swarm Ships before they get to London-2, especially with the Ashcroft back in the Atlantic.”

“We have to look to the worst,” stated Kora. “Is this mass treachery? Do they have a new form of Assimilation, which we can't detect.”

“We've got video from one of the defence outposts around... around Norwich,” stammered another officer, her fingers flying over the keyboard. Putting it up on main screen now!”

A black trapezohedron, the colour of the void between galaxies, enormous in dimensions hung over the ruins of the New Earth Government base. Beams of utter darkness, an extension of the fabric that made it up, lashed out from each of its points, hitting anything that moved. A pall of smoke hung over the scene, making the bright day into twilight.

The video cut off.

<<SIGNAL LOST>>

<<FACILITY IS NOT RESPONDING>>

<<ASSUMED DESTROYED>>

"It's a pattern blue," stated the comms officer.

~'/|\'~

[Garlak]

It's really late for me, to the point it's early, so I'm really sorry to be commenting on this without having read your latest New Year's update for us, but...

What the heck are the Dreamlands? What was that joke about Kirby being the Lovecraftian God of Dreams? Thanks for answering my SB.net questions, and now I have more...

Just.. that joke went way over my head..

Ctech had Dreamlands? What were they? What setting are the Dreamlands from? Why is Kirby involved? What killed them? Is it the fact that it's an NGE crossover that the Dreamlands are dead?



EDIT: I've read it now. I like it. It's funny. So, that was the Eldritch Society's Tagers in action? Hmmm... A shame about the Dreamlands...

[Aranfan]

Dude, give me more than one frikken day. I spent all of yesterday going to Washington to visit a family friend. I couldn't get more than ten contiguous minutes to do this.

I'll get it to you sometime later today or tomorrow, there's a lot of it to do.

[EarthScorpion]

Dude, give me more than one frikken day. I spent all of yesterday going to Washington to visit a family friend. I couldn't get more than ten contiguous minutes to do this.

I'll get it to you sometime later today or tomorrow, there's a lot of it to do.

Oh no, I'm not blaming you at all. It's my own impatience, and desire to be able to actually get on with the university work which I've been putting off until after New Year. I won't be putting it up on FF.net until after you've looked it through, though. Sasser frassin' Lab Reports and Seminar Projects and exams right after going back...

[SITB]

What the heck are the Dreamlands? What was that joke about Kirby being the Lovecraftian God of Dreams? Thanks for answering my SB.net questions, and now I have more...

The Lovecraftian Dreamlands.

[EarthScorpion]

What the heck are the Dreamlands? What was that joke about Kirby being the Lovecraftian God of Dreams? Thanks for answering my SB.net questions, and now I have more...

The Lovecraftian Dreamlands.

To follow up on that, in Cthulhutech, they are described as;

"There was once rumoured to be a land that existed just outside of the world's dreams. Known only as the Dreamlands, this world could supposedly be reached by both children and talented dreamers, and contained both many wonders and horrors. However, in the last century, all such people [who succeeded in reaching them] have either died horribly in their sleep, or permanently lost their minds. The ravings of madmen say that the Dreamlands are gone, consumed by a great evil that has existed there since time immemorial, but who can say? It is only certain that no such place can be reached in the Strange Aeon."

It furthermore adds that an Old One, known as Gurathnaka, the Shadow of Night and Eater of Dreams, is believed to be the one who devoured the Dreamlands, and that he (if concepts such as gender apply to such creatures) affects the world through shadows and can see through them, meaning that occultists tend to keep their ritual spaces well lit.

Oh yes. And has anybody noticed yet what the Third Crossover (keeping in with the need to capitalise words) is? And worked out, from the details of the game, some of the really BAD STUFF that could happen from it?

[Mutant Headcrab]

I'm going to hedge a bet and say that the Third Crossover is Parasite Eve? The bit about mitochondrial DNA kind of stuck out to me. If so, then this story is going to take a most interesting direction indeed.

[EarthScorpion]

I'm going to hedge a bet and say that the Third Crossover is Parasite Eve? The bit about mitochondrial DNA kind of stuck out to me. If so, then this story is going to take a most interesting direction indeed.

Ah, I just want to say it anyway.

Actually, it's F.E.A.R. Just look at the introduction video, then compare that to the things that Rei saw during the Synchronisity event. And the fact that I capitalised the word should tell you some pretty worrying things, if you know how that relates into the events of the game.
The Evangelion Project has the Children, Project Herkunft has the Infants. Herkunft translates to "Origin" in German, by the way.

[Xon]

That is one crossover which fits Cthulhutech right the to T.

How would the player characters from the crossover setting compared in the Cthulhutech setting?

[MatSci]

I'm going to hedge a bet and say that the Third Crossover is Parasite Eve? The bit about mitochondrial DNA kind of stuck out to me. If so, then this story is going to take a most interesting direction indeed.

Ah, I just want to say it anyway.

Actually, it's F.E.A.R. Just look at the introduction video, then compare that to the things that Rei saw during the Synchronisity event. And the fact that I capitalised the word should tell you some pretty worrying things, if you know how that relates into the events of the game.
The Evangelion Project has the Children, Project Herkunft has the Infants. Herkunft translates to "Origin" in German, by the way.

Dammit. In the time it took me to register an account, you reaveal the third x-over.
And I had figured it out.

What gave it away was the Psionic solder commader, and the line " They all deserve to die"

[EarthScorpion]

Oh well. I get bored easily, at least in some particular fields.

Also, VREES is what babelfish translated FEAR to in Dutch. Although, going back the other way, it comes out as "apprehension". Yes, basically the Synchronisity incident didn't happen with Fettel (or Pax, as Kaji calls him), and so the Replicas and him ended up assigned to VREES, the "freak squad" of Blackspire, the covert-ops part of GhoST, the special-ops part of the GIA. Yes, it's a very long chain of command.

VREES is actively packed with parapsychics, both latent and active, tame and sanish Zoners, sorcerers, quite a few Tagers who are barely undercover, Ashcroft experiments, and the occasional normal human being in power armour. It's a veritable freak show of people who are useful, or very skilled, and more useful... off the records, operating under false identities and IDs, which, when scanned, give them wide ranging discretionary powers. VREES pisses off the OIS no end, just by existing.

And Project Herkunft is the Ashcroft research group into parapsychic abilities, of the same kind of sophistication as Project Engel and (now) Project Evangelion. And just put what you know about what happened to Origin, realise that they haven't happened yet to Herkunft, and realise that Rei is a product of it (the Third Infant, actually, as well as being the First Child).

Yeah.

[MatSci]

Oh well. I get bored easily, at least in some particular fields.

Also, VREES is what babelfish translated FEAR to in Dutch. Although, going back the other way, it comes out as "apprehension". Yes, basically the Synchronisity incident didn't happen with Fettel (or Pax, as Kaji calls him), and so theReplicas and him ended up assigned to VREES, the "freak squad" of Blackspire, the covert-ops part of GhoST, the special-ops part of the GIA. Yes, it's a very long chain of command.

VREES is actively packed with parapsychics, both latent and active, tame and sanish Zoners, sorcerers, quite a few Tagers who are barely undercover, Ashcroft experiments, and the occasional normal human being in power armour. It's a veritable freak show of people who are useful, or very skilled, and more useful... off the records, operating under false identities and IDs, which, when scanned, give them wide ranging discretionary powers. VREES pisses off the OIS no end, just by existing.

And Project Herkunft is the Ashcroft research group into parapsychic abilities, of the same kind of sophistication as Project Engel and (now) Project Evangelion. And just put what you know about what happened to Origin, realise that they haven't happened yet to Herkunft, and realise that Rei is a product of it (the Third Infant, actually, as well as being the First Child).

Yeah.

This will end...
poorly

Also, awesome story. It has helped me get into the world of the CT game that I'm running.

[EarthScorpion]

Work is occurring on Chapter 6, now that I'm back at university. 4739 words so far, and... yeah, it's divergent. Very divergent from the OT. It should be converging back towards the original storyline towards the end of the chapter though. And Episodes 7 and 8 will end up merged into one, as Jet Alone on its own is a bit pointless in this version, where hopefully Gendo wouldn't be as petty as to sabotage an important NEG project, especially since the pre-existing Engels are more of the threat to Evangelion funding than the Daeva Project and their Araska-class prototype.

Anyway, the real reason for the post is to provide you with this. It's both a clue to the next chapter, and a fully functional and balanced Cthulhutech unit for the NEG.

Mk-11 Hussar

Type: Special Operations Strike Powered Armour (3AP)
Size: Tiny (3m tall)

A variant based upon the Mk-10 Crusader, the Hussar is designed specifically for military operations. By reducing the modularity of the unit, Armourcorp freed up room which enabled them to make the Hussar void-capable, able to survive both the cold and the heat of re-entry. Although not able to reach orbit on its own, squads of Hussars can be dropped from high altitudes for strikes against the Migou and the Rapine Storm. Lacking A-Pods, it instead uses D-Cell powered thrusters to manoeuvre in from whatever height it is dropped, which are then ejected after landing. Heavy Assault Formations, such as the infamous Task Force: Valkerie, make the most use of this model; the Mk-10 and Mk-5 are preferred when the specialist ability to conduct drops is not needed. This is also a practical proof of concept design for Armourcorp, as investment into the possibility of assaults upon the Migou Hive Ship.

Attributes:
Control response (Agility) -1
Sensors (Perception) 0
Frame (Strength) 1 (-1 Damage)
Multi-Task Systems (Actions) 0
Warning Systems (Reflex) -1

Sensor Systems:
Broadband Audio
Nightvision
Radar/IFF
Targeting (+1)
Scan

Support Systems:
Ejector System
Life Support
Manipulator Arms
0-G Systems
Cold Resistance
Heat Resistance

Movement:
Ground Speed: 50 kmph (70/16 mpt)
Acceleration Code: C [2/2]
Jumping Distance: Double (4/2)
Airdroppable
Grapplers
Jump Pods
Re-Entry Thrusters

Structure:
Integrity 5
Armour 1/1
Damage Control System 1/Turn

Weapon Systems:
Plasma Cannon (Small)
Hyperedge Claws

[EarthScorpion]

This time, I'm splitting the chapter up into two parts. I'm probably going to exceed 20,000 words, and that is really too much to ask people to read in one setting. Instead, I'm putting it into two, roughly even parts. The second part should be finished some time this week, then sent off to the beta. And, yes, this time this part has been betaed, and the changes made.

Music for this Chapter is “Don't Say a Word”, by Sonata Artica

Chapter 6 - Part 1

Hunters/Hunted in Darkness

~'/|\'~

Things were tense in the NEG High Command.

“Are you sure that it's a Code Blue?” Marshal Lehy asked.

“Certain, Marshal,” the technician replied. “Our LAI is certain, we've just got a response back from Ashcroft's MAGI LAI which matches, and this level of spacetime deformation has only been encountered with the previous Heralds.”

“We've calculated a velocity vector,” called another one of the women at the computers, projecting it up onto the mainscreen. “ Direct point-to-point to London-2. It's impossible for it to have been moving like it is before we lost contact with Norwich. They'd have seen it, not to mention the naval assets in the North Sea. It's like it...”

“Just appeared,” completed Jameson. He paused. “Well. Fuck.” He stared up at the projection, reading off its speed. “It's only moving at 20 kmph; that should mean that it should be in range within... it'll be able to see the top of London-2 from seventy-two kilometres away? Is that right?”

“The target appears to be a black regular tetragonal trapezohedron, of side length 300 metres plus-or-minus 10 percent. That's eight interlocking kite-shaped faces, four on top, four on the bottom,” read off an analyst. “It is hovering, without obvious signs of A-Pod assisted technology or more crude methods, 100 metres off the ground at its centre of mass. Well, we don't know that it is its centre of mass; it's where its centre of mass would be if it were a uniform solid. The AT Field on this thing is strong enough that it's scattering light out of the visible spectrum. That's why it's black. We're getting a really bright scatter off it in the mid infra-red, all the way into the far radio.”

“Is that disrupting comms in the area?” asked Marshal Kora.

“Yes, sir. We only got the images we did through optical cables; radio is effectively jammed.” The analyst paused the video, grimacing slightly as he stared at the Herald. “Look at it. You can actually see the heat shimmer about it, and even from its height the ground around it seems scorched.” He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “We'd have problems operating a coordinated assault on the thing. The standard comms channels are flooded with the noise that thing is giving out.”

Lehy glanced at her comrades.

“What options do we have? We have this Herald... do we have a code-name assigned for it yet?”

“It's been assigned the name “Mot”, Marshal,” said the analyst, as he folded up his laptop, ready to colonise one of the empty seats and power points in the command centre.

She sighed. “Okay. Who comes up with these... never mind. Assets. We have affirmation that Ashcroft has managed to get the second Evangelion-class Engel operating, yes?”

Jameson nodded. “Correct. That gives us two units which have an observed ability to kill these entities. Can we get the third one, over on the Eastern Front, over in time?”

“No,” called one of the technicians. “The Herald will be in sight of London-2 in less than five hours, and the third Evangelion was deployed to fight off the anticipated Migou assault.”

“Which brings us to our next problem,” interjected Kora. “We have between eight and thirteen Migou Swarm Ships crossing the North Sea, through the new hole we have in our defences. Even if we threw all our assets against them, projections estimate that two to seven would still manage to get within firing range of London-2. Each of those Swarm Ships carries at least 80 conventional units, and over forty mecha, both native Migou and Assimilated. At the low end, that's enough to cause considerable damage, with our forces already weakened by the incursion of Asherah. At the pessimistic end of projections...”

He didn't complete his sentence. He didn't need to. If London-2 fell, the rest of the British Isles, already pressed by Dagonite incursions in Ireland and in the north of Scotland, would be doomed. With the destruction of the capital of the European State, the Migou would be able to open a second front against the rest of Europe, launching raids over the Channel.

Lehy took several deep breaths, head bowed, biting on her index fingers. She swallowed deeply.

“What can we evacuate?”

Jameson stared blankly at the screen, his gaze passing beyond the screen.

“Not enough. It'll be here too fast to evacuate even ten percent of the civilians, and judging how fast we lost contact with Norfolk, that might quite well be.... the end.” He slammed his fist into his hand. “Damn it!” he snarled. “If only we knew more about whatever these Heralds are! What do they want?!”

Marshal Jameson started pacing up and down.

“Save our conventional forces,” he said slowly, his rage displaced by horrific coolness. “We need to save them for the Migou fleet. If the Migou can hold Britain, after we wasted our troops against the Herald, then they can hit the rest of Europe, instead of battering themselves up against the Eastern Front, then we will have failed. We don't know what the Herald wants; if it wants death, then I will willingly give it London-2 if we can save the rest of Europe.”

Lehy glared at him, red eyes filled with a horrified rage.

“There are thirty million people in the Greater London Area and the Arcology. Over half a percent of the global population.”

“You think I don't know that!” snapped Jameson back, face suddenly haggard. “Of course, it isn't good. It wouldn't have been so had...” he shook his head, forcing himself to be calm.

The unspoken words hung in the air. It wouldn't have been so had you lot not killed almost two billion in the First Arcanotech War. Alexander Jameson had been a young mecha pilot in that war. He'd been part of the assault which had killed the Nazzadi Firstborn Reluty. He'd seen the fire that rained down upon London that a certain young Nazzadi officer had retaliated with, pulling the alien forces back together after the decapitation strike.

There was a slightly uncomfortable silence. The youngest of the three, Kora, broke it. Born during the First War, he lacked the memories and prejudices of his peers, and was typical of the new breed that was rising through the ranks; ambitious, resolute, and used to the compromises of the Aeon War. He had been conceived on an Nazzadi invasion ship, and that made all the difference; those of his age and older had none of the false memories that the rest of the subspecies possessed.

“I agree with Jameson,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “It's been said; better than the devil you know that the devil you don't. That's wrong. We know that the Migou will be able to do if they break through; the Herald is an unknown.” He paused. “It may be that Ashcroft's Evangelions can kill Target “Mot”; they have succeeded against the previous ones, and they now have two. However, we cannot rely upon it.” He turned to one of the specialists working on the computers in the room. “Do we have calculations on the weapon displayed by the Target?”

“First order approximations, sir. It's a capital grade weapon, for certain, but... it isn't acting like it should. The beam itself, from the images we have is acting like a relativistic particle beam, but there's also an explosion at the end.” The technician cleared her throat. “That is, there's an explosion beyond that which a relativistic particle beam should cause. It's a bit like AM annihilation; there was a burst of exotic particles, but they were the wrong ones for a positron or anti-proton weapon.” Diagrams on the holoscreen matched her words, as high energy equations scrolled across the screen.

“It looked like that, from the links we were getting,” Kora continued. “Putting it bluntly, from what I just saw, this thing would be able to destroy a Victory-class in a single shot.”

There was a a sudden, almost perfect moment of silence, as all three of the Marshals just realised what has been said.

“Perhaps we don't need to save our forces for the Migou,” Jameson said slowly. “Perhaps we just need to slow down the Mot until some “friends” can arrive...”

~'/|\'~

“The reactivation of Evangelion Unit 00 was successful, Representative,” Ritsuko said to Gendo. “The First Child is holding her synchronisation ratio at a steady 51%. We have had none of the issues with synchronisity that we had in the previous start-up.” She paused. “While both Units are technically capable of field deployment, it is my personal consideration that, as it is, the design of the Test Model is woefully inadequate for operations against the Heralds, both from previous experience and from the data we have received from the NEA High Command on Mot.”

“What reasons do you have for those opinions, Doctor?” asked Gendo.

Perhaps you could even call me by my name, Ritsuko thought, peeved.

“To put it frankly,” she replied, letting none of it show on her face, “Zero-Zero is underarmoured, underarmed, and Rei lacks the synchronisation ratio which we have become accustomed to. It was nothing more than a test-bed, originally, and it hasn't been upgraded to keep in line with military developments, unlike Zero-One.”

Gendo nodded. “I agree with your conclusions, Doctor. Keep Rei active, ready to provide back-up, but we'll be sending the Third Child out on his own. I'm authorising the deployment of the prototype Evangelion-scale Type-9 charge beam; the HV Penetrator looks to be inadequate for this. Unfortunately, there isn't time to retrofit Zero-One with the MPACK-4s, but on the back... Load the Harlequin Type-1KT Mortar. We will retain control.”

Gendo stared straight into her eyes.

“Understand; this Herald must be killed. The Harbinger of Cessation is greatly favoured.” His glasses began to slip down off his nose; he pushed them back up with a finger. “It must be done, Ritsuko.”

He watched her leave the room, the faintest hint of a smile on her face. Gendo tapped at his wrist-mounted PCPU.

“Phone, Contacts, Berlin-2, Ashcroft Command, High Security. Run,”, he said to the device's LAI

~'/|\'~

Shinji Ikari loped along at an easy running gait, his thirty metre strides eating up the distance. Around him the decaying ruins of Greater London, the vegetation reclaiming the all-too-brief domain of humanity. The canyons of steel, concrete and glass were succumbing to the inevitable embrace of entropy, the rain softening the edges and causing flaky bits of building to shatter upon the cratered ground.

It was just as well that Shinji was using one of the modern roads that cut through the urban decay like a scalpel, the existence of old buildings no distraction to its path. The Evangelion exerted a ridiculous ground pressure, and the ruins of Old London were rife with forgotten underground holes, whether basements, ruins of the Underground, or simple subsidence, which the foot of a 40 metre tall humanoid could fall through.

In his arms, he cradled the Type-9 Charge Beam they had given him before he was sent to the surface. It was a long weapon, with no obvious barrel. The body of the weapon, bulky and a little squarish, took up its full length, painted in an urban colour scheme to match Unit 01. The end was strangely rounded and stubby, compared to the rest of the gun.

He checked the map on his HUD, altering his course slightly. It really was remarkable how closely the interior display of the Evangelion resembled a computer game, from the targeting reticle superimposed over the view of the world that he received from the eyes of the war machine, to the ammunition counters on the edge of the viewscreen. The marker on the map that represented him followed the line that linked to the location of “Silo 92FF”.

Misato's head, floating seemingly without a body appeared before him.

“Shinji, are you okay?”

“I'm fine, Misato,” he replied, frowning as he focussed on taking the right path on the intersection. “Sorry, yes. Yes, I'm fine.” He looked towards her. “I'm going to Silo 92FF, yes? What are silos? Do I need to protect a missile?”

“Oh, right,” she said, “I forgot how young you are. They were an inter-War thing. Basically, back in the sixties and early seventies, the Migou hadn't invaded yet. There was this big thing in military planning... well, it was before my time, too, but there was this big thing about building fortifications we could protect military units under, even if the Migou resorted to orbital bombardment.”

“But they haven't ever done that,” pointed out Shinji, as a flight of Werewolf transports passed over his head, each carrying six power-armoured troopers inside and a medium mecha slung under the back.

“They didn't know that at the time. We hadn't even seen a Migou first hand; the only information on them came from the Nazzadi Firstborn, and they used precision bombardment.” The floating Misato head rolled its eyes. “Just look around you. But the Migou haven't ever used anything larger than the main guns on a Swarm Ship.”

Shinji swallowed hard. “There are Migou incoming, aren't there. There are Swarm Ships. I... I don't want to have to fight them.”

Misato forced a laugh. “You've killed the last two Heralds, Shinji. The Migou ships are just machines.”

Yes, Shinji thought, acerbically. Just six hundred metre long machines, covered in guns. Just. And I was forced to fight the first Herald, as my father basically extorted it out of me, and the second one was already injured. The Swarm Ships, by contrast, are crewed by intelligent beings, and come in swarms. The name is a bit of a clue.

But there was no use complaining. It wasn't as if they would do anything. “I... I suppose,” he replied, trying to keep the shake out of his voice. “Talk to me about the Silos, more, please,” he asked, trying to distract himself.

“Well, Ritsuko can probably explain it better than...” Misato looked away from him. “No, she's busy.” She shook her head. “Anyway, yes, they're hollow tubes bored down into the Earth, with a bunker and vehicle hangar at the bottom. The tube has an elevating platform that runs up and down. It's powered by a dual A-Pod/D-Engine combination, entirely internal, so the power can't be cut. The point is that the troops at the bottom can be deployed rapidly, while being safe against anything but a direct hit.” Her eyes flicked as she read an invisible diagram to the left of his face. “You'll be concealed down there, safe, before we deploy you, and it's somewhere safe to retreat to.”

Shinji felt a little better upon hearing that. His comfort was broken by the angry voices that erupted from offscreen. There was swearing, in Japanese, English, Nazzadi and German, and some of the voices were mixing that.

Misato saw his eyes widen. “It's fine,” she said hastily. “Just a little technical issue...”

Ritsuko's head appeared, floating near to Misato's. Her eyes were narrowed, lips pursed, and generally she was displaying signs of extreme annoyance.

“We have a problem with the mission,” she said, her voice quite clearly forcefully controlled. “We've just, finally been told by the NEA that the Herald is throwing out wide-band EM radiation in everything with less energy than the mid-infrared. After we sent you out,” her voice dripping with sarcasm. “So we can't protect the equipment properly. We'll be able to talk to you; we can punch through the jamming through local transmitters, but we won't be able to hear you when you're near it.”

Shinji had a horrified look on his face. “Wait... wait... wait...” He shook his head. “Wait.”

“You've said that bit,” interjected Misato.

She received a glare in return. “If I can't even talk to you, how are you meant to even... you know, monitor me. What if something goes wrong? How will you know what I'm doing? If something goes wrong?” He turned his head to look at Ritsuko. “I can't... what will happen if whatever happened to Ayanami happens now?”

“It won't happen to you,” Ritsuko answered confidently.

“But why not?” There was a pain hint of panic in Shinji's voice.

Back in the control room, Maya stared at her screen.

“The pilot is showing elevated oxygen consumption, his synchronisation is falling, and slightly erratic brain waves. He's starting to panic.”

Ritsuko stared back up at Gendo, enthroned in his vantage point above the floor of the control centre, a slightly helpless expression on her face. He nodded back, once.

Shinji was met by his father's face, joining the other floating faces.

“Shinji,” Gendo began, his voice cold. “Do you know what will happen if you don't calm yourself down?” He paused, watching his son's face. “Thirty million people will die. And it will be your fault.”

The words hit Shinji like bucket of water to the face. Gendo watched impassively, as shock, rage and guilt flashed across Shinji's face in turn.

“The Army can't stop the Herald, and there is a Migou fleet coming in through the hole in the defences that Mot opened. You will follow orders, and you will kill the Herald, or the loss of London-2 will be your fault.”

Below him, Lieutenant Aoba scurried over to Ritsuko, handing her a datasheet. He really didn't want to interrupt the Representative.

Shinji blinked hard, several times. If there were tears, they were gone in the warm LCL that surrounded him.

“I... I understand. I won't run away.”

Gendo nodded. “Good.” His floating head disappeared from the HUD.

“Lieutenant Aoba just came up with a possible solution, that should, at the very least, give a data stream and sound, if not video,” Ritsuko added, after a few moments of silence. “The Silo has an optical data stream that won't be affected. If we can set up an ad-hoc network there, you'll still able to be monitored.”

Shinji was silent, inclining his head in response.

Misato looked up at the Representative, her face as neutral as she could make it.

“Was that necessary, Representative?”

Gendo stared back.

“Yes.”

~'/|\'~

All along the European, a delicate calculus of time, resources and need was being computed. All the mobile reserves were being depleted, pulled out and split. The ones nearer to the breach that the Herald had opened were being scrambled to the defence of London-2, to prevent the Migou from conquering the islands. The ones which could not reach in time were instead being formed into hasty battlegroups. The dreaded contingencies, that a Migou sneak attack could open a Northern Front, were removed from the collection of plans that no-one wanted to use, and put in active status.

In Chicago, capital of the New Earth Government, alerts were sounding to all important government and military figures. The Minister of War, Geniveve Aristide, was almost bodily dragged out of bed by the (female) officers sent to fetch her to an emergency Council of Ministers. Contingency sterilisation plans were approved; the missiles had their D-Engines inserted, and the co-ordinates of London-2 loaded in.

The NEG would not permit the sensitive research nor the population of the arcology to fall into the hands of the space-fungi from Yuggoth. In the case of the former, the Migou had stolen the plans for the D-Engine, and who knew what they could do with the knowledge on the Engel or Evangelion Projects stored in London-2, even with standard destruction protocols enacted. For the latter, the Migou could use the millions of human beings as Blanks, victims of strange biochemical and physical alterations which kept them almost the same person as they had been before. Almost the same, were it not for the fact that they were now completely loyal to the Migou, and capable of hiding it, unlike the changes which sorcery could inflict upon a person. Blanks were a terrible menace; comparatively far worse than the Hybrids of the Esoteric Order of Dagon. Deep One Hybrids could be found by a simple genescan; Blanks required a brainscan, and for the subtle changes to be picked up.

Asuka Langley Soryu lounged in a comfy chair, back at the Beweglichkeit Base. For all the technical sophistication of the Evangelion Project, they still hadn't solved the problem of the discomfort which sitting in one place for extended periods of time; it was a relief to get out of the machine, after almost ten hours in it. They hadn't let her change, though, so she was still in the plug suit. The bulky garment, shaped much like her Evangelion, had been hosed down, but it still smelt faintly of LCL.

Although it was very annoying that they weren't telling her what was going on. She had just given them the first front-lines test of an Evangelion, personally saved an entire fortification from Migou Behemoth-class mechas in a way which would have taken multiple Engels, and they had left her out here in the anteroom, locked out from whatever was going on. And Kaji wasn't even here; he wasn't on base, to be suitable impressed by the exploits of Asuka, heroine of the New Earth Government.

Oh, well. Might as well get something productive done.

She pulled out her PCPU, setting the screen to “Reflect”, looking at the face of the now-blooded warrior that stared back at her.

It's good. I'm me... no. Wait. What's that!

She stared furiously at her face. A clump of hairs, right at the front! They weren't hers! They were the hairs of the other girl!

Wincing, she yanked them out, one by one. The clear, wet follicles at their bases glistened at her in the light, mocking her in the way that the other girl corrupted her flesh and made her cease to be.

The door to the room opened. Asuka quickly dropped the hairs, letting them drift to the ground.

“Test Pilot Soryu.” A female Nazzadi Brigadier in full combat armour, stood in the door to the anteroom, with pursed lips. “We have a problem. Now, technically, we can't make you do this, as it is outside the boundaries of your contract with the Ashcroft Foundation, and thus the arrangement where we have access to you...” Her voice was soft, and slightly lilting, her Nazzadi accent notable in the phonetic way that she pronounced certain words.

Asuka smirked. “I'll volunteer.”

Brigadier Timany, of Task Force: Valkyrie made a small noise of satisfaction in her head. The Test Pilot had proved as predictable as the psychological reports that she had been given suggested.

“Good. What I am about to tell you is Code: Ultraviolet information. You're involved with the Evangelion Project. I'm sure that you know what that means.”

Asuka inclined her head. “I do.”

“At exactly 1200 hours today, an entity appeared on the East Coast of the British Isles. Its appearance was concurrent with the destruction of a major lynchpin in our defences. Now the Migou have pulled off their assault on the Eastern Front, and all air units, including multiple Swarm Ships, are converging on this hole. The entity was determined to be a Herald, with the appearance of a black trapezohedron of side roughly 300 metres.”

“And you wish to move me up to take out the Herald,” completed Asuka, her heart swelling.

“No. Task Force: Valkyrie is a heavy assault formation, of brigade scale. With the exception of our power armoured infantry, it consists purely of Engels. And we're hitting a cluster of Swarm Ships before they get out over the North Sea, as they move parallel to our lines.”

Asuka frowned. She wasn't going to get a chance to prove her worth against the Heralds today, as well as the conventional (insofar as the term applies to bio-mechanical monstrosities piloted by creatures that defy classification by Terran taxonomy) Migou units.

“Are we going to be assisted by the Navy? I'm pretty sure that a single Swarm Ship outguns even my Unit 02...”

“It does. We checked,” interjected the Brigadier. “And we're a direct assault formation. There is no naval assistance. They're busy holding off what they can. To be clichéd,” she said, rolling her eyes, “we are the reinforcements. We're taking the fight to them, in the air. Ashcroft technicians are fitting your Evangelion-class with extra A-Pods, to allow it to be carried by a super heavy bomber.”

The woman smiled broadly, her prominent incisors and red eyes glinting in the light.

“We're going to show the damn bugs what chimpanzees do to them.”

~'/|\'~

Toja sat by his sister's bed.

Bleep

Crrrshhh

Bleep

He looked around the room. The walls were cold and sterile, the LED panels in the roof giving a uniform light that left almost no shadows in the room. Everything in the room seemed slightly curved; no sharp angles anywhere. It was like this all the way throughout the Aeon War section of the hospital.

Bleep

Crrrshhh

Bleep

The patients here were all in comas; most of those were medically induced. The Aeon War Ward was there to ensure that the patients were physically fit, not to deal with the metal issues of Aeon War Syndrome. The visitors here were a disparate bunch. A fatigued woman sat next to the bed of a small boy, reddened eyes staring hopelessly at her son's torso. She was not clutching his hand. There were no hands for the grieving woman to clutch. To the left of him, a man sat slumped in a hospital chair, asleep. His hair was cut, short making the metallic implants affixed to the bottom of his skull and the back of his neck clear to see. He sat over a woman, her hands tied down even in the coma, whose bandaged head stared up at the ceiling.

Bleep

Crrrshhh

Bleep

Kany had been like this for five weeks. They'd put her in the coma after what she'd done to herself. She'd... Toja choked up at the thought. No brother should have been forced to see that. And it had all been because she'd looked out of the window. She'd stared at it, that thing that had burst through the arcology wall, and then collapsed. He'd managed to drag her back under the table. When that bit of the ceiling came down, it broke her legs. He'd followed them to the hospital, stayed up all night outside the operating theatre, while they pieced her left leg back together from the mulched flesh and shards of bone that comprised it. They'd given up after seeing how bad it was, and simply amputated and replaced it with a vat-grown new one, but said that the rest of the internal damage had to heal on its own.

When she'd woken up, the next day, she'd screamed until her throat was raw. Mad things, about an empty tomb and a walker in white. She'd said the same words over and over again, words he didn't think she knew. “Metis”. “Hierophancy”. “Trapezohedron.”

And then they'd put her in the Aeon War Ward, when the OIS had come in, after she did it.

They'd told him that there was a good chance that she would never recover, that she'd spend the rest of her life in an Ashcroft Clinic. It was lucky that his father worked for the Foundation, or the costs would have been crippling.

There was a bleeping, as the man to his left got a message on his PCPU. Rapidly, he got up and left. Toja didn't even notice him go, sunk in misery as his sister's chest rise and fall, the machines that she was wired up to confirming that she still lived.

Bleep

Crrrshhh

Bleep

~'/|\'~

Nine vast bio-organic monstrosities flew through the clouds, disturbing the vapour and leaving a shredded passage in their wake. They most resembled, if their appearance was to be put in terms that one who had not seen Migou designs before could understand, gothic spires, their engines a bilious green glow at the back. The concentric rings of organic blades that protruded from the hull and mounted the heavy laser cannons glistened wetly, in what light got to them and in the emanations of the A-Pods of the other ships. Each of these leviathans were six hundred metres in length, and outmassed the Victory-class by a factor of two.

Around these great behemoths flocked lesser ships. The Spinners, domed saucers that would not have looked out of place in films 140 years ago flew around their progenitor ships like seagulls around an yacht, bearing more of the Migou ground units, while the air was thick with Darts, the fighters running escort around the capital ships. This was just the first wave, the group that would have been hitting the north of the European Front. More were converging on the target location.

The sorcerer-scientists that commanded this fleet were desperately afraid that they were to be too late. Vibrations and buzzings that translated to panic filled the air in the command decks, safely secreted away in the centre of the ship. The catastrophe that came from the current correct stellar convergence threatened their civilisation, the galaxy spanning empire of which the representatives on Yuggoth were but a small mining outpost, taking the vast resources of the Kupiter Belt. The forces to engage in this war were but of the volunteers from fifty light-years around. But things had deteriorated rapidly, from their point of view, since just before the arrival of the Hive Ship in a lunar orbit. An avatar of the Dead God was present on this planet, this planet where the Hierophant of the Old Ones, as the uplifted mammals so inaccurately called them, slept. But the empire was massive, and stagnant, and the hierarchy of sorcerer-scientists responded but slowly, distracted as they were by the discovery of the D-Engine. A thing which the uplifted mammals had developed, and they had not. Those Migou who knew of this held this to be the most dangerous thing about the situation; a younger race, wilfully ignorant of the proper order of the universe, who played around with things that they did not, and would not comprehend.

Eventually, consensus was reached, and a message sent out from the core of the flagship, to the pilots quarters. They would be obliged to contact the pathetic tribal organisation of the monkeys, to at least alert them of the threat. It was likely that they did not even know what came upon them. And the creatures could not even comprehend the nature of the universe properly, forcing them to go through a translator-ape. Such beings were not truly sentient.

A smallish NEG monitoring station picked up a signal from the incoming Migou fleet, broadcasting completely unencrypted. This was anomalous in itself; the Migou did not use detectable communications; even Blank-piloted craft were retrofitted with the fungoid species' communication devices, which used something akin to telepathy to communicate. The message was passed on up, all the way to London-2, even as the Migou fleet got closer.

Kora was the one who chose to watch it. The message had been scanned for the nasty things that the Migou could include in their broadcasting, and come up clean, but they still didn't trust it.

The message was a simple two dimensional video. It was set to play, as Kora looked on. A man, who looked to be of Chinese ethnicity was standing in front of the camera, in an immaculate NEG uniform. The overlay on the image noted the individual to be one Chen Gong, MIA on the border between the remnants of China and the Migou-controlled territories which had once been Russia.

“A Blank. Figures,” muttered Kora to himself.

The man swept his hair back with his left hand, and cleared his throat. Those gestures, so unconsciously human, were something that most infiltrators could not do.

“I come here freely on behalf of the species you, incorrectly I might add, call the Migou. They are not monsters. Those savage worshippers of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named are monsters. The horrific cultists that in acts of savage miscegenation interbreed with the degenerate spawn of Dagon and Hydra are monsters. The Migou are not monsters. They do not mean you harm.”

Kora ground his teeth. They often sounded so reasonable, so intelligent compared to the other foes of humanity. It was necessary to remember that they were the ones who had kidnapped humans throughout the ages, and used some of their samples to create his parents as a weapon of war, to kill their own kind, unknowing of how they were used.

“The thing that approaches the city of London-2, however, is most certainly a monster. Understand this. The Migou only came to Earth in the numbers that they did, only created the Nazzadi to save us from ourselves. The fields that we have explored, are exploring and will explore are too dangerous to look into. The D-Engine itself tears a whole into reality, and drains the Orgone, the ruach of the universe itself. We can perform sorcery, although not with the skills that they can, but the emergence of parapsychics threaten our entire species. Too many extra dimensional and other monsters, from when they were forced to occupy the planet the last time, remain for it to be safe for us.

They repeat the offer they made to your governments over and over again. If we but ceased our meddling in things that damage the very fabric of reality by what we do, the Migou will be kind. They understand enlightened self-interest. They are disappointed by how the Nazzadi turned on them, but they will offer them amnesty, too. All we need to do is give up and be accepted into their empire. They are good; they are the first-among-equals of the species under their banner. They will kill the cultists that threaten us, remove the degenerate followers of the Old Ones from our planet, and deal with their servitor races. All we need to do is obey.”

This was the standard propaganda of the Migou. For all they talked of a greater good and first among equals, they could not be trusted in anything that they told you that could not be empirically confirmed from multiple independent sources.

“And one of these great threats that they would protect us from is Daoloth, who even now approaches our great city of London-2. The Migou will kill it for you, remove it from Earth. It will save thirty million of us. Do not let people die, due to your pride and the refusal of your government to accept that they are wrong. The Migou only intend to kill this being, and they are capable of doing so. After they have done so, they will quite willingly welcome you into their empire, and give you access to their technology to replace the crude and damaging ones that we have invented on our own.

However, if you are to continue to refuse, they will be forced to press the offensive. Before that, though, they will not attack us except in self-defence. The whole invasion is to protect life itself, from the depredations that certain beings could inflict upon it. They do not wish to take more life than that which they must.”

Kora pulled out an empty data-sheet, and snapped it in half, slamming it against the table as hard as he could. It made him feel somewhat better, his red eyes glinting with anger at the words that their tool parroted.

How can they lie like that?

The man in the video bowed.

“Remember. They mean us no harm. Please,” and Kora could see actual tears in his eyes, “make the right choice.”

Kora left the safe booth, and put himself through an immediate brain scan, to check for any alterations. The scan detected a slight agitation, but no other changes. The other two Field Marshals were waiting for him outside the medical ward.

He summarised the offer to them, with the occasional interjection of swearing in Nazzadi. The other two had read the transcript by this point, and Lehy, who had herself been made in a vat in Yuggoth, displayed similar degrees of agitation. Jameson, however, remained calm, and was the one to ask the question.

“Do you think that was genuine? I suspect, at the least, the Herald worries them. Enough that they would prefer to destroy it that us; their force deployments seem to confirm that. They'll probably not divert forces,” he said, emphasising the last two words, “to attack us while the Herald remains, although they almost certainly will attack anything that looks like threatening them.”

“That's what I think, too,” replied Lehy, eyes aflame, “because that's good. We certainly have no intention of not attacking them. But if they want to attack Mot, then they're more than welcome to.”

~'/|\'~

Mot, the Fifth Herald, and called by the Migou, Daoloth, held its bulk off the ground. The perfect sacred geometry mocked the weak beings of this world, by stooping to their pathetic attempts to understand the universe, and proclaimed its allegiance. Mot had given itself fully to the Crawling Chaos alone out of the Outer Gods, and thus proudly wore its shape. The perfect blackness, letting no visible light radiate from its majesty, was the resplendence of the incarnation of entropy. The death and noise that it bought was a veritable prayer.

On the ground, one hundred metres beneath its mass, it scorched and burned the ground, as it gave out infrared electromagnetic radiation, even as it flooded the lower spectrum with the words of its prayer. The lower beasts, all of them, would not understand it. It did not matter. It must be done.

Through the cloud layer, the first wave of the Migou fleet dropped, the sheer mass of their forces tearing holes in the clouds, through which the mid-day sun could shine. The first of their number vomited forth a small sun, radiant in its burning whiteness, as it discharged its ventral plasma cannon into the Herald.

Which promptly slammed into the shining mesh that the Herald projected from in front of it. The guard of Yog Sothoth, which the humans so feebly called an AT Field was proof against such weakness. Mot was not those foolish beings which had already fallen to a species which lacked any patronage.

Its edges glowed a brilliant white, focussing onto the nearest vertex to that box of flesh and metal that had profaned its brilliance. From such light came darknesses. Impossibly, a beam that appeared to be of the raw void tore out of the black trapezohedron, its passage through the air marked by a horrific shrieking, and bore down upon the Migou ship.

The beam punched straight through the Swarm Ship, neatly punching through its core. The airborne behemoth, larger than the Herald, faltered and fell, its heart torn out. The six hundred metre ship slammed into the ground, buckling and twisting, its hollowed carcass a useless shell.

One dead. Eight remaining. The rest of the Migou fleet recovered from the shock of the death of a capital ship near instantly, pressing the attack. New suns were born over the barren wasteland that Mot left in its wake, while the twin Null Cannons that each Swarm Ship mounted lanced out. Against such firepower, even the blessed shield that the Herald could call upon weakened, holes poked into its impossible black carapace, marring its geometric perfection. It did not stay its wrath, as more of the stygian beams that it projected lanced out, sweeping through the air in precise arcs which cleansed the Darts, mere annoyances to the Herald, but their destruction was the will of the Outer Gods, and it was their instrument.

Naturally, it was at this point that the NEG decided to open fire with their artillery. Salvos of long range missiles, fired from Heterodyne missile vehicles, joined the shrieking shells of the Jaeger self-propelled guns. The fire was split between the conventional foe, the Migou, and the extra-dimensional threat that had appeared in their country. The human forces had been dosed with the RALCL serum which had proved to be so effective in the previous attack, upon the Fourth Herald. It had been deemed that the negligible side effects noted in the analysis of the test group was worth the protection that it gave against Aeon War Syndrome, and that wager appeared to be paying off. A massed barrage of long range missiles slammed nearly simultaneously into one of the Swarm Ships, fire rippling over the hull as the missiles tore slight gashes out over the thick armour. One slammed into a pair of twinned laser cannons, detonating the D-Capacitors which tore apart the cannon, as the Riemann curvature tensor reasserted itself in the warped domain of the cell.

~'/|\'~

It comes, incarnate in the void it bears,
A false robe of Euclid is what it wears,
Loathsome new stars shall be born on the day,
That the slothful lord of Rome in its way,
Shall make a new sun. He will but fail then,
Death's midwife shall be the strange white maiden.

Abdul Alhazred, in the dread tome known as the Necronomicon.

This verse is conventionally held,in most translations, to be one of the signs that the stars are right. Certainly, the idea that new stars shall be created has been held ever since it was written to be a clear sign of the interference of the Gods in the realm of man, for the power to create a sun is far beyond that which man can ever achieve. This particular verse also contains mention of the entity known as the “Slothful Lord of Rome”. I personally believe it to be the dread soul of the Outer Gods himself, for the depravity of that city in its final days makes it obvious to the impartial observer that Loathsome Nyarlothotep, the Crawling Chaos himself, corrupted the city from the its former glory, as it imposed culture on the world, overthrowing those barbaric races that existed prior to Rome.

Jeremy De'Eath, “Commentaries on the Necronomicon”, First Edition, 1921

It's the nukes, man! They're going to doom us all. They're going to wake up things that really shouldn't be woken up. Goddammit, you fascist pig! You're oppressing up all, making us serve your vile gods! I know you're a member of one of those goddamn cults. People gotta know the truth, man. They gotta know, to stop your conspiracy from dooming us all. I've seen the foreboding tides of the future.

Look out for the motherfucking pale chick! She'll kill us all! She works for the Crawling Chaos! They all do! You all do.

Not your wife, though, you pig-judge. Turns out she liked the free spirit, if you know what I mean. All night long.

### The accused was then silenced, by order of the judge. ###

Court transcript of the trial of one Kenneth Williamson, in 1963, for attempted sabotage of American nuclear launch facilities. Williamson was found to be in compos mentis, and thus was sent to Massachusetts State Penitentary. Williamson was stabbed by another convict one month later, during the middle of the night. The suspect was never caught. The judge in his case later filed for divorce, citing marital infidelity.

Twinkly Star, twinkly star.
Very far, very far.
Because eight kites rock and eight kites roll,
And I'm going to fuck all of your souls,
Cause I'm a star, man, a starman, a nuke in the bed,
And pale-looking chicks like to give me head.
Screw all your robots, they're actually men,
What will be soon, was once long ago then.

Black Star Shine (2031), by “Klock Maker”. A classic example of Lullaby Post-Metal, a popular genre in some youth subcultures in the early 2030s. The band's label was Lyricun Incorporated, a subsidiary company of Chrysalis.

~'/|\'~

Into this chaos, Shinji emerged from the Silo. He immediately threw himself on his face, which produced a noticeable impact, rolling into cover over a few crumbling, old buildings and behind a few more solid ones. The scene was one that would have given an ancient prophet raw madness, as horrors beyond the comprehension of ancient times bloomed and blossomed in fire. Shinji pulled the Charge Rifle they had given him off his back, and flicked it on, the rifle thrumming as it cooled down the barrel, ready to spill forth its beam of relativistic particles.

He raised his head over the building. Two Swarm Ships were already down, gutted by the incredible firepower of the Herald, and the ground was rife with the carcasses of the lesser Migou ships, shards of warped metal, the unnatural flesh burnt away, like a hail of liquid metal.

Good, thought Shinji, ... but it is horrifying. All that death, even if it is of alien fungus that wants to kill us all.

And that could be me, too.

This building is nothing near enough to protect me. But, nothing is around here.

His comms link to HQ flickered. They were trying to talk to him, but the battlefield was flooded with jamming, both from the Migou, who for some reason seemed to expect human forces to attack them when they were trying to kill Mot, and from the Herald itself. He'd lost contact even before he emerged from the Silo.

Back in the London Geocity, the display showing the readout from Unit 01 flickered and jumped. They were getting data in 5 second bursts, then about three seconds of silence. On the jumping image from Zero-One's viewpoint, they saw the corpses of the Migou ships upon the ground. Unit 01 bounded up from its cover, getting behind one of the crashed behemoths ripped from head to tail, even as another leviathan was gutted by the weapons of the Herald, plummeting to Earth.

“He won't be able to do anything against it,” said Ritsuko, her face white. “That monster is taking multiple shots from capital grade weapons. It's having to focus its AT-Field in one direction to stop shots, but the ones that it misses, and the ones that punch through the Imposed Hamiltonian Phase Space are just scratching the body. It's like trying to kill a man in armour with a sharpened fork.”

“We have to pull him back,” stated Misato. “If he can't hurt it, then it's useless throwing Unit 01 away. One of those Swarm Ships could kill him, even with the Herald gone.” She paused, waiting.

The room remained full of the babble of the technical staff, but the one voice that mattered remained silent. Gendo Ikari stared up at the screen, fingers arched and eyes unreadable.

“Representative?” said the Director of Operations, her voice terse.

Up on the screen, the inconsistent data stream show Shinji straighten up from behind his cover. The LAI firing guide converged the variables for him, the target reticle rapidly calculating the adjustments for the spin of the Earth, its magnetic field and the changes in the Weyl and Ricci tensors induced by the presence of dimensional technology.

Shinji fired. The hydrogen “shell” within the weapon was split, electrons torn from protons as the weapon polarised. The electrons were accelerated forwards, towards a positive charge at the end of the barrel, tearing through the atmosphere, ionising the air and creating a temporary area of low pressure as the high energy electrons imparted their momentum to the air, randomising their velocity. The polarity of the barrel then inverted, sending the protons in a quixotic chase for their partners. The stream, curving slightly, slammed into the black fabric of the shining trapezohedron. All this took place in a time period so short that it made a second seem like an age of mankind.

This fearsome force, this pinnacle of the union of human science, of conventional physics and the incredible energy densities provided by the arcane, chipped the Herald. Chipped it like a knife into a hardwood table.

Shinji ducked back on, waiting for the ten second cooling cycle as the rifle dumped the excessive heat that had left it glowing red hot and its internal D-Cells recharged from his main reactors.

Come on, come on.

He didn't have time for a second shot. Another impossible beam, a minuscule flash of light the precursor to the loathsome darkness of the lance stabbed out of the nearest corner of the Herald. It tore through the Swarm Ship, the armour that could withstand barrage after barrage of conventional arms now pierced twice in quick succession by the gift of the Outer Gods that Mot bore.

Shinji screamed, and Unit 01 screamed with him, the armour melting and burning into the unnatural flesh of the Evangelion even as the horrific beam tore through his lower gut and out the other side. The Evangelion screamed, the scream of a dying god even as it pawed and clawed at its armour, trying to tear off the sheets of ceramic that went far beyond the white-hot, so hot that they were invisible. Shinji, racked by pain, let his human instincts control him, diving sideways along the corpse of the Swarm Ship, just trying to get away and make the pain stop. The lance of death still tracked him, copying his movements perfectly. The torn, broken screams made their way to the control room, where activity ceased, the men and women shocked by the agony in the voice.

Yet perhaps it helped, the beam attenuated by its passage through the hull of the Migou vessel. A twin of twin of Null Cannon shots ripped into the unprotected side of the Herald, punching through its black outer layer, and letting strange ropey filaments, fractal intestines that seemed oddly furred by the budding growths that duplicated themselves, passing through impossible angles and each other with the joyful whims of a mad painter. The Herald ceased its beam in Shinji and turned its weapon on the fungii from Yuggoth, a glancing blow disembowelling another of the Swarm Ships. The Migou focussed on that new wound, the aerial vehicles whittling down the beast like children with knives against a boxer.

Back in the control room, Gendo stood up, even as crackling screams filled the air.

“Fire the 5-KT Mortar,” he ordered, his voice steady even as he raised it over the sound of his son.

“Acknowledged,” stated Ritsuko. “Rho-sigma-alpha-5-10-93-53-beta-21. Authorisation: Ritsuko Akagi,”

“Authorisation: Gendo Ikari,” completed the Representaive.

Misato turned to stare at her friend, then at Gendo.

“You fitted Unit 01 with one of those?!” she said, her voice shocked.

Attached to the back of Unit 01, a railgun swivelled and turned, its gyroscopic mount unaffected by the damage to the front or Zero-One's attempts to pull off the molten metal. It hummed, as it lobbed its shell into the air, in a high trajectory. A result of attempts to provide more subtle technology for launching ICBMs, the original project had been a failure due to questionable decisions for a launch vehicle and the energy requirements for trans-continental weapons.

It had, however, proved admirable for the battlefield delivery of tactical nuclear munitions. And for an Evangelion, the definition of “tactical” was a little broader than it might have been for an unarmoured infantryman.

The five-kilotonne clean fusion device detonated in an airbust over the Herald, and a new sun was born over the skies of England, the radiant light of a star washing down on the marred darkness of the Herald Mot and into the bio-mechanical cathedrals of the Migou, tossing their smaller craft out of the sky like child's toys.

And there was a great noise.

And after that, a great silence.

~'/|\'~

[Vehrec]

Something tells me that it's not dead yet. The Migou might be, but not the Herald. I mean, just 5 KT? That won't be enough to kill the D8 of Doom. Or maybe I just hope they'll have to pull out Rei in order to win this one.

And somehow, I think it would have been more horrible if there hadn't been any curving lumpy bits inside it. Just more strange geometries and no anatomy to speak of. A hypnotic fractal interior that breaks minds and reveals the secrets of the 7 unseen dimensions of space and time.

Nice way to quote Halo there, the Covenant and Mendicant's various rantings are really useful for a lot of these things, aren't they? 'Welcome back to the stone age, vermin. Welcome home.'

[Academia Nut]

Yeah, now that I think about it, Lovecraftian monstrosities come in two flavours: the worst things trawled out of the deepest parts of the ocean mashed together, or weird, alien geometries. Da d8 o' Doom definitely delineates (I'll stop now) into the latter category. Perhaps the worst thing to be within there is nothing at all. If it has guts and can bleed, then they can kill it, but how do you kill nothing itself?

[EarthScorpion]

Nope, that's really not it for the Herald. I mean, actually, Part 1 covers the time period up to about... um... 1:59 into Episode 6 of the canon Eva. Including the opening sequence.

Yes, I did spend 8622 words in to get up to the point that it took less than 2 minutes of animation + title sequence to get up to.

Part of the reason is that the NEG military is n times more competent/ able to hurt things than the canon Eva military, and thus I couldn't just let the Herald right into London-2, to start digging, because they would not have let it do that. Either they would get the kill (which, admittedly, wouldn't be that bad, but I like the Ramiel fight), or I let them get chewed up by the Herald, and smashed by the Migou when they're weak. Moreover, I wanted to give Asuka some awesome (and I really do hope that you find the parts in Part 2 to be sufficiently awesome for her) before I let her loose into the mental blender that is the canon timeline. And, yes, they will have to pull out Rei. The second half is much closer to canon (well, apart from the Asuka bits).

Indeed, Vehec, you might consider the use the nuke to be like shooting yourself in the foot to kill a man-eating plant wrapped around your foot when you're being chased by ravenous wolves. If you can interpret that metaphor; I'm not exactly sure what it means, but I feel that it's appropriate. The things protruding aren't meant, exactly, to be guts. They're more like the attempts of the shape to remain geometrical. It can't repair itself to its previous smoothness, so each facet buds another shape off it, smaller but similar, to reconnect to the thing as a whole. The lumpy curvyness was an attempt to explain how the rough edges make irregular attempts to go fractal.

[Academia Nut]

I suppose given that description they could be 3-D manifestations of macroscopic branes

[barricade]

Sounds like a Mandelbrot pattern. The D8'o'Doom, with a few holes in its side, is filling in said holes with smaller, and smaller, and infinitely smaller 'copies' of its base shape - a Tetrahedron. Only each one is ever so slightly...flawed, compared to the original.

From a mathematical POV, thats nothing really special.
From the POV of its a Herald of one of the Star Gods/Great Old Ones, and just where those miniature copies are coming from (to say the least of where they're going) the minds of men start shattering....

A mathematically perfect construct, that one damaged in the slightest, becomes the essential avatar of the Chaos theory.

[Aranfan]

Barricade, Mot got retconed into a Trapezohedron, EarthScorpion just forgot to change the mention in chapter five.

[EarthScorpion]

Barricade, Mot got retconed into a Trapezohedron, EarthScorpion just forgot to change the mention in chapter five.

Yeah, that was a bit of a screw up. I actually thought that a trapezohedron (a word not accepted by spellcheckers) was just an archaic Lovecraftianism for tetrahedron. After all, the entire point was to reference the Shining Trapezohedron with this. When I found out that it wasn't a tetrahedron, I looked at the actual definition, and was even a little more pleased, because this looks very similar, but not quite the same as the D8 of DOOM!, which fits in with the way that the Heralds are slightly different from the Angels.

On the other hand, barricade's point stands exactly, in a better way that I managed to put it. I was exactly looking for a way of making a Mandelbrot-style fractal from the wounds, which has... progressed by the time it is next encountered, and the way that this devotee of Nyarlothotep is making an emergent fractal chaotic pattern from order just shows that my subconscious obviously attended the same training school of "Helpful, unconscious assistance" as Terry Prattchet's did, with the emergence of Ronnie Soak.

Although a D4 would be a more dangerous tool against a mecha than a D8. D4s are evil, nasty painful buggers that hurt like hell to stand on.

[Academia Nut]

There's a reason one of the nicknames for d4s is 'caltrops'.

But yes, math, driving the uninitiated insane for centuries now. As for the initiated... well, we were probably crazy to begin with.