But Loyal to Their Own

[TabascoOne]

Hello to all the ladies and gentlebeings in the audience! I've been a lurker and very occasional poster back for longer than I remember, before losing track of the board for several years. I recently got back in the habit, and so to celebrate, I have a piece of fic.

I hope you all like it.

--------------------------

//Beethoven "Piano Sonata No.14, in C-sharp Minor 'Moonlight', Op.27"//

The holographic tank taking up the center of the massive room showed the situation in precise, clinical detail. Blue blocks representing elements of the United Nations 5th Infantry Division (Mechanized) were tagged with status codes giving their general condition at a glance. Makoto Hyuuga's glasses eerily reflected the display as another block disappeared.

"This is useless!" an anonymous general snarled. "Have first, third and fourth battalions fall back to the city perimeter, second and fifth cover before following."

"Sir," Hyuuga acknowledged crisply before speaking urgently into the boom mike of his headset, knowing what had to be coming. The icons obeyed, half disengaging and pulling back, then the others in a leapfrog pattern for the five kilometers to their new positions.

'Today! It would -have- to be today!' Makoto thought semi-hysterically. 'My CO is on some damned errand, our only pilot is wounded, and of course this all starts not thirty minutes from the end of my shift!' "Sir, the blast zone is clear," he reported far more calmly than he felt.

On the surface the men and vehicles of the Fifth found what cover they could, hunkering down facing away from the blast.
Moments later, a searing flash heralded a sickening heave of the ground beneath their feet. Officers and noncoms chivvied their charges back into the gritty wind for a coup-de-grace, should it be needed. In spite of the distraction of the frantic activity, few were able to keep from glancing every few seconds at the slowly dispersing wall of dust obscuring their enemy.

Second by second its condition became clear and, at last, its observers knew despair.

"No effect, repeat no effect," Hyuuga reported as a brave, foolhardy Orca VTOL pilot who had gotten far too close was swatted from the sky, probably hoping to find some trace of significant damage.

Battered, blackened, and generally the worse for wear the Angel certainly was, but its combat effectiveness was in no way impaired.
While cannon and rocket fire slammed against it in a fiery wave, its bone white mask reflected its apparent impassivity while it powered up its chest mounted beam weapon, responsible less than an hour ago for decimating the battalion of main battle tanks that met it on the beach. A moment later, the green and white monstrosity scoured a company of light tanks from the mountainside in a blaze of light.

"That's done it," a colonel groaned as the remaining blue icons began a headlong retreat. Dismissing the small fry, the creature turned its attention to systematically bombarding the city defenses.

"Defense grid to cover the withdrawal," the general ordered as he slumped in defeat, the muffled shockwaves of the bombardment penetrating the command center's walls.

Not far away, a pair of dark blue eyes stared wide with shock and fear into a single one of red hazed with pain.

At the blood smeared across one hand, and now pooling on the steel deck.

At the monster silently observing the tableau.

Furry Pigeon Productions presents:

But Loyal To Their Own: An Evangelion Elseworlds

Neon Genesis Evangelion characters copyright Gainax

Full Metal Panic! characters copyright Shouji Gatou

Han Fei, Samuel Roberts copyright the author

All characters most definitely used without permission

Chapter 1 - You May Not be Interested in War...


Nerv-2 Stuttgart
Federal Republic of Germany, European Union
July 11, 2015
7:00AM Local Time

Ryoji Kaji was a man with a mission. As he strode through NERV-Stuttgart's halls of Institutional Drab, his dress shoes clacking softly on the tile floor, the chronically unshaven man reflected that really he had no cause for complaint. After all, unlike many of his assignments, this one was simple, straightforward, and refreshingly free of subtext. That train of thought lasted only until he reached his destination. For as he reached for the door he couldn't help but remember that, like all too many of his assignments, this one's devils were firmly entrenched in the details.

Detail one was more commonly referred to as Asuka Soryu-Langley, though she would, whether asked or not, hasten to add that she was also the Second Child and designated pilot of Evangelion Unit Two. Currently, she was clad in a sports bra and sweatpants and giving a graphic demonstration to a heavy bag of just what she thought of it.

Also present was her trainer Lieutenant Gert Stuben, a tall, almost gaunt, brown haired young man, currently resting against one wall while keeping a firm green eye on the proceedings. Ryoji shared a glance with him as he moved to stand nearby, pausing a moment to watch with a private, paternal smile. Though not yet fifteen, Asuka moved with none of the awkwardness of many girls her age, every one of the strikes and kicks were delivered with the smooth precision of long practice. Upon completing her set, she let out a breath as she brushed away the auburn bangs stuck to her forehead, and turned to face Stuben before breaking into a broad smile.

"Mr. Kaji! What brings you by?" she called happily and trotted over.

"I need an excuse?" he grinned back

"No, but you usually have one anyway. Spill," she commanded.

"If you insist. Gert, I need to borrow your student for a while."

"No problem sir, we were nearly finished." He nodded to the two of them as he collected his clipboard and departed.

He had no sooner cleared the room than Asuka sidled up to Ryoji and taken his arm for her own.

"So, where to?" she purred.

"Conference room 3," Kaji replied, completely ignoring Asuka's disappointed pout. He produced a disc with his free hand. "I've got something you'll find very interesting."

Tokyo 2
Nagano Prefecture, Japan
11:30AM Local time

A fly on the wall would be getting an earful. A description of the previous day's events had been presented on the projector screen affixed to one wall, temporarily covering the darkly lacquered wood paneling. A slim fingered hand, adorned only with a gold wedding band, took up a sheet of paper from the matching table and read out:

Repairs to Tokyo 3 defense grid: 20 billion yen

Repairs to Tokyo 3 civilian structures: 12 billion yen

Repairs to Eva Unit One: 7 billion yen

"This on top of medical and disaster relief costs we have yet to begin to calculate, not to mention last week's damage to Unit Zero."

The speaker replaced her copy of the accounting of the previous day's battle on the blotter before her and adjusted the reading glasses adorning her cool, aristocratic features and chocolate brown eyes. "This state of affairs cannot continue, Director Ikari." The woman with the uncanny grasp of the obvious was none other than Consuela Ibanez, Secretary General of the United Nations.

"The unexpected costs of this operation, over and above the already extensive allocations to Nerv, are simply not sustainable. We could quite literally feed a nation out of these expenses." The Representative from Brazil, Pedro Silva, added. "True, we are no longer in the lean years of the first decade, but there are limits. Many nations, my own included, have yet to fully recover from the Second Impact." His bass voice rose as his expression darkened. "It does us little good to sink untold billions into your hole in the ground while the rest of humanity suffers for it!"

If Gendo Ikari was at all moved by the passion in the last statement, he certainly didn't let it show through the iron mask of his normal expression.

"Indeed," he intoned before pausing, as if for thought. "And yet I cannot help but believe that the very reason for the current incompleteness of the Evangelion production models, the lack of effective weapons for the city defense grid, and the poor to nonexistent cooperation Nerv received prior to this incident, are the result of many nations', yours included, seeming inability to look beyond their own petty desires." Gendo's voice had by this point dropped to barely above a whisper, yet none had any difficulty making out the chill beneath his next words. "It does us -no- good whatsoever if we sink those untold billions into building warm and happy cities for the Angels to annihilate without opposition."

Silva exploded from his chair, faster than his bulk would seem to allow, red faced and readying a blistering reply when Ibanez's voice cracked like a whip across the table. "-Mister- Silva." He turned to her, agape, as she continued. "You will -return- to your seat." He gave a glare of his own in reply, but subsided.

"Gentlemen, this is hardly the time to rehash old grudges" Ibanez quirked a tiny smile "that's what historians are for." A wave of polite laughter swept the room as the tension dropped. "We have other matters to attend to. Director Ikari, Nerv's latest estimates place units two through seven over six months from completion. Is there any way to accelerate the schedule?"

Gendo folded his hands on the table and replied "Yes, my staff believes that our best option is to reallocate labor and materials to three of the units. I concur with their recommendation, better some Evas now than all of them too late."

"See to it then. I assume the search for pilots for the machines is complete?"

"Yes, we will be contacting them shortly. They will begin training by the end of the week." The other council members nodded in approval at this, Gendo remained still.

"Then that concludes the morning's business, meeting adjourned" Over the scrape of chairs on carpet, the General Secretary continued "Thank you for your time gentlemen, ladies. I'll expect you all at 2:00. Director, please remain a moment."

She waited until the doors closed behind the last of the councilors before speaking. "All posturing aside, Silva's position has considerable support, though the fact that the Angels have proven to be a clear and present danger after all will help." She let her works sink in a moment before continuing. "What will certainly -not- is another incident of this magnitude. We can find the funds to cover your needs somewhere, but you need to deliver. Am I clear?"

Gendo calmly adjusted his glasses and replied "Perfectly."

"Excellent." She smoothly shifted mental gears to her next line of questioning. "As I understand it, Unit Zero is unsuitable for combat.
I'm sure your son is a fine pilot or you wouldn't have chosen him.
However, he is only one boy. How quickly can the selected production models be ready?"

Gendo frowned thoughtfully. "Even allowing for the teams from the other units assisting with assembly, there are certain processes which cannot be safely accelerated. I would estimate eight to ten weeks before the furthest along units are combat ready."

"Two months," she sighed, before squaring her shoulders and continuing briskly. "Very well, we'll simply have to hope Shinji can handle Them for that long."

United Nations Atlantic Fleet Headquarters
Reykjavik, Iceland
July 13, 2015
7:00AM Local Time

The commotion in his outer office was expected. Not exactly welcome, but comfortable in its own way. Colonel Alexei Kalinin ceased typing at his terminal to listen more closely, one corner of his mouth twitching upward on his weathered face while one eyebrow climbed towards his graying hairline. In over ten years of friendship, Kalinin had never heard Melissa repeat the same bit of invective twice in a single tongue-lashing; he was hoping she could keep the streak alive.

He wasn't disappointed. While his clerk stammered on the edge of tears over the intercom that Sergeant Major Mao was here to see him, all fifty-five kilos and generous measurements of the lady herself were barging through the door with a full head of steam.

Pausing only for a quick salute, she began: "Sir! The Sergeant Major would like to thank the Colonel for his consideration. The Sergeant Major was not aware that vacations at Nerv's Massachusetts facility were such a hot commodity, sir!" she continued in the same parade ground voice, "She was further unaware that one was superior to a week in New York, and would wish to be enlightened as to in what ways this is so, sir!"

'Ah, she's in one of -those- moods,' Kalinin thought, before replying with equal formality "I would be glad to, Sergeant Major. At ease, please." He considered exactly how to handle this for a moment, before finally deciding to take a page from his questioner's book.
"First, we can start by 'cutting to the chase' as it were. You know I wouldn't cancel your leave unless it was important. Believe it or not,
this may be the most important assignment you'll ever receive. I assume read the packet you received with your orders?"

"Yes sir. Spend the next few months turning teenage apes into pilots of some sort. Same thing I do every day."

"Then it should be no challenge," Kalinin agreed, getting an icy glare for his trouble. "And be honest Melissa, you'll arrive in Albany on Monday, have yet another fight with your family on Tuesday, spend the next two days in a bar as a result, and fly back Friday night. What part of that can you not do by phone from Boston?"

Melissa grimaced, acknowledging the point.

"It's not much, but I can sweeten the pot a little. For the duration of your assignment you can draw a hardship bonus, so at least you'll have a little extra to throw around on your next leave."

"Whenever that comes," Melissa grumbled. "I can't say I like it, but what the hell, its not the first time for that by a long shot."

"Glad to hear it. One further matter." Kalinin lifted several files from the desk corner they'd perched upon. "Nerv's security on the pilots seems fairly good, but the lack of a close in presence concerns Admiral Bordas. We've selected these candidates based on their age and fitness reports."

"But you'd like someone a little closer to the ground to take a look," Melissa finished.

"Precisely. As you know, the pilots are all middle schoolers, so try to select people who have a chance of blending in."

"Can do, I'll have a talk with a few of the gunnys before I go. Will tomorrow work?"

"Perfectly. I can provide a goat if that will speed the selection process," he deadpanned.

Melissa's eyes twinkled. "You know better than that, Colonel. Only on the new moon. If that's all?"

He rose to see her out. "Yes, though I'll thank you to apologize to my assistant on your way back."

Melissa snorted. "Not a chance, sir. Wherever you fished out that jackass from, I say throw him back. First thing he says when I walk in is that the Strip is three blocks south of here."

"I see." Kalinin's eyes gleamed. "Is he still able to type, or do I need a replacement for the next little while?"

"Oh, he's fine. Physically."

"Good enough. Give my best to Kurtz"

"Will do." She saluted again before closing the door behind her.

Kalinin reseated himself behind his desk. Overall, he was fairly pleased. He had been fully prepared to simply reiterate his orders and send her on her way, but there was something to be said for trying the carrot before applying the stick.

Hong Kong Special Administrative Zone
People's Republic of China
July 14, 2015
6:45AM Local Time

It was, Nami reflected, just one of those days not worth getting out of bed for. The day itself wasn't the culprit. Granted, it was early yet, the sun still not quite above the horizon. However, Hong Kong's city center could already be seen, its skyscrapers already gleaming in the morning sun. She knew perfectly well that the city was a reproduction, the 'real' Hong Kong was currently under several dozen meters of seawater, but why quibble? Even so, pretty as the day was, it didn't bode on being a pleasant one. She had a sense about these things.

It had begun not half an hour before with a phone call from General Tien's office for Dad to begin packing for reassignment. As Nami and her sister Tianhao had begun that endeavor, he had reported to the division commander for orders. Five minutes ago he had returned, and then the real fun began.

"Are they totally insane?" her sister finally asked in dawning horror. "Where on earth is Karamay?!"

"Somewhere in the northeast; where exactly I have no idea," her father responded. "And before you ask, no I don't know why I'm being assigned there." He shrugged. "Ours not to reason why, after all."

Tianhao turned to Nami. "I wish you luck, my roommate is from that area, nothing but high desert and the odd oil well as far as the eye can see."

"Your compassion is overwhelming," Nami replied with a sour grimace. "I'm sure you'll try to keep us in mind while you're living it up in the capital."

Her father's chuckle reverberated through his square frame. "That's all I know right now. But, you still have packing to do, and I have transfer forms to deal with."

"Fine, fine. We'll get on it, Father." Tianhao replied as she herded her sister back into their partially completed room.

"Good girl. I'll be back by noon." And with that, Jiang Lin was gone.

Silence reigned for a few moments as the sound of the door closing faded, before Nami resumed the task at hand. "Sis, I think you'd better do the closet, I can't get up there." She didn't bother to glance behind her, knowing exactly what she'd find. "And quit smirking like that!"

"Me, smirk at you? I'd never do such a thing, -little- sister."

"We can't all be overdeveloped boy magnets," Nami snarled back, tying her long dark hair back into a ponytail before she got down to work.

Tianhao smiled sympathetically. "You'll find out yourself soon enough."

"The day can't come soon enough. I'm sick of being mistaken for an elementary school kid," Nami muttered as she opened their shared dresser.

Silence returned for an encore, before Nami spoke once again. "So, who'd Dad piss off I wonder."

"Who knows," Tianhao groaned. "There's a good reason why all the universities I applied for are in Beijing. I've had my fill of postings to the middle of nowhere."

Nami gave her sister her best wounded look. "And so abandoning me to my fate. You're a real sweetheart."

"What are you complaining about," Tianhao's muffled voice answered from the depths of their closet. "you -like- traveling, seeing the world and all that."

"Well sure, but with you gone who's going to keep me company" Nami asked plaintively.

"You mean cover for your shenanigans." Tianhao replied, tossing a skeptical look over one shoulder.

"Well, if you want to be blunt about it, that too." Nami agreed, focusing on folding one of her school uniforms.

Tianhao shook her head. "Look sis, I know you never learned the whole curiosity/cat thing, but for my sake, if not yours, keep a lid on it please?" She continued in a firmer voice "One near miss with the MPs is plenty."

Nami looked up to meet her sister's eyes, who held them a long moment. She nodded. "Ok, I'll behave."

"All I can ask."

Oklahoma City
Oklahoma, United States of America
July 15, 2015
1:00PM Local Time

A Lockheed P-38L Lightning howled through the skies above a Europe riven by war, pursued by an example of its arch nemesis, the Messerschmitt Bf 109F. The Lockheed exploited its superior speed to pull away from its foe, while sideslipping to dodge furious bursts of gunfire. Finally, its pilot felt confident enough in his lead to turn upon his tormentor and even the odds. A graceful Immelmann maneuver placed him for a head to head pass, seconds later there was a winner and a loser.

Samuel Roberts keyed his microphone. "Lucky shot, Tom."

The grin of his opponent was practically audible. "There is no luck, only skills."

"Say that to my windshield, Mr. 'Area Denial' shooter."

"I've said it before, precision is overrated. It just takes too long to line up shots like you do."

Sam leaned back in his battered wooden chair and took his feet off the rudder pedals. "Funny, I remember that precision bein' pretty useful once against that spray and pray -you- call gunnery. When was that?" Sam grinned and replied over Tom's grumbling, "Oh yeah...last Tuesday."

"I was distracted!" Tom protested.

"I'd say that too. Up for 'nother game?"

"Nah, Kim's wedding's at two. Mom's been glaring at me these last couple minutes."

"Heh, so today's the day then. I'll catch ya later."

"See ya."

Sam closed Warbirds V and sat back up in his chair before his computer, enjoying a nice stretch as he idly wondered when Gramps would get home. He'd promised a trip to the range if he made it in by 1:30, but so far no luck. In search of entertainment, sustenance, or even both, Sam wandered into the kitchen, stretching to his full, though moderate, height, and browsed the selections a moment before deciding a little music might be in order as well. His musings were interrupted by the doorbell.

"Mike, get that will ya."

"Why?"

"Because," Sam patiently explained, "you're five steps from the door."

Mike, little brother extraordinaire, lurched to his feet and replied. "Yes, master. Igor obey, Igor answer door for master..." as he hobbled to the front door. Sam ran a hand through a sheaf of dishwater blond hair and wondered if maybe that B grade horror movie marathon they'd had was such a good idea after all, before finally deciding on a glass of orange juice.

His mother's puzzled voice squelched that particular line of thought. "Sam? Someone here for you."

Questions were already forming in his mind as he heeded his mother's call. He entered as a plump, forty year old brunette finished introducing herself as Sandra Roberts, and asked if the stranger cared for a drink. A youngish man with short dark hair and a lean, almost acerbic face awaited him, clad in some sort of tan and red uniform, and bearing what looked like a captain's bars on his lapels.

The visitor rose and extended a hand. "Hello, Samuel. I'm Captain John Sparrow, and I have an offer I believe you'll be interested in hearing."

Sam pondered as he lay in bed that night. There really was what his friend Rob liked to call a 'binary solution set.' He could refuse,
no one would blame him. The good captain could simply make the same pitch to some other fool, as he'd very likely done before he came here.
He'd be home, and safe, and so would everyone else, Sam knew perfectly well the world wouldn't perish without him. He'd be more than happy to keep up on the war via CNN, just like everybody else.

But. There was always that nagging little but. After all, hadn't he been taught, practically since he could walk, that you don't make your own problems someone else's problems? That you get help if you need it, but at the end of the day it's up to you to get the job done? He had very clear memories of how Mom and Gramps' punishments had always been worse when he'd tried to pass the buck, and only recently had he begun to understand why. How then, to justify stepping aside and dumping this mess on the next guy in line?

And then there was that little voice. Deep down, but just barely audible, one that seemed to whisper, 'You always wanted to know if you had what it takes, if you're good enough. Here's your chance.'

Finally, in the small hours of the morning, he made up his mind. If he wanted to be able to look at himself in the mirror, then his decision was all but a forgone conclusion.

He raised his head from his arms and spoke to the darkened room. "I've gotta be the biggest fool alive."

Karamay
Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, People's Republic of China
July 16, 2015
6:50AM Local Time

Han was pleasantly surprised. From the briefing material's description, he'd expected to arrive at some sort of destitute outpost of civilization amidst the wilderness. There was plenty of destitute wilderness in evidence, to be sure, but the city was, if not a bustling metropolis at least moderately interesting.

It was then unfortunate that in this interesting city he was also living in the most interesting of times. The last few days had been a case in point, leading up to a conversation his last night at home that had been unpleasant to say the least. The crux of the issue was that while he was a good patriotic boy, childhood spent overseas or not, his mother had no particular desire to send him off to be cannon fodder. His father sympathized, as one might expect from both a career diplomat and concerned parent, but had argued the contravening position that, like it or not, as one of the few who could pilot an Eva, his duty called. Han had stayed out of it as much as he could, especially once the name calling started, if for no other reason than his suspicion that if his parents refused the decision would be taken out of their hands. Fortunately(?) it hadn't come to that, he was here under his own power after all.

'Here' was currently a fenced compound just outside the city, complete with razor wire, guard towers, and men with submachine guns who didn't appear to mind the thought of using them. With these cheerful thoughts in mind, Han watched as his bus was waved through the gate into the Nerv complex. Inside, it reminded him of some similar facilities he'd lived in or near over the years, a bustle of activity purposeless to outsiders, but having the greatest importance to those involved, a sea of uniforms both of an unknown but mostly tan colored variety as well as the more familiar mottled green People's Liberation Army fatigues. The latter looked to comprise most of a motor rifle brigade if the patch of the base he viewed was representative.

His sightseeing was brought short by the jerk of the bus halting at its assigned terminal. Han massed about average for his age, but it was concentrated in a frame somewhat shorter than usual as well. It made maneuvering through the adults squeezing through the aisle to disembark a small challenge, but he managed.

That left him on a rapidly emptying roofed platform, thoughtfully set one step above the road on stilts. 'Well, now what?' he wondered, brushing an errant strand of hair from his forehead. The sound of someone clearing his throat caused Han to turn and find a squat, grim looking man in one of those odd uniforms. After ascertaining that he was indeed 'Mister Fei' the man introduced himself as Sergeant Jin and requested he follow him.

"Where exactly are we going?" Han asked as they climbed aboard a jeep-equivalent he wasn't familiar with.

"Right now, headquarters," Jin replied as the jeep's engine coughed to life. "I'm to see to your quarters assignments, then we meet your comrade over at the Eva hangars for orientation. They'll provide you and she with a schedule for the rest of your time here."

Quarters assignments proved refreshingly easy, he was assigned to a dorm on post, and without further ado Sergeant Jin parked his vehicle outside what had to be one of the largest buildings Han had ever seen. In height it was no more than middling tall by most standards, and resembled a ribbed cylinder half buried in the ground lengthwise. But by sheer floor space it was enormous, the doors alone looked the size of a soccer field from his vantage.

Han mentally whistled. When that Nerv rep said -giant- robot, he was obviously serious.

Jin led him inside through a human sized door next to the main doors, and for a time any efforts at conversation would have been drowned out by the cacophony of a factory at full output. The sergeant finally stopped at an office near the middle of the cylinder up against one wall, and motioned Han inside before taking his leave.

Once the door closed, the sound level immediately dropped to something bearable, and he took in the new surroundings. The room was obviously an office, a sturdy, utilitarian steel desk and chair taking up one side of the room, with a computer terminal perched on one corner.
Before the desk were two chairs, one currently occupied by a nervous looking girl near his age. Han could relate. Two men were behind the desk. The large, balding man glanced up upon his entry and distractedly gestured for him to sit as he tapped at the terminal's keyboard. The other calmly observed from his position standing against the wall. The seated man continued a few moments, before apparently finishing.

"Mister Fei, I am Li Yao, director of Nerv-Karamay," the balding man began. "I'd like to introduce Miss Lin, your counterpart from Hong Kong." He gestured to the girl occupying the other seat. "The two of you will be training together in the operation of the Evangelion units under construction at this facility. Currently, Eva-06 is on an accelerated schedule, due to be completed in sixty days. The two of you will ship out with it to Japan at that time." He gave a small smile. "So study hard. I'll be checking up on the two of you from time to time, but for now I leave the rest in the capable hands of your training officer, Mr.
Tzu. Good luck."

The man standing to the director's right spoke "If you'll both come with me, we'll take a quick tour before we begin our more serious business."

NERV-3
Massachusetts
United States of America
July 16, 2015
8:30AM local time

"Well, it certainly looks the part of a secret base," Tessa mused as she waited, twisting the end of her ash blonde braid through her fingers. Her small boned, rather pretty face gazed upwards, pale gray eyes squinting a little at the distance. Above her rose a mid sized grassy hill, with a massive set of double doors built incongruously into the south side. Sitting against the chain link fence ringing the base of the hill and dividing it from the small town growing near its slopes, she could see how it could easily be mistaken for an abandoned facility from the bad old days.

She checked her watch again for the nth time, and felt her patience fray a little more.

Finally, the sounds of a small gas engine drifted from the road leading to the doors, followed soon enough by an open topped white golf cart. Tessa rose from her spot, dusted off the seat of her jeans and twitched her bright green t-shirt straight, before shouldering her duffel bag as it braked to a stop at the gate. Only then did she get a good look at the driver of the vehicle.

She was in short, stunning. In spite of a probable age in her late forties, the driver possessed big, almond shaped, clear light brown eyes, a face that in spite of the crow's feet beginning to form around the eyes was still beautiful. Well framed by the slightly windblown short black pageboy she wore her hair in, and with a figure that was both tall for an Asian woman and made Tessa feel downright inadequate, she lamented silently 'where is the justice?'

"Teletha Testarossa? I'm Sergeant Major Mao. Sorry about the wait, we're all running a little behind today. If you'll come with me"
The barrier raised to let her through, and Tessa took a seat next to the attractive NCO.

"So, what's the plan?" Tessa asked as they motored back up the hill.

"Mostly settling in and orientation this morning. Afterwards, the fun begins," Mao grinned. "I hope you packed your running shoes."

She hadn't packed running shoes. After all, the Evas were controlled by the pilot's mind. Logically, the only physical part of piloting should be running to and boarding the machine, Tessa had thought. Right?

Wrong.

Unfortunately, one of the techs wore her shoe size and was just -delighted- to lend her a pair for the day. Even better, the road leading from the gate to the main doors was almost exactly a kilometer long. And the trip back up the 30 grade was proving far, far worse than the trip down.

'I'll have to thank 'Technician First Class Launders' later. With a brick.' Tessa would've gasped, if she'd had the breath for it. She had to settle for thinking it extra loud instead. It helped a little, for a moment she could almost forget the burning in her calves, and the scrapes on her knees, and the bruises on her?

Mao's megaphone enhanced voice boomed from the top of the hill. "You'd -better- start moving your ass, Roberts! I saw my Gramma go faster than that at her funeral!"

Speaking of, if she was going to be run like a sled dog and trained to save the world, it would've been nice to have a little better scenery to share the experience with. Oh, Sam was cute enough, in a lanky, 'boy next door' sort of way. But come on, surely they could've found a more heroic looking specimen somewhere. It could be worse, though, he was at least obviously male. She'd thought the kid piloting in Japan right now was another girl for a moment until she deciphered the name.

"At least I wasn't the one who actually asked what 'her' name was," she snickered, approaching the top of the hill.

Mao paused her stopwatch, frowning at the reading, as Tessa staggered past nearly a minute behind Sam's own less than stellar time.
"Ok. Chiclets, you have some work to do. We're not trying to make Marines out of you, but this is just pitiful."

Tessa raised up slightly from her currently doubled over position.
"Ma'am, may I ask a question?" she gasped.

"Certainly, just don't expect an answer." Mao responded.

Tessa blinked momentarily, and then intercepted her train of thought. "I was told the Evas were mentally controlled."

"They are," Mao agreed.

"Then why do we need to do this?" Tessa asked in frustration. "We're not living a mile from the launch bays or something are we?"

"No, but exercise brings improvements in balance and coordination, important when piloting a 700+ ton war machine, yes?" Mao queried pleasantly.

They nodded.

"Also, it builds discipline and fortitude, both of which you'll need all you can get when the time comes." Her previously friendly, lecturing tone sharpened to a far harder thing as she continued, "Care to guess what the final reason is?"

Sam took the plunge after a moment. "Because you say so, ma'am?"

"Bingo. Take a couple minutes breather, and then this round I'd better see fifteen seconds off your times or you -won't- like what I have planned for our next activity."

Sam's mouth opened fractionally before he apparently thought better of his response, the two chorused resignedly. "Yes, ma'am."

NERV-2
Stuttgart
July 17, 2015
11:30AM local time

Asuka Soryu-Langley was in a snit. Normally this wouldn't be cause for comment, but this morning she was outdoing herself. As she stormed through the entrance to the beige corridors of the NERV dormitory containing her foster parent's apartment, she seethed at the response to her perfectly reasonable requests.

"Murphy was an optimist," she muttered. "First, the enemy that I've -only- spent the last eight years of my life training to fight has finally arrived...on the other side of the world." Asuka continued as she entered the stairwell and stomped upwards, her red skirt swirling around her knees. "Worse, the weapons designed to combat said enemies are at best two months from completion, never mind being operational." She stomped a little harder, causing her white short sleeved blouse to bounce intriguingly to any onlookers. "Worse still, what weapons are available, however inferior they might be, I can't use!" she snarled, her voice amplified by the echoes from the concrete shaft. "But get this!
Those weapons -are- usable by both my comrade in arms/arch rival, and now some yokel they pulled off the street!" She nearly shrieked the last sentence as she arrived at the landing for her floor. "And where the hell did -he- come from anyway?! Barbie is the only Japanese pilot on record! Alles nicht in ordnung!" (Everything is not in order!) she proclaimed perhaps the most damning indictment of the situation a German could give. "And so, here I am, twiddling my thumbs at home while the newbie gets fawned over like some sort of hero," she finished bitterly. "And just to top it all off, the Powers That Be In Charge have decreed that 'the First Child and the Operations Director are more than capable of giving the new pilot adequate instruction,'" she quoted to herself in a sing-song voice. "Katsuragi maybe, but that wind up toy? Ha!" she scoffed. "They'd be better off using a Speak n' Spell."

Finally, she arrived at her destination, and after a few deep,calming breaths, found the door unlocked and entered.

"Asuka?" queried a female voice.

"Yes?" she responded chirpily.

"Just in time. I need a head of cabbage, would you run to the store please?"

"Yes, Hilde," came the cheerful response.

"Good girl. There's a five Euro bill in my purse, I'll even let you keep the change."

Asuka twirled a finger above her head in lethargic celebration, safe from detection. "Back in a few," she called as she exited.

"Tell me how your meeting went when you get back," Hilde called after her.

'I don't think I can do that in words you'd approve of,' Asuka snorted.

Cabbage in hand, Asuka entered the kitchen twenty minutes later. She was met by a tall, slender blonde in her mid forties with a pleasant,
open face, her green eyes surrounded by what observers described as 'character lines' if they knew what was good for them. "Thank you, dear. So, what happened?"

Asuka dropped into one of the chairs surrounding the small table. "Exactly what I hoped wouldn't," she said with bone deep bitterness. "I am not to be assigned to the Chinese, American, or Japanese branches. I am to sit here like a good little girl and wait my turn," she pouted.

"I admit I can't see what good you could do in China, you not speaking Mandarin or they German or Japanese," her stepmother remarked.

"I know, but it was worth a try," Asuka sighed. "I could have trained the Ami pilots, one of them speaks German." Her voice dropped to a near whisper. "It would be better than staying here."

Hilde diplomatically ignored the last sentence. "So you have to wait a little longer to mount your steed and tilt at windmills. So what? Unless you think its better to be first than best?" she inquired neutrally.

"No," Asuka grated.

"Then since you're claiming to be a professional, act like one. The fact you don't like your orders doesn't mean you don't follow them"
She pointed at the stack of plates in the cupboard. "Just like you won't like this one."

Hilde glanced at Asuka ferrying the table settings for the two of them to the next room before turning back to her cutting board. She still remembered the nightmare Hamburg had been fifteen years earlier, the desperate evacuations and the rescue efforts that seemed to save only a tithe of those in need. As a young med student she had believed only a war could be worse, as a successful doctor she knew she'd been right.

Who would want to journey into -that?-

Tokyo 3
Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan
July 17, 2015
6:00 PM Local Time

In the week he'd been living in his new home, Shinji Ikari had come to several conclusions.

One, his roommate was either a raging alcoholic or did an excellent impersonation.

Two, his -other- roommate was flippers down the oddest thing he'd seen in his fourteen years of life.

Three, at some point Shinji was going to figure out whether he was living every teenager's dream, or a nightmare he couldn't wake up from.
He was fairly sure he wouldn't know definitively until...

Four, his day job, and the less said there the better, finally squashed his sanity like a beer can under a locomotive.

"I hope whatever malevolent deity that dropped me into this is enjoying itself. I'd hate to think this was all for nothing." Shinji's sigh was audible over the sound of the water running from the tap to the sud filled sink.

"I'm back!" a female voice chirped from the entryway.

"Welcome home, Cap...Misato."

The middling height, curvaceous woman who entered the kitchen declined to comment on his slip. "Oh good, you haven't started dinner"
she commented on seeing the soaking dishes. "Help yourself, I've got takeout. And a surprise!" she winked on the way back to her room.

Curiosity piqued in spite of himself, Shinji did as instructed and waited at the table for her return. Not long afterwards Misato did so,
clad in her off duty outfit of cutoffs and a tank top, and bearing a plate of stir fried vegetables and the apparently required can of her favorite brew. Plus a manila folder, Shinji noticed belatedly as she took her seat across from him.

"Dinner first, Ritsuko will skin me if we get anything on these" Misato instructed as she placed the folder well out of harm's way. "So,
how was your first day?"

Shinji's hand twitched to his jaw, before returning to his lap. "Nothing much happened."

"Mm, I see," Misato replied neutrally, noting the red mark mid-way down his lower jaw. "Anyway, we'll have some new arrivals a couple days from now."

"Who? More pilots?" Shinji asked curiously.

"We should be so lucky," Misato grimaced. "Not to say you're doing a bad job, but we can always find a use for more warm bodies," she clarified a moment later. "These three are a pair of UN Marines and a Navy para-rescue jumper."

Shinji nodded, a little disappointed but, he was surprised to find, a little relieved. Having a sailor in the group of, he assumed, guards, was odd. But then he had seen a documentary once about the UN military that mentioned the rescue jumpers for search and rescue helicopters had weapons training. Most places they were likely to go did -not- feel bound by the Geneva Convention.

"They'll be moving in two doors down, and be staying nearby in case you need them during the day." Misato continued.

"Even at school?"

"Two of them are young enough to pass, so yes," Misato stacked the dishes out of the way and dragged the folder over. "But that's enough of that. Now for the main attraction." She riffled through the contents, and straightened into a more upright posture as she laid out several of the sheets face down like a card dealer. "Pilot Ikari," she spoke, this time in the voice that left no doubt of her authority to command. "This is the only briefing you will receive on this subject, so pay attention." She turned over the first sheet, to reveal a grainy black and white photo of an all too familiar figure. "This photo was taken fifteen years ago, part of the last transmission of a small research outpost in Antarctica."

"An Eva?!" Shinji exclaimed in disbelief.

"No. -That- was the cause of death for three billion people" Misato corrected icily. "Its codename is Adam. The first of the Angels."

"But..."

"Save your questions for the end, please." Misato turned over the second sheet, showing a gloss black object, looking like a slightly flattened egg against a backdrop of the night sky. "This photo was taken in 2003. At that time, the then under construction Distant Early Warning arrays detected an object on an intercept course for Earth. What got immediate attention was that it was decelerating." Another photo turned over, this time unmistakable as anything except a nuclear fireball. "As you can imagine, nobody was willing to take chances"
she explained dryly. The last photo was familiar, a group shot of Evas 00 and 01 in their cages. "The rest is pretty straightforward. Most of the Eva tech came from the salvage of the second object's wreckage" She gathered up the photos and replaced them in the folder. "Now you can ask."

For someone who heard the history of the single most important event of the last generation turned on its head and run through a spin cycle, Shinji recovered fairly quickly. "So then, the Second Impact...the asteroid impact and everything...was all a fake?"

Misato nodded. "I don't think anybody dared tell the whole story once all the pieces got put together. We were still reeling from Round One, to go and say that that was just the scouting party..." she shrugged. "There'll be hell to pay for it now, but it's hard to blame 'em."

Shinji reluctantly agreed. As he stared away from Misato in thought, his eye fell upon a framed 5x7 photo he hadn't noticed before.
"New picture?"

"Oh, that." Misato replied, apparently just as happy to change the subject. "No, I've had that for a long time." She got up and retrieved it from its perch on top of the smaller refrigerator. "This is from when I was stationed in Italy." Shinji studied the photo, showing a grinning Misato, slightly younger than the present, with several men of various nationalities about the same age posing against the flank of an eight wheeled light tank. The letters UN were painted on the side of its small turret, with a surprisingly good rendition of an eastern style dragon coiled just behind the long cannon snouting from the front. The word Dragonsbreath was spelled out in hiragana just underneath.

"My first crew," Misato explained. "I was twenty-three, and there I was with my very own platoon. I thought I was at the top of the world." She took back the picture and laid it face up on the table as she contemplated it, before speaking again. "Scary sometimes, how long ago that seems. If you don't mind an old lady's ramblings, I'll tell you about it."

Shinji witnessed the sharp change in his roommate's demeanor, from the half party girl, half professional soldier he usually saw and was so confused by, with more than a little shock. He hesitated a long moment, and then nodded agreement. "Ok."

Misato smiled, and took up the picture again. "Well, a few weeks after this was taken, we were deployed to Tunisia, and wouldn't you know..."

NERV-3
Boston
10:00PM Local time

Melissa Mao was, for the moment, content. Her shot glass emblazoned with the USMC logo held two fingers of Jim Beam, her paperwork for the day was done, and her feet were comfortably encased in a pair of thick socks, propped up on her bed while she leaned back in her room's issue plain wooden chair, the local radio station playing in the background.

"Now why won't I just believe that and relax?" She snorted at herself. As if she didn't know. Melissa had reviewed the full, revised, final training syllabus for the pilot candidates, and the results horrified her.

"Nine weeks. They go into combat, ready or not, in nine weeks" she repeated to herself, not for the first time. "They didn't let me out of Parris Island for twelve, and all I was responsible for then was me, not the fate of the whole goddamn world!" Melissa drained off half of the glass, and contemplated the rest for long minutes. The whole setup, from rushed training to the crash, she grimaced at her choice of words, production priority offended every professional bone in her body. But the hell of it was she honestly couldn't think of an alternative. Not after the other part of her briefing, specifically, the status of the Japanese pilots.

"Kurtz would have a field day with this," she finally commented ruefully. "A bunch of crazy kids facing down god-awful odds with no backup worth talking about. Just like old times, he'd say." She finished off her shot and set the glass aside. "Might as well make a last round before lights out."

Melissa slowed her pace to a slow, silent tread as she neared the adjoining rooms set aside for her charges, alert for anything unusual.
She'd left orders for the tech monitoring the microphones to contact her if anything significant happened, but an unscheduled personal check was never a bad idea.

'Good, no screams, bangs, or blistering tirades,' she chuckled as she paused outside Tessa's room a moment. Only the sound of deep, even breathing answered her ear at the door, so she poked her head in.

Tessa had appeared to have wrapped herself up like a sausage in the sheets, only a tendril of silvery hair exposed on the pillow. Melissa closed the door quietly, before moving to the next room. Here she didn't bother putting her ear to the door; the racket coming from this room indicated its occupant was well and truly zonked. A glance inside confirmed the finding, Sam sprawled face down in his pillow with one arm hanging off the edge of the narrow mattress, the other twisted into what had to be an awkward position across his back. Again, she closed the door quietly, before beginning the trip to her own room. Allowing herself a soft smile, she whispered "Rest well, children. Tomorrow will be a busy day."

NERV-4
Karamay
July 18, 2015
7:00AM Local Time

"All systems nominal here, ready to begin sequence," Tzu announced to the pilot within the simulator.

"All clear here, Control. Ready at any time," Han responded,
voice still a little raw from its first immersion in LCL. In contrast to Nami's expectations from movies, his voice came through crystal clear, with none of the dramatic crackle she'd expected.

Nami stood with the tech crew, clad in her own tan and green plugsuit as she waited her turn. Mr. Tzu stood beside the microphone with the supervisor, his apparent uniform of a blue track suit immaculate as always. The litany continued as the systems came online and connected to the simulated neurosystems. As borderline approached, Tzu's knuckles whitened behind his back. Nami didn't blame him. She'd seen the video of Eva 00's disastrous routine test two weeks ago. The sim plugs were incapable of delivering that level of physical violence to their surroundings, but their pilots were every bit as vulnerable to neurological trauma as Ayanami had been.

"Borderline cleared!" The man at the board announced. "Synchrograph rising...stabilizing at twenty-one percent."

Tzu nodded. "Very well. Fei, if you're ready we'll..." he was interrupted by the sound of retching reproduced in high fidelity by the expensive speakers.

'Aha, so -that's- why Tzu told us to skip breakfast.' Nami nodded sagely.

Nami's turn came soon enough, though with Han's forewarning she'd been ready for the disturbing sensation of the LCL entering her lungs,
and the surge of vertigo at borderline. Now, her cockpit displays showed a plain, grassy field stretching to the horizon, with a few scattered clouds in the sky and a low mountain range in the distance.

'Pretty place, whoever programmed it has a nice touch,' she mused.

"We'll begin with basic movement." Tzu's voice informed her. "Focus on the concept of walking, and after one hundred meters, stop."

"Yes, sir." 'Ok, concept of walking. Well, if Fei can do it' the virtual Eva 06 took a hesitant step forward, then another, soon reaching the prescribed distance.

"Good. Now, turn ninety degrees right, and do it again. Eventually I want a square one hundred meters on a side."

Nami complied, after sorting out a near tangle of her suddenly supersized feet. 'About time for those balance beam exercises to pay off.' Nami smirked, after avoiding another tangle at the next turn.

"Well done, as you can see, it's more difficult than it appears" Tzu congratulated her. "Now, take a look at your forearms. You'll notice a knife handle on the back of them. Draw a knife."

As the handle cleared the sheath, a box cutter like blade extended from the handle, emitting an ultrasonic buzz, and a faint vibration into the palm of her right hand.

"That is the progressive knife, the primary melee weapon of the production model Evas. As you can see, the blade activates upon use,
and retracts when not needed."

A rough humanoid shape appeared fifty meters in front of Nami. "Take a few practice swings at the dummy to get a feel for the Eva's movements, and then we'll set up an obstacle course."

Nami stepped into range, and took a slash at the 'angel.'

NERV-3
Boston
12:00PM Local Time

"Well, its not every day I see that happen to an office building" Tessa remarked from behind Sam.

"And you're one to talk, 'Tessa the Impaler,'" he growled back, casting an irritated look over his shoulder.

Tessa flinched. It probably would've been a lot more impressive if she'd managed to skewer something -other- than her own Eva...

"Touche'," she acknowledged. "So what do you think?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.

"About?" her fellow trainee asked.

"This," she waved a hand, including by implication the entire facility. "We've been here a couple days, surely you have an opinion by now."

Sam grinned, the 'boy with toys' part of his personality surfacing. "I don't know about you, but last week I would've laughed if someone told me I'd be here. Heck, I'd have laughed if someone told me technology like this even -existed,- nevermind I'd be using it," he continued. "This stuff -has to be- decades past what we're used to on the outside."

A techie to the core, Tessa could only agree. The simulators alone were a major step up in realism from anything she'd ever heard of, never mind the Giant Freaking Robots a-building in the back. "No kidding. It's a little like a dream, I keep expecting to wake up back home any second."

"Where is home for you, anyway?" Sam asked, his irritation at a poor performance apparently forgotten. "Or, if you'd rather not talk about it"
he hastily amended, misinterpreting her pursed lip, thinking expression for annoyance.

"Oh, it's no problem," Tessa reassured him. "Dad was a naval officer, so that's kind of an interesting question," she explained.

Sam nodded, "I could see that. What is he, exactly?"

"A submarine captain. Was, anyway." A sadness foreign to her usual cheerfully earnest personality lurked at the back of her eyes. "What about you?"

Shrugging as he made a mental note to tread carefully there in future, Sam began "Well, I was born in Denver, but..."

After lunch and 'happy hour', which since Melissa used it to describe their afternoon long physical training was two lies for the price of one, Sam stared in horror at their latest challenge. And such an innocent looking one, too. After all, how horrible can a single, not particularly thick, soft cover book be?

"Conversational Japanese?!" Sam exclaimed.

"Correct. NERV Headquarters is in Japan, most of the personnel are Japanese, and therefore you two will learn the language."

"Um, ma'am?" Tessa questioned respectfully.

"Yes, I know you went to school in Okinawa and speak Japanese already," Melissa answered her. "Which is why you'll be assisting Roberts here in learning. I hope for your sake you're a good teacher, because starting the day after tomorrow, I'll be expecting responses to basic questions in it. And if you want to eat in the cafeteria, you'd -both- better be able to tell the cook what you want in it or you'll -both- be going hungry that meal. Questions?"

Sam's horror was rapidly transmuting to outrage. "Absolutely! Ma'am, I can live with the PT, and the sims, and even the lousy food, but this is just nuts!" Sam shouted. "It takes months at least to learn a new language, I took Spanish for a year and still can't get much past 'how are you, lovely weather we're having!'" He paused for breath to continue, but Melissa was ready for him.

"That will be enough, Mister Roberts," she cut off his tirade with a tone as hard as the reinforced concrete of the walls. "For future reference, the correct answer to that question is generally, 'No, ma'am' Under -no- circumstances is it 'I'm gonna whine like a little bitch.'"

She turned to Tessa. "Testarossa, you have a date with the simulator. I expect results."

"Yes, ma'am!" she answered quickly, carefully looking straight ahead.

Melissa turned back to Sam. "As for you..."

Sam knew at that moment to be afraid, -very- afraid.

It was two am and Sam now knew that there were exactly twenty bathrooms of both genders, with a grand total of eighty toilets, ten urinals and, if his shoulders were to be believed, what had to be a square mile of floor and wall tiles, in NERV-3. The disgustingly cheerful voice hailing him from the adjoining room as he dragged into the (21rst) bathroom connecting them was not helping.

"Free at last, Cinderfella?" Tessa teased, obviously comfortable in her shorts and t-shirt.

Sam roused a spare scrap of consciousness to reply "What are you doing awake?"

"Some pre-emptive studying."

"For what? All we've got is that language book."

"And that's what I'm studying." At Sam's confused look, Tessa continued "Not for me, but since I happen to like the cafeteria I did a little work on the side." She slid off the end of her bed and padded over. "Here, this should help." She handed Sam a small spiral notebook,
divided into three columns; it had a standard Japanese phrase, its phonetic pronunciation in English, and its translation. "I had to guess a bit, but that should cover the basics."

Sam produced his first genuine smile since he'd woken up that morning. "Thanks."

Tessa fidgeted a bit in embarrassment. "No problem. A girl's gotta eat, you know."

Sam chuckled as he tucked the notebook under one arm. "If you say so. I don't know what we did to Canada, but that bacon this morning was an act of war."

Tessa laughed, and turned back to her room. "Picky, picky..."

Melissa handed the spare earphones back to the tech on duty, and left the room with a smile of her own.

All was going according to plan.

//Joe Satriani "Big Bad Moon" _Time Machine_//

[LadyTevar]

interesting so far.

[Geoff-H]

I agree. Though I wish we had a little more background on just what these angel things are.

[Mayabird]

I agree. Though I wish we had a little more background on just what these angel things are.

Patience, dude. Patience.

Was Tokyo-3 in Shizuoka in NGE? Just some idle curiosity since I born there and I have folks there still.

[TabascoOne]

I agree. Though I wish we had a little more background on just what these angel things are.

All in good time.

Back during development for this fic, I actually went and found Hakone/T3 on a map so I knew the right prefecture, which as far as I can tell is Kanagawa. When I first posted this chapter publicly though, one of my reviews said T3 was actually in Shizuoka, which is the next prefecture over. I went with that, figuring that if he cared enough to call me out on it, its entirely possible he's right.

Either way, I'm sure its a much nicer town in real life than it is in NGE, or this fic for that matter. Safer, at least.

[TabascoOne]

And now for the next bit.


Chapter 2- ...But War is interested in You.

You fight like you train.
-U.S. Navy Fighter Weapons School, TOPGUN.

Success flourishes only in perseverance? ceaseless, restless perseverance.
-Manfred von Richthofen, the 'Red Baron', 81 kills in WW1

NERV-4
Karamay
July 25, 2015
6:00AM Local Time

"Well, I hope you enjoyed your weekends," Mr. Tzu greeted Han and Nami as they stood outside in the barely post-dawn light, "but now it's time to go back to work. Your sync scores are improving on schedule, and you aren't quite so embarrassing out on the obstacle course. Well done." He adjusted his sunglasses against the glare outside, and frowned. "However," he swept them with a hard stare, "there is definite room for improvement. We'll start with endurance. Begin."

"I don't remember a weekend..." Nami whispered to Han when Tzu's back was turned.

"I think he's counting letting us off us off an hour early yesterday," Han replied disgustedly while stoically moving onto the trail.

As the pair shambled along while Tzu rode his moped ahead of them, Nami asked "So where did you learn English, anyway?" hoping to break the monotony for a while.

"My Father worked at the embassy in Sydney, and Mother and I were stationed with him, so it came naturally. I read it a much better than I speak it though. I'm surprised you never did, as many places as you've been."

"Because we usually got tapped for internal security postings, not overseas deployments." Nami snorted. "-Every- forsaken backwater in the country and some that aren't. Hong Kong was the first nice posting we had since I was eight. Too bad we were only there a year," she sighed. "But Siberia was interesting, when it wasn't winter."

"Of course, it being Siberia..." Han chuckled.

"Right, it was winter nine months a year," the girl rolled her eyes heavenward. "Anyway, it could've been worse. And I did pick up a little Russian."

He shook his head as a thought struck him. "I didn't know we had a garrison there."

"We don't," Nami smirked. "Officially, we were 'military advisers to the Sovereign Nation of Greater Siberia's armed forces.' Never mind that our division strung out along Lake Baikal had the only vehicles west of Vladivostok that weren't museum relics."

Han's reply was cut off by Tzu's acerbic "If you have breath to chatter you have breath to speed up," as their trainer accelerated.

Over lunch, Han told his own tale of a trip to Tokyo-2 for talks with his father's opposite numbers.

"You wouldn't believe some of those people," Han shook his head, deep in recollection of an 'intimate gathering' of about two hundred last spring.
"One of the daughters of some company VP or other had been giving me these strange looks all night, and finally I'd had enough. So I walk over and, as politely as I can, introduce myself. She did too, and gives my hair this funny look before asking if I dye it!"

Nami frowned as she munched on a mouthful of steamed rice. "That is weird."

"No kidding." The boy touched a strand of his medium brown hair. "It's lighter than average, but still."

"Yeah, I'd noticed that, but I figured that since Shanghai's been a port city practically forever..."

"Likely a foreigner back there somewhere," Han agreed. "Anyway, I answer 'no.'" Han scooped a mouthful of his own, and paused as he dealt with it. "So then, and I swear the girl looked completely serious, she said 'Prove it.'"

Nami stared a moment as the pieces connected, and then broke down in giggles at the expression her normally annoyingly self-possessed partner must have worn. "I can just see your face too!" she cackled delightedly. "So, did you?" she asked with a wicked gleam in her eyes.

"No!" Han snapped, as Nami dissolved into giggling again. "I got while the gettin' was good, as the Yankees say."

"Wow. Different world, I guess," Nami chuckled, shaking her head.

Han smiled agreement. "No kidding." In more ways than one. Boring didn't begun to describe his experiences in parties much like that one. He knew he'd never be called Mr. Exciting, but he swore he could have had better conversations talking to the table settings than with some of those oh-so-proper 'young ladies.' No danger of that here!

The environment might leave a little to be desired, Han decided as he looked down at his tray, but at least it was hard to complain about the company.

NERV HQ
Tokyo-3
July 26, 2015
5:13PM Local Time

"So, do you have the access routes, power and weapons blocks, and defense grid locations memorized?" Misato queried from the windowed control booth in the test cage.

"Yes," Shinji answered lethargically.

"Good," Misato chirped, "then we'll get started." She muted the microphone clipped to her ear. "Begin sync, set for induction mode."

"Yes, ma'am," Maya Ibuki responded, as trim and professional at her control board as always.

Once Unit-01 began its first simulated shooting gallery exercise, Misato stepped back to her usual position near Ritsuko. "I wonder why he agreed to do this."

"Who, Shinji?" the blonde replied distractedly, keeping a practiced brown eye on the status board.

"Yes, Shinji," Misato cast an annoyed look, tucking a long strand of dark hair behind an ear. "He's not exactly the 'duty and honor' type, and after we press-ganged him for the first attack I wouldn't blame him for wanting out afterwards. So why didn't he go?"

Ritsuko frowned at her friend's description of their actions, but the charge was difficult to deny. "Maybe something you fed him?"

"Har har," the captain flushed at the dig. "Seriously, though. He's shy, sure, but it's been over two weeks and never a call or letter from his old guardians, or friends from home, or anything." She shook her head in exasperation. "It doesn't make sense, surely the kid has someone back home who cares about him."

Ritsuko shrugged, rustling her ever-present lab coat, as she decided an actual response was called for. "Then maybe you have your answer. He has nowhere else to go." Gods know he's not alone in -that-, she continued silently.

"Maybe," Misato pursed her lips in thought, and keyed the mike. "Calm down, Shinji. Remember, just center the target in the reticule and squeeze the trigger, the computer will do the rest."

"Ok." The next burst passed cleanly through the angel, and the sim continued.

Misato spared a glance to check if Maya was in listening range. "So remind me, again, who's bright idea it was to send the pilots to school, -and- report for training?"

The doctor frowned, knowing all too well where this discussion was going. "He's fourteen. Fourteen year olds go to school. QED."

"Ok, fine," Misato conceded. "But we could pull him out until the end of the year, let him get his feet under him, -then- see about school. If he doesn't have the skills to pilot effectively, and he doesn't, then what's the point?"

"The point is, mental stability is vital to..." Ritsuko began in the voice of someone who had had this argument far, far too many times.

"As vital as giving him the skills to stay alive?!" the captain hissed back. "Look, I agree that he needs somewhere to decompress, and a chance to be a normal junior high student is as good an opportunity as any. But I still say that, at least in the short term, we should be worrying about giving him a chance to -survive- his next battle before we worry about his mental state afterwards. Hell, with Rei on-site to help him he'd actually be better off than the other trainees."

And wouldn't -that- go over like a lead zeppelin with the Director, Ritsuko thought grimly, playing her trump card and grateful it was available at last. "The decision is made. Take it up with the Director."

Misato grudgingly conceded defeat. "Alright, fine. Then give me some -good- news, for a change. Like that the production model powerplants are finally ready."

Ritsuko looked away from the status board momentarily, but it was enough for her long time roommate.

"Oh don't tell me," Misato groaned softly.

"Six months," Ritsuko confirmed.

"That's what they said this time -last- month."

"No helping it," Ritsuko shrugged.

"What in the world is the hold up?" Misato complained. "There have been plenty of test models built, one of them's powering the city for heaven's sake."

"The sad truth is we can build a palladium reactor that can fit in an Eva, and we can build one that can power an Eva, but not one that does both. Yet," the doctor added after a moment. "For the time being, the recommendation is to fit them with the Test type batteries."

Misato groaned aloud this time, causing Maya to glance over her shoulder in curiosity before Ritsuko's glare chased her back to her work.

"Wonderful! So much for mobility," Misato grated sarcastically. "Guderian and Patton are probably shedding tracks in their graves!"

Ritsuko couldn't help needling her friend a little more. Fair was fair, after all. "Well, you could always pack a few extra extension cords if you leave town," she suggested helpfully, a tiny grin playing at her lips.

The captain shivered. "Don't even joke about that."

Misato drove with her customary skill through the streets of Tokyo-3, both occupants of her 'little blue comet' lost in thought.

"Shinji, what were your aunt and uncle like?" she finally asked at a convenient stop light.

"Ok, I guess," he replied quietly, slumped after a long day.

"Just 'ok'?"

"They were just...kind of there," he shrugged. "I didn't see them much. I had my own room out back."

Misato suppressed a frown at that. It didn't take a leap of genius make a few connections. "Well, I hope I've managed to be more than just 'there' for you these past couple weeks."

"You're pretty hard to miss," Shinji replied neutrally.

"Was that a joke, Pilot Ikari?" the captain questioned archly, the severity of her voice spoiled by the smile playing around the corners of her mouth.

"Oh no, Captain Katsuragi. I'd never!" Shinji replied, wide-eyed with unconvincing sincerity.

Misato nodded sharply. "See that you don't."

The apartment block parking pass dinged as it granted access to the lot next door to the complex. Misato retrieved her red uniform jacket from the back seat while Shinji gathered up his share of the evening's purchases and followed her to the elevator.

A few minutes later, the smells of cooking fish filled the apartment as Shinji took his turn at making dinner, while Misato assisted by staying well out of the way. The TV played an old game show for background noise as she typed intermittently at her laptop. Finally, the doorbell buzzed at precisely 7:45.

"Right on time." Misato firmly approved of punctuality, at least in others. "I'll get it, Shinji."

"Ok, I'm almost done," he called back.

A pair of teenagers; a boy with gray eyes and shaggily cut black hair and a blue eyed girl who's neat, neck length hair was an appealing though fairly common shade of brown, greeted Misato as she slid the door open.

"Good evening, Captain." The girl bowed, rustling the green skirt and blouse combination she wore.

"Thank you for your invitation," the boy supplied, ramrod straight in his school uniform and fighting the urge to salute.

"Mana, Sousuke." Misato replied brightly. "Come in, come in. And relax, Sagara. No rank in the mess, remember?"

"Yes, ma'am," he nodded, relaxing slightly as he left his shoes in the foyer and entered.

"I'll give Shinji a hand," Mana called over her shoulder.

"No need, he's almost..." Misato answered, but she was already out of sight. "Damn. That girl can -move-," she commented wryly.

"Mm," Sousuke agreed. With a polite nod to Misato, he preceded his superior into the apartment's common room and helped clear her 'homework' off the table.

"We're ready here," Mana called from the kitchen.

"Good, bring it out and let's get started, I'm starving," Misato replied.

"So how'd school go today?" Misato asked the group, snagging a fried dumpling off the tray as she sat.

"Ok, it was school," Shinji shrugged noncommittally.

"No torrid romances for our hero?" the captain questioned with a raised eyebrow. "How disappointing."

"Not for lack of effort on the ladies' part." Mana replied with a frustrated glare in the pilot's direction. "I swear if you were any more clueless..."

Sousuke came to the pilot's rescue. Sort of. "Ignoring their advances is a wise decision on Pilot Ikari's part. I can think of several operations that were betrayed when one or more of the local women turned out to be in the employ of the enemy."

Mana stared in rank disbelief. "You honestly think that the girls whispering about his cute butt are undercover agents of some sort?"

"We are," Sousuke pointed out, completely ignoring Shinji's near apoplexy at Mana's remark. "It's reasonable that others could have plants of their own."

Mana shook her head in amazement. "Wow. I guess it's not paranoia if they -are- out to get you?" she suggested sarcastically.

"Anyway," Misato broke in "just be careful. We did vet everyone's background, but...you never know."

Shinji nodded.

"Good. That said, it's good to have friends, or even a friend who happens to be a girl. Not everyone is out to get you."

"Well, I might," Mana batted her baby blues in Shinji's direction, causing Shinji's distress to resume with a vengeance.

"Kirishima, behave," Misato scolded wearily over Shinji's blushing stammer. "He can't pilot if you give him a stroke."

That night, Shinji contemplated his room's ceiling, long after the two guards had returned to their apartment two doors down. His roommate's snoring carried softly in the background of the darkened room while he played another of his many tapes. The track changed from Barbers' 'Adagio for Strings' to a bouncy j-pop piece, somewhat tinny in the tiny earbuds.

Shinji quirked a tiny smile. "Reminds me of Mana." Then frowning a little, he added "Annoying parts and all. Her helicopter probably didn't need fuel, they just plugged -her- into the drivetrain."

He just wished...well, to be honest he wished for a lot of things. But getting her to lay off trying to give him a heart attack would be fairly high on the list. She wasn't serious about her flirting, that much even -he- could figure out. But a guilty little part of him craved it anyway, the idea that someone, anyone, might like him that way.

"Not a chance," he whispered with well-worn bitterness. Mana and Misato could say what they wanted. He'd seen the looks he got from his classmates, how the instant he turned towards them they broke off and whispered amongst themselves, seen the bubble around him that no one seemed willing to breach ever since that first day.

Rolling over in his bed, Shinji was struck by a sudden thought. Why -did- she do it, anyway? He was no girl magnet, and while Mana wasn't 'reach out and smack you' gorgeous like a couple of the girls in his grade, she was pretty in an athletic, energetic way. There was no reason for her to waste time on him, even in jest, when there were any number of better targets.

Unless...-someone- was pulling strings.

Shinji's eyes narrowed as he explored further. Here he was, a social outcast since practically forever. Dropped into a brand new environment, no family worth talking about, no friends, not even a pen pal in the entire city. Then, just as the isolation is really starting to bite deep, here come two brand new people who's job description requires them to follow him around all day. One of whom is a pretty girl who seems just delighted to be in his company.

"I can't believe I was so stupid," he whispered. There was a part, and not a small one, that demanded he get up and barge into Mi...-Captain Katsuragi's- room right this second and tell her he'd found her out, and it was -not- going to work. But, for once, his natural caution served a useful purpose. After he revealed his knowledge, then what? No, it was better to wait, pretend he was still fooled.

As he allowed himself to fall asleep at last, for that moment, he was his father's son.

July 27, 2015
7:50AM Local Time

The sky was blue, the clouds were white and fluffy, and the air still pleasantly cool. Mana watched the two boys waiting outside through her eyelashes as she pulled on her shoes in the foyer. Sousuke was the same dour, humorless, stick-up-his-ass paranoid he'd been since they'd started this assignment. Shinji, on the other hand, looked like he was ten seconds from making one of those smart about-faces Sousuke was fond of and leaving his minders behind. Well, he was probably due for a bad day, though heaven knew even his good ones didn't seem anything to write home about.

Nine point five seconds later, Mana darted through the door, followed by the voice of the third member of the protective detail, a middle-sized, personable South Korean sergeant named Yan Jongkyu.

"I'll catch you this evening, lady and gents," Yan called. "Don't do anything I wouldn't." With that, he turned back to monitoring the network of pinhole cameras and motion detectors that they'd set up upon arrival.

Shinji, by now used to this exchange, instead of responding turned to her. "What was it -today-?"

"Girl problems," Mana replied brightly.

"Right," Shinji turned away without further comment.

That was odd. Usually she could at least get a blush out of him with a line like that. Shrugging unconcernedly, she trailed the boys towards the elevator.

When her CO on the Tempest had called her into his office, she'd assumed it was something to do with Lee, her helo's pilot, and his recent brush with authority involving a blasting cap, a bucket of white gloss latex paint, and an overbearing ensign. Instead, Mana had been sent off to watch over a boy more than two years younger who was apparently Earth's last best hope, or something to that effect. Mana didn't -think- that the lieutenant's comment about her being a perfect fit for junior high was a based on a certain petty officer's level of maturity, but with the Old Lady you never knew...

So here she was. Going to school, doing homework, not going out much with friends, given her real job, but assembling a collection of school acquaintances at least. And in the back of her mind, wondering which of the faces she saw in the crowd wished Shinji harm. It was a delicate balance, and not one she was trained for, but Mana was finding Sousuke had enough professional paranoia for the both of them.

The teenage petty officer took several deep cleansing breaths to dispel the residual anger from -how- she'd learned that. To be fair, she had never seen anyone take his duties more seriously, or apply himself more diligently to them. If only the results matched the intentions...

Forcibly redirecting her thoughts, she considered the other male in the vicinity. Shinji was sitting between the two guards, at first glance just one of a trio of friends riding the train to school. Examining him from the corner of her eye, Mana noted the uncharacteristically grim tightness around his eyes, and his curt demeanor earlier, and contrasted it with his bowed head and slumped posture. Odd, to say the least. The closed off body language was pretty normal, though Shinji had been making some progress there lately, but his expression didn't match at all. A mix of anger and something she couldn't quite identify. It was probably none of her business, but that had never stopped her before.

"You're quiet today, anything wrong?" Mana asked as they left the train and began the short walk to school. Actually he was quiet -every- day, but it was as good a place to start as any.

"No," Shinji replied, not looking up.

"So you're staring down like you're trying to microwave the sidewalk just for the hell of it?" she suggested wryly.

The pilot turned the aforementioned look on her for a moment, and quickened his stride, accelerating away from the pair.

Mana turned to meet Sousuke's quizzical expression with one of her own. "Was it something I said?"

NERV-3
Boston
July 29, 2015
9:00 AM Local Time

"Testarossa, I swear to God!" Melissa Mao exclaimed in frustration. "For Christ's sake, keep still! It's not going to bite you!"

"I'm trying!" Tessa all but wailed, frustrated at the total lack of progress since they'd began.

"I don't want you to try, I want you to succeed!" Melissa controlled her breathing and took a firm hold on her temper, before continuing more calmly. "Try again. Breathe deeply and slowly. Get the rifle snugged in against your shoulder. When you have the sight picture, hold your breath and -gently- squeeze the trigger."

Tessa complied, and after a few moments the crack of the rifle came as a surprise to her, as it should.

"Better," Melissa grudgingly allowed after a glance at the silhouette target fifty meters away. "Finish off the magazine just like that."

"Yes, ma'am," Tessa replied, her face a picture of grim concentration.

Melissa moved over about five meters to watch Sam at work. He continued firing once a second with the regularity of a metronome, apparently unaware she was behind him. Raising an eyebrow fractionally after checking his target, she waited the few seconds needed for him to empty his magazine and remove his ear protection before commenting dryly, "Pretty good for someone who's never handled a weapon before."

Sam blinked in confusion. "When Roberts did that say, ma'am?" he replied in halting Japanese.

"Less than an hour ago. Your memory can't possibly be that bad" Watching the struggle on his face as he tried to format his reply, she added "Go ahead and answer in English for this, Roberts."

The unfeigned gratitude in his eyes nearly brought a smile to her lips as he thought for a moment. He immediately brightened in understanding. "I apologize, ma'am," he replied contritely. "I assumed you meant 'have you ever handled an AUG' when you said 'have either of you handled one of these before?'"

Melissa nodded, her suspicions confirmed. "There's a little expression about assumptions like that."

"If you break apart the word 'assume'..." Sam recited, this was not a new lecture for him.

"Exactly," Melissa agreed. "If you don't know, ask. Requesting clarification of an order is fine, even questioning one is ok. Just remember that a flat refusal will net you -much- worse than a sore back in the real world. Understood?"

Sam nodded.

"Good. This actually solves a little problem. Miss Testarossa has been tutoring you in Japanese, but you haven't been able to assist her in return. I'll expect you to change that state of affairs."

Yes, ma'am Sam agreed with a sharp nod.

"Carry on, then."

Nerv HQ
11:00AM Local Time

Misato tapped her pen rhythmically against the blotter on her desk. Arrayed on the painted steel surface was a computer terminal taking up the majority of the rest of the available space, and a neatly stacked sheaf of papers on one corner. The rest of the furnishings consisted of a shelf behind her with a coffee maker and mug rack (rank had its privileges) and a bookshelf along the wall opposite the door containing a selection of titles one might expect in a career officer's library. All in all, the space had a neat, almost spartan, feel that never failed to strike those who knew about her home life as absurdly incongruous.

Not that any the captain's usual carefree demeanor was in evidence to contradict the picture at the moment. She raised her eyes again to the message glowing on her computer screen.

"So much for the timetable," Misato sighed. "Last time it was fifteen years, was even fifteen weeks too much to ask?" she wondered. It inconsiderate to say the least, but there was still time, if not as much as she'd have liked. And the captain had made the most of it.

"Shinji's here, and running sims for the next hour or so," Misato ticked off on the fingers of one hand, as much to reassure herself as for any planning purpose. "The evacuation order will go into effect an hour before the angel arrives and four hours from now. Ritsuko is analyzing the sensor take, so if we're lucky we'll know more soon. Commander Mardukas is running another check on Eva-01, no problem there." She frowned in thought trying once again to think of something, anything, she had missed.

Finally giving up the attempt, the captain blew out a breath and leaned back in her swivel chair. "No point in going up to the bridge, the last thing they need is the boss breathing down their necks. Not to mention it would make me look nervous," she decided. Smirking wryly, she dug out a battered deck of cards from a desk drawer.

Where -would- humanity be without Solitaire?

[TabascoOne]

North Municipal Junior High
Tokyo-3
3:43PM Local Time

There were less than twenty minutes between the class and blessed freedom. Rei Ayanami was on this day, as she had since her first one here, gazing outside at the courtyard, the mesmerizing drone of the last teacher of the day's lecture mere background noise in her ears.

For now, her attention rested in the reflection on the glass. A girl in her early teens with alabaster skin and wide, blood red eyes, framed by short, pale blue hair in a disorderly cut, gazed back with equal solemnity. If not for the coloration, it was a face that could have belonged to many Japanese girls her age. Most of those girls were wearing far fewer bandages at the moment, however, and were far more blissfully ignorant of what was about to take place.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the trilling of a mobile phone, right on schedule. Rei, just as lethargic as the rest of the class, took several seconds to silence the device. Just as the long dreaded sirens began their mournful wail.

Class Representative Horaki was up and snapping orders before the first echo died. "All right, you know the drill! Line up and follow 1-B to the shelters! This is for real, let's do it right!" The twin ponytailed brunette paused in chivying her charges into line and out the front door to spare a glance for Rei, one of many she was receiving as she unhurriedly packed her bag. While the rest of the class filed out the doors, she proceeded towards the opposite stairwell alone. With her off the active roster in such obvious fashion, Director Ikari had seen no need to extend the additional protection afforded the Third Child to his first pilot.

The girl saw no reason to question that decision, though the small group of soldiers it pertained to hadn't been shy about doing so at the time. If the Director believed that the Third Child was the most vulnerable, then it made perfect sense to assign the maximum available protection to him, even at her expense. Where was the problem?

The Nerv sedan was waiting at its appointed place as the First Child exited the building. Again, as expected. Only in the last two weeks had the smooth orbit of her existence received significant perturbations, but even those were not unexpected. After all, her training had emphasized the concept that war was pure chaos, with the inconvenient and the unlooked for becoming commonplace. Nerv would certainly be no exception, and Rei had full confidence that the situation would be sorted out soon enough.

For now, all she needed to do was as she had always done, and wait.

Shinji listened with only half an ear to the checklist items called out by the cage crew. Instead, his attention was focused far inward, as memories of his last battle once again played across his mind's eye. The soul searing terror as his Eva crashed to a stop at the end of its track, facing his opponent two hundred meters down the street like something out of a Tokugawa-period drama. Confusion and pain soon followed by a calming warmth that he still couldn't identify, but somehow knew that he should be able to...

"Shinji?" Misato questioned. A pause. "Shinji!"

He started as he returned to himself. "Yes?"

"Focus, Shinji!" Misato snapped. A dot appeared on his map display. "We're inserting you here." A solid line twisted through the mountains on the city outskirts before going dotted just past the first defense line. "The Angel is here, and making more or less a straight line course for the city center and the geofront. ETA is five minutes." The platform the Eva stood on jerked into motion as it followed the path to the catapults. "Once you arrive at the surface, the Angel will be at your seven o'clock. Move around the launch gantry, and engage just like the sims. Understood?"

"Yes," Shinji replied quietly.

"Good." Misato cut the link.

Shinji slumped slightly. "So, I was right," he sighed.

/The Rasmus "Still Standing" Dead Letters/

The surge of the catapult pressing him down in his seat sent the the uncertainty and outright fear he'd felt since that morning crashing back with the acceleration. He knew he was infinitely better prepared this time, hours of simulator time had seen to that, but amazing as it seemed, he felt even more terrified than last time.

This time he knew exactly what he was getting into. Knew what it felt like to have his forearm twisted and ground beyond the breaking point. To have a spear of light ram itself through his eye to send him catapulting backwards for most of a kilometer. To know, all the way to his bones, that he was about to die.

The catapult sled crashed to a stop inside an armored building, breaking the chain of Shinji's thoughts. The armament building was highlighted on the plug's wraparound display in red, a data tag to one side reporting it held the rifle he was to use. The instant the segmented door rattled clear, he darted from the platform and snatched the Steyr AUG-styled 105mm rifle from its cradle. Blood thundering in his ears loud enough to drown out the voices in his helmet earphones, Shinji rounded the corner of the building, caught a glimpse of glowing tentacles sprouting from a long, eel like body, and mashed the trigger with a convulsive squeeze.

Misato's voice was a tinny noise in the back of his mind as the rifle kicked like a live thing in his hands, the four inch wide projectiles leaving the barrel five times per second at over twice the speed of sound. The first few hits staggered the Angel before a cloud of smoke and debris from wild shots obscured the view. Only when the weapon ceased fire did Shinji take his eyes from the external view. Still panting, he swallowed past a throat that seemed bone dry in spite of being immersed in LCL and noticed the rifle blinking red on the stores screen, indicating a catastrophic mechanical fault.

"Oh. Hell," Shinji mumbled, moments before glowing tentacles carved through the impromptu smokescreen and barely missed his machine. By instinct he threw himself aside and darted behind a convenient building.

Misato's voice cut through the panicked fog he found himself in as the Angel lined up another strike with horrific speed. "Eva-01! Short, controlled, bursts! There's another rifle to your right, try it again and for God's sake do it right!" Another building's facade accordioned open two hundred meters to his right as promised, revealing a duplicate assault rifle to the one he still clutched. The tentacles whipped forward once again, neatly sectioning his cover, and Shinji sprinted to place another between him and his adversary, then dropped his now useless rifle and dashed for the weapons block.

So close, and yet so far. A mere fraction of a second from reaching his goal, Shinji felt a sickening lurch, followed by the queasy sensation of freefall.

"I need status on Eva-01 and I need it yesterday..." Misato prompted in the over-controlled tone of a woman who's plan has gone -completely- to Hell.

Maya's brown eyes darted frantically over her console as she scanned the telemetry for abnormalities, before responding negatively.

"Right then. You should be ok, so..." Misato trailed off. "Oh you've -got- to be kidding me."

Toji Suzuhara clambered awkwardly up the hand-holds built into the armor of the robot faster than he would've believed possible if he were still tracking one hundred percent. Fortunately, while shock from nearly becoming a greasy smear on the landscape has a way of degrading mental acuity, he wasn't so far gone that when the voice over the loudspeakers said approximately "Get in" that he needed to be told twice. Pausing only to check his friend Kensuke was right behind, Toji vaulted into the hatch standing open before him.

He was greeted by a splash and instant immersion in a fluid that seemed too light to be water. Ignoring Kensuke's anguished cries about his camera,
his eyes came to rest on his immediate surroundings. The soft glow of the console displays in front of the new kid, Ikari, threw his expressionless face into stark relief, as he mechanically acknowledged a voice that Toji could catch only snippets of.

"...and pull back to Gate 37. We'll reattach a power cable and rearm you there. Understood?" Misato's voice finished.

Shinji knew, intellectually, that her orders made sense, and that he really ought to obey them. But right now, he just..didn't...care. Bad enough to be dragged home to fight monsters from the great beyond. Worse to then be dumped into a shooting war with no training, no experience, and no realistic hope of survival. Worse still to be foisted off on a woman who couldn't decide if she was a soldier or a sorority girl. And, to top it off, finding out she'd been pulling his strings all along. Just like -him-.

And so, as he yanked his foe in close and planted an armor-shod foot where it could do some good, Shinji made up his mind. Ignoring the babbling of his schoolmates behind him, ignoring the sterner commands coming through his earphones, his thumb roamed over the buttons studding his left side joystick, selected one, and gave it a push.

To Shinji's credit, he didn't -start out- intending to knife the Angel to death, it just sort of turned out that way.

Eva-01 mounted a standard armament of two 120mm pistols in addition to the two Type 1 progressive knives, and the Third Child was more than happy to resume the fight with them.

"Center, squeeze. Center, squeeze," Toji heard the pilot panting as he lined up and fired as he'd been taught. The sleek, dart-shaped projectiles snapped downrange at nearly two kilometers per second to dramatic effect. One tentacle was blasted right off the Angel's body, glowing fitfully like a failing fluorescent light, landing with a thump in the dust.

But the remaining tentacle cracked like a whip, doubling its length as it snapped towards them in the blink of an eye.

Shinji's scream echoed in the plug and seemed to reverberate in Toji's skull as the voice from outside shouted "Damn it, Eva-01, get out of there! That's an order!" The horrified teen watched in frozen fascination while the remaining whip writhed, obviously embedded in the mech's torso.

If the pilot heard, or was even capable of doing so, he gave no sign. He'd reflexively dropped his pistol when the tentacle had pierced his armor just above the waist, his right hand now gripping the appendage and trying vainly to pull it out.

"Eva-01, you're down to less than a minute of power, withdraw!" the voice demanded frantically.

Shinji did no such thing. His left arm convulsively reached around and jerked the knife attached to his right free. Against the background noise of blaring alarms within the Eva, his screams changed pitch from a keening wail of pain to a sharper, harsher sound of rage.

Breaking into an unsteady sprint, Eva-01 closed with its foe.

6:00 PM

"Captain Katsuragi!" An imperious voice barked from behind Misato. 'Dammit, what now!' she snarled to herself before turning a pleasant face to her interrogator.

"Commander Mardukas, what can I do for you?"

The tall, spare man who confronted her was dressed in a similar uniform to the deputy director's, though in navy blue rather than tan, with the addition of a baseball cap embroidered with the name and hull number of the Royal Navy submarine Turbulent. He was aged in his late forties, though appearing older due to the deep crow's feet around his eyes and unfashionable glasses he wore.

"Several things, Captain. You can start by telling your pilot that if he burns another barrel out of one of my assault rifles, I'm taking the repair cost out of his skin," he snapped, his British accent pronounced in his otherwise excellent Japanese. "That said, you were absolutely right," he continued, the initial harshness fading from his voice.

"About?" Misato replied quizzically.

"The new ammunition. Improved penetration against organic targets over standard issue," Mardukas quoted the product documentation with an icy sneer. "Ikari could have been throwing rocks for all the good it did against that monster."

Misato nodded without a trace of triumph in her expression. "At least now we know for sure. I assume rearmament is underway?"

"Indeed. We're reloading the tungsten penetrators now."

"Glad to hear it," she replied with real gratitude. "As it happens, I was just on my way to roast 'my pilot's' hindquarters about this evening. I'll be sure to add your complaint to the list."

"Then I certainly won't keep you." He nodded politely and moved past on business of his own.

Misato waited until he was safely around the corner before leaning against the wall and closing her eyes for a moment's peace.

"Yours along with about half a dozen others. Gods above, you put your foot in it today, Shinji," she groaned. The captain didn't like to think how this, added to his evident run in with a classmate on his first day, would look on her resume. It was bad enough he'd managed to nearly lose the fight in the first ten seconds, but that stunt with his classmates combined with his refusal of her orders was just adding insult to injury.

Misato just wished she could be surprised by all this. Shinji obviously didn't want to be here, and even though the boy was showing a surprising, in fact near miraculous, talent for piloting; it was all worthless if he didn't have both the willingness to follow orders and some sort of attachment to his job beyond 'They're making me do it.'

She levered herself off the wall and squared her shoulders. No sense putting it off, she told the corridor, and made for the pilot's locker room.

NERV-4
Karamay
9:30PM Local Time

The projector glowed on the table, projecting Eva-01's clash with the Fourth Angel on the display screen fixed to the front wall. As the video froze on the final frame, the angel's core transfixed on Eva-01's progressive knife, the tentacle gave a fitful glow and died out for good.

The lights rose back to normal level and Mr. Tzu returned to the lectern. "And there you have it. We'll discuss this in more depth tomorrow morning, but I imagined you'd both like to see it fresh. Comments?"

"At least we know the prog knives work?" Nami suggested wryly.

Tzu smirked minutely. "Just so. It's all but certain that measures will be taken in the next few days to remedy the Type 14 rifle"s deficiencies, but in the mean time melee weapons are going to be the order of the day. What else?"

"Standing still in the open like that is asking for trouble," Han supplied.

"Very good. If you're not shooting, you should be moving. We'll be practicing that tomorrow as well. One last thing, it should now be obvious why short bursts are preferred. I understand that Ikari managed to ruin his weapon with that volley, not to mention handing his opponent a ready-made smokescreen. That will be all." Tzu killed the projector and front lights and bid them goodnight.

Nami meditated on the film as she and Han walked to the bus stop. Her sister had warned her about indulging her overactive curiosity, but this time she just couldn't help it. The videos proved that Shinji had talent, but some of his mistakes were ones she or Han might've made. An experienced pilot on Soryu-Langley or Ayanami's level should've avoided them effortlessly. Yet he'd been presented to them as Ayanami's backup on Eva-01, which implied equivalent training. Something wasn't adding up, and from what she'd heard about the elder Ikari she doubted nepotism or incompetence was the answer.

She caught a piece of her lower lip between her teeth. Nami hated to go back on that promise, but...it might be time to do a little research.

Tokyo-3
July 30, 2015
4:30 AM Local Time

Mana Kirishima's compact binoculars peered through the pre-dawn light at the scene below her. A small tent, suitable for occupation by one or two people, lay one hundred meters ahead of the small hillock she'd been lying behind for the past several hours. Beside her, Sousuke tapped her shoulder and gestured for the binoculars. While he took over her vigil, Mana rolled over on her back with a grumble.

Earlier

"GONE?!"

"Yes, Ma'am," Sousuke replied to Misato's incredulous exclamation. "There was no evidence of forced entry on the window, nor the balcony or outside doors," he continued calmly. "Given that Ikari's personal effects were removed from his room and his ID was left behind, I suspect he left of his own volition."

Misato cursed herself for a fool for not seeing this coming.
"That would be my guess as well," she replied into her cellphone, trying to split her attention between it the road whipping past her Alpine's windows. "Are Kirishima and Jongkyu with you?"

"Petty Officer Kirishima is currently returning from a visit to Miss Ayanami's residence, Sergeant Jongkyu is here."

"Call her. I'll be there in twenty minutes."

The council of war had convened shortly thereafter. It was quickly established that sometime between Shinji's departure from the geofront at 7:00 that evening and Sousuke's arrival at the apartment fifteen minutes later, Shinji had managed to pack his bags, straighten his room, and disappear.

"You know, looked at the right way, this is pretty impressive" Mana mused. "I mean, his room was always unnaturally neat for a boy's, but still."

"Mm." Misato grunted, not particularly inclined to agree. "Be that as it may, we can't have him wandering the streets alone."

Yan nodded. "I agree, Captain. But finding him is going to be quite a challenge even with his tracker." The South Korean waved vaguely at the skyline visible through the balcony doors. "This city is warren. Shinji has literally dozens of possible hiding places in any given city block, and fifty meters is about all the resolution we can expect in there without retracting the buildings."

"Oh, that's the least of our problems," Misato chuckled bitterly. "I checked with Security, evidently he was never fitted with a tag. 'Slipped through the cracks' they said." She watched her subordinates' crestfallen expressions as a difficult task turned into a nigh-impossible one, and knew her own matched it. "But we still have to try." The captain unrolled a large scale map of the city on the kitchen table and weighted the corners with random silverware. "We're the people in this city who know Shinji best, we should have some chance of figuring out where he went."

Yan grimaced at the map. "Maybe. Well, he left his ID, so there's no way he could have left town on an intercity train." He paused and nodded at Misato's bedroom. "Ditto for a bus, depending on how much cash he had on him."

Misato shook her head. "He wouldn't, but I checked anyway. He hasn't gotten a paycheck yet either."

"So he's down to pocket change. That simplifies things a bit."

"That still leaves a lot of ground to cover." Sousuke noted, mentally removing the residential districts for lack of friendly contacts, and hotels for lack of money, from consideration. "It would be useful to call in support."

"No can do," Misato answered grimly. "The minute we call in Section Two it becomes official, with official consequences. I'd like to avoid that as long as possible."

"Ok, then there we have it." Yan turned to Mana and Sousuke. "You two start on downtown, I'll take the east block. Set your radios to channel three, scramble code niner-four. Let's make this happen."

And so it began. After splitting up at the station, the four combed their respective areas, using the train lines to move from point to point in their search. It was towards the end of the night, once the train passengers thinned out, that Mana noticed several people asleep in their seats. Fairly safe, of course, but seriously annoying when they woke up. They could easily have been aboard for hours, going around and around...

Narrowing her eyes, she turned the thought over in her mind as she keyed the lapel microphone connected to radio clipped inside her shirt.

"Urzu Two, Four here. Hiro had to have used the train in order to get into town, right?" she confirmed, using Shinji's unofficial codename.

"Unless he wanted to drag that duffel bag of his with him down the street, sure," Yan agreed, the weakness of his transmission and background noise indicating he was in one of the high-rise districts.

"Ok, check me on this, Sarge. He's pissed, probably panicked, and just wants to get the hell out of Dodge."

"So far, so good," Yan agreed, "I hear a 'but' coming, though."

"But..." she obliged him "he's got no money, and nowhere to go if he had it. So what if he got on a train, and -never got off?-"

Twenty minutes later, a disgruntled Eva pilot was sighted on board a Green line train by Misato. Following her quarry to the next stop, she was met by Sousuke and soon joined from the Red line by Mana. The two junior soldiers took up watch on their wayward charge, and a great sigh of relief was heaved by all.

That was five hours ago. In that time Shinji had left the train once it stopped running, visited a 100 yen movie theater, and hopped a late bus for the mountains outside town, before wandering around and winding up at the campsite of the class lunatic. Mana's patience was thin enough to shave her legs with. She depressed the transmit switch on her earpiece, the next check in wasn't for another fifteen minutes, but they were on a clock.

"Two, I don't think these guys are morning people."

"It's still early yet, Four," Yan reminded her, sounding disgustingly crisp in spite of the hour.

"Yes Sergeant, but we need him back within the next hour or we face serious problems," Sousuke pointed out. "Travel time back to base is nearly fifty minutes, over."

A few seconds of silence on the radio answered him, before Yan spoke again. "All right. Use your discretion, but he needs to be in mint condition. Two out."

The pair wasted no time in leaving their hide and crossing over to the campsite. It wasn't difficult, the site was an open clearing without significant underbrush, and the pair might as well have been ghosts as they tread on the dew wet grass.

Upon arrival, Mana reflexively scanned the perimeter, simultaneously trying to decide how to extract their pilot without alerting his companion. She was just about to suggest they pick up Shinji, blanket and all, and just carry him clear when the bright 'ting' of a grenade's spoon releasing immediately refocused her attention on her partner.

"Hey! What the hell are..." she squeaked as the roughly cylindrical object left Sousuke's hand and flew through the tent flaps. The girl had just enough time to squeeze her eyes shut and cover her ears before the deafening boom and blinding flash assaulted her senses.

"Are you...why?!" Mana shouted, her voice sounding tinny in her ringing ears, leveling an irate glare at the Marine.

"It was this or taser him," Sousuke grunted as he dragged a twitching Shinji out by his ankles. Throwing up her hands and cursing softly all the while, Mana grabbed the grenade body and shoved it in a pants pocket, then checked on Kensuke. Fortunately, he was at least as disoriented as Shinji, so she tossed the blanket back in and sprinted after her accomplice.

8:00AM

Light streamed through the cracks between the blinds as Shinji blinked and rustled under his sheets. Slowly he roused himself, still trying to connect his last memory of bedding down in Kensuke's tent with waking up in his room in Misato's apartment. Deciding to make the best of it for the moment, he shuffled into the bathroom for his morning ablutions, before changing into his school uniform and making for the kitchen.

Misato was waiting for him, fully dressed for a change, at the table with a pot of coffee and what looked like a stack of square, suspiciously burned smelling, hockey puck-like objects on a plate.

"Good morning, Shinji. Sleep well?" she asked nonchalantly, sipping at her mug.

"Yes. Very," Shinji replied tightly, his memories of the previous day returning full force.

"Good," Misato nodded. "I'm glad your adventure didn't have any permanent effects. Grab a seat." She waited until he did as he was told, and continued "Corporal Sagara apologizes for using a stun grenade, he saw no other way to remove you without rousing Kensuke as well, and breaking cover. He'll probably be by later to tell you personally. I've also called all of you in sick and gave those two the day off." She sipped again to compose her thoughts. "So, to the real question. Do you want to be here or not?"

Shinji started in surprise. "I..." he began, before he shook his head "It doesn't matter what I want. I'm the only pilot you have, there's no choice." He shrugged resignedly "Besides, everyone says..."

Misato cut him off. "Go home."

"But..."

She overrode his protest. "Your bags are in the foyer, we left them packed. You can be on the train out in an hour. If the only reason you're here is on your father's and my orders, then we don't need you." She leaned forward to meet his eyes. "Look, you've done your duty and then some. Rei will be ready to take over in less than a week, and Eva-01 was her ride to begin with. Dr. Akagi would just have to swap a few configuration files. And we can set you up with a severance package, of course." Misato sat back and sighed. "I won't lie, losing a pilot will hurt us, but better that than one we can't rely on."

Shinji sat, stunned. He'd expected many things when he'd woken up back in his room here, most of them beginning with a royal ass chewing, but this was -nowhere- on the list. "Oh...alright." He said softly as he rose from the table. "Then I'll go, if you think that is best," he continued tonelessly.

Wrong answer. The boy could see the color rise alarmingly up his superior's face like a thermometer about to blow. "God DAMN it, Shinji!" She slammed her coffee mug down, sloshing out most of the contents, as she rose to her feet as well. "I have -had- it with your..." she struggled a moment, exhaling an angry breath and continuing more calmly to the wide-eyed boy. "I won't give you an order. You can leave, if -you- want, right now. But if you do, then do it because it -is- what you want, not because of what I think." Misato sat back down, after checking the coffee hadn't spilled into her chair, and reached for a napkin to mop up the remainder.

"But...I'm part of your job," Shinji finally replied in confusion. "Isn't that why I'm living here to begin with?" he demanded, practically quivering. "And why Sagara and Kirishima, who I'll get to in a minute, just happened to be able to find me and drag me back here?!" He paused, his chest heaving in deep breaths, but before the captain could interrupt he plunged on "And did you really think I wouldn't figure out about her? Did -you- order her to flirt with me every other sentence, or was that one of Father's ideas?" by now the boy was actually hyperventilating, but the expression of wrenching pain at perceived betrayal was none the less for it.

Misato took her own turn at sitting in stunned amazement. So this is what they meant, 'when the mouse roars.' Realizing her jaw had sagged open, she hurriedly closed it and tried to think of something, anything, to calm the distraught teen. Her first instinct was to rise and go to him, but as wound up as he was there was no telling what he would do. And any of her words would be tainted until she could convince him she wasn't the cynical manipulator he'd decided she was.

But maybe someone else's...

"Shinji, do you know what Mana told me after the first day she met you?" she asked, fighting to hold her voice level when what she wanted to do was belt him one for thinking so little of them all, himself included.

The boy shook his head, stubborn skepticism written on his features.

She said, and I quote, "He seems nice enough, and I think he'd be cute if he smiled more, but he's so damned introverted all the time I can't tell what he's really like. I suppose I'll have to find out." Misato noted with some relief the signs of agitation beginning to fade, though the disbelief remained. "At that point, I reminded her of Nerv's policy on fraternization, and that if she broke it I'd come down on her like a sledgehammer. But more to the point, she, and Sousuke, and Yan, are here for the sole reason to keep you from harm by any means necessary. They would do that job even if they thought you were a stinking pustule. They would even manage to be civil about it, if I ordered them to be. In the minds of the brass, you're more important than they are. It comes with the territory, they're used to it." She allowed the steadily neutral tone her voice had held by sheer force of will to rise in volume. "But Sousuke would -not- have covered for you, admittedly badly, with your math teacher after you forgot a paper, and Mana wouldn't give you more than the time of day, and Yan sure as -hell- wouldn't have offered to teach you to drive in his car, if they didn't like you on your own."

Shinji had to smile a little at the last one, the sergeant's hot-rodded Mazda was his baby. It was not unusual to see him replacing a detail strip that had faded slightly from sun exposure with the care a surgeon gave to a cardiac bypass. "And you?" he asked at last, a glimmer of hope beginning to form in his eyes.

Misato released the breath she'd been holding. When the whole sordid mess had dropped in her lap, she had been certain any hope of trust between them was done for. But, maybe...maybe there was still a chance. She pointed a thumb over her shoulder at Penpen's fridge. "You've been here long enough, exactly what is Penpen good for?"

Shinji shrugged in confusion at the non-sequitur. "I...don't know."

His guardian smiled slightly. "Not much, right? Why do you think I keep him, then?" The question was obviously rhetorical, so she continued, "Penpen was a test subject in Nerv's German facility while I was there a few years ago. They would've put him to sleep if I hadn't adopted him, so I felt sorry for him, sure," the captain related softly. "But also, I've always lived alone. And so I thought that it would be nice to have someone there, waiting for me to come back. To have a family." Misato snorted slightly at herself. "There's plenty of apologies to go around for everyone in this mess, but I'll start by saying I'm sorry you believed I only wanted you to live here for convenience, or from pity. I'm not together enough for that. So..." She halted, as tears began leaking down Shinji's face.

Shinji's gaze was far away. The captain could only guess what it was fixed on, but after a few moments he whispered almost to softly to hear, "I...I don't want to go back."

Misato Katsuragi had been called many things in the course of her career, some of them true, many of them not repeatable in polite company. Two expressions were conspicuously absent from the list. One, was incompetent. The other, heartless. She silently rose, circled around the table, and hugged Shinji to her.

"Then don't."

NERV-2
Stuttgart
August 1, 2015
8:00AM Local Time

Asuka Soryu-Langley was about to have fun. That was the message her subconscious was sending her this fine morning, and she had no reason to doubt it. After all, the brass had finally gotten their heads out of their collective asses and realized that cooperative training was a good idea, especially with Miss Perfect on the verge of returning to duty. And since her own humble self was at loose ends there was one ready-made instructor available.

"Well, one and a half," Asuka reminded herself quietly, in the interest of fairness. "Ayanami might contribute -something-."

"All set, Asuka?" Lt. Steuben's voice broke into her monologue.

"I was born ready."

The familiar vertigo of a successful sync washed over her briefly, and as quickly controlled. Asuka surveyed her new surroundings. A battered,
rubble strewn city presented itself to her gaze and, as expected, her map display confirmed the city made up the entirety of the practice area. Hefting her pick-axe in her left hand and drawing the 120mm pistol from her right shoulder housing, the satisfied pilot scanned her immediate environment again before another quick study of the map.

"Ok, the opponent on this run is one of the Chinese pilots, and their units are optimized for short to mid range direct fire. This means...there" Asuka spotted a broad avenue leading to a sort of park area surrounded by low one to two story buildings. "That's where they'd be at best advantage. So we'll give them some credit for brains, and assume they'll be heading that way."

During the early stages of the project, there was a joke going around that the Angels wouldn't need eyes to track an Eva, just a seismograph. Asuka had laughed at the joke like most, but she'd also taken it to heart. It wasn't possible to totally mask an Eva's seismic or audio signatures, but it -was- possible to reduce them. Granted, this was equivalent to going from 'artillery barrage' to 'heavy metal band,' but a girl takes what she can get in this world. In this way, and by holding her AT field closed and keeping a cluster of buildings or other obstructions between her and her guesstimate of her opponent's position, she was confident she could close the distance in relative safety.

/Joe Satriani "One Big Rush" Flying in a Blue Dream/

The dull shocks felt through the soles of her Eva's feet told Asuka her prey approached, acting at a visceral level that her sensors tracking Eva-06's fire control radar and sonar for the past minute hadn't. Heart racing, she forced herself to remain still, backed up against what was probably once an apartment block, feeling the footfalls grow stronger, in time with the electric thrill of approaching action, with each stride. Her patience in patrolling the area around the park was about to pay off, it wouldn't do to spook the game now.

Finally, Asuka's instincts told her the time was right. Her lips curling back from her teeth, she leaped from her hiding place at her target with a wordless cry, pistol swinging into line as she unfolded her AT field and engaged from behind. Eva-06 frantically spun to bring its rifle to bear and began backing up, a line of dusty explosions in the concrete of the street and buildings marked the path of its rounds as they sought the unexpected opponent.

Asuka seemed to dance around the supersonic projectiles, never remaining still long enough to be targeted effectively. All the while, her pistol blazed two shot volleys, systematically disabling first the sensors that pointed it, and then the rifle itself.

Stunned by the speed and violence of its attacker, Eva-06 never had a chance of stopping the axe in Eva-02's other hand. The ultrasonic vibration induced in the heavy alloy axehead let it bite deep into the enemy Eva's armor, backed by all power of the Eva's back and shoulder muscles. Ruin flopped at her feet.

Asuka smiled grimly at her fallen foe. "First blood."

Soundtrack

Opening theme-Pat Benatar "Invincible" Greatest Hits
-The Rasmus "Still Standing" Dead Letters
-Joe Satriani "One Big Rush" Flying in a Blue Dream
Closing theme-Joe Satriani "Big Bad Moon" Time Machine

[Geoff-H]

I love the last scene.

Looking forward to more.

[TabascoOne]

Ask and ye shall receive. Glad you're enjoying it.

Part 1 of 2

------------

//Motley Crue “Kickstart my Heart” _Dr. Feelgood_//

Eva-03 sprinted through a low-grown suburban neighborhood, its white and navy blue paint job completely ineffective at camouflaging it against the high rise
towers visible on the horizon. Wedge-shaped shoulder pylons, half the usual height, mounting its SPY-4b radar arrays were the most obvious identifying feature, followed by a bandage-like band over its 'mouth' pierced with an opening for a 30mm Gatling gun. Clutched in its hands was an ‘improved’ Type 14 assault rifle, part of the purpose of this sim being to test proposed changes to the real thing.

This morning it was so far, so good.

Asuka sprinted to a new position as a three round burst crackled downrange, trailing faint glowing lines in the sunlight. The cluster of dart-shaped projectiles slashed past, even to the naked eye moving on a much flatter trajectory than the previous type.

"The higher muzzle velocity really cuts into the ability to dodge fire," she dictated to the recorder monitoring the simulation. Roberts was doing the same on his end in Massachusetts, thus giving ordinance teams on the spot appraisals from both ends of the weapon. "I don't think it will be possible even with Eva reflexes closer than 500 meters or so. Have to watch over-penetration if we're in an urban environment," the pilot added as an afterthought as the rounds continued on after passing through her concealment to devastate a wing of an elementary school some distance behind her. Another burst whipped by unnervingly close, perforating another section.

None of the recent arrivals were anywhere near the same league as she at melee range, the week's worth of mock combats had driven -that- point home with a sledgehammer. But if that was true, then so was the fact that none of them had been chosen to be pilots because they were idiots. It hadn't taken more than one encounter with Eva-00 or -02 at knife range for the newbies to begin discovering the joys of ranged combat and use of cover.

Case in point. Eva-03 was on the move, pulling back a block to the southeast and going to ground behind a small apartment complex. Meanwhile, it was using the range advantage it had been granted in this sim ruthlessly, keeping up a harassing fire in the hope of pinning Eva-02 down and moving around to her flank.

Good plan, but not Asuka’s plan. "Sloppy, ami. Very sloppy," she muttered unconsciously while drawing a bead with her 120mm autopistol. His tactical thinking might be improving, but he was obviously still shaky on situational awareness...

The destruction of the gas station halfway between them was all the distraction she needed. Eva-02 popped out of cover like a shot, covering a third of the 800 meters to her target as a red and yellow blur before the hapless newbie could switch sensor modes and try to reacquire through the smoke.

Another fifty wasted bringing the rifle back around to do something about it.

Another hundred before the computer to locked on and granted permission to fire.

Mere instants before a squeeze of the trigger could send the forearm long darts on their way, Eva-02 vaulted a college dorm, parting the boiling, greasy cloud like a cannonball to swirl behind in the whirlwind of her passage. Touching earth only the briefest instant, the Eva kicked off on a new vector, a fresh volley plowing up the street behind her.

Asuka twisted like a gymnast dismounting from a set of parallel bars as she passed the apartment building at 300 meters range and a non-trivial fraction of the speed of sound, ending up facing perpendicular to her flight path. And her suddenly vulnerable prey.

Which was -not- Eva-03.

A bone-white mask set between hunched forest green shoulders met her horrified gaze. Before her frozen body could think to squeeze the trigger, a brilliant lance of pure light blazed forth from the palm of its claw-like hand, blazing a ruinous path from the front of the Eva's helm right out the back, knocking it into a tumbling, earth jarring, crash which to devastate a row of low-rise commercial buildings.

Asuka fought the doubling of her vision and the unnatural sluggishness of her machine as she scrambled to stand. On the plug screen, her foe arrogantly, almost nonchalantly strode across the three blocks separating them. Frantically plying her controls, she looked up from displays filled with chaos. Before her bleary, disbelieving eyes it powered up its main weapon, and silenced her building scream.

The streetlights outside the apartment building threw shifting, patterned shadows through the translucent curtains covering the room's windows. A brighter patch of the pattern shifted, passing over a blue and white checkered comforter and a cream pillowcase to illuminate the visage of a sleeping girl.

Asuka Langley-Soryu released an involuntary mewl of hurt. Curling tighter into a ball, she rolled over beneath the sheets.

Furry Pigeon Productions presents:

But Loyal To Their Own: An Evangelion Elseworlds

Neon Genesis Evangelion characters copyright Gainax
Full Metal Panic! characters copyright Shouji Gatou
Han Fei, Samuel Roberts and all other characters copyright the author
All characters once again used without permission

Chapter 3- Sword and Shield

Depend upon it sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
-Dr. Samuel Johnson.

If you're in a fair fight, you didn't plan it properly.
—Nick Lappos, Chief R&D Pilot, Sikorsky Aircraft

Nerv-3
Boston
August 6, 2015
9:20AM Local Time

Sgt. Major Melissa Mao grimaced at the display, currently showing a replay of the messy ventilation of Eva-03 in graphic detail. Eva-00 had set a doozy of an ambush. Personally, she was impressed Testarossa had detected it at all before the bullets flew, even if it had been too late, given the massive disparity in experience and skill separating the two. Not that the newer pilot was looking at it that way, Melissa saw, reading her frustrated expression as she exited the simulator plug.

But that was typical of both her charges, she noted as the trainees in question switched places. And the after action reviews they had been getting probably didn't help. It was hard to tell if Soryu-Langley was being that obnoxious deliberately or if it was just natural talent, but she had both of them ready to spit nails.

Melissa watched Sam and Tessa confer a moment next to the plug, Sam smiling as she lay a hand on his shoulder for a moment in passing before she decompressed her green and white plugsuit and continued on to the showers. The NCO nodded at the tech’s questioning look, and returned most of her attention to the main screen as the sim parameters reset.

Good kids. Naïve, as only fourteen-year-olds raised in affluent, peaceful homes most of their lives could be, but good kids. God knew she'd seen worse. The Sergeant Major took pride in her work, like any craftswoman, and if she'd been handed a rush job, at least Nerv had had the courtesy to send quality material along with it.

Because of that Melissa had pushed, and goaded, and demanded, generally playing slave driver and all around bitch until the two were ready to drop, and then yanked them back to their feet and made to do it all over again. Not out of sadism, but simply because it did them no favors not to, and it was better to find any problems now than later when lives depended on them.

And it was working, as similar processes had since time immemorial. It wouldn't do to say it yet, but she was even a little proud of them. It had been a long three weeks for everybody, but her charges were finally starting to get comfortable in their new roles.

Roberts had actually been the more promising candidate of the two at first, possessing both good reflexes and proficient marksmanship. But ever so slowly, that was changing.

Testarossa had started out almost aimless, drifting along content to daydream about integrals, or Mandelbrot sets, or whatever it was mathematicians did for fun. Surprisingly, she had agreed immediately to recruitment, in spite of showing no particularly aggressive or protective tendencies in either demeanor or history. Her profiler even went so far as to call her a 'sweetheart' in summation, which was not a terribly promising comment on a potential warrior.

But that had been then. Under the skin she proved, perhaps to her own surprise as much as anyone's, to have persistence by the bucketful and the inability to refuse a challenge. Being matched first against her fellow trainee here and then the veterans in the other branches seemed to have sparked a competitive drive that had been noticeably lacking. With the active connivance of her teammate, she had begun rapidly making up lost ground, and nudging him out of the top spot in the process.

For Robert's part, he seemed more than happy to let her. In a way, he reminded Melissa of an irascible old carpenter who had once done some cabinet work for her. Not precisely prickly, or sullen, not in the least. But the best way to deal with him had been to describe what you wanted, and then go away while he went to work. The analogy was flawed to be sure, but that same task-oriented personality seemed to be present in the younger man. So maybe it wasn't such a surprise that his teammate had stepped up and assumed more of the decision making.

But be that as it may. Determination and dedication were essential qualities, but not the only ones needed for success. Placing a few ideas on how to foster a few more on a mental back burner, Melissa returned her full attention to the present.

Tokyo-3
3:15PM Local Time

At first glance, Sousuke Sagara's gaze appeared to be focused entirely on his newspaper, not paying any particular attention to his surroundings, and certainly not to the girl sitting to his right. Appearances were deceiving, on closer examination it became obvious that his eyes were constantly moving, taking in everything the current environment presented to him. It was a stark contrast to the girl sharing his bench a few seats down, for whom the appearance of disinterest in her surroundings was in fact reality.

Thus it was no surprise that he was first to notice the two newest passengers enter his train car from the street.

"Sagara, I am certain I heard myself give you the day off!" Misato Katsuragi glowered from before him as he shot to his feet.

"Ma'am! Miss Ayanami called to inform us that she would be proceeding to the geofront, it seemed prudent to accompany her," Sousuke reported punctiliously. "I apologize for disobeying your instructions."

"Hmm," his superior considered, secretly amused at the display. "Well, in that case I -suppose- we can forgo the court martial," Misato agreed judiciously. "Ok, I'll take it from here. You, on the other hand, have a new assignment."

"I am ready to receive it, Captain."

Misato's eyes took on a predatory gleam. "Excellent. You are to return to your apartment as quickly as practical. Once there, you are to contact Petty Officer Kirishima, and proceed with her to the dining establishment of her choice, at which point you will buy her ice cream."

Sousuke's studied military posture dissolved in confusion. "But..."

"Do you understand my instructions, Corporal?" Misato overrode him.

"Yes ma'am, but..."

Misato again cut him off. "There there must be some problem with them. Speak up then."

"No, there is no problem, but..."

"Then you'd best be about it," Misato said with finality as the train braked to its next stop.

Sousuke sagged in defeat. "Yes, Captain." With that, he folded his newspaper and exited with a confused shake of his head.

After the doors closed behind him, Misato sat down in the seat next to Shinji and chuckled. "I shouldn't enjoy that, but he makes it so easy..." before turning to the car's other occupant. "Good morning, Rei."

The pilot nodded fractionally. "Good morning, Captain Katsuragi."

Shinji avoided her level gaze and mumbled his own greeting, Rei simply nodded and returned to her textbook.

The rest of the ride passed in silence, Rei silently moving off on her own errands once the train arrived at the geofront stop.

"Is she always like that?" Shinji asked once she was out of sight.

"-I've- never seen otherwise," Misato replied with a shrug. "You've been going to school with her for weeks now, don't you know?"

Shinji flinched slightly. "Well yeah, but I wondered if she's different outside it."

Misato considered for a moment before shaking her head. "No, I admit I've only been here a little bit longer than you, but I can't think of a time she's ever even cracked a smile." She turned the same smile that had graced her features dealing with Sousuke on him. "But why the sudden interest?"

"Well...um..." Shinji stammered, fearing he was about to make a confection purchase. "I...if I'm going to be here permanently I should try to get to know her."

"Good idea," Misato replied approvingly. "Well, I've got her phone number, so you could always invite her over some evening," she smirked as Shinji started to relax, and set the hook. "I can also find out what she likes for breakfast, if you think you'll need it," she cooed in a husky voice.

"Misato!" Shinji scolded, face flaming red as outrage and embarrassment warred across it.

"Bah! You're no fun," Misato laughed, mussing his hair. "Ah, here we are."

They'd stopped outside the entrance to the hospital wing of Central Dogma. Misato wore a serious expression when Shinji finished re-grooming his mistreated mane. "Ok, this -should- have been done when you got here, but it seems to have been lost in the shuffle." At Shinji's quizzical look, she continued. "All senior staff in Nerv are equipped with a beacon as a preventive measure against kidnapping. If you're going to be piloting on a permanent basis you'll need one as well."

Shinji's expression was wooden. "So its a homing tag. Like you use on wild animals."

"More or less," Misato agreed. Their recent heart to heart had repaired much of the damage their relationship had sustained after their post-fourth Angel blowup, but this definitely touched on one of the tender parts. It would pay to proceed carefully. "Listen, Shinji. It sucks, I won't lie. But there -are- good reasons for it..."

"Like keeping me from leaving the reservation again?" Shinji suggested bitterly.

"Like keeping you safe," Misato rejoined, taking care keep her voice calm. When dealing with Shinji, shouting might buy obedience but, as she had learned, that was very different from agreement. She had been finding it more important he did the latter as time went on... "It's no secret, now, that Nerv wasn't the only group working on superweapons like the Evas even before the Angels returned. You'd better believe there are even more now. Any of them would be delighted to have a confirmed pilot, and some of them are in places with less than savory reputations for human rights. You follow?"

Shinji nodded slowly.

"The offer I made before still stands, Shinji. You'll be giving up a part of your freedom if you do this. It's up to you if the job is worth it."

To her relief, he answered without hesitation. "Ok," he sighed. "How does it work?"

Misato smirked crookedly. "That's about the only good news. The tag is about the size of a piece of gum, and it's inserted through an incision in between two ribs to sit behind the sternum. Takes about an hour. After that, Nerv is
always close to your heart."

Shinji winced in psychic pain at the pun. "Then let's get this over with."

"So anyway, they just got in a model of the Fearless, and it's even been updated to conform to her newest refit!" Kensuke chattered excitedly. "It's gonna be so cool, I can't wait to get it tomorrow."

"No kidding," Toji snorted. Heaven knew he couldn't ask for a better friend, but at some point you had to call a spade a spade.

Kensuke gave him a sidelong past the edge of his glasses. "Hey, I don't mention your hobbies, leave mine alone."

"All I'm sayin' is that mine don't involve paint fumes eating holes in my brain," Toji replied nonchalantly.

Kensuke nodded. "True, I can see how hanging around a bunch of sweaty guys is a lot healthier. Probably a lot more interesting for you too."

"Hey!" Toji shouted, drawing a few stares as they wandered down the street towards their neighborhood. In one of those odd coincidences that life scatters with abandon, their families had moved into their apartment complex on the same day, and their parents had sent them off together to stay busy and out of trouble. Five years later, busy still wasn't hard to manage. Out of trouble, now, was something else.

Kensuke snickered, and Toji didn't have to guess at why. He'd walked right into that one, after all. He glanced at a small blue sports car parked at the curb, and looked again more closely when he noticed the Nerv transponder tag hanging from the rear view mirror. "Odd time for someone to be out, they don't change shifts for another four hours," he distantly heard his friend muse, but who cared about some Nerv worker bee slacking when...

"Man, you've gotta see this! Check out the babe at the checkout line!" Kensuke complied, and let out a low whistle of his own at the sight. Long, flowing hair so dark it looked purple-blue, excellent legs, narrow waist and, Toji saw as she turned from the register, a rack worthy of the rest of the package. Who could blame him if it took a few seconds to register she had a companion?

"Oh, you two," Shinji greeted coolly. "You shop here too?"

"Uh, yeah," Toji replied distractedly. Someone, somewhere, was laughing at him right now, he was sure of it.

Kensuke gave a small shake and returned to his senses. "Do it," he murmured as he nudged his friend.

Toji grimaced, but there was nothing for it. Squaring his shoulders, he announced in a painfully earnest voice, "Ikari, I was an idiot."

Shinji stared in blank confusion.

"I had no call for hittin' you that day to begin with, and after what I saw last week I'm even dumber than I thought," the contrite boy continued.

"And that takes work," Kensuke supplied, to a smirk on the part of both his listeners.

Toji ignored him completely. "So, I wanna square the books." He lifted his chin defiantly and continued. "Belt me one."

Shinji's jaw dropped. "HUH?!"

"Slug me. I've got it coming, I'm serious."

Shinji and Misato shared an 'Is this guy for real?' look while Kensuke dropped his face into his palm. "That's not what I -meant-, you..." he trailed off into mumbles probably best left uninterpreted.

"You're sure about this," Shinji confirmed after his apparent guardian (the lucky bastard!) shrugged. "No IOU, or something?"

"Definitely."

Shinji shook his head in resignation and drew his fist back. "Ok, but only one."

He was just about to throw his punch when Toji signaled for a pause. "One other thing, Ikari. Make it count."

At last, his classmate's expression cleared of its confused 'ok, just humor the moron' overtones. Shinji smirked, and let his fist do the talking.

Nerv-3
Boston
August 4, 2015
7:45PM Local Time

A desk lamp cast a pool of yellowish light on a plain steel desk, illuminating a looseleaf binder stuffed with notes. Paper rustled as the reader turned another page.

Tessa blew out a breath, ruffling the bangs over her forehead. School had never been much of a hassle for her, and most of the things she was interested in she'd taught herself anyway, but this was insane. Her gaze involuntarily flicked to the two other similar size binders perched at the edge of her desk, as if to keep them as far out of sight as possible.

"Let's see, I can probably blow off the EM theory, but I have to know the air launch checklists for the sim tomorrow, so..." her mumbled prioritizing was interrupted by a soft knock at the bathroom door.

"It's open," she called.

"Hey, are you coming to dinner? I thought you were just double checking the drop speed tolerances," her male counterpart queried as he poked his head in the door.

"Sorry. I wrapped up in tomorrow's stuff and..." she shrugged apologetically. "Its only...almost eight. Wonderful." Theoretically, they were free once the Sgt. Major turned them loose around seven. But between the need to study procedures and other essentials, and having to be up at five the next morning, their usual course had been to take over a cafeteria table and kill two birds with one stone for the rest of the evening. "Oh well. Let me pack up and we'll go. If we hurry, maybe I can wheedle something out of the cooks, if they're still on duty..."

"For once, I'm ahead of you." The door opened wider, revealing a brown paper bag in Sam's hand that rustled enticingly.

"My hero," she grinned, gathering up her supplies.

Sam snorted derisively, recognizing sarcasm when he heard it. "Hah. Anyway, before you ask, I passed."

"That's great!"

“Yep,” he preened. “I’m now officially rated Expert on the AUG rifle. About time for seven years of weekends at the range to amount to something. I should have a chance to make it on the M-40 too, before we leave.” He stalled on whatever he would've said next, as just what leaving would entail invaded his thoughts once again.

“And a few tens of thousands of trigger pulls, I’d imagine,” Tessa noted absently, thinking much the same. Silently, she stood with her armload of binders and waited as her comrade opened the door for her before he followed.

"We're just not ready," Sam continued quietly after a moment, frowning thoughtfully at the industrial brown carpet as they walked slowly towards the stairs. "I know we're not but a third of the way through, but it just seems like as far as we might've come, we've got a whole lot farther t' go," he continued, his native accent becoming more pronounced as he lost himself in thought.

"Mm." Tessa nodded, his thoughts echoing some of hers, in her darker moods. "You're full of sweetness and light today. What brought this on?"

He shook his head. "Nothing in particular. It's been creeping up on me a while now. I guess sparring with Ayanami and Soryu really brought it out, though. I mean, yeah, they've been doing this their whole lives, and I'm -damned- glad they're on our side,"

"But getting the snot beaten out of you time after time doesn't do much for your pride," she finished the thought. "I can't disagree," she allowed, rolling her ash blonde braid between her fingers in thought.

--/

"And who's our next contestant?" Asuka had chirped as Tessa buckled the restraints. She reminded herself, once again, that it was impolitic to give her training 'officer' both barrels, even if she deserved it. Especially if she deserved it.

"Trainee Testarossa," she replied with forced pleasantry in Japanese.

"Oh -good-, Miss Fortune herself," Asuka snerked. "Well, if you can manage not to trip over your own feet for a few moments, I'll bring up your assignment."

Tessa ground her teeth and privately thanked the programmer who set up the NERV network for deciding not to waste bandwidth on plug to plug video feeds. The gloating sneer that -had- to go along with that line would've driven her over the edge for sure.

"Fine," Tessa grated.

"I'm -so- glad you approve."

--/

She shook her head slightly, dispelling the memory. "But, that's life. In the mean time, we have verbs to conjugate, and then you'd -better- have gotten the deal with subject/verb agreement straightened out, because when we get to Japan, I will not be associated with someone who sounds like Yoda," she turned to level a small stern finger at his nose.

"Aye, aye, Cap'n!" Sam barked, prudently well outside arm's reach.

Spots of color bloomed on either cheek. Turning back around and striding off, she snapped "It's 'Hai, tai-cho!' If you're going to be sarcastic, do it in the right language!"

Grinning to himself, Sam resumed walking. It wasn't often he got to score off her, no reason not to savor it for a moment. It certainly beat being left in the metaphorical dust, again.

"Ok, I feel better now. Anyway, totally unrelated, I was thinking about the fight I had earlier. It makes sense to run the guns under computer control when you're shooting at something three or four clicks out, you'd need to be some kind of super-sniper to do it by hand, but at the kind of ranges we usually deal with isn't there some option to take back manual control?"

Tessa raised an eyebrow. "Planning to use the force?"

"Not exactly, but I figured anything was worth a try. Can't do any worse, after all."

"There is that. As far as I know, no. The OS for our model of Eva is basically a beta version right now, maybe an alpha to be really honest. The fire control subsystem only has the protocols for induction mode loaded, like we'd use if we were firing on orbital targets."

Sam nodded understanding. That ability was the whole point of the high-end sensor arrays Evas-03 and -04 mounted, after all. It made no sense to build weapons like the Type-20 particle rifles, that could fire into low orbit, if they couldn't see what they were shooting at. "So much for that, then. Been fishing for compliments over with the IT folks again, I take it?"

"I was doing nothing of the kind," she replied frostily. They had bumped into some of the software engineers over lunch one day, and predictably, the presence of a pretty girl with a genuine interest in their work had opened the floodgates. "I did talk to the lead programmer for the power management module though, and he said..."

And promptly drowned any lesser souls.

But that was par for the course dealing with Tessa, you were never quite sure if you were about to be bemused, or awed. After all, it wasn't for nothing that they spent at least an hour a night at the range or in the gym, on top of their time during the day, trying to get her marksmanship and movements up to speed. Sam was pretty sure she would scrape by with a passing score when the time came, but anything better would take a miracle.

"...and lock the weapons in boresight mode." -That- finally rang a bell.

"Wait, back up. What was that again?"

"I thought that might get your attention. Apparently if you pop breaker seven-alpha, it forces a fault in the fire control computer. If you do try it though, make sure to cancel image enhancement, zoom, or low light modes. The main server tries to run a quick POST and diagnostic to reestablish contact, and that can cause some lag. Canceling those processes speeds things up a bit. The end result is like I said, the display software doesn't have any data from there to work with, so it locks the pipper in boresight mode. You'll have to aim over open sights, but," she shrugged philosophically. "I think until we get a real runtime image that's as good as it gets."

"-You- are a lifesaver. Thanks."

Tessa colored again at the compliment, but grinned back in genuine pleasure. "Anytime. Put a couple extra rounds into Eva-02 and I'll call it paid with interest."

Tokyo 3
August 6, 2015
6:00 PM Local Time

Shinji Ikari was sweating bullets. The bleak gray walls reflected his estimate of his chances of leaving this room alive as he stared for a second time into a set of crimson eyes. As he frantically searched for an escape route, a smug portion of his mind insisted on exercising its hindsight prerogative.

--/
Earlier

Several boys relaxed on the bleachers bordering the school track and soccer field, enjoying the shade provided by a combination of several mid-sized oak trees and a corrugated steel canopy. Ignoring his two fellow loafers' banter next to him, Shinji gazed into space in the general direction of the school fence, lost in thought.

The small bandage covering the incision for his newly installed beacon had come off days ago, as far as he could tell the procedure hadn't even left much of a scar. The device was supposed to broadcast a brief signal every ten minutes to the UN satellite network, which in turn performed some basic geometry and returned the results to HQ.

But, with the bad had come some good. And that was a pretty decent summation of his recent days, actually.

Misato had, with tongue firmly in cheek, posted a list of coordinates on the main fridge. Including such useful locations as their bedrooms, her office, the nearest convenience store, and the place she'd finally tracked him down on his memorable first day in town, it was her way of saying she understood he felt like he'd been placed under a microscope. That was one change from his old guardian at least. His aunt would 'cry over spilled milk' for days after the event, he still heard about misdeeds he'd committed -years- ago. Misato, by contrast, might drop on you like a ton of bricks, but when the dust settled that was the end of it. She had never mentioned his walkabout after that morning in her kitchen, even in jest.

Better still, either Misato had taken her aside, or she'd finally gotten the hint, but Mana had cut back on her teasing drastically. Of course, she had then redirected her excess energy to 'befriending' Rei, so it might be a case of the Law of Conservation of Misfortune being at work...

Training was coming along, his week long hiatus from school to take a crash course in Eva piloting from the two resident experts seemed, to him at least, to have done some good. Of course, the old schedule had continued once he'd returned to school, so while he seemed to have picked up a couple of friends, or maybe the other way around, he didn't seem to have any time to spend with them.

"Ikari? Yo, Ikari!" Toji waved a hand in his line of sight.

Shinji started out of his brown study. "Huh?" Speaking of the devil...

"What'cha looking at so hard?" Toji questioned as he peered past Shinji to where he'd just been staring. "You going deaf or something?"

"I think its more he had better things to do than listen to us," Kensuke weighed in. "If you get me."

Toji smirked. "Somethin' to that," he agreed as he inched his head a bit lower and caught sight of the school pool past the edge of the canopy. "So, which one was it?"

"Which what?" Shinji asked suspiciously.

"Don't play dumb, man. Which girl!" Toji pressed. "Come on, dish! I've got a week's allowance riding on this!"

"But I..." Shinji protested. Inevitably, two of the three girls in view were Ayanami and Mana, plus another girl who looked pissed at the world for some reason. His eyes narrowed. "Wait a minute, what about a week's..."

"Wha'dya you think, 'suke? Ayanami or Kirishima?" Toji considered, ignoring him. "We can rule Chidori out, unless Shinji's into S&M." He shivered theatrically.

"Safe bet," Kensuke agreed. The stories about the 'prettiest girl no one dared to date' were legendary. "I'd take Kirishima personally, but then again..." he trailed off invitingly.

"I don't suppose you'd believe me if I said neither," Shinji interjected, without real hope.

"Nope," Toji agreed. "But as I was sayin', Ayanami would be my pick, they're both pilots an' all. Bit sullen for me though," he finished thoughtfully.

Shinji would normally have dismissed the whole thing with the rest of the nonsense from that pair, but something about it just wouldn't die. Once the final bell rang, he gathered up his laptop and accessories and filed out with the rest of the class. It was cleaning day for him, so he made for the janitor's closet instead of the entrance.

"Finally," he sighed in relief. Shinji began stacking the chairs and desks aside so he could sweep the floor. The other student assigned that day, a tall brunette whose name he couldn't think of offhand, came in with a bucket of soapy water and a rag and began wiping down the chalkboard. Shinji tuned out her humming and let the repetitive motions relax him. He always enjoyed chores like this that let him turn off his brain for a while, and now more than ever he figured he deserved a little time to zone out. After this, he would have yet another training session to deal with. And, he realized with a sigh, it was Misato's turn to cook.

"Maybe Sgt. Jun-kyu will take pity on me," he hoped against hope. Noticing the girl had been following behind mopping and was almost done herself, he stood aside while she finished.

"Thanks for your help," he said awkwardly, turning to leave quickly through the sliding door.

As expected, Shinji found Sousuke and Mana waiting for him by the shoe lockers, Mana with her back towards him while she argued about something with Sousuke.

"No doubt I'll hear all about it in a minute," he muttered as he twisted the latch to his locker.

The gout of brightly colored smoke slowly settled to the floor, pooling around the trio's ankles, the petty officer's mouth still open in preparation to shout a warning a second too late. Revealed in the clearing air, a now Day-Glo orange Shinji Ikari stood, still frozen in shock.

"Damn it, Sousuke! I told you!" she turned and bellowed at her accomplice. "That thing is more dangerous to us than the enemy!"

"Had Pilot Ikari been properly informed of the addition it would not be a problem," Sousuke responded calmly.

"And who's job was that?" Mana asked caustically

"Mine, which I was detained from performing by a person who shall remain nameless."

Shinji chose that moment to return from his brief trip to his happy place, and ask in a shell-shocked voice, "What just happened here?"

The petty officer rolled her eyes heavenward and waved at Sousuke. "Go on, I'm sure it will make sense when I hear it again."

Sousuke nodded cordially, most likely missing the sarcasm entirely. "I recently realized that the shoeboxes of this school are a significant security risk, I apologize for this oversight. The space is large enough to fit a directional mine such as a Claymore or similar device, wired to activate upon opening the door. To correct this, I elected to install a countermeasure."

"You...boobytrapped my shoebox," the pilot repeated, still in shock.

"As well as Ayanami's, mine and Kirishima's," Sousuke added with quiet satisfaction. "I may add Suzuhara's and Aida's, if you'd like. I have sufficient materials for...

"You shut up, you've done enough damage as it is!" the outraged brunette snarled.

He turned to regard her expressionlessly. "And you knew about this."

"Shinji, I..." Mana began.

He closed his eyes, waving a fond farewell to his good mood. Fists clenched at his sides, he grated "I don't think I want to see either of you right now." With that, he turned, and walked slowly away.

Shinji tried to ignore the looks he was getting on the street as he headed to the train station, but it was no picnic. The mothers pulling their small children out of his way were getting hard to take.

"This isn't going to work. At this rate I'm gonna get arrested," he sighed in defeat. Pausing at an intersection, the pilot considered his options. Misato would be back from the geofront by now, but explaining -this- was more than he could deal with right now. The terrible two were probably back in their apartment as well, so that was out for the same reason. Which left...who?

"I don't know where Toji or Kensuke live, and as for anyone else..." He looked around aimlessly, before frowning in thought. Ayanami comes from this direction when they met on the way to school. And if he wasn't mistaken, there were only two apartment complexes in this area, and one was in exactly the wrong direction.

"Well," he worried a piece of his lower lip between his teeth as he considered. "When you're at the bottom of a hole...."

"Then -you- start digging. Get to know her better," he muttered bitterly while straightening his shirt. "Ask and ye shall receive."

Shinji cleared away the dishes from the table and tried to ignore Pen-Pen's glare from within his refrigerator. Shinji's attempt to pass off his helping of tonight's Misato Special had been neither unnoticed nor appreciated.

The chef glanced up after Shinji finished loading the sink and left to let the dishes soak.

"Are you feeling better now?" she asked before he could disappear into his room.

Shinji paused. "What was the problem?" he asked warily.

Misato stretched casually at her seat on the couch and took her time answering. "Let's just say a little bird told me you had an interesting day."

The pilot tensed. He'd been debating whether or not to mention -anything- that happened in the last few hours, but it looked like that decision was out of his hands now.

"Can I say that I -really- don't want to talk about it?" Shinji asked plaintively. "I'm fine, really," he added rather unconvincingly.

Misato considered the nervous boy standing before her. As far as she knew, he'd been the unwitting victim of a certain overzealous corporal's great idea backfiring horribly. Following that, his minders had tracked him after he had stormed off. It said something about just how mad Shinji must have been that rather than just call someone for the information, he had instead systematically checked nameplates on every door and every floor until he found Rei's. At that point, the guards had lost track for about twenty minutes, but after that their subject had emerged wearing an obviously laundered shirt and hurried home. As pleased as she was that Shinji had felt comfortable going to his teammate for help, that alone certainly wouldn't explain his current reaction. Obviously, she told herself piously, as a responsible commanding officer she needed to know about any events that might have a bearing on a subordinate's performance.

The fact she was genuinely curious was just a bonus.

"If you want. Though if you do I won't have your side of the story," she played a hunch and added "particularly any extenuating circumstances."

That seemed to turn the trick. Shinji sagged, and slouched over to the other side of the couch.

"Ok," he sighed, and began.

Misato nodded appropriately through the parts she'd already heard from the Sousuke's excruciatingly thorough report on the incident.

"Ok, good. You were willing to go to a teammate for help. So then what?" Misato commented when Shinji paused.

Shinji looked down at his hands clasped in his lap, and continued. "I found her apartment and tried the bell, but it was broken. So, I knocked and when there was no answer, I went in." He paused and asked, a hint of accusation in his voice, "Did either of them ever tell you about where she lives?"

"Yeah," Misato answered grimly. "But since she's a ward of...the Director there isn't much I can do."

Shinji nodded understanding. "I heard the shower turn off and figured she would be out soon. As I was waiting I noticed a pair of glasses on her nightstand. I didn't think she wore any, so I went and picked them up. They had Father's name on them." A suspicious redness began creeping across his cheeks. "That was about the time Rei came out of the bathroom."

Misato chuckled sympathetically. "And not dressed for company?" she suggested diplomatically.

He blushed redder. "No."

"So..." Misato prodded "You're in one piece, and she did help you, it can't have been -too- bad."

Shinji grimaced, shifting positions to pull his knees up to his chest. "I dunno. When she saw me she stared a second, like you'd expect, but then she started walking over, glaring at me all the way. I apologized and tried to leave, but slipped on something she'd left laying on the floor..." he trailed off, unable to continue.

Misato had already connected the dots. "And ran right into her," she finished the flustered boy's tale. -Now- things were starting to make sense.

Shinji nodded miserably.

"Well, on a one to ten scale I'd say your day rated about a negative five. I guess she gave you something for your problem and sent you on your way?"

"She let me use her washer, yeah," the teen confirmed.

Misato leaned back and considered for a time. She'd have to confirm Shinji's story with the other party in the tale, of course. But from what the captain knew of her roommate, the odds against Rei's story being significantly different were astronomical. "Only you. When I suggested you get to know her better, this really wasn't what I had in mind," she chuckled.

The boy tightened his grip around his knees, curling further into a little ball of misery. His guardian shook her head, and relented. "Seriously though, relax. From what you said, I don't think she's genuinely angry with you. She's a pretty even tempered girl, as you might've noticed," she noted dryly.

Shinji snorted slightly.

"You'll need to apologize of course, but I think you're in the clear."

Shinji smiled wanly. "You think so?"

"Pretty sure. You've seen her in the simulators," Misato grinned. "If she'd felt threatened, a little embarrassment would be the least of your problems."

Shinji's eyes widened. "Oh."

[TabascoOne]

And now part 2 of 2

United Nations Space Command
Panama Territory
August 8, 2015
11:00 PM Local Time

The console beeped quietly to itself.

Though the noise was all but lost among the quiet bustle of the nerve center of the international Skywatch program's DEW system and its associated support satellites, Specialist 2c Walters set down his mug of green tea and glanced curiously at the display.

By default it displayed contacts within a nondescript wedge of space approximately half a million kilometers deep by an equal amount wide, pointed directly behind Earth's orbital track. Beyond the usual low orbit trash and larger satellite contacts, it was clear all the way to lunar orbit, excepting a small asteroid transiting the area at a leisurely 40,000 kph, expected to pass well clear of Earth.

As he watched, the dotted red line denoting its vector twitched.

"What in hell..." he wondered aloud, keying open a more detailed window on the object. Radar reflectivity was awfully high, but not totally out of range for a nickel-iron type. Still not terribly concerned, the sensor tech requested an orbiting telescope acquire an optical image. Given the object's apparent size, it would have no real detail, but was the fastest way to confirm evaporation of volatile ice pockets or similar phenomena that wouldn't show on radar. Granted, common sense dictated the gassing would have to be fairly massive to shift even a relatively small object like that, but it was the only reasonable explanation for a sudden course change.

Sipping again at his cooling tea, Walters watched the image resolve line by line. 'Like watching paint dry,' he'd often grumble to his colleagues off-duty. It beat carting a rifle through some hellhole, but still...

The image finished resolving, and any further thought froze in its tracks. On screen, a fuzzy image of a suspiciously regular tetrahedron glowed on the flat panel display. The console beeped again, and the updated course showed a clear shift in trajectory towards Earth, likely impact zone somewhere in the Pacific rim.

But sometimes, it can be very interesting indeed he amended, absently punching the button for his supervisor.

Nerv-4
Karamay
11:30AM Local Time

Han Fei's left arm snapped out in a by now instinctive parry. Twisting his wrist to try for a grab at the gloved fist deflected by his move, he instead barely brushed his fingertips on his opponent's retreating fist as she pulled it back out of danger and regained her balance.

That by itself was odd, Nami was usually faster than that. Superficially, with his advantages in height and mass, any contest between them at hand to hand range ought to be an absurd mismatch. But, Han was coming to learn, there was much more to the story than brawn and range. In addition to the buoyant exuberance she brought to any task she was given, Nami was also gutsy, well coordinated, and rarely made the same mistake twice.

In all, it made for a challenge he found himself delighted to take on.

But today something was off. In fact, now that he thought about it, things had been...peculiar for several days now. Her preferred tactics were to use the speed her smaller size gave her to block his attacks, -then- exploit an opening to get inside his guard and ruin his day. This kind of full-time offensive pressure was unlike her. The boy couldn't think of anything that had changed, but a couple times now he'd caught his comrade off her game like this.

Probably sick, he decided. Neither of them were native to the area, and it would be about the right time for the unfamiliar microbiology to make itself noticed. Another strike, a sweep kick this time, and a quick twist on his part to take it on the outside of the thigh rather than its intended target. Her speed might be off, but her power was just fine, he admitted, hiding a wince at the stinging impact. Even with a cup, that one would have been unpleasant. This time, she misstepped on recovery, stumbling and moving her hands out of guard position. Han darted forward, snagging a wrist extended a bit too far, turned, and with a surging twist of the back and hips sent Nami flipping with a surprised squeak that ended abruptly with the near simultaneous thump of her landing and stomp of his foot on the mat above her shoulder, simulating a heel stomp to the throat.

"And thus we see what happens when the attention wanders," Mr. Tzu's cold, androgynous voice observed from a few meters away from the pair. "Miss Lin, if you..." The attention tone originating at the PA system interrupted the budding lecture.

Director Li's dust dry voice followed the signal. "Last night, the next Angel was detected on approach, estimated time of arrival 2:00PM today," he began, sounding more as if he were reading an excerpt from a particularly dry textbook than informing his listeners that their world was under attack once more. "Though its landing zone is expected to be Tokyo-3, this facility shall also consider itself placed on alert. Evacuation protocols are now in effect, non-essential personnel should proceed to their designated assembly areas. Further updates will be provided as the situation develops. That is all."

Han and Nami both turned to Tzu, who greeted their questioning stares with detached amusement.

"You are expecting a noble, inspiring speech, exhorting you to uphold your duty in a time of peril, perhaps?" he asked sardonically. "Tend to your tasks, and others will tend to theirs." Their training officer directed a mildly annoyed glance at the speaker grille. "Consider yourselves 'saved by the bell.' We will resume tomorrow at the usual time. Otherwise, dismissed."

The pair walked slowly along, taking time to enjoy their unexpected reprieve. Nami spared a quick glance at the boy beside her. After the first 'how do you do' awkwardness, they had been getting along well. In times like this, they would usually be trading anecdotes from their respective homes, gripes about their lord and master, speculations about the future. Just the little chit-chat and small talk things of two people getting to know each other. It had been comfortable, nice even.

So why did he have to go and change it! Because it -was- his fault, no doubt in her mind. Certainly -she- hadn't asked him to invade her private thoughts at random. Not to mention turn her concentration into swiss cheese. But was any of this bothering him? No~! It wasn't fair, dammit!

"I'm thinking about putting in some highlights," she spoke suddenly. And that was another thing. When did it get so hard to talk to each other? Not even a week ago, they would be chattering away practicing Japanese, or dissecting a maneuver, or whatever. Now it was all she could do to blurt out a random thought she'd had.

Han raised his eyebrows. "What color?"

That was a pleasant surprise. As straitlaced, even stiff to be honest, as he could sometimes get, she had expected something more like 'what for?' "Not blonde, that would just look weird. Maybe red?" she answered after some thought, combing her fingers through her long ponytail as she regarded it speculatively.

Han stared for a few moments, evidently booting his mental photo editing suite and making the adjustments, oblivious to Nami's reddening slightly under his scrutiny. "That could work. But Tzu will pitch a fit, never mind your Dad."

Oh yeah, the elephant in the room. Nami had studied, purely for curiosity's sake mind you, Nerv's regulations looking for any forbidding dating coworkers. While relationships between superiors and subordinates -were- frowned upon, and expressly forbidden if the potential couple lay in the same chain of command, outside of that the only rule seemed to be what consenting adults did on their own time was their own business.

Therein lay the problem. She was fairly sure her father had been joking when he'd answered 'thirty' as the age his daughters could start dating, but Nami was willing to bet he would be far from pleased if she started now. Given that said father was also -Lieutenant Colonel- Lin and commanded a battalion of the security force, that displeasure could be downright dangerous for its target.

"Yeah, I'll have to wait until I'm in Tokyo. It's not like they can complain. After all, Ayanami's hair is -blue- for heaven's sake!"

"True," Han chuckled. "Well, if you need an accomplice, you know who to call," he added as they arrived at the bus stop.

On the other hand, given her job description there might not be the proverbial 'thirty' to look forward to. It wasn't a possibility someone of her temperament favored considering, but it was the cold truth. There -was- something to be said for making hay while the sun shines.

"Oh, the hell with it," Nami muttered.

The bus rolled up to the stop with an electric whine and a soft squeal of its brakes. It could be said that Nami took a cold, hard look at her current feelings, planned her course of action with delicate care, and executed it with utter confidence.

It would be laughably inaccurate, but it -could- be said.

Though considering Han's pole-axed expression as she drew back from his cheek and hopped aboard the bus, spontaneity had its points too.

"Thanks! I'll take you up on that!" It was only fair to return a little of what was happening to her to its cause. Misery loves company, welcome to the club.

Nerv HQ
Tokyo-3
2:20 PM Local Time

"Its late," Misato commented to no one in particular. "Not considerate -or- punctual. It doesn't get much worse than that."

"I bet he didn't get many second dates in college," Lt. Shigeru Aoba cracked wise from his console.

"Not likely," the captain agreed over a few nervous chuckles. "ETA?"

"Another thirty minutes, atmospheric entry in ten," Makoto reported. "Still on course for us."

"Ok then, sound the alert."

Rei paused on her way from the simulator. Moved by an impulse she didn't wholly understand, she turned and made her way to the Eva bays, arriving as Eva-01 completed its pre-launch checklist and began moving to the catapults.

She watched dispassionately, one hand resting lightly on the railing surrounding the perimeter catwalk, as the Eva lurched into motion riding on the massive transfer platform. Typically, her's was not to reason why. In fact the pilot felt uncomfortable even making the attempt, but in this case she felt compelled to do so. It was an open secret within Nerv that the younger Ikari had come within less than an hour of being declared AWOL after his last mission, a problem averted only by the efforts of a cadre of guards derided by much of Nerv Security as interlopers and amateurs. Rei did not share their opinion, but that was peripheral to the question at hand.

The real issue was why, after having what she presumed he desperately wanted offered to him, the younger Ikari had refused to leave? He was not a Pilot born and raised, as she and the Second were. He was not bound by the desire to destroy the Angels, as their commander appeared to be. He did not even seem to have the belief in the Project's ultimate goals that held many of the senior staff, in spite of their personal differences with the Director.

It was a puzzle, she admitted as the doors began grinding shut after the bay's occupant. She disliked puzzles.

Misato studied the image of their foe rotating in the holographic projector. At first, she'd thought the suspiciously regular object was some sort of transport capsule for the Angel, given how much its octahedral shape departed from the giant monster body type of the previous two. But it hadn't jettisoned anything, either after reentry or while in flight, implying that they were indeed looking at the actual creature.

“Hand off from orbital arrays to surface installations confirmed. Acquisition on fire control radars Bravo and Delta, uploading trajectory data to the Eva,” Shigeru informed them.

All right then, time to be about it. She pressed the transmit button on the earpiece connecting her to the Eva crouching powered down at the edge of town, holding an appropriately scaled rocket launcher on one shoulder. "Remember Shinji, we need to keep it outside the city if we can. As soon as it clears the last foothills, open fire, and then for heaven's sake stay on the move." With the sensors positioned in the mountains continually updating Eva-01's firing solution, without exposing the mecha in turn, it should be possible to get the first shot.

"Understood," he replied crisply.

"Then good luck, and stay safe." Misato cut the link.

"Testing if honey is an improvement over vinegar, Captain?" Ritsuko inquired quietly from her station, the barest hint of a smirk in her tone highlighting her ongoing amusement at Misato's attempts at parenting. The accused cast an annoyed look at her fien...friend, but refused to dignify the jab with a response.

“30 seconds to contact,” Shigeru called out, his professionally flat voice hiding the strain that had been mounting for hours in all of them.

The captain had full confidence in Shinji's ability, but the timing on this was going to be -very- tight. It would take at least a few seconds to bring the Eva out of standby, and another two or three for the AT field to manifest and stabilize. Against a human enemy she could count on at least that long for them to detect, localize, and attack a new target, but against these things it was impossible to say. The dozens of megawatts of electromagnetic radiation lashing the creature from every air search radar Nerv possessed should help focus its attention on the city, and away from its true enemy. She hoped.

"Ten seconds...Eva-01 powering up...AT field unfolding...5 seconds!” Shigeru's voice began to ratchet even tighter as he narrated the action. “High energy reaction in the target! Gamma output rising!"

Misato swore as her hand darted for her earpiece. There was the next best thing to a kilometer of rock shielding Eva-01 from observation! How in -hell- could it... "Shinji, it's got a particle beam! Get moving!"

The pilot responded with alacrity. Three projectiles coughed forth from his rocket launcher to accelerate on diamond hard tails of flame before he dropped his weapon and launched into a dead sprint for the next weapons block. Misato nodded approvingly as the missiles turned to home in on the enemy. The original plan had been for them to be used in the more reliable semi-active mode, where they would guide based on the reflections of a coded laser beam from the target. It was reassuring that in spite of being taken by surprise, Shinji had had the presence of mind to switch to fully active mode to let them handle the entire job themselves.

The Angel cleared the ridge. Meeting it were three supersonic missiles armed with warheads capable of gutting any lesser warship than a cruiser, their on-board radars blessed with a near perfect view of the target against the afternoon sky.

The outcome was foreordained.

Misato's eyes widened with horror as a brilliant beam of light swept the weapons from the sky with arrogant ease. Even as the fireballs bloomed, the Angel turned its attention to its tormentor. Crouched with feet firmly braced and its weapon resting on the reinforced roof of the building, Eva-01 took aim.

Sporting a 406mm bore firing a 200mm subcaliber heavy metal sabot, 'Tiny Tim', as it was affectionately known by the ordinance technicians, was the second most powerful weapon Nerv had at its disposal.

Shinji let fly.

The Angel blazed destruction.

6:30PM

Richard Mardukas was a difficult man to impress. As an officer in His Majesty's Navy since the Cold War, and an commander in the UN Navy for nearly a decade, he would have scoffed at the idea of pulling together a plan of the scope Captain Katsuragi had outlined in less than a week, and even -that- would have been a rush job.

Four hours in, he was ready to admit his error.

Thus far, the good captain had browbeaten both the Japanese Self-Defense Force's procurement division -and- the Ministry of Energy. All but confiscated hundreds of electrical transformers plus vehicles to move them and their crews. Seized every watt of output of every powerplant in Japan. And to finish it off, ensured that what was once a very expensive single-stage-to-orbit cargo shuttle would never fly again, regardless of what happened tonight.

“At least if we fail, it won't be for lack of support,” he commented wryly to himself while standing in Eva-00's bay, overseeing the last minute work. Rei announced coolly that the current fix was ineffective, starting another wave of activity at the in-cage monitoring consoles and among the crews swarming over the Eva's head area.

"Sir? The SDF's cannon has arrived. We have it en route to Bay 15," Lt. Aoba's voice crackled over the walkie-talkie at Mardukas' belt. Frowning at the addition of yet another ball to keep in the air, he replied he was on his way. It never rained, but when it poured...

"Miss Ayanami, I'm afraid we've run out of time. Are you comfortable with simply disconnecting the left side audio and visual connections?" he spoke into the handset connecting to the plug.

"Yes," she replied after a short pause. "The mission should not require them."

"Very well," he answered in relief. "Power down and get some rest. We'll get the shield fitted and call you when we need to move out."

"Understood, shutting down," Rei replied, the Eva slumping as the muscles lost power.

Mardukas ran an eye over the readouts, nodding to himself before leaving the cage crew to their work.

It pleased his sense of propriety that the pilot's extraction had been the first priority after the unsuccessful first engagement, accomplished by a team of surpassingly brave medics on foot the instant the Angel had lost its line of sight to the fallen giant. It was well they had eschewed vehicles, if Captain Katsuragi's field tests were any guide, they would have been annihilated the instant they appeared on the surface at that range. Luckily, Ikari's condition was serious, but not perilously so, according to the last update the commander had received. Would that the same could be said for his machine.

By even greater good fortune, Eva-01 had come to rest near enough to an access point that a crawler could be dispatched to drag the wounded machine back to the geofront once it was reasonably certain to be safe to. Agonizingly slow though the return journey had been for the powerful tractor and its cargo dragged unceremoniously behind, friction and gravity had done their share of damage to the already savaged chest area. Hence, he noted while glancing at the clipboard he had tucked under one arm, why more than half his available crews were busy verifying that nothing more serious had gone wrong under the skin while the most damaged armor sections were replaced.

No one more than glanced up from their work as Richard entered the holding bay indicated by his aide. Ceremony had its place, but the midst of a crash project was not one of them in his opinion. Rearing above the merely human occupants of the space was a segmented rail car on a scale impressive in its own right, but under the circumstances merely a bit player to the real star of the show.

The JSDF's laser, soon to be rechristened the Type 34, was by any standard an engineering marvel. Unlike the Type-12 or -20 particle weapons of Nerv, which used what was essentially a directed nuclear fusion reaction to generate their destructive effect, it was built around an older though no less effective technology. Designed to destroy satellites in geosynchronous orbit, over thirty-five thousand kilometers up, it represented the fruits of decades of research into fusion power. Rather than using a solid lasing medium as most industrial lasers did, it harnessed a powerful magnetic field to contain superheated plasma. When jolted with the over one hundred gigawatts of energy they planned to harvest from across the whole of Japan, the result should be the most powerful beam weapon ever devised by mankind.

Which did rather beg the question of what on earth the Japanese military had wanted the thing for. Fulfilling its stated purpose would take less than a tenth of its original rated output, and boosting it the way Nerv was planning would generate a beam with an energy output near that of a twenty megaton nuclear bomb.

How the brilliant maniac who's brainchild it was managed the feat of getting the monster funded, Richard could only speculate. But it was well he had, he judged as the weapons team foreman made her way through the tangle of bustling bodies to him.

“Sir, we've started pulling the mount lugs to get it ready to ship,” Izuna reported, her hand scratching an itch under her stained white hardhat, “but we're going to have to fabricate both the couplers -and- get some sort of ergonomics mounted on that thing.”

“Very well, cannibalize the other 406mm,” he decided crisply, not turning a hair at the loss of scores of millions of dollars worth of hardware, “and for the connections...”

Rei waited with her customary patience, superficially unconcerned that the foe less than a kilometer above her head was mere hours away from directly attacking the only home she had ever known. The notebook in her hands rustled softly in the bare, dim room, possibly the only place in the whole of Nerv headquarters that was not a beehive of furious activity. In the time since she had arrived, the sunlight collected and concentrated by the arrays on the surface had dimmed further from the pale yellow-red of evening in this season to the faintest ruddy gleam against the ceiling tiles.

The sound of deep, slow breathing could be heard over the fainter sound of the environmental systems circulating the air. Commander Mardukas and Doctor Akagi had both recommended she rest prior to entering action, particularly in light of her recent trauma, but she had found herself unable to do so in the bustle outside. By happenstance, she had encountered one of the nurses for this floor while wandering the facility and, without quite knowing how it happened, had found herself wheeling a meal cart down the hall to this room. That she had found the solitude she had been searching for as a result was an unexpected, though very much welcome, development.

She spared a glance at the sole bed's occupant, before returning to her small notebook containing Ops division's analysis. It was not a well-appreciated fact that solid objects struck by coherent energy weapons as powerful as the latest Angel's did not melt. They exploded. More accurately, they vaporised effectively instantaneously, but this was a purely academic distinction. The protection system designed for the Evangelions was broadly similar to that of a current model main battle tank, though on a much greater scale. Layers of ceramics to defeat thermal insult were interspersed with heavy metals such as depleted uranium to defend against physical damage and encased within a titanium shell, finally topped off with a thick layer of ablative compound designed to burn off and absorb incoming energy while simultaneously throwing fragments into the beam to absorb and reflect further damage.

It was an effective, well tested concept. But it had also been completely inadequate to the demands placed upon it today. The beam had struck the center breastplate of Eva-01, along with that of the head the thickest protection it mounted, and blazed through the thirty centimeter layer of ablative with scarcely a pause to savage the true armor beneath.

Fortunately for all concerned, the resulting trauma had driven the pilot into unconsciousness before significant internal damage had resulted, removing both the Eva's AT field, and apparently the enemy's interest.

A shift in breathing patterns from the sleeper alerted her to his slow wakening. Closing her notebook, she watched placidly as his eyes fluttered open.

A hazy, sleepy puzzlement graced Pilot Ikari's features as he spoke her name uncertainly.

"You should eat before we leave," she prompted softly, opening her notebook once more and turning to the correct page. “I will brief you in the meantime.”

11:00PM

Hikari Horaki was usually a busy girl, and liked it that way. Her position as class president for her homeroom, combined with taking care of her little sister at home left little time much else. Unlike most of her classmates, who went home at the end of each day to vegetate in front of computers or TVs, her afternoons ever since her eldest sister went off to college in Kyoto had involved making a snack for her youngest sister for when she returned after school, polishing off some of her homework for a couple hours before starting dinner, and then helping Noizomi with -her- schoolwork until her father got back from his job managing the family laundromat around 9:00 for her evening entertainment.

It was hard not to resent the luckier members of her class, but at least it was all to a purpose. She loved the little business that had kept them fed and housed even before they lost their mother. But she refused to let it be her future along with her past. Kodama had left Tokyo-3 last year for an outstanding school with top notch grades, excellent test scores, and glowing recommendations from her teachers. Hikari was bound and determined to do the same.

But that was for tomorrow. Today, she and much of the school were several dozen meters underground in a bomb shelter, and had been for the past nine hours. Everyone's patience was wearing thin, most of them were hungry, and the dribbles of information from Nerv about what was happening outside were satisfying fewer and fewer. To be fair her class had complained by far the least, likely because they knew two of their number were squarely in the crosshairs. But it would be unwise to relax just yet. After all, two of her -other- classmates had also breached both security and sanity the last time they had done this. But they'd been good this time, Aida was giving periodic updates from his portable TV/camcorder, and Suzahara was...

"I'm telling you, we ain't got nothin' to worry about. Shinji can handle this joker, just like he dropped the last one. And even if he can't, Ayanami is with him too. You wanna worry about someone? Worry about the sorry bastard of an alien that takes them on! And another thing..."

The class president smiled at the group of first, second, and a few third year boys gathered around her classmate as he continued extolling his friend. As she watched, the group laughed softly, reassured. Rumor had it that his sister had been in the hospital ever since the first attack, and that he visited daily until the hospital staff kicked him out. Hikari believed it. A little slow on the uptake and a lot prone to letting his feelings overpower his common sense, but sweet all the same.

The other potential troublemaker was quiet as well. Sitting with her knees pulled up to her chest, chin resting on her folded arms, brown eyes half-lidded, Kaname Chidori still managed to radiate flat hostility in her gaze like a she-wolf at bay. A pretty, feminine wolf, Hikari had to admit, but all the same.

As much feared as coveted by most of the male population, the girl had not had an easy time upon returning to her homeland. The thought brought a pang of guilt, since part of a class president's job was supposed to be preventing the sort of problems Chidori had faced. The worst and most recent escapade had involved nearly two dozen anonymous messages in the boy's bathroom describing in detail various acts the girl was willing to perform, and the rate schedule she charged. Hikari wouldn't claim to be a friend of the victim, but if she ever found out who pulled that stunt...

"Aida, what are they saying now?" she asked her bespectacled classmate, as much to take her mind off thoughts of painful vengeance as real curiosity. Unfortunately, that just brought her back to worrying about her sister and father in the other shelters, or what her elder sister must be thinking about her family trapped in a war zone.

"Nothing much," he replied. "Just that the power outage they've been talking about going to happen,"

The overhead fluorescent lights blinked, and flickered off, leaving the yellowish glow of the battery powered emergency lamps behind.

"...about now."

Misato sipped at a mug of coffee long since cold, listening with half an ear to her minion's cross checks and status reports as the final stages of her plan came together. Against all odds and common sense, only a few last minute checks remained before it was time to roll the dice one more time.

“Try, try again,” the captain murmured too low for the other occupants of the C4I trailer to hear. One of the many 'joys' of command, she had learned over the years, was the mingled anticipation and dread that stretched out the time before action. It was possible to lose yourself in the moment, the adrenaline fueled split-second decisions and frantic processing of often contradictory snippets of information, during a battle. Just afterwards, at least if you were successful, the elation of knowing that you had been smart, and innovative, and daring, and that had you not been at the helm more people would've died than did, was a different kind of rush.

But waiting was the worst, and the hours leading up to the fraction of a minute that would decide the issue today had been sheer slow torture made worse by the restraint it took to keep her hands out of her subordinates' and colleagues' way just for sheer distraction from it.

Laying the empty mug aside, she stepped briskly outside into the warm, humid night. As one who remembered childhood TV images of the first snows on the ground in Hokkaido, a climate that would be at home in the Philippines still seemed unnatural. After taking a quick turn through the bustle of the temporary camp, she found her charges sitting out of the way at the base of the scaffolding used to access the entry plugs. Under other circumstances, she might have given a wry smirk at Eva-00's shield's suspicious resemblance to the belly heat shield of a spaceplane, not to mention the array of scuff marks marring Eva-01's finish.

Not now.

Both pilots stood as she approached. Shaking her head once, she bade them sit. "We're almost ready to begin. Rei, as you know you'll be in Eva-00 with the shield. Shinji, you'll be in Eva-01 with the rifle. Both of you be careful, the shield is rated for seventeen seconds of exposure to the angel's beam -at best- so make the first shot count.

The pair nodded. With a minimum recharge time of twenty seconds on the rifle, the consequences of a miss were obvious.

"Any questions?"

The pilots shook their heads negatively. The procedures had been explained to them in detail before they left the geofront. It was a sign of the extreme worry Misato felt that she felt a need to do so one last time.

"Good. You should get ready yourselves," she smiled wanly as they rose again, "and good luck."

Shinji valiantly tried to return the smile, ending more with a tight grimace. Rei merely stood again and walked towards the ladder, her comrade following behind.

//Within Temptation "Intro" _The Silent Force_//

Rei tuned out the final countdown broadcast over her radio, instead focusing on the target thirty kilometers ahead. Clearly visible over the city, it hovered in open defiance of anything the defenders cared to attempt against it. Thus far the only sign it had given in the past fifteen minutes was a brief pulse of light around its equatorial band.

Settling herself slightly in the seat and checking the restraints one last time, she was left with little to do except wait, and think. The small byplay between her superior and her partner had not escaped her notice. Rei's interactions with her commanding officer had been few, given she had been confined to the hospital for much of the time since the captain's arrival, and limited strictly to professional matters. Nothing in her experience indicated that the Third Child's greater contact with his superior should be dissimilar.

But it would seem this was not the case. Unbidden to her mind rose the memory of the boy's father, not so long ago, during a routine test soon after her return to mobility. She remembered the ember that glowed within her for a moment as they had spoken briefly, before they had gone their separate ways. Perhaps...she wondered. Feeling she was groping around the edges of something shrouded in haze she was unable to pierce, she pursued the idea further. Perhaps it was similar, the feeling the Third had. If so, then...

Behind her, a soft thump felt in the soles of her feet splintered the thought. It indicated Eva-01's joints had locked, the pilot having switched to induction mode to concentrate on the fine adjustments needed for this task.
Returning her attention to the target, she hefted the shield that was all that stood between her and the weapon which had reduced Eva-01 to smoking wreckage in moments. She would fare no better, for Eva-00 was as ill-prepared for combat as could be imagined. Intended as a technology demonstrator, it had not been equipped with the layered armor and lightweight, high strength skeleton of the test and production models. Instead, it made do with aluminum and steel blanks of equivalent weight in place of titanium or depleted uranium and ceramics.

"Rei, we're about to fire. Stand by," the captain's voice echoed over her helmet earphones. Laying a pair of fingers on the glasses case wedged between her thigh and the seat, she acknowledged the reminder filled with all the equanimity she needed.

“Five seconds,” Lt. Aoba reported. “Final interlocks released, Type 34 is in local control. Capacitors to full charge. Lasing in 3..2..”

"High energy event in the target!" Lt. Hyuuga sang out, and the world went white.

The combined electrical output of a major industrial nation.

Thousands of man-hours of effort.

Uncountable sums in equipment.

All spent on one single, titanic effort.

It was a shame it all went to waste.

He missed, Misato noted with detached disappointment. Shinji was beaten to
the punch by milliseconds, and that made all the difference. Heat from the passage of the Angel's particle beam warped the atmosphere between the two combatants like a heat mirage over desert sands, the targeting computer aboard Eva-01 never had a chance to correct, and the result was the beam streaking past the Angel with bare meters to spare. Had Eva-01 been alone, it would have been the end. The energy contained in the Angel's weapon would have sufficed to scour the structures off the mountainside with but a touch, the unshielded Eva lasting perhaps a few heartbeats longer.

He did not stand alone. Though Rei's shield was visibly deforming under the forces imposed upon it, for the moment, it held firm. But the spume of vaporised armor clouding the area around her losing struggle told the tale.

"Recharging lasing capacitors, dumping coolant now,” one of the technicians borrowed from the Type-34's parent company reported while flushing the superheated fluid from the system and adding fresh directly into the heat exchangers.

“Capacitors charging...12 seconds,” Makoto narrated with a voice twisted as tight as a piano wire.

Good God, did the thing -ever- run out of power?! So far as she could tell, apparently not. The beam the Angel was generating had been active for nearly ten seconds, and showed no signs of slackening.

The race between weapon and armor was decided at last. The shattered remnants of the heat shield failed catastrophically, breaking apart in Eva-00's hands as unrelenting destruction met materials backing the protective layer that were never designed face it.

"No..." Misato gasped as Eva-00's armor immediately began to boil.

A heartbeat later, the Type 34 spoke once more.

This time, the computer had been able to calculate refraction vectors and attenuation coefficients to its silicon heart's content, and it showed. A battering ram of coherent light backed by the force of a nuclear warhead slammed into the Angel's AT field, passing through as though it were mere cobwebs. The unearthly materials of its shell were next in line, and did their considerable best.

And ultimately were as futile as terrestrial armors had been.

“SAR teams to the Evas, now!” Misato bellowed into the shocked silence the absence of the roar emitted by the heat shield's destruction left behind. Suiting action to words, she charged the crash bar on the exit door, pausing only to take up a hard hat from a rack on the wall.

As the sounds of diesel engines cranking penetrated the thin aluminum walls of the command trailer, Ritsuko closed her eyes for a moment in grief for her friend. Not now, not yet. Shinji was taking matters into his own hands quite admirably, doing in seconds with an Eva what would take a crew with cutting torches possibly fatal minutes for the pilot trapped within. But all too soon...

For a moment, the doctor could wish she had Misato's attitude. That the people she saw around her, that even now were beginning to cheer and back slap and in a few cases cry in celebration of lives they hadn't been sure they would still possess by now, mattered. That the blood and tears they shed for the cause they believed they fought for would go to an end worthy of the sacrifice.

But it would be a lie. For now, all she could do was dedicate a few, precious seconds to mourning, and dread what was to come.

[Geoff-H]

Very nice. I'm beginning to get a bigger picture of the characters you've got laid out. And who doesn't like a laser that consists of a nation's powergrid?

[TabascoOne]

That's one of my favorite episodes, for certain. I like what they did with that sequence in the new movie remake too.

Fair warning, from here on out I start doing things my way, which is not necessarily the Nerv way from in series. Your mileage may vary on whether or not this is an improvement.

------------------------

All characters once again used without permission

Chapter 4- Back in the USSR

Do unto the other feller the way he'd like to do unto you, an' do it fust. [sic]
E. N. Westcott, 'David Harum'

As a fighter pilot I know from my own experiences how decisive surprise and luck can be for success, which in the long run comes only to the one who combines daring with cool thinking.
General Adolf Galland, Luftwaffe

NERV HQ
Tokyo-3
August 26, 2015
7:30 AM Local Time

Misato Katsuragi lounged against one wall of Dr. Akagi's office, watching her blonde friend pore over her terminal.

"Ritsuko," she prodded. Her friend continued to type intermittently. The captain had seen this behavior before, though not since a particularly hellish finals week a lifetime ago.

This called for drastic action. "Ritsuko, something happened," Misato continued in a calm voice.

No response.

"I'm pregnant," Misato confided.

Nothing.

"Shinji is the father."

Nada.

"We're naming it Kimiko if its a girl, or Piro if it's a boy," she continued dreamily, with an eye on the bottle blonde.

Zilch.

"I'm thinking of setting up a nursery. Green pastel should work, no matter which it is, right? Could I borrow one of your lab coats to paint in? I don't..."

"Are you -quite- done?" Ritsuko growled.

"Spoilsport," Misato smirked. "Just as I was getting into it, typical. I'm here, I'm even awake. What did you need?"

"Nothing you needed to come down right away for," Ritsuko grimaced, removing her glasses. "We've finished preliminary analysis of the Fourth Angel's core."

"Oh? That -is- news." Misato's red bomber jacket rustled as she straightened and leaned over the console, suddenly all business. "So what'cha got? The Cliff's Note's version, please."

Ritsuko gave a tired grunt. "That won't be a problem. We've determined it works on much the same principles as the Second's, or of course the Eva's, as far as AT field generation or power. What we still -don't- know is how those two systems, plus the controlling intelligence, are even shielded well enough to all be mounted in the same unit. The radiation leakage from the reactor alone should introduce enough interference to prevent a quantum scale processor from functioning reliably, but there you have it." She waved a frustrated gesture at the screen with an unlit cigarette. Never mind the miniaturization needed to pull it off.

Misato nodded glumly. "So there's nothing applicable to -our- palladium reactors?"

Ritsuko shook her head, expecting the question. "Not that I can see. You're stuck with the batteries for a while longer." She felt a twinge of sympathy for her friend's frustration at the news. The ops director was just slightly fanatic about the value of mobility to a combat unit, probably due to her experience as a tank commander. The idea of a weapon as short-legged as the Evas had to be infuriating.

"Mm," Misato frowned. "Can't be helped. You said there were a couple of things." she prompted.

"This one's a little...strange," Ritsuko admitted. "We ran a spectrographic analysis of the angel's tissue as a matter of course, and it came back odd. So we sequenced its gene- and proteomes, and got this." She tapped at her console screen and brought up the results.

The captain leaned closer, and quirked an eyebrow. The majority of the screen contents might as well have been Kurdish as far as she could tell, but one number pretty much summed it up. "98.89? What's this comparing to, the Second?"

"No. That's in relation to a -human- genome. The nucleotides it uses in the genome are totally different, you won't find two of them outside a chemistry catalog, and the codons they make up in turn call for high tensile strength polymers instead of amino acids. But in spite of all that...the sequences match.

Misato's eyebrows climbed towards her hairline. "How does -that- work!"

"That's the million yen question," the doctor admitted.

-----------

Shinji Ikari sighed in relief.

Another morning done. And even better; no fire alarms, no suspicious detonations, and no outbreaks of mass panic. In all a nice, if boring, day. Lunch bag in hand, he followed the majority of the other students as they made for the courtyard and a breath of outside air, before having to trudge back to class in half an hour.

Once outside, Shinji began searching for a table to wait at for Kensuke and Toji, when a sight he'd never expected to see outside his imagination stopped him in his tracks. Mana Kirishima was a familiar sight under one of the courtyard's small maple trees at lunch, as often as not accompanied by Sousuke Sagara in keeping a low key watch.

The addition of Rei Ayanami to the scene was not.

They had evidently gotten out a minute or two ahead of the pack, since their lunches were already arranged. As he vacillated on whether or not to intrude, the guard spotted him and beckoned him over.

"Hello Ayanami, Kirishima," he greeted them hesitantly.

"Hiya, -Shinji-" Mana reminded him.

"Sorry," he replied as he sat.

"Ikari," Rei nodded fractionally before returning to her lunch.

"So anyway, do -you- have any idea what the deal with Takenaka is anyway?" Mana asked. "That paper is ridiculous! Bad enough we have to find at least six pages to say about that drug addled moron, but footnoted too?!"

"Yeah," Shinji sighed agreement. The social studies teacher's decision to assign a report on Van Gogh had not been a popular one. "And Misato wants us in for a live fire exercise this weekend too."

"Captain Katsuragi did not specify the exercise would take the entire weekend," Rei corrected. "There would be adequate time afterward."

"True," Mana agreed after a moment. "Wanna start on it then?"

Shinji grimaced. "I guess."

The petty officer turned to the other pilot. "Rei, interested?"

The girl blinked in surprise. "...Very well," she agreed softly.

"Then it's settled." Mana poked a finger at Shinji's chest. "We'll be expecting your best efforts at dinner, of course."

"Hey, how did I..."

"Because Sousuke's idea of cuisine is a protein bar and Sarge keeps pulling rank. Unless you'd rather have the Captain handle it?" she suggested.

"Umm." There wasn't really much of an argument there...

"That's what I thought. Seven o'clock ok?"

Bowing to the inevitable, Shinji agreed.

"Then all is right with the world," Mana nodded in satisfaction. "I guess that does it." He looked down at her lunch box that had mysteriously emptied without his noticing. "Rei, would you mind taking this to the trash? I'll find Sagara and tell him the plan before I catch up."

"It is no problem." Rei picked up the trash bag and stood to leave. "Until later," she nodded to each of them.

Shinji happened to glance at Rei's face as she turned away. It might have been a trick of the light, but he would have sworn for a split second he'd seen a tiny smile flicker across her lips.

But that couldn't be right, he thought, and shook his head slightly to clear it. True, ever since the last Angel, Shinji had begun to notice a few cracks in the ice. But the thawing had resulted in tiny things, like her listening to some of the conversations of his classmates, or looking away from her window a few times during class. The first and only time he'd seen her smile had been just after he'd saved her life, for heaven's sake! The idea she would do it again after a dinner invitation, to -his- home of all places, was ridiculous.

Once Rei was out of sight, Mana let out a heavy sigh. "Man, and I thought -Sousuke- was a bad conversationalist." Her relief would've been comical if it were even minutely less heartfelt.

Shinji's gaze hardened.

She raised a placating hand. "I don't mean it badly, but you know as well as I do communication isn't Rei's strong suite."

Shinji grudgingly admitted the truth of that. "And?"

"And I'm asking for a little help," Mana growled. "That was almost as much in one minute with you around as I've gotten from her in five by myself!"

"So who's the one with the communication problem?" Shinji muttered.

Mana gave him her patented Look. "As penance for that, you're drafted to help me." At Shinji's skeptical expression, she added "Unless of course you -want- Rei to be lonely and isolated?"

Shinji glared back. "That's not fair, Mana."

She shrugged. "That doesn't make it untrue. Now, I need to get back on the job. So I'll see you later, partner." She punched his shoulder playfully and trotted off.

Shinji hung his head, and collected his bag. And of course the chance to satisfy her urge to meddle had -nothing- to do with this, he added to himself, shaking his head in resignation. Upon turning around, he saw Kensuke and Toji taking position at the table he'd planned on before getting side tracked.
"Pal, you've been holding out on us." Toji warned half-seriously once Shinji had arrived.

Shinji groaned, knowing what was coming.

"Yeah, we meant which -one- of them, not both!" Kensuke complained. "That's cheating!"

August 28, 2015
2:20PM Local Time

Misato leafed through the clipboard containing the test results. "Not bad. Rei, your accuracy was excellent, but you're taking too many hits. We'll have to work on that when I get back." She raised an eyebrow at Shinji. "You, on the other hand, need to chill the hell out."

Shinji stared blankly. "Huh?"

"Put another way," Ritsuko broke in, with an irritated glance at the captain, "you tend to hyper focus on one aspect of a situation at a time."

"Exactly. And a clever opponent will use that to her advantage. Don't assume the Angels will always be so obliging by coming in openly on a predictable path, or only one at a time from a single direction. I wouldn't," Misato added grimly. "That aside, you're progressing on schedule. She dropped the clipboard into a cubbyhole with a flourish. "Both of you are dismissed. Have a good weekend."

Shinji found Misato waiting for him when he exited the locker room. Falling into step with her, he followed behind as they headed for the elevators.

"What did you mean about 'when you get back?'"

"Oh, I was going to tell you tonight. The Director is sending Ritsuko, Commander Mardukas, and I as observers to some Russian mecha project's grand debut.? She shrugged. "Why all of us I have no idea. Anyway, Hyuuga's in charge until I'm back, and Sgt. Jun-kyu will be around if you need anything at home."

"Oh, ok. When will you be back?"

"Two or three days, I'd guess. We're there to show the flag more than anything."

Somewhere over Russian Siberia
August 30, 2015
8:15AM Local Time

Richard Mardukas removed the officer's cap he'd traded for his usual embossed baseball hat and shifted in his seat, feeling several joints creak in protest. Even granting that the accommodations of the small Gulfstream V business jet were several cuts above the average commercial airliner, there were still limits to how long one could stay seated before inactivity and not a little boredom took their toll.

His companions had passed the time in their own ways. Looking ahead, he saw that Dr. Akagi was still engaged in some 'light' reading, catching up on journal articles. Like most submariners, Richard had a solid technical background, a Master's in nuclear engineering in his case, and decades of practical experience prior to being assigned to Nerv. That said, the article purportedly debunking something called 'metaphysical biology' she'd been perusing with, by all appearances, avid interest had lost him on the first page.

Captain Katsuragi had, like him, been catching up on paperwork earlier in the flight in between chatting with Akagi. Now he saw she had leaned her seat back and tilted her beret over her eyes to engage in the soldier's time honored response to down time, sleeping. The announcement from the cockpit announcing imminent landing broke the moderately pleasant monotony, startling the captain awake with an amusing half snort as sleep left her.

Guiltily grateful, Richard powered off his laptop, consigning his work to the depths of his briefcase once more as they began their descent.

--------

COLD

That was Misato's overriding impression on stepping off the plane at their destination, an unpronoucably named Cold War-era bomber base near the Arctic Circle. Over 2000 kilometers from Moscow, it had at one time been home to warplanes of the Soviet Air Force's Long-Range Aviation branch. Abandoned after the fall of the Soviet Union, and essentially untouched by either side in the recent civil war, it made for an ideal location for covert testing of an experimental weapons system.

Ritsuko hastily raised her parka hood. "Gods, what a horrible place. All they'd need in order to do hostile environment testing is wheel it outside for a few hours." The snow on the ground so early in the year emphasized her point as they trudged from their plane to the, hopefully, well-heated accommodations to wait for the presentation tomorrow.

"I'm beginning to suspect why Professor Fuyutski looked so sympathetic on our way out," Misato agreed. "Where are we staying, anyway?" she demanded of the male member of the party.

Richard didn't bristle at the familiarity. As Chief of Section Three (Operations), Misato held equivalent responsibility regardless of her lower rank outside Nerv. "That building at our eleven o'clock is the base officer's quarters according to the map, I imagine there."

"Not that a map would help you much," Ritsuko teased from the rear of the little group.

An additional flush at the jibe overlay itself over that from stinging cold. Getting lost during her very first mission could've happened to -anybody-, dammit! "Why take sun sights or compass bearings like a frickin Neanderthal when you have GPS?" she muttered.

After much further slogging and a quick stop at the front desk to procure keys and badges, they arrived at their rooms at the far end of a hallway that probably hadn't been repainted since Khrushchev's time. After dropping off their bags, they quickly decided to meet in Ritsuko's room, as it seemed to possess the least anemic heater.

"I'm seeing a trend forming here," Misato noted coolly as she glowered out the small window at the motor convoy passing outside, likely ferrying in attendees to save them the half kilometer march through the snow.

"Mm," Richard agreed from his position in one of the room's two dark varnished wooden chairs, having dispensed with his parka but retained the blue officer's jacket underneath. "I'm not terribly surprised. Our invitation was something of an afterthought to begin with. Even leaving that aside, Nerv is their primary competition for UN funding. It does stand to reason we're not wholly welcome."

"Very likely. But if we would return to business," Ritsuko prompted from her seat. "I'm sure we've all read the provided information on Project Dvegatsltye Samostortslyeno," she began, addressing a glance at the other woman that suggested she'd better have, "thoroughly."

Richard translated the Russian and shook his head in disgust. "What a name. What is this, a 1950's monster film?"

"Given our day jobs, we have no room to talk," Misato pointed out. "Where do we fit in?"

"Primarily as any other participant would, with the addition that we make sure to mingle thoroughly, and diplomatically, she added for the benefit of the two officers, neither of whom were famous for that particular skill.

"Very well," Richard agreed with a hint of the grudging in his expression, visions of past 'dog and pony shows' obviously coming back to haunt him. "In that case, I suggest that the the high points we need to cover are the live fire demonstration for its accessory weapons lasting until early afternoon, and a question and answer panel over lunch. There are various demos scattered in between from some of the subcontractors, but if I'm recalling correctly we already have ties with most of them. After that is a maneuvering demonstration/live fire course, and a walk-around tour at the end of the day," Richard replied without a glance at the itinerary. "Some of these events are concurrent, so we need to decide who covers what."

"I suggest we leave the things that go 'bang' to our dear Captain," Ritsuko suggested wryly, taking pity on the woman's more obvious sour look at the day's tasks. "The panel may be interesting, however."

"Done and done," Misato nodded quickly in total agreement. "You two go enjoy the egghead convention, and we can meet afterwards for the maneuvers and tour."

Kartsev-Venediktov/Bahrat Proving Ground
Russian Siberia
August 31, 2015
10:00AM Local Time

The ground shook as frozen permafrost was ripped from the earth, fountaining into a poplar-shaped column of debris shot through with the glow of burning hydrocarbons.

"Target destroyed," the voice over the PA announced unnecessarily. "The next demonstration is..."

Misato tuned out the announcer, as most of the participants were doing while they traded comments in a dozen languages.

Who'd have thought? she smirked. After seeing a 120 gigawatt laser in action, a weensy little 152mm just didn't seem the same.

She sighed theatrically. Am I spoiled or what?

---------

"...so it is with great pleasure I introduce Doctors Chandrigian and Malenkov to speak on behalf of the Dvegatsltye Samostortslyeno team!" the round, balding spokesman proclaimed. "Gentlemen," he gestured the two speakers/victims forwards into the spotlight.

"And I thought Lieutenant Aoba was long-winded," Ritsuko murmured. "I owe the man an apology."

"I'm beginning to think Captain Katsuragi is a bad influence on you," Richard spoke normally, his comment covered by applause enthusiastic more for the end of the introduction than the men themselves.

"I wouldn't be surprised," Ritsuko agreed.

The applause died down quickly once the bearded, curly haired Indian stepped to the mike. After a quick, self-conscious tug at his tie, he began to speak in a clipped, brisk tenor somehow perfectly suited to the aura of neat precision the man exuded.

"Thank you, Mr. Siminov," the earbuds worn by the attendees whispered, while in a room overlooking the auditorium a group of translators converted his accented Russian into the multitude of languages spoken by the audience members. "We at Bahrat were honored to have been chosen to participate in a project of this scale five years ago, and are prouder still today with the results. I believe the demonstration later today will allow our work to speak for itself."

He stepped back to his previous place quickly, while his Russian counterpart almost grudgingly stepped forward. "My thanks also to Dr. Chandrigian, for his and his team's excellent work. Truly, we would not be here today without their earnest efforts." His neatly trimmed mustache and short, straight graying hair glowed under the stage lights as he rallied for his next line. "Speaking for my team, I can testify to the pride we -all- take in our creation, and hope those gathered here can come to share it as well."

Perhaps amazingly, given the venue of the two men's remarks, it was obvious they were completely honest in their opinions. These were no mere lab coated bureaucrats, more comfortable with a word processor than a CAD program. They were genuine engineers who had invested years of time and spent uncountable man hours of effort in the project, and in spite of their laconic responses were obviously eager to show what they had wrought.

Ritsuko fought the urge to sink lower in her seat. Misato, during one of their more drunken evenings in the midst of their tenure at Kyoto University, had quoted a poem one of her instructors had posted on a plaque behind his desk. Actually, the young officer candidate's intent had been closer to 'sing it like a drinking ballad,' but that wasn't the point. Ritsuko had forgotten most of it, blessedly, but one couplet had never left her:

'See the enemy in the mirror/The friend across the field'

How I wish I'd never understood what that means, she sighed deep within her mind. Straightening imperceptibly while the first, straightforward, questions from the audience were fielded by the pair on stage, she waited for her chance.

"Showtime," Ritsuko murmured. Gesturing to one of the flunkies standing around the periphery of the auditorium, she waited until he'd brought her a hand-held microphone before addressing herself to the assembly. "Doctor Ritsuko Akagi, Nerv R&D. Doctor Malenkov, you stated earlier that Dvegatsltye Samostortslyeno uses a liquid sodium reactor for primary power. That seems a strange design decision to me, given its role as a ground combat machine."

"Ah, we're glad you could join us, Dr. Akagi," Malenkov nodded a greeting. "As to your question, yes, there is a certain risk in using a nuclear reactor in a combat vehicle, but we felt that it was more than outweighed by the ability to operate independently for extended periods." He shrugged philosophically. "There are hundreds of nuclear powered submarines and other warships on the oceans today, after all, and they certainly face the same risks."

"Generally, submarines don't engage in combat near populated areas," Ritsuko remarked dryly, provoking a small scattering of polite laughter. Ignoring the noise from Mardukas' direction that might, -might- have been a snort, she continued, "I am also intrigued by the control system you've employed. Controls relying on traditional manual implements simply cannot match the responsiveness of one based on direct input, never mind an Angel."

"We at Kartsev-Venediktov prefer proven technologies to systems that rely on bleeding-edge technologies that so far have had...mixed track records, shall we say?" Malenkov responded with a hard smile.

"Such proven technologies that there are back-door overrides to the crew? Unusual in such a sensitive system."

"I would argue that Nerv could stand to -have- a few overrides on its monsters," Chandrigian rejoined heatedly. "A weapon as likely to attack its masters as it's enemies is no different than the Angels."

Ritsuko flushed at the second comment. Suppressing her anger to a mere clenched fist at her side, Ritsuko continued gamely. "The question remains, Doctor."

Siminov chimed in uninvited before the questioned could answer. "Quite right, Dr. Chandrigian. One could say such weapons would be as unreasonable as a hysterical woman," he essayed, apparently hoping to shut her up before she derailed the carefully scripted session further.

Seconds passed. Ritsuko grimly fought the urge to respond in kind. A deep breath hissed in through her flared nostrils, and exited through clenched teeth. She would not give him the satisfaction. She would -not-! The same enraging message behind those words had been delivered to her before and been weathered. She would do so again.

Beside her, Mardukas eased himself to his feet and beckoned for another microphone. "That was nekulturny (1), Mr. Siminov. It is fortunate I expected no better," he began, enjoying the spokesman's rising choler while carefully ignoring Ritsuko's shocked, and slightly outraged, expression. "Commander Richard Mardukas, Chief of Logistics, Nerv. Questions about the Evangelion's reliability would be in my purview," he introduced himself. Though a fact often forgotten by his subordinates, and sometimes even his colleagues who should know better, Richard had not -always- been a slightly stoop shouldered, graying, acerbic, and perfectionist engineer. Once upon a time, he had been master after God of one of His Majesty's submarines, and very, very good at it.

It was with that command voice that he addressed the engineers, ignoring their associate as unworthy of further comment. "Speaking to your concerns, Doctor, I would ask exactly what good a weapon is, however reliable, if it cannot perform its mission? You've no doubt seen footage of what we at Nerv have been facing. Whatever issues we may have had with the Evangelions, they are a combat tested system that -works-." An icy stare swept the podium. "We will accept questions about our 'reliability' when you can say the same."

--------

Misato hummed to herself while she sipped tea from a complementary mug embossed with the Lockheed-Martin logo. Strolling through the the room set aside for the project subcontractors to set up booths for themselves, she perused the offerings, collecting a sizable stash of pens and knickknacks as she killed time until her rendezvous with her associates.

"I hope they had a better time than I did. Nothing but a live fire test that might as well have been a day at the practice range back home, and half a dozen assholes who couldn't take a hint," she moped. "That Italian Major was cute, though. Funny too. It's a shame he had to leave."

Meandering towards the hallway leading to the conference room, she cocked her head slightly at the shuffle and babble of a group of people ahead. Good timing, she was starting to run out of booths to schmooze at.

Misato began to round the corner, and was promptly bowled right back by a blast straight from the arctic. Her usually cool, remote green eyes seeming even more frigid against the bone white pallor of her face, Ritsuko forged ahead with glacial inevitability. Following behind, Commander Mardukas wore a mask of professional non-expression fit to do a soldier on a parade proud as he matched her stride.

The captain fell in with the pair, regarding them with mixed curiosity and worry. "I take it things didn't go well?" she asked lightly from a safe distance.

"That would be putting it mildly," they grated in stereo.

----------

Three men carried toolboxes down a frigid stairway. Clad in the tan coveralls of lower ranked technicians, and obviously proceeding to a destination, they were all but invisible in the large and polyglot staff.

Upon arriving at the lift that their perfectly legitimate orders required them to ride in order to carry out their task of rechecking the cockpit environmental systems, they spent the time chatting about their families. Which one's child had won an award for a poem he'd written, who's mother had been complaining of gout recently, nothing that would have been out of the ordinary on any given day anywhere in the world. Only an onlooker unusually skilled in behavioral observation would have noticed the tiny emphasis placed on certain words, the slight tightening of voices trying to mask rising excitement underneath put on boredom more fitting to workers for whom this was just another day.

At last, the elevator arrived, and the group climbed aboard the steel walled cage. "Dimitri," the leader spoke quietly once the doors had closed.

"With pleasure," the shortest man responded, and opened his toolbox. Dumping out the selection of wrenches and multimeters on the top layer, he revealed several compact Skorpion submachine guns.

The leader and last member followed suit after slinging their weapons, to reveal two small bricks of plastic explosive with a selection of fuses and a tablet style portable computer, respectively. Both went into pockets on their coveralls.

"Gentlemen," the leader nodded after the thump that announced they'd reached their desired level. The doors opened to a short hallway ending at the cockpit hatch.

----------

Misato stood between her colleagues near the back of the crowd in the control room. Before them stood a massive projector screen displaying the launch gantry for 'Dveskya' as the machine was nicknamed by its staff. To her left, Commander Mardukas stood feet shoulder width apart, hands clasped behind his back in a stance oddly reminiscent of Director Ikari's, to all appearances completely at ease. If it weren't for the periodic glances past her to his right. She wanted to blame him for that positioning, but mostly because she hadn't thought of it first. Not for nothing had he once been considered one of England's best undersea tacticians.

Misato absentmindedly rubbed her upper arms. "It has to be my imagination. There can't possibly be frost forming on Ritsuko," she murmured under the crowd noise. Her other companion stared straight ahead at the screen, without once meeting the glances she got from her fellows.

At the raised control dais behind them, Siminov spoke over the quiet murmur of the control room crew at their tasks. "Ladies and Gentlemen, in a few seconds we will begin the maneuvering course demonstration. I would ask everyone to hold questions until the end, please."

//Metallica "Don't Tread on Me" _Metallica_//

With that, he gestured to Malenkov and Chandrigian standing behind him at the head of the array of consoles. Immediately thereafter, the gantry began dropping its power leads one by one, rolling slowly backwards accompanied by a subsonic rumble in the observer's feet testifying to the immense power required to shift the structure. Once the gantry had finally rolled clear, Dvegatsltye Samostortslyeno, Jet Alone to the English speakers in the onlookers, stood under its own power.

"Sure -looks- impressive," Misato allowed in a voice audible only to her companions. Barely visible nods answered her.

Though Dveskya shared the same humanoid planform of the Evas, most similarity ended there. Rather than a human style head and neck, instead a low, smoothly rounded black bulge rose between its heavy, sloping shoulders. That in turn was adorned by one large and seven smaller optics providing 360 degree vision. Angular, boxy legs supported a torso that was somewhat less anorexic than an Eva's and painted in battleship gray. Finishing the picture was a multi-segmented right arm ending in two broad fingers matched by a thumb, that looked compatible with most Eva scale weaponry. The left consisted of a short, stout upper arm mated to an oddly familiar looking cylindrical housing.

"Now, Dveskya will advance to the obstacle course, and demonstrate its maneuvering capabilities both in manual and remotely piloted modes," Siminov announced. Without further ado, it broke into a ground devouring lope through a set of slalom poles, frozen earth spraying from each heavy tread as it negotiated the obstacle. Upon completion, the machine skidded to a halt and let fly with its on-board 57mm Gatling gun, the three barrels spinning in a blur before a muzzle blast equaled only by the massive plume of flaming debris from the company of T-72 main battle tanks serving as targets.

Pointedly turning its back on the burning husks, it proceeded to tackle the next leg of the course, a boulder-strewn downhill slope, at a run.

"Dveskya is capable of up to two hundred kilometers per hour on flat terrain, and can sustain that pace for days on end."

Arriving at the next target, it faced a simulated angel. Somehow, Misato doubted that the purple and green paint job on said dummy was accidental. As her jaw involuntarily began to clench at this, the main armament of the machine was brought to bear.

"Dveskya is also equipped with a revolutionary particle beam weapon capable of breaching the fabled 'AT field' at a distance of two kilometers."

Misato hissed in outrage. "That's not public information! What the hell has Section Two been doing!"

Whatever reply either of the other two might have made was drowned out by the earthshaking roar from outside as the the cylindrical structure comprising Dveskya's left arm below the elbow spoke. The appearance of a visible beam was merely an illusion caused by the passage of the millisecond long burst of focused subatomic particles through the atmosphere at nearly the speed of light, a simple byproduct of energy wasted piercing the kilometer or so of air separating the two machines.

It was still impressive as all get-out.

The target was immediately reduced to ruin. The chest plate was all but vaporized, the surviving internals plainly visible as the dummy collapsed in a smoldering heap.

Ritsuko spoke for the first time in half an hour. "Ten gigawatt output, bare minimum," she reported, a technical subject apparently enough to bypass her temper for the moment. "Possibly ranging up to fifty, depending on what materials they used to armor that drone. Impressive."

"Forget the -20s then, get me a couple of those," Misato chuckled.

"The Type-20 is portable by an Eva and only triple the mass of a Type-14 assault rifle. That monster needs its own reactor just to fire," Richard added without looking away from the screen. "I imagine that would put a damper on your mobility."

A rising argument from the control area broke into the discussion. "I don't care. Request confirmation!" Malenkov snapped, this time too loud to be lost in the swell of voices in the front of the room. The Nerv trio's ears pricked. That tone was familiar. It was the one generally used just before a situation went pear shaped in Tokyo-3.

Apparently it was universal.

-----------

"They've WHAT!" Siminov exclaimed. More heads turned to the back of the room, in mounting curiosity at the spectacle.

"Remote override, now!" Chandrigian barked. With any luck the bastards hadn't counted on a backup system...

"No good! It's like the connection isn't even there!" a visibly agitated console tech replied.

"They destroyed the network I/O transceiver," Malenkov grimly surmised. "Quick work."

Chandrigian meanwhile was conversing rapidly with an Indian technician in Hindi, glaring intently at the remote telemetry for long, tense moments before slamming a fist down and uttering what could only be a string of curses. "Implementation of the remote SCRAM protocol for the reactor has failed. Dveskya is completely autonomous," he reported after regaining his composure.

Siminov simply stared in shock at the main screen, showing the black and gray giant striding off roughly southwest. By now even the densest of the attendees had realized something untoward had occurred, and a rising babble of questions, exclamations, and speculation was already filling the room.

Malenkov glared disgustedly at him. Turning to a nearby console, he grimly removed the handset from its cradle and punched in the number he'd memorized the day he was given leadership of the project. "This is Stefan Malenkov," he informed the operator. "Get me the Prime Minister."

----------

The Nerv trio filed out of the command center with the rest of the crowd, following one of several politely tight-lipped attendants to the atrium where the contractor booths had been set up earlier.

"The longer I'm here the more it reminds me of home," Misato quipped, hopping up on an abandoned folding table once they had arrived several minutes later.

Ritsuko seated herself more decorously and crossed her legs at the knee. "I'll ignore that in the interests of diplomacy," she responded dryly. "But in all seriousness, we have no business here. This seems to me to be the time to make our apologies and withdraw."

"Awfully suspicious looking if we tried," Misato replied. "Not to mention probably the first thing they did was ground all air traffic and seal the perimeter."

Richard nodded agreement, standing before the two women. "Most probably. Russians being Russians they would probably suspect us regardless, but there is no reason to..." he trailed off at seeing Misato's demeanor shift into professional mode and her gaze focus over his right shoulder.

Turning her gaze in the same direction as her friend's, Ritsuko noticed for the first time that the position Misato had selected had unobstructed views of all three entrances to the atrium, as well as a clear line of retreat through a set of maintenance doors not five meters from them. It was well to remember, she decided, that Misato only -acted- like a flake.

The approach of Malenkov and Chandrigian didn't go unnoticed by the other attendees. Gesturing them to follow, the pair led them through one of the exits.

Standing now in a deserted hallway, they at last spoke. "We have communicated with our respective sponsors, and they in turn are communicating with our governments." Malenkov paused, and visibly took a breath, apparently steeling himself for what came next. "We have been asked to, unofficially, inquire into the possibility Nerv will dispatch an Evangelion."

"That...would depend," Misato hedged after a moment. "What's the situation?"

"Grim," Chandrigian summarized. "As it stands, Dveskya is making very nearly its maximum speed to the southwest, and we have had no success in activating the overrides, presumably because the receiver equipment was destroyed before we could try. We have also had no communications from the vehicle besides a brief transmission from its commander that they were compromised by unknown assailants. Since then, nothing."

"No one's claimed responsibility?" Richard asked.

Malenkov shook his head. "No. At least not yet."

"What's the point?" Misato asked. "Whoever they are, they had a fully functional mecha with live weapons, and didn't fire on the base as they left, so pure destruction for the hell of it is out. And if they wanted to steal the thing they'd head for the ice pack to rendezvous with their transport. But there's nothing out this way that I can think of. Surely they can't hope to hold onto the thing long enough to take it across a border."

"To the contrary, Captain. There is something out there, eventually. Moscow," Malenkov corrected somberly. "Which brings us to my next point. As part of the demonstration, Dveskya was equipped with a pair of short-range ballistic missiles. In their current configuration they have a range of approximately 200 kilometers."

Richard paled as only one who had commanded similar weapons could do. "Please tell me you people had enough sense not to..."

Malenkov waved a placating hand. "Certainly not! Give us -some- credit, commander. Had nuclear or N2 weapons been onboard, we would have destroyed Dveskya out of hand the moment it was certain we had lost control. Have no fear of that. However, while the physical damage from a launch on Moscow would be minor, politically..." He shrugged expressively.

Ritsuko regarded the men for a long moment. She had already completed her mission, and while Director Ikari hadn't seen fit to inform her of exactly how these people were to be brought low, it was blindingly obvious that it had occurred and her job was now done. As far as she was concerned, it was perfectly acceptable to let them fry.

Not only was Moscow the only city in the world with emplaced anti-ballistic missile defenses, it was unlikely bordering on impossible that the military wouldn't annihilate the mech without an AT field to protect it. Furthermore, which minister played sacrificial goat after the dust settled was of minuscule importance to her or Nerv.

Her friend had other ideas.

"I assume the crew is still alive at this point?" Misato asked.

"So far as we know. Without remote guidance from here, they are the only way to operate Dveskya," Malenkov acknowledged.

"I see. Please excuse us, we need to discuss this a moment," Misato pointed at a locked door off the hallway. "Do any of these rooms have secure telecom access?"

"Certainly, pick one," Chandrigian offered, both men relieved at receiving a better answer than they had feared.

[TabascoOne]

Nerv HQ
Tokyo-3
Same time

Makoto Hyuuga paged through his manga and tried to ignore his co-worker's humming along with the music in his headphones. Normally, he enjoyed his turn on duty. The Magi and its analysis team was more than able to handle routine signal traffic and operations, making his presence more of an opportunity to accrue some paid hours than anything particularly demanding. His colleague, Shigeru Aoba, could formally relieve him in 15 minutes, and it couldn't come soon enough.

Let it never be said that the young lieutenant wasn't fond of anime soundtracks, but there were limits. No matter how good a song 'Vanilla Salt' was, having it repeat in his comrade's earphones for the last fifteen minutes was -well- past them.

The phone ringing was a welcome interruption.

"Combat Information Center, Officer of the Watch Lt. Hyuuga speaking. Be advised this is an unsecured line."

"Hyuuga, this is Katsuragi. Go secure and authenticate."

Makoto sat up straighter in his seat, his irritation completely forgotten. "Yes, ma'am!" He tapped a key, bringing up the encryption module, and punched in the daily seed number. The hiss in his earphones as he did so dissipated once the module on the other end was supplied with the seed as well, filtering out the overlaid signal to leave an eerie silence behind. "Authenticate Whiskey Foxtrot November," he spoke a moment later.

"Uniform Victor X-ray," Misato completed the second half of the verbal code. "First, go to second stage alert. Second, I need you to whistle up the fastest jet you can find."

----------

Rei's eyes shared the glazed look common to all but the hardiest of her classmates. Indulging in an old habit, she surveyed the room in the reflection on the window glass.

Corporal Sagara made the most convincing pretense of paying attention, though the near quivering attentiveness he was focusing on the elderly social studies teacher was more with a view to disabling him as rapidly as possible in the event of hostilities than for any scholastic reason.

Petty Officer Kirishima appeared to be engaging in the class pastime of exchanging short messages during lecture. The pilot didn't concern herself further, Kirishima would fill her in on anything she felt Rei needed to know. At length.

Ikari appeared to be the only one of the four concerned in the least with the actual content of the lecture, which spoke volumes for his patience if nothing else. Occasionally his typing pattern would change, perhaps indicating he was responding to a message, before resuming where he'd left off.

Much like the Director. Rei paused to consider the thought. The ability of Nerv's leader to sit through the most stultifying meetings and still manage to extract any valuable data was legendary within Nerv. However, in most cases father and son could best be considered as a study in contrasts...

A buzzing from her pocket interrupted her musing. Quickly reaching in to silence it, her eyebrow rose millimetrically upon hearing the recorded message. Noticing Shinji's confused look at her with his his own phone still to his ear, presumably playing the same message, she shook her head slightly, slid her laptop into her bag and departed, Shinji excusing them and following just behind.

---------

"...And that's our situation. Rei, you will fly out immediately, transport will be waiting for you. Shinji, you're on standby with Eva-01. Keep the bridge bunnies in line for me."

"Captain~" the boy complained. She smirked, visualizing Shinji's embarrassed flush.

"That's it, get moving. Katsuragi, out."

She replaced the handset before switching off the attached scrambler unit. "And now we wait."

"Bridge bunnies?" Richard asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Makoto mentioned once that from the right angle the command tower looks kind of like an old battleship's conning tower. So..." Misato shrugged.

"I'm still not sold on sending Rei for this," Ritsuko interjected a more serious concern. "She may have the most training of the two, but I would think Shinji would be the better choice given his past record."

Misato shook her head emphatically even before the doctor finished speaking. "If our objective were simply to destroy Dveskya in minimum time, maybe. But, at least for the moment, that isn't an acceptable option. This operation is going to depend more on restraint and precision than anything. Neither of which qualities Shinji is famous for," she finished ruefully.

Richard snorted at the understatement. Much of Tokyo-3 would have followed suit. "True. Captain, I'll need to coordinate with Karamay to bring all the pieces together, it will take some time. Doctor, I'd appreciate your help in this."

"Of course. According to the last status update, Eva-06's neurosystem was successfully tested two days ago..."

Misato took the hint, and let herself out. After a short walk she found Chandrigian in a nearby employee break room, sitting next to a coffee machine being pressed into service for tea instead.

"Your response was favorable?" he guessed. "I can't imagine it would take very long to say 'no'"

"Yes, our Eva in China is being prepped for departure, one of our pilots will accompany it," Misato confirmed.

"My partners will be less than pleased about that," Chandrigian noted, not without a certain amount of resignation.

"Tough," Misato shrugged. "Beggars can't be choosers."

Chandrigian managed a rueful laugh. "Indeed not!" He stood and lifted his mug. "We have not been properly introduced, Captain. I am Rajiv Chandrigian. On behalf of my team, I would thank you for your help. And on behalf of my two countrymen on-board, I hope your pilots live up to their reputations."

Misato smiled back, lifting her mug to click it to his. "Misato Katsuragi. And she's up to the job." They drained their cups. I hope, Misato fervently prayed.

Runway 30-W
Nerv HQ Tokyo-3
5:30 PM Local Time

Major Ichiro Ohgami paced slowly around his machine. Even at rest on the flat, barren expanse of concrete, his F-15DJ still breathed speed. A Japanese refinement of an American interceptor fighter, it was in some ways an anachronism.

Built to combat the Russian MIG-25 Foxbat in the mid-1970s, it had entered service as the fastest, longest ranged, and highest climbing fighter in the Western world. Even forty years later it was still a match for all but the most advanced, and expensive, fighters in the air. Which was the crux of the problem. For the fifty years prior to impact, Japan's military stance had been exclusively defensive, a trend which had only deepened after Impact. Funding for a successor to an aircraft capable of escorting bombers into the heart of Russia was simply not forthcoming. The conversion to domestically produced F-2As had begun two years ago. It had been decided they would serve, well enough.

And so here he was. Swallowing one final indignity, and using his multi-million dollar fighter to play taxi.

The beige electric van rolling down the road paralleling the runway caught his attention immediately, if only because it was the only traffic he'd seen for several minutes. His suspicion was confirmed once he'd caught sight of the red leaf logo on its side as it turned a corner. Upon it silently rolling to a stop a few meters from him, he schooled himself into a professional detachment matching his severe brown eyes and regulation haircut, and strode forward to greet his passenger. The side door slid open to reveal a bookish looking, middle height Japanese man in a tan and red uniform and heavy black glasses, followed by a pale... blunde? Blunette? clad in an olive drab flight suit with a helmet dangling from one hand.

"Thank you for taking this on short notice, sir," Makoto greeted him with a deep bow and obvious gratitude.

"Not a problem," Ichiro returned it. "Though you will need to make the explanations to Sakura yourself."

Makoto frowned in anticipated discomfort. "You drive a difficult bargain, but I accept." He turned to Rei, who had watched the proceedings with her usual detached air. "Sir, this is Rei Ayanami, our Eva test pilot. The faster you can get her to Karamay, the happier my boss will be."

Ichiro's eyebrows rose. While keeping secret the events in Tokyo-3 was all but impossible, Nerv had been extremely reticent about releasing any information about the pilots of their machines, not even their first names. His first impression of one of these fabled children was...mixed. Superficially, she was unremarkable in the baggy Nomex of her flight suit and rescue gear, leaving aside her coloration. Simply a small, fragile looking Japanese girl, classically pretty but not outrageously so. In a wig one might give a second look upon passing her on the street, but no more.

Until you look in her eyes, he amended upon making contact with the ruby irises in question. Accepting each new bit of data the world presented, like a still pond swallowing up a tossed stone with barely a ripple. Old eyes, no matter the youthful face.

"Pleased to meet you, Miss Ayanami," he bowed again. "I'm Major Ohgami, of the Air Self Defense Force." He gestured to the stepladder by his fighter's cockpit. "If you'll climb aboard we'll get you strapped in and be on our way."

Rei nodded. "Yes, sir," she agreed, and began to awkwardly mount the steps in her gear.

"I am sorry to interrupt your anniversary, but..." Makoto shrugged helplessly. "We needed the best."

"Flattery will get you everywhere, Hyuuga." Ichiro chuckled, and nodded to show he accepted the apology. "Call us when I get back, it's been too long."

"Will do, sir," Makoto saluted.

The major briskly ascended the ladder to find his passenger in silent contemplation of the control panel, intercom jack held uncertainly in one hand.

"The intercom switch is here," he pointed at a button on the control stick once he assisted her and ensured she had buckled in properly. "Eject handles are here," he pointed at a pair of yellow striped handles in the seat's armrests. "And here" and at the two similarly striped rings over her head protruding from the headrest. "The rest I'd just as soon you not touch. Ok?" The girl nodded.

Satisfied, the pilot stepped on a recessed foothold for the purpose and swung into his own seat. Upon his closing the canopy, the ground crew wheeled away the ladder and signaled all clear. Moments later a screeching whine and vibration in the small of Rei's back invaded her awareness before the Major's voice announced, "Starting One." A heavy 'whump' followed, the whine now hidden by the low pitched scream of the newly functioning engine.

"Starting Two," he announced, to a redoubling of the engine noise. "Let's get this show on the road." Rei listened with half an ear to the communications with the control tower, while looking around curiously through the large bubble style canopy over the cockpit. The lurch of the brakes releasing brought her attention back inside.

Her curiosity perhaps overstimulated by the alien environment she found herself in, she pressed the intercom button once the major had apparently finished speaking.

"Sir, how did you and Lieutenant Hyuuga know each other?"

"Oh, not much of a story." Ichiro demurred. "Back about two years ago, when they first started decommissioning these," he patted the canopy rail "I got sent along with the first batch sent out to the US for storage in the Boneyard," he referred to the storage facility in Nevada used by the American military for its surplus aircraft. The arid climate allowed outdoor storage for years at a time with proper preparation. "Makoto was the pilot on the Leviathan transport we'd contracted from the UN to fly them out."

-----------

Ichiro glanced up at the mirror attached to the canopy rail and observed his passenger, who so far seemed to be a subdued sort. While steering expertly to the end of the runway and locking the brakes for a final systems check, he decided to indulge a little. His wife had accused him of still being a little boy at heart, often enough.

It would be a shame to disappoint.

-----------

//Steppenwolf "Magic Carpet Ride" _Born to be Wild: A Retrospective_//

"Ok, we're ready. Hang on." Rei had no time to ponder those words before the engine noise, until now loud but bearable, rose to a crescendo and deepened to bone-shaking roar. The back of the seat seemed to lunge forward and slam into her spine as the fighter leaped ahead like a bolt from a crossbow. Head pinned firmly to the seat by the acceleration, teeth threatening to shake loose from the vibration, she could barely make out the runway markers blurring past in her peripheral vision. In the mirror ahead of her, she saw the pilot was grinning gleefully. Obviously, she decided, Lt. Hyuuga had unknowingly selected a maniac.

Roughly the time she began to wonder about the exact length of the runway, specifically how much they might have left, the seat tilted beneath her.

And tilted.

And tilted.

A hasty glance outside confirmed what her inner ear told her, they were now traveling vertically and if anything -still- accelerating.

Faster than she would have believed possible, they blasted through the upper cloud cover and into brilliant sunlight. Fumbling for the built-in sun visor on her helmet, Rei missed the first part of Ichiro's question once they leveled off.

"...like something to drink?"

"Yes." Rei settled herself, taking a deep breath from her oxygen mask.

"There's a box of juice in the pouch on the left side of your seat. I'm afraid it's all the refreshment I can offer," he apologized, his professional demeanor back in place as tightly as though the past minute had never been. "We are on schedule and flight plan," Ichiro confirmed on his panel. He glanced back at her again. "Next stop, Karamay."

Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region
3:30PM Local Time

Rei blearily awoke, blinking behind her lowered sun visor. A few seconds later, the disorientation cleared, and she examined the view outside the canopy.

"Good afternoon, Miss Ayanami," Ichiro greeted, having noticed her awaken. "As you can see, the Chinese government was kind enough to send someone to make sure we didn't get lost." He dryly chuckled, and inclined his head at the sleek J-11 fighters off their right and, she saw, left wings. "We're about half an hour out, Karamay radioed a few minutes ago that the transport from Nepal has arrived."

-----------

Han Fei stood stiffly on the concrete pad just off the runway, frowning slightly at the eastern sky. No speck on the horizon announced their counterpart's arrival, so after a few moments he turned back to his partner.

"Will you stop?" he chuckled at her wistful gaze focused on the transport parked a few dozen meters away, the mostly complete Eva-06 resting on a massive flatbed trailer being rolled aboard as they watched. "You know as well as I do they're not sending half-trained newbies on a mission this sensitive."

"I know," Nami Lin sighed, her shoulders slumping while her long, dark ponytail twitched in the breeze. "It's weird though. I don't really -want- to go and risk my life fighting a giant battle robot, but at the same time..."

"It seems like a waste if we've worked this hard to just get sidelined," Han agreed, also gazing upon the UN transport. The VG-37 'Leviathan' was what was called an ekranoplan, a wing-in-ground-effect vehicle. Built by Volga Shipyard as heavy lift transports for military and civil use, they could carry a 900 ton payload up to 8000 kilometers, all at an altitude of about 20 meters. Obviously such a vehicle was best suited to use over water, but given they had managed to fly it in from Nepal, the Russian steppe would probably be a breeze.

I still say it looks like a whale, he mused, noting the bulbous fuselage and massive tailplane nearly the width of the wings.

"There she is!" Nami exclaimed, pointing at the growing dot resolving into a recognizable aircraft. "About time! Come on, we need to meet her." She latched onto his hand and began to drag him towards the small knot of people waiting beside the transport. Han resignedly quickened his stride, neglecting to mention it had been her idea to come over here. Thus far he had had little to complain about in their nascent relationship, but at times like this he couldn't help wondering if his quasi-girlfriend hadn't swallowed a fusion reactor as a child.

Mr. Tzu gave a minimal nod at their arrival, returning his attention to the fighter now on final approach, floating gracefully down to its appointed rendezvous. Han got his first good look at the arriving aircraft, and frowned slightly.

"Nerv has interesting taste in transports," Nami whispered softly to him, her lips barely moving. "That's not even UN, it's Japanese SDF."

Han nodded slightly, having noticed the red 'meatball' insignia on the fighter himself. "A message, perhaps?"

Nami shrugged, and mouthed 'later', the jet noise having grown to the point of drowning out any covert volume of conversation. They watched the fighter taxi off the runway to the spot adjacent to the transport, and neatly swing into its slot without help from a tow tractor, before powering down. The small group of the pilots, Tzu, and Director Lin approached it, followed by a pair of ground crew with a rolling ladder.

The canopy whined open as the cockpit's two occupants removed their helmets, the pilot unstrapping first and turning to assist the back seater before descending the ladder. The pair introduced themselves upon reaching the ground.

Director Yao bowed in turn. "Li Yao, Director of Nerv Karamay." He opened his hand at the three standing to his right. "Shui Tzu, training officer, and Trainees Nami Lin and Han Fei." Those named bowed as well. "Welcome to Karamay."

Rei nodded shortly. "Have my orders arrived, sir?"

"Yes, in so far as you are to continue on to the rendezvous point with Eva-06 and be briefed in full by Captain Katsuragi," Li replied, just as happy to move to business.

Rei maintained her neutral expression, despite inner disappointment at still being left uninformed.

"Mr. Tzu, if you'd show Major Ohgami to the visitor's quarters, I will brief Pilot Ayanami on what to expect with our Eva." He turned to gather the other pilots in with his gaze. "Lin, Fei, come as well."

Li led off towards the transport, Ichiro and Tzu breaking off to the bus terminal. "As you know, Evas -06 and -07 are intended for direct fire support of the 'Halberd' type Evas such as -02 and -05, or of course the prototypes," he began as they strode up the transport ramp and mounted the ladder to the catwalk that ran the perimeter of the Leviathan's cavernous cargo bay. "To accomplish this, they sacrifice some amount of agility for protection and firepower," he admitted. "The control and propulsion systems are completely installed and tested, as are the defenses. Sensors and weapons are not," he spoke with considerable understatement given the hastily welded patches of bare metal standing out against the tan colored primer coloring the rest of the Eva.

"Basic visual systems are online, as are the image intensifiers for night action. Millimeter wave radar and sonar systems are not, nor are the forward and rear looking infrared or AT field interferometers." He shrugged apologetically. "Weapons are in somewhat better shape," Li continued with a gesture at the Eva's head. "The fire control subsystem is fully operational, and all four 57mm autocannons are installed and tested. The upper guns seem to be having feeder problems from their dedicated magazines, but the lower magazines are in working order, so the upper guns feed from them for the time being. You will still have 30 seconds of continuous fire. Obviously, the shoulder hardpoints for the pistols are not mounted, but we've improvised a carry system for the progressive knives," he nodded at the mounting rails along each forearm, with a skeletal looking cage of steel bars surrounding them to guard the weapons from impact. "HVMs are not available, supply problems. The launch racks are installed, but welded shut for now."

Rei frowned at this. From her own briefing on the Chinese 'Ballista' class Evas, she knew that the Hyper-Velocity Missiles were the unit's primary offensive punch. Essentially a 150mm diameter, 200 kilogram laser guided rocket traveling at two kilometers per second, they relied on their kinetic energy rather than an explosive warhead to achieve a kill. Their absence would do unfortunate things to her combat capability. "Understood," she replied coolly.

Li seemed to take this at face value, and turned to the two pilots observing them. "I am less familiar with the Eva's handling properties, so I leave that to our own pilots."

Han took a moment to admire Director Yao. It was now clear that he'd decided to kill the proverbial two birds with this single stone. By bringing them along with Ayanami to listen to her briefing on the challenges she faced, he defused any resentment that she was upstaging them by taking their Eva out on its first mission. He then also gave them the chance to speak in their area of expertise, and so both both demonstrate their value, and have the opportunity to impress a future comrade. He glanced at Nami to see she was waiting on -him-, thanked his departed grandfather for suggesting he take those Speech electives, and began.

"I'll start by saying that the extra armor is certainly comforting when under fire, lower acceleration or not. As far as handling goes, I'd say comparing the two is like the difference between a battleaxe and a sword. There is much less delicacy involved, you have to be aggressive and force the enemy to react to you. Nami?"

"Nothing so poetic, just that I'd noticed that it has a tendency towards being top-heavy, and the autocannons sound like you have a jackhammer in the plug with you when they fire," she smiled apologetically at Li. "With the hardpoints and pistols gone the first might not be as big a problem, but keep it in mind."

Rei nodded again.

"Right then," Li spoke after it was clear Rei had nothing further to say. "Then let's get you familiarized with the cockpit. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised."

Nerv staging area
150 km Northeast of Moscow
5:00PM Local Time

Misato rubbed weary eyes and tried to focus on the map weighted down on the metal table before her. "And for my next trick, hiding a 15 story giant robot on the plains of Russia."

She frowned. Even with the external booster packs Karamay provided, Rei would have only 15 minutes of operating time, so they simply could not afford a long chase. Worse, the altitude afforded by the robot's height gave its sensors a horizon of 20 to 25km, so dropping the Eva in close was out of the question. Dropping further out and then lying in wait would help, but the magnetic resonance imagers on Dveskya could probably pick up a lump of metal the mass of an Eva at about four kilometers even if it was shut down cold.

All of that was unfortunate, but not a mission killer if the object were simply to destroy the rogue mecha. While the estimated maximum effective range for the Type-14A automatic rifle Karamay had on hand was perhaps 1100 meters, Eva-06 could certainly survive to reach that range.

The sticking point was the crew. The four men aboard the mech were, so far as telemetry could tell, still alive. While more philosophical about these matters than most Western governments, even the Russians were hesitant to off two of their own out of hand, never mind what the Indian's reaction would be. Hence another fly in the ointment. How to transfer a Spetsnaz team from one giant robot into a moving, maneuvering, most likely shooting, other giant robot. The liaison the Russians had assigned her was looking into a delivery system more robust than simply strapping the poor men to the Eva, but hadn't held out much hope. Meanwhile, she still had the accursed, unhelpful map to deal with. Thus it was with mingled relief and annoyance she greeted the distraction of the trailer door opening to allow a blast of icy wind to howl through the interior.

"Captain, you are in luck," Lieutenant Filitov announced with a crooked smile.

"The terrorists saw the error of their ways and surrendered?" Misato suggested sarcastically.

"Nothing so fortunate," the sandy haired lieutenant admitted. "There is indeed no piece of equipment available in the Army inventory that meets your requirements." He handed her a hardcopy photo, forestalling her perplexed reaction to his obvious satisfaction. "-But- it appears the Navy is good for something after all. That is a bathysphere, used to rescue crews from crippled submarines. I checked with Dr. Malenkov, and Dveskya's hatch dimensions are within tolerances for this craft's airlock."

Misato's relieved smile noticeably brightened the room. "Excellent work, Lieutenant," she said with genuine gratitude. "How soon can it get here?"

"About four hours, they have to fly it in from Murmansk."

Misato nodded acceptance. "Good enough, Eva-06 won't be here until then anyway," she sighed. "One load off at least. Have you checked with Commander Mardukas on the best place to mount it?"

"No, ma'am. I wanted to let you know first."

"Do so if you would," she tapped one finger against the table before adding "You're a paratrooper, correct?"

"Yes, Captain," he replied, the 'why?' strongly implied.

"I thought so. When the commander is finished, come back here. I think I need a professional opinion."

"Allow me to check if I understand the plan, ma'am," Filitov asked somewhat later, upon hearing the end of Misato's explanation. "You intend to dock the bathysphere to your Evangelion, load the team aboard, push the whole assembly out the back of the Leviathan once you've reached the target, and hope nothing falls apart on impact."

"In essence, yes," Misato admitted.

"Oh, well in that case there should be no problem. Provided your robot can withstand an air drop, of course."

"You're sure," she asked skeptically.

"Certainly, I've done something similar myself several times," he replied confidently. "In fact, you've more or less described the insertion method for our BTR infantry carriers."

"The more I hear about the infantry, the happier I am to be in tanks," Misato said wryly. "Ok then. I assume you're familiar with the traditional reward for a job well done?"

Filitov smirked. "Another job?" he guessed.

Misato smiled. "I see some things -are- universal. Talk to the tech team aboard the Leviathan about how to reinforce the bathysphere to handle touchdown."

"Of course, captain." The young officer saluted and left.

"Good subordinates are truly a treasure," Misato noted, returning her gaze to the map.

Point Luck
280km North-Northeast of Moscow
5:00PM Local Time

Rei scanned the slumbering Eva's instrument panel one last time. Upon listening to the myriad sensors and weapons the Chinese team had grafted onto the original Eva specification, she'd been mentally preparing herself for a cockpit resembling an explosion in an electronics store.

Instead, she was indeed pleasantly surprised.

There was one large color display in the center of the panel for non-critical data, framed by a row of buttons on each side to change the information displayed or split the screen a variety of ways. Flanking that on each side was a smaller color display similarly framed by buttons to allow customization. Critical information such as weapons status, sensor contacts, and failure warnings were displayed on wraparound main view panels identical to Eva-00 and -01. The joysticks on either side of the seat were adjustable to match different height pilots, a thoughtful touch, and studded with buttons and a 'hat' style switch for control of the most important functions, a feature she recognized from the fighter's cockpit. In all, a well thought out system.

The gray apple on the center display during startup was soothing as well, Rei noted approvingly. I must remember to commend the Chinese team if I return.

The communications system beeped, followed by Captain Katsuragi's voice in her earphones. "Rei, Dveskya seems to have steadied down on approach to its launch point. We'll be dropping you momentarily." Misato paused, and a double beep announced a radio channel change from the general tactical band to a direct to plug link. "Rei, what I'm about to say cannot be repeated afterward, understood?"

"Of course," Rei replied, annoyed at the idea she would divulge information from an obviously secret communication.

"Good. We have updated orders. Should Dveskya reach 250 kilometers distance, you are to destroy the target regardless of the status of its crew or the entry team." Misato's voice hardened. "The lives of the target's occupants are to be considered expendable. Understood?"

Rei nodded, in spite of the lack of video communication in the Eva plug. "Yes, Captain Katsuragi. This simplifies my mission considerably," she replied, a trace of relief in her voice.

A sharp intake of breath answered her. "That's all, Eva-06. We'll speak again after the mission." Misato's voice became a thing of ice. "Control out."

Rei frowned minutely for a moment, and dismissed the stab of emotion the brusque sign off evoked. There was a job to be done.

-------------

On a lonely stretch of the Russian steppe, one could believe that no human had crossed this place since the Mongols a millennium ago. Barren and cold, though not yet snowbound, there is all the same a sense of spare beauty reminiscent of the deserts of the American West. All that was soon to change.

From the south came a rumble that set the hardy shrubs making up much of the plant life quivering. Growing louder with each passing moment, the shatterer of the peace soon cleared the horizon, a massive aircraft with short, extremely broad wings sprouting from a body that seemed as at home on water as land, eight huge jet engines arranged to exhaust along the upper surface of the wings completing the ungainly picture.

Upon passing an invisible point on the ground, the large ramp making up much of the rear lowered itself into the slipstream, followed seconds later by a parachute dragging an immense flatbed semi-trailer. It in turn was attached to what appeared to be an equally huge armored man with a curious oblong growth on the small of its back. Following a finely calculated trajectory, the combination impacted with earthshaking force and a sound like a hardware store dropped from a skyscraper. Bits of trailer from its disintegration flew far and wide across the landscape while the Eva itself skidded along the surface, in the process plowing up nearly a kilometer of the Russian countryside.

At last, it came to rest.

"All units check in," Rei heard the team leader call out through the comm hookup to the bathysphere. Shaking her head, she replied affirmatively in English after a quick scan of her instrumentation. Two of the six Spetsnaz members spoke it well enough for their purposes, one of them bitterly remarking their landing had probably been heard in Kursk. Upon receiving positive responses from the remainder of the squad, Rei quickly checked over the weapon docked to her Eva's chest before beginning her search for her quarry. Success wasn't long in coming, and amazingly to her senses still half-stunned by the violence of their arrival, their target still appeared ignorant of their presence.

Eva-06 crouched in wait, only a trickle of power from standby mode betraying its presence. From its current position it would be able to cut the corner on Dveskya and intercept without having to match its speed, an important point for the endurance limited Eva. The minutes passed as the distance spiraled quickly downwards. A chirp in her earphones and strobing ring surrounding the image of the charging mecha announcing hostile radar lock, informing her that she'd at last been noticed. Accelerating swiftly, seeking to close as quickly as possible without imposing too much of a drain on her power reserves, she tried to hold the bathysphere behind her while she narrowed the range. As expected, her opponent's torso swiveled to track her with its arm cannon, but for the moment held its fire.

Wise of them, Rei commented internally. "Beginning final approach," she informed her passengers. With that, she broke into a full sprint and raised her AT field. Seconds later, Dveskya's weapons spoke, octagonal ripples strobing along the fifty meter bubble marking the perimeter of her protection. Upon approaching the two kilometer mark, she began cutting the corner tighter, pulling behind the mech. It began to turn to keep her withing the traverse limits of its torso, but Captain Katsuragi's care in positioning her paid off, she could tighten her turn to keep clear faster than it could make a turn at its speed to hold her in its sights. For good measure she randomly added some sideways lunges to her course, on the theory that while a near light-speed beam couldn't be evaded, the servos directing the weapon might be.

"Distance to target five hundred meters, standby for docking."

By this time, the operator seemed to have guessed her intentions and was attempting to rotate the torso, and therefore docking hatch, away as she circled around. Not in the mood for a chase, Rei leaped the last few dozen meters to grab the machine by its shoulder latch point for air transport, using the other to firmly attach the bathysphere and activate the electromagnets to hold it in place.

"Insertion complete, standing by."

Misato breathed a sigh of relief. "Well done, Eva-06," she replied, watching with the half dozen others crowded into the mid-sized tent serving as their command post, peering at the small bank of monitors fed by an orbiting reconnaissance aircraft. Eva-06 quickly backed off to await developments, detaching its rifle from the chest latch point.

Misato didn't have to see the action inside the mecha to know what was likely happening. The procedure was taught in practically every SWAT and special forces training center in the world, it was all but a cliche.

She was then very surprised when instead a harsh 'snap-CLANG!' came over the speakers without any mention of forcing the hatch, much less the obligatory tossing of a flashbang grenade, just before a fusillade of gunfire swiftly followed by rapid fire Russian.

"Two hostiles down, one injured," the team leader, Lieutenant Zhukov, reported. "Hostages safe, no losses. Looks like they -didn't- have time to rig anything on the hatch once we showed up. We're freeing the crew now."

As those present breathed a sigh of relief, Misato's eyes narrowed. "Understood, well done. Confirm -freeing- the crew?" Misato replied. "Be advised you have 70 kilometers to launch range," she added as an afterthought for Rei's benefit. "I thought..." she questioned Malenkov.

"I discussed it with the Lieutenant. That hatch is plain steel. Safer to blow it inward, and have it between the commandos and any surprises on the other side."

Misato nodded absently. "That wasn't what I meant. If the crew was incapacitated, then how..."

"Yes ma'am, that is correct," the lieutenant answered quizzically. Misato frowned, mulling the mystery over as a minute ticked by, with no slowing of the rogue mech. A new voice was heard on the radio, presumably Dveskya's commander. "This is Firebird Six, we have not, repeat, not been able to regain control locally. Manual controls are ineffective, the main transmitter is attached to a portable computer and wired with explosives. Please advise," the man reported tautly.

"We're working on the problem here, wait one," Doctor Chandrigian replied quickly. With an apologetic look at the Nerv personnel, he and his team conferred quietly a few steps away with those on board the stricken machine. Finally, he looked over and shook his head.

Misato's lips formed a grim line. No surprise, those aboard were commandos, not explosive ordinance disposal specialists. Three minutes remained until their revised fail safe line. Not enough time to send Rei to extract those on board, drop them somewhere safe, and catch back up. Even if this weren't so, she lacked the battery power to do so. "Eva-06, execute contingency as ordered."

She faced the other occupants of the trailer with an expression of stone. "I apologize, but we've run out of time."

----------

Rei was unsurprised, her opponent had been trying to track her with its weapons for the entire time since she'd dropped off the team. The pilot calmly released her battery packs and prepared for combat.

Eva-06 accelerated along its course following Dveskya to close the range. The simplest and most sure method of destruction would be to fire upon the lightly armored missile tubes on its back. The detonation of their solid fuel would at the very least cripple the machine, making its destruction vastly simpler. Targeting its main cannon would be the next priority, as it was the only even moderately effective weapon it possessed against an AT field equipped opponent. If necessary, bombardment of the drivetrain housing in the abdomen would finish Dveskya permanently.

Simple, quick, ruthless. Exactly as she had been trained for so many years. Exactly as the Director would have done. But as she maneuvered for the first shot, an image came to her mind unbidden of the -other- Ikari.

The one who in his second battle allowed himself to be pinned down rather than potentially kill two of his classmates by accident.

Who had acted to save her without hesitation in the next, injuring himself in the process.

Who would not care she had acted within her orders.

Who would look upon her if she executed this plan, and see only a monster.

An eternity of indecision by her reckoning, an eye blink by the universe's.

I am a killer. I am not a murderer.

//Chris Cornell "You Know My Name" _Casino Royale: Motion Picture Soundtrack_//

With that, she shifted accelerated further, passing her target as blue-white bolts scattered against her AT field, probing her defense once more. Her aim now unhampered by the danger of hitting the rockets accidentally, she sighted and squeezed the trigger. Half a dozen 105mm APFSDS rounds spat from her rifle's muzzle, each shaped like nothing so much as an outrageously large dart traveling at one and a half kilometers per second. They covered the distance separating the two combatants in the space of a heartbeat to smash against the armor surrounding Dveskya's knee joint.

The mech staggered, but gamely continued with no perceptible loss of speed, its particle bolts still splashing harmlessly off her AT field.

"Two minutes, Eva-06," Captain Katsuragi warned.

Rei needed no reminder, her cockpit lights had already gone red to signify her dwindling power supply. Darting in closer after another useless shot from Dveskya, she fired again at the same joint in the hopes the first volley weakened it. Again, minor damage, though it did slow perceptibly. Abandoning her evasive pattern, she moved in once more.

It was obvious to anyone watching, from the denizens of the command center to the spy satellites probably even now focused on this previously obscure patch of Russian soil, that Eva-06 had its opponent completely outclassed. It might have lacked some of the sheer fluid grace of its sisters, but compared to the clunky, restrained motions of its foe it was a world apart. Sidestepping smoothly, it evaded the string of 57mm shells Dveskya fired while waiting for its particle beam to recharge.

Thus far Rei had stayed outside the invisible perimeter of Dveskya's estimated two kilometer effective range, confining herself to attacking the mech's extremities, wearing it down little by little. Unfortunately, it wasn't working. The left knee joint was scarred and probably grinding severely under the deformation her shots had inflicted on the finely machined structure, but it hadn't failed yet, and she lacked the time to wait for it to do so. This battle had to end, now. Due to its proximity to the rockets, and the inaccuracy inherent in her running Eva, she was hesitant to target the cannon, but it seemed she had no choice.

Taking advantage of the five second recharge time on Dveskya's main weapon, Rei sprinted in, their combined 400kph speed sending the range counter spiraling down in a blur. Mentally counting the seconds on her battery timer, she closed as far as she dared before skidding to a halt. Facing the onrushing foe squarely, she dropped to a firing crouch, locked on, and opened up. Smoke wafted across her view for a tense second, almost daring her to hope.

A bolt from from the heart of a star seared its way through the kilometer separating them, blasting right through the AT field that had held it at bay for so long. Blowtorch heat caused the cook off of her rifle's remaining ammunition, destroying the weapon in an all consuming fireball. By that time, the beam had done its work, searing through layers of advanced alloys and refractory ceramics with insatiable hunger to reach within.

Warning sirens and ominous red sidebars greeted Rei as her eyes fluttered open. Gasping raggedly from the searing pain spreading across her chest, she found Eva-06 sprawled flat on its back. As she began the slow, painful process of staggering back to her feet, she noted her rifle had been essentially annihilated by her enemy's fire, reduced to a pistol grip and a sliver of receiver connecting to the foregrip, the barrel blown to who-knew-where. Slashes of red across the schematic on her left console display indicated a second hit to the chest would be essentially unobstructed and certainly devastating. A third would assuredly be fatal. Tearing her eyes from the grim report, she found Dveskya still advancing, the elbow joint she had targeted connecting the cannon to the rest of the arm damaged and probably immobilized, but the weapon itself apparently intact as it closed to finish her.

The babble in her earphones told her nothing she didn't already know. The enemy's torso twisted slightly to fine tune its aim. And, in the last fraction of a second, throwing her will against damaged and unwilling machinery, she moved.

Not much, mere meters. But enough.

A particle beam had to be tightly focused, or it lost effect too quickly. The Fifth Angel's weapon had demonstrated this, as it lost coherence over the thirty kilometers it had traveled through the thickest part of the atmosphere. That ever so slight spread from a one meter diameter to just three had increased by a factor of -nine- the amount of armor it had to defeat, and bought Shinji enough time to save her. The converse was true now, as the very tightness of Dveskya's beam defeated it, allowing Rei to shift just enough to let it sizzle by with only scorch marks on the Eva's upper shoulder and neck to show its passing.

Her lips forming a grim line, she sprang from the crouch she'd half-fallen into. One hand touching briefly to the ground for extra purchase, she attained an acceleration a Ferrari might have envied as she closed the distance, and played her final card.

One Type-2 progressive knife had survived its brush with nuclear fire.

She called upon it now.

----------

Misato's order to eject died in her throat. Eva-06 moved with blinding speed, its left side progressive knife snapping from it's forearm holster, warning light glowing ominously as it powered up. Each lunging stride brought her a full fifty meters closer to her prey.

Dveskya had run out of time.

The first slash was to the already weakened elbow joint, separating the cannon from its power source. Switching the knife to her damaged right hand, Rei used the left to fend off the desperate grab by Dveskya's right and pulled the robot in close, thrusting the knife deep into its abdomen and drivetrain.

The two combatants froze, locked together for an eternal instant. Dveskya slumped. Staggering under a mass half again its own, Eva-06 retrieved its knife and dropped it at its side, using the now freed hand to help lower its defeated foe to the ground.

"Eva-06 to entry team. Status," Rei's voice crackled over the tactical band. Seconds trickled by, before a slightly shaky voice answered. "Lieutenant Zhukov reporting. Major Kirchitov appears to have a depressed skull fracture. Lieutenant Sanga and Sergeant Kristoff have a broken femur and radius respectively." He paused. "I am also to report nine -powerful- desires for directions to the nearest drinking establishment."

"Medical and radiation safety teams are inbound, Lieutenant," Misato replied with heartfelt relief over sudden cheers. "Hang tough, and we'll join you in that."

"By all means, Captain. By all means."

Somewhere over the Ural Mountains
September 2, 2015
9:00AM Local Time

Rei's neutral visage stared back at her in the window's reflection, as she gazed out of the commandeered Leviathan transport. The vastness of the tundra spread out below her, crawling past at a snail's pace in spite of their speed. For safety's sake, their transport had risen to a one kilometer altitude for their transit of the mountain chain before it would descend to its normal cruising altitude for the long trip back to Karamay.

She had been invited to the informal victory celebration held at what was, as far as anyone could determine, the nearest local drinking establishment. The pilot had begged off as politely as possible. Certainly she'd not been untruthful when explaining that piloting was a strenuous process, and took a certain amount of time to recover from. Veterans all, her hosts had pressed no farther. Everyone dealt with post-battle letdown in their own way.

But it had not been the -whole- truth. During that handful of moments Rei had been stunned by her Eva's injuries, there had been the sensation of...presence. Of something in her mind that was emphatically not her. As a lifelong Evangelion pilot that sensation was nothing new. Except that it had not been the mindless, sullen power of the core loaded aboard Eva-06 she had felt.

She had spent the previous evening retracing the dimming memories of floating between light and dark, alone in the nothingness. It had been...peaceful, in its way. After some indeterminate time of this, a tug at her awareness came. She 'turned' to seek it, but without success. Moments later, it prodded her again, this time with a whisper of something she couldn't make out. At that point she had first felt a definite presence, somewhere beyond her sight, but palpable all the same. At that point she had forcibly rejoined reality, but even now she felt she could almost hear it in the back of her mind, like a voice barely quiet enough to miss.

A rhythmic tapping on the steel stepladder leading up to the small cluster of seats just behind the cockpit drew her attention. A moment later, the uniform beret of -Major- Katsuragi appeared above the ledge, soon followed by the rest of her. The papers confirming this change of status had arrived with blinding speed by bureaucratic standards, though to be fair the promotion had been filed several weeks ago, following the Fifth Angel. Rei had overheard two of the techs who had attended the party comment that the unprecedented speed in confirmation was most likely because if the UN hadn't given her the promotion, the Russians damned well -would- have.

Rei turned to briefly glance at her commander as she approached, assuming that she was merely on her way to confer with the flight crew.

She was mildly surprised when her superior instead took a seat across the aisle from her.

"Can I help you, Major?"

"No, not at the moment," Misato looked back across the cargo bay, at the massive bulk of Eva-06 strapped down on a new trailer. The scars of its battle were still visible, any substantial repairs would have to wait until their return. "The Russians found out who was responsible, in case you were wondering," Misato commented offhandedly. Taking Rei's silence for assent, she continued. "A combination of Chechen front men and financing from a splinter of the Russian ultra nationalist party, leftovers from the civil war. 'Devil's alliance' was considered the most descriptive term." The phrase 'nine millimeter aneurysm' was also being tossed around, but there was no need to mention that, Misato decided.

Rei nodded. "I see. Thank you, ma'am." She began turning back to the window, clearly expecting that to have been the end of the conversation.

"Not quite," Misato forestalled her. "When you said that your instructions 'simplified your mission,' I fully expected you destroy Dveskya as swiftly as possible once I gave the order. Why didn't you?"

Rei considered, before deciding more information was needed. "Is that a criticism, Major?"

"That depends on your answer."

Rei thought a moment longer. "It seemed the right thing to do."

Misato nodded, satisfied. "It was. Those orders to do the Russian's dirty work for them were legal, certainly, but they weren't sensible. Had you simply annihilated Dveskya and those aboard, as you could have, Nerv's reputation would have been damaged for a long time to come. You did the right thing, don't let anyone tell you otherwise."

A look of surprise briefly flashed across Rei's features, before her usual non-expression reasserted itself.

Misato smiled, giving in to a fit of whimsy. "One thing does worry me, however."

"Ma'am?"

"That berserk knife charge of yours makes me wonder if Shinji isn't rubbing off on you." Misato outright grinned at Rei's perhaps even briefer flush to her cheeks. "That's all I had to say," Misato finished as she stood. "You should be proud of yourself. I am." Misato laid her hand on Rei's shoulder as she passed, and descended the ladder.

As the footfalls faded behind her, Rei turned again to her window, and was greeted by her reflection with what might just have been the tiniest of smiles.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Author's notes

(1) Officially, 'uncultured' in Russian. In practice, much like gaijin in Japanese, it means something somewhat different. 'Backwoods, goat-banging hick' probably captures the essence well enough.

Words like -this- are emphasized by the speaker.
Words like THIS are shouted by the speaker.
Words like this are in a language foreign to one of the listeners.

Finally, I sincerely apologize for my butchery of the Russian language in naming the late, lamented Dveskya.

[TabascoOne]

Chapter 5- The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

"But I don't want to be among mad people," said Alice.
"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat. "Here we are all mad! I'm mad! You're mad!"
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here!"
-_Alice in Wonderland_ by Lewis Carroll

Conviction is contagious. So is doubt.
—Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan, _Mirror Dance_, by Lois McMaster Bujold


Nerv-4
Karamay
September 2, 2015
12:15PM Local Time

Nami Lin stood on her toes, straining to scan the tables in the crowded cafeteria for her partner. “He'd -better- have waited for me,” she fumed after a long moment. Finally, the girl spied him at a small table near the east wall.

"There you are!" she grinned, belying the impatient sounding greeting.

"I was about to start waving flags," Han deadpanned. "I see you got the pork. Good choice," he said while making a face at his so-called chicken and rice. "So did you seen what the cat dragged in?" he asked once she was seated.

"If you mean the remains of our Eva, yeah. I saw it when Ayanami and the rest got back from Russia.” She poked her chopsticks at him and proclaimed, “Shame on you, you're behind the curve!"

"Oh, so did I,” he rejoined. “I meant how it looks -now-. I took a look this morning, and I'd say the modular armor proved its worth."

Nami nodded. Unlike the prototypes, the production model Evas were designed with combat conditions in mind. Even Eva-01, while intended as a systems testbed for the production models, lacked features of the production models such as multiple redundant systems and hot-swappable components that separated a lab artifact from a reliable weapon. In particular, the newer Evas mounted their protection in thousands of identical octagonal and semi-octagonal blocks two thirds of a meter thick rather than as a series of giant plates. Repairing external damage was simply a matter of replacing the damaged blocks with new ones from storage and reapplying the ablative resin coating over the area.

"They sure didn't waste any time,” Nami admitted.

“They told me they had the actual battle damage fixed in under an hour," Han agreed. "I heard all of the autocannon ammo feeds work now too. Though I still think they underestimated a bit on how much firepower we'd need." He frowned at his plate again. "If the 105mm was a bit anemic, I doubt the 57's will be an improvement. Even if they do fire a lot faster."

“Too right,” Nami snorted. The image of tank rounds skipping off Dveskya's armor, leaving only gouges and disappointment behind was not one she'd soon forget. Nor the desperate lunge into knife range Eva-06's pilot braved as a result.

Nami repressed a tiny shudder. "It's 'later',” she began after a moment, seeking a slightly less disturbing subject. Leaning forward as she played with the straw in her drink, she dropped her voice to a volume just above the background chatter. “So, hypothetically, if you knew you were being lied to in a little thing, would you trust that someone about something more important?" Han's expression congealed into the stoic mask he wore when facing a particularly unpleasant drill, his eyes zeroing in on hers. Realizing her error, she amended hastily, "Nothing about us. I'm talking about a Nerv thing."

The boy's expression thawed as his dread ebbed. "Oh,” he acknowledged in relief. “Well in that case, I wouldn't quit believing them completely, but I would certainly be a lot more careful."

"That's what I thought too." Nami began idly tracing geometric designs on the table between them with her straw, following the tip with her eyes. "I've been doing a little checking around since the Fourth Angel. Nothing illegal or dangerous," she added at his building worry, "just keeping my eyes open. A couple days ago, I was looking around one of the datacenters to kill time while you were in a sim, staying out of the way and trying to look like I had business there. I was bored,” a dangerous phrase if Han had ever heard one, “so when one of the techs left his terminal for a tea break I went to have a look. You know we all have profiles in the Nerv system, right?"

"Sure, what about it?" he asked with mounting disbelief.

"Well, he must have been browsing the server they're on for some reason, because I saw the actual file directory, not the data screen we get. Soryu-Langley's and Ayanami's entries were about ten years old. Yours, mine, Testarossa's, and Robert's were all created around mid-July, give or take a few days. So was Ikari's," Nami finished grimly.

Han stared at the girl across from him for a long moment, lost in a moment of admiration for sheer, unmitigated gall. He could see how it happened in crystal clarity. The apathetic, harried, underpaid technician leaving for a few moments of peace. Nami brazenly walking up to the abandoned terminal, meeting the few curious looks from other equally harried workers without a trace of apprehension, as she sat down and began poking around the open account. And perhaps more amazingly, he thought as he watched his partner continue to doodle with the puddle of juice her straw had left behind, then proceeding to tell -him- about it as though it were just an odd little happening on her way home! "Interesting,” he finally said for lack of anything better, still a little in shock. “I can think of several reasons that could explain that, but still, interesting."

"No joke. I put it off as someone restoring from a backup or something at first, but the more I thought about it..."

The boy was already shaking his head before she finished. "That would change the local creation date, but not the date stamp on the file," Han replied. "No, those files were created when they say they were.” He frowned again. “I think I see where you're going with this, but it has to be that the file was reconstructed for some reason. Certainly that's more likely than Nerv letting a total novice pilot a billion dollar machine. Especially into combat."

"You'd think so, but look at the evidence. You saw the footage of the Fourth Angel, and we've fought Ikari in sims who knows how many times. He seems as effective as the other two, but he doesn't -move- like they do. Not as smoothly, even with the same sync score as Ayanami."

"That could just be him. Who is to say he would move like someone else?"

"He probably wouldn't. But he should have the same training that Ayanami got if he really is her partner. I don't know about you, but I haven't seen him show it. He's good, but also brutally straightforward, and not as skilled." She shrugged helplessly. "Nothing is conclusive by itself, but put it all together and what else makes sense? And that's what I was getting at before. I think we're getting lied to, or at least -not- getting the whole story. So now what do we do?" she demanded.

Han sat quietly through her dissertation, pondering that question himself. He had no intention of disagreeing with her, and not just because she was cute and dating him. Her analysis lined up much too well with a few deeply held misgivings of his own for him to doubt it. "I can't think of many things we can do, except keep our eyes open. I think the real question is if we let on we know." He paused to meet her fierce gaze levelly. "I'm personally in favor of not."

Nami's eyes widened in surprise. "Why? Not mentioning it to the staff here makes sense, but at the very least the other pilots need to know."

"Maybe," Han grimaced uncomfortably at her stare, but pressed on. "A secret's chances of getting out increase with everyone who gets brought in on it. And we don't know anything about the others, not really."

"Not -yet-" she corrected.


Nerv-3
Boston
September 5, 2015
8:45AM Local Time

It could have gone better.

"Eva-03, move left 800 meters and prepare to engage," Rei commanded over the roar of a passing HVM volley. Uniquely among the pilots, her voice sounded identical to life over the tone and timbre flattening narrowband communication link.

"On the way," Tessa crisply acknowledged, moving in a crouch and careful to keep under the height of the row of apartment blocks she was using for cover. Today's opposition, Evas-02 and 06, had managed to sneak dangerously close before being spotted at practically the last second. That, combined with the two second window granted by the set up time of the opposition's AT fields, had been enough to avert outright disaster. But it was still only a matter of time until Soryu-Langley managed to work around to them under Fei's covering fire and break the stalemate, and then the situation would be sticky indeed.

On arriving at her new position, she sent Eva-06 a 200 mm welcoming gift, causing him to abort his move between two buildings and dive back into cover.

“That's right, focus on me,” she half whispered as another missile volley tore apart warehouse to her left. “Don't worry about Ayanami, just keep me pinned. There we go...”

----------

Easing slowly around a foothill, Asuka spied Eva-03 about a kilometer ahead and to the right, practically in plain sight.

"Too easy," she grinned, and drew her pistol from its shoulder hardpoint. All she needed to do was ease forward -just- a bit... Then it hit her.

It was quiet. Too quiet.

"Eva-06, status."

Nothing but the almost inaudible hiss of background static. Frowning in puzzlement, she repeated the call.

Again, nothing.

That was out and out creepy. But that bastard Steuben had probably simulated a comms failure to keep her from winning so easily. Too bad it won't work, she smirked smugly. Easing forward to her selected firing position, she noted Eva-03 was still banging away with its Type 26, the heavy 406 mm weapon producing visible shockwaves with each shot, implying the fight was still on. She continued in that belief right up until Eva-03 vaulted out of the canal it had been using as an impromptu trench and disappeared from sight.

"Sonofa!" Asuka snarled and began to gather herself to pursue, when a whisper of instinct caused her to duck instead, narrowly avoiding being impaled on a nagitana wielded by Eva-00. Rolling to her feet, the pilot suppressed a flare of self-loathing for not entertaining the thought that Rei might have sprung a counter-ambush of her own. After frantically dodging the return swipe of the weapon, she ignored her pistol as useless at this range and brought her axe around in a hissing arc, calculated to slip past the haft of the sword bladed spear and end in Eva-00's thigh.

That Ayanami was no slouch in a melee even Asuka would grudgingly grant, but this was the kind of fight that Eva-02 was built for and she had trained for. The outcome was inevitable.

Eva-02's missile launch alarms screamed a warning, jerking her away from the image of Eva-00 reeling back to see a pair of four missile salvos arcing in from different directions. Reflexively leaping away, she launched into an evasion pattern while trying to back track where they'd come from.

"Oh you have got to be -kidding- me!" she exclaimed as yet another volley appeared from a completely different direction. Noticing Ayanami opening the distance, she took a gamble. By springing to pursue her arch-foe, Asuka sought to narrow the range too far for safety, forcing Testarossa into aborting her launch for fear of hitting her teammate. Not that such a thing would stop -her- of course, but...

The Maverick guided missiles Eva-03 had launched were operating on semi-active mode, tracking the spot of reflected laser light Eva-00 was dutifully holding on its foe, and making their own decisions on how best to assure a hit.

Unfortunately, the missiles' designers never counted on them being used on a target as agile as an Eva. As Rei and Asuka continued their deadly dance while the handful of seconds ticked down, a few did lose lock and wander off course, fooled by the erratic movements totally outside the parameters of a weapon designed to attack bunkers and small warships.

Two simply missed. As a sage once said, if missiles always worked as their manufacturers advertised, they would be called 'hittles.'

But some performed to specification, and the power of a 140 kilo shipkiller warhead would not be denied.

---------

The earth's shaking unbalanced even the Eva's substantial mass momentarily, the effect much like setting off a string of firecrackers while a freight train rumbled past. Ayanami had been right. If Asuka had one weakness as a pilot, it was that she just a bit too aggressive for her own good.

Tessa rose from her crouch, easing above the roof line of her chosen cover to grant her radars a clear line of sight through the debris and slowly settling dust. There, hazy and ill-defined in the low resolution image they provided, stood both Evas.

Eva-00 stood shakily with its right arm missing and what had to be major structural damage to that shoulder, the opposite arm clutching at the broken stump in synchrony with the pilot's sympathetic pain reaction. The opposite shoulder hardpoint was also bent crazily, indicating a very near miss.

Eva-02 fared somewhat better, a hardpoint missing completely and a series of nasty gouges down the chest and continuing onto the abdominal armor, proving she hadn't -quite- avoided another one. Tessa was impressed, you'd need reflexes like a cat to twist fast enough to take a direct hit like that at a survivable angle...

"Eva-00, get clear. New salvo on..."

Asuka moved with a cobra's speed. One moment Eva-00 had been backing up a step to comply with the obvious sense of the request. The next Eva-02's hand moved in a crimson blur to send a progressive knife squarely through the armor covering the notch of Eva-00's collar bone, and surely the vertebrae surrounding its entry plug.

Turning slowly from her fallen foe, Eva-02 locked eyes with the hapless pilot who had so suddenly found herself alone.

----------

Asuka sized up her remaining opposition and smiled. To her credit, Eva-03's pilot was already moving to take cover in a small cluster of buildings to the east. It wouldn't be enough. Her evaluation of Teletha Testarossa thus far summed up as 'barely competent.' That she had a solid grasp of tactics was obvious, but the girl was almost entirely lacking in the piloting skill to translate that knowledge into action.

"I'd actually be more worried if it were her moron of a partner over there. At least -he- can hit the broad side of a skyscraper without the computer nursemaiding him.” She grinned to herself. “As it is I might as well be clubbing baby seals."

Asuka darted forward to the forlorn office building she saw standing at the edge of the clear area Eva-03 had selected as her fire zone, ensuring she was making random course and speed changes to minimize the chances of a hit. 200mm sub-caliber sabot rounds streaked past at one and a half kilometers per second with the characteristic snap-boom of large projectiles traveling faster than sound. None were close enough to be particularly worrisome. Her alarms wailed again as her Eva's sensors detected the heat of another missile launch.

"Ha!" the pilot cackled as she skidded behind her chosen cover like a runner sliding for home plate. "Nice try!"

----------

Tessa noted her opponent's successful bid to find cover with icy detachment. Sam and Melissa had done their level best to teach her in a few short weeks the skills they'd gained over the course of years. In their defense, the results had been impressive by any possible standard given the student's starting point. But hitting a moving target from three quarters of a kilometer away was simply too far beyond her abilities.

Of course, so might this, admitted the tiny corner of her mind not focused on the task at hand.

Her last four Mavericks accelerated on pillars of fire, doing so with two very important differences from their predecessors. First, they arrowed ahead on a fast, flat trajectory as opposed to the high, looping affair needed to allow three separate salvos to arrive simultaneously. Second, their tiny on-board intelligence had been firmly overridden.

Originally built as the AGM-65F model used by the United States Navy since long before Impact, they had in Nerv's hands been refitted with additional guidance systems to allow more flexibility in targeting. Now, their infrared seekers fed not the missile's CPU, but a small laser transmitter that in turn relayed the data to Eva-03.

Thus, Tessa was now focusing total concentration on the grainy black and white video feed on her center panel, one small thumb manipulating the trackball on her control joystick. The image of the skyscraper grew with frightening speed on the monitor, and Tessa steered her missile to pass wide, its brothers obediently following the leader. Then, at the last second, she spun the ball hard left.

----------

Melissa Mao frowned in confusion at the scene unfolding on the screen. The idea of using the remaining missiles while she could made sense, but as soon as Asuka had made cover Tessa should have cut the guidance links and run for it. At least that way she could've opened the range back up. As it was the moment those missiles hit somewhere Eva-02 was going to leap out from her bolt hole, and once she was in among those buildings there was going to be precious little her opponent could do to stop her.

The quartet of missiles swung slightly right of the direct course to the office building, which made even less sense. The skyscraper was heavily built to be sure, but there was -some- chance that they could blast through the walls in succession to get to Eva-02. The missiles streaked past the front wall and proceeded to do the unexpected. As one, their control vanes locked to maximum left deflection, and like a car on glaze ice they skidded around the next corner with bare meters to spare. One didn't make the turn and clipped the corner of the building, blowing a hole an Eva could put a foot through in the structure. The remainder came screaming in on the suddenly exposed Eva-02. Asuka's head had only barely turned at the first explosion when the trio of missiles arrived, just beginning to wonder if that panic launch had been anything of the kind.

It no longer mattered.

The first struck the hip joint, shoving the Eva sideways like a blow from a Titan. The second was a clean miss caused by the motion, its rocket exhaust played across the plug socket cover with blowtorch heat for the instants it spent thundering past. The last had time to correct, smashing into the joint between the arm and aircraft latch point.

Melissa stared for a long, indeterminate moment. "Damage on -02?" she heard herself ask from within a fog of pure disbelief.

"Ah...right arm is gone, looks like the hit carried into the chest cavity, the right ribs are cracked but seem to be holding. Right hip is fractured at the femur and socket, major damage to pelvis and lower spinal cord. She's done for," Max Cramer opined, the bald spot no one had quite had the guts to mention yet reflecting the overhead lights as he shook his head in mock dismay.

----------

Tessa realized she'd been holding her breath ever since the display had dissolved to static, and peered anxiously down range. Seconds passed. A red and white head and torso teetered with painful slowness into view like a falling oak, slamming to the ground with a 'thump' she could feel through the soles of her feet opposite of the gaping wound caused by her errant missile.

"Ok. By the Book," she murmured, taking aim with her rifle. “Center the target.”

“Wait for the tone,” she reminded herself once the pipper settled on the Eva's head.

“Squeeze the trigger.”


Nerv HQ
Tokyo 3
September 6, 2015
5:30AM Local Time

One would think, Misato Katsuragi mused as she stood in what must rank in the top ten creepiest locations in Japan, that spending the past decade in the military would have immunized her from the effects of early mornings.

Alas, no such luck.

“Finally, I recommend a full battery of field trials upon the pilots' arrival. This should allow a better comparative evaluation of their abilities, as well as a real world test of the new Evas' before committing them to action.” The major tried not to let the discomfort of the developing cramp in her left hamstring show on her face as she surreptitiously tried to flex it and restore some circulation.

In and of themselves, she thought the bimonthly formal status reports were a good thing, allowing face to face communication between the respective department heads and airing any developing problems. But was it -really- necessary to have the three of them standing in front of the director's desk like wayward elementary school students? Surely a conference room would work at least as well, or at the very least they could bring a few chairs into this crypt.

Misato felt a flicker of dark amusement at her next thought as Ritsuko began her report. But then he wouldn't be able to show us how important he is, now would he? And that would just never do, efficiency be damned. Shaking off the mood, the disgruntled officer waited for her friend to finish.

“Very well. Major Katsuragi, your request is approved. Prepare a specific list of requirements for my review no later than this afternoon,” Director Ikari intoned. “Commander Mardukas, your comments are noted. Both of you are dismissed. Doctor Akagi, please remain, I believe the proposal for off-site activation requires further discussion.”

Nodding acknowledgement, the two officers turned to leave. Misato sneaked a look out the corner of her eye at the commander's expression, only to see it remained professionally opaque. She wasn't surprised.

It was just as well, she would be astonished if his opinion was very different at all from her own. And while it would probably be therapeutic to vent on the topic, it would also be ultimately pointless.

Bidding her fellow department head goodbye, she turned towards the elevator cluster, and her ultimate destination of the parking garage. Fortunately, she was off for the rest of the day, having just come off the graveyard shift. Tooling around the ring road for a while with the windows down would do wonders for her disposition. Plus, she would be home to see the kids off today. Misato felt a pang when she thought back on how long it had been since she had last done so.

Nodding firmly, she quickened her pace. At least that was one thing she could fix.

----------

As the powered door sighed closed, Ritsuko addressed her attention to the two men before her. Longer exposure to Gendo's power plays had immunized her to most of their effect, but it would be unwise to advertise the fact. Misato's predecessor was proof of that...

“Doctor, you have a new assignment,” Gendo began without preamble. “The latest allocation from our benefactor,” even here he was careful not to mention names, a level of paranoia it was well to emulate, “arrived with a string attached. Specifically an auditor to 'ensure their investments are being utilized efficiently.'” A corner of his mouth rose fractionally.

Ritsuko nodded understanding. A spy, obviously. The only wonder was that it had taken this long. “I see.”

“He will be on site for the next several weeks at a minimum. It would be a great disappointment for all concerned if he were to make his departure empty-handed.”

“Of course. A honey pot, then?” the doctor suggested.

Gendo shook his head. “I leave that to your discretion. Simply ensure that he has sufficient data to satisfy him, without enough to be genuinely damaging.”

“Understood,” Ritsuko replied. That should pose no particular problem, heaven knew there was enough dirty laundry around this place. Scraping together a few tidbits and placing them in a secure, but not -too- secure, place for him to find would be no challenge.

“Good, that will be all,” the director slid a generic looking manila folder across his desk. “This is the personnel jacket we received.” As she retrieved the document, he continued “I believe you have met...”


Hamburg
Federal Republic of Germany
September 8, 2015
6:00AM Local Time

Asuka Soryu-Langley leaned against the starboard rail of the fast transport Othello, staring out across the oily waters of the city harbor uncharacteristically lost in thought.

"Impressive, aren't they?" A familiar voice commented behind her.

"Hey, Kaji!" the girl perked up immediately at his arrival. "Say again?"

Ryoji waved a hand out in the direction she had been staring. "Our esteemed escorts."

Waiting outside the harbor breakwater was a sizable portion of the UN Atlantic Fleet. At the core of the circular formation was the Terrible, a 'light' aircraft carrier massing forty-five thousand tons and home to a thirty-eight strong air group. An interesting mix of ex-US, Russian, and French warships kept it company as it idled on the horizon.

Asuka snorted disdain. "Admiral Nelson's fleet was 'impressive' too, but I wouldn't want to be anywhere near an Angel on one of those sail-powered coffins either."

"It's not so bad as all that..." Kaji demurred, trailing off as a crewman hustled past on some vital errand before they cast off to join the fleet. "...but I admit I'd be just as happy to watch any Angels from behind something a little sturdier than this," he thumped the three centimeter thick steel coaming. Carefully ignoring his charge's adoring gaze, he asked, "So, ready for your big debut?" knowing it was all but a rhetorical question.

"You'd better believe it," the girl grinned. "If a relic like Eva-01 can handle these freaks, it ought to be a cakewalk for some -real- firepower."

//Glen Larson & Stu Phillips "Battlestar Galactica theme" _100 Greatest TV themes_//

A blast from the ship's whistle drowned out further reply, signaling the line handlers to take in some of the thick cables holding the transport to the concrete quay. A subsonic rumble in the deck plates indicated the massive diesels had coughed to life, followed by a second blast to take in the remaining lines.

The rumble increased, a boil of oil sheened water at the stern announcing the captain had reversed engines, and the quay began sliding slowly past. A trio of waiting tugs nuzzled up to the transport's bulk once it cleared its berth, and began gently nudging it around to point at the main channel. Finally, the engine's pitch changed again, and their view of the harbor began sliding slowly behind.

"Finally, I thought I'd never get out of here," Asuka grumbled.

Ryoji allowed himself a private smile. He decided to neglect to comment on the wistful expression she wore as she spoke those words, watching her homeland pass behind them.

Enjoy it while you can, kiddo, he thought as he leaned on the railing beside her and fished for his lighter.

It's true, after all. You can never go home again.


Nerv-3
Boston
September 9, 2015
8:00PM Local Time

"Alright, let's take it from the top," Sgt. Major Mao sighed and rubbed her eyes with one hand.

"Yes, ma'am. Resetting," Tessa resignedly confirmed. If she had been in -any- danger of getting a swelled head from her recent victory, said lady had been quick to defuse it. After the scathing running commentary on the replay, sprinkled with such choice phrases as 'incoming fire has the right of way' and 'God watches over Children and fools,' it had been made painfully clear just how close she had come to disaster.

"Of course, the afternoon long sim run with it set on 'You Will Not Survive' helps too," she muttered, as she rolled her shoulders and tried to get the crick out of her neck. Sgt. Major Mao was obviously a believer in making training so insanely difficult that the real thing would feel like a breeze.

----------

Melissa frowned in frustration. This was the sixth time they had run this particular sim, and things were not improving. As an instructor, that would normally be infuriating. Then again, she hadn't thought pilot error was the root cause to begin with.

The sensor suite fitted to the American 'Trebuchet' class Evas was identical to that fitted to the US Navy's next generation guided missile destroyers. It combined four phased array radars, each capable of outputting six megawatts each, with a laser radar or 'lidar' for high resolution target imaging. Powerful enough to be more than capable of tracking contacts the size of a baseball all the way to low Earth orbit.

And therein lay the problem.

Computers could handle much of the grunt work involved in filtering bogus contacts and calculating threat values. But in its natural habitat of a ship at sea, the SPY-4B was still served by a crew of four who did nothing but monitor and synthesize the resulting still enormous data flow.

"Ok, you win,” the stocky, dusky-skinned man at the console conceded to the marine. “Penny for 'em, Top?"

"I think the lab coat brigade should've checked with an adult before they added another shiny toy, Max," Melissa replied disgustedly.

The contractor grunted a laugh. "Fair enough, but we're still stuck with it," he reminded her. On the wall monitor a bird's eye view showed Eva-03 in battle with a team of simulated Angels. Eva-03 barely dodged a swipe from a clawed hand and took a snap shot at the humanoid opponent based on the first invader standing off and blazing away with its particle cannon. The shot went wide, but she didn't have time for a follow up as another claw lashed out from the opponent before her, forcing her to leap back again.

Melissa leaned forward, angrily pointing at another screen replicating the Eva's map display. "-This- is what I'm getting at. Look, her Aegis system -has- to know about that bogey closing in from her four o'clock, but she is so wrapped up in dealing with these jackasses she won't know a thing about it until the AT field warning goes off!"

"Right, right. And we can't widen the parameters on the automatic alert program because that only makes the problem worse. We had to set it short to begin with because a system that powerful detects -everything-, and we're dealing with information overload as it is. Like I said, you've sold me. But there isn't anything we can do, unless you want to try -that- idea..." Max suggested sourly.

"Uh huh. And you sound as thrilled with it as I am," Melissa smirked dryly. The proposal in question was that since the on-board computing power of the Eva was inadequate to the task of analyzing the incoming data, the Magi supercomputers at Nerv HQ could take up the slack. On paper it looked reasonable. The Evas were equipped with a high-bandwidth laser communication unit that could link to the UN satellite network with little risk of interception or tampering, and the Magi were
more than capable of handling the processing requirements. But it was the idea of relying on an off-platform system to handle such a critical task, and all the possibilities for Demon Murphy that that entailed, which gave both the NCO and the local Nerv techs a case of hives.

"I can just see it,” the marine snorted. “An Angel is approaching, and then a tracking servo freezes, or a thunderstorm rolls in and blocks the connection, or..."

"Don't even joke," the technician grimaced. On screen, Eva-03 succumbed to its foes once more, as a whip-like appendage sliced through the clumsily club-wielded rifle to skewer the Eva's core. "That's enough for one day, Testarossa. Clean up and I'll meet you and Roberts for debriefing in twenty minutes." The pilot acknowledged, not bothering to hide her relief.

"Ok. I'm a believer, and if this doesn't convince the eggheads nothing will,” Max agreed, conceding defeat gracefully. “I'll go ahead and run up a baseline for each of them, then see about getting clearance for your proposal before I turn in for the night. It's still business hours over in the Land of the Rising Sun. I'll let you break the good news to the kiddos."

"You're too kind,” Melissa agreed with a roll of her eyes, wondering who had the worse end of the deal.

----------

Sam lounged in one of the six rolling desk chairs surrounding the rectangular conference table dominating the center of the meeting room. Leaned back as far as the present seating would allow, feet propped on the table, an open manual for the Glock 17 automatic pistol draped across his face, he presented the picture of total relaxation.

The door opened softly, the new occupant scuffing her tennis shoes across the concrete floor as she trudged towards a seat across from the one already occupied. A soft thump announced her taking possession, followed by a louder 'clunk' as her forehead met the steel surfaced table.

Lips quirking in a smile under cover of the manual, Sam reached down beside his seat.

Tessa closed her eyes, enjoying the cooling sensation of the steel tabletop against her forehead, trying to imagine her tension draining into the humble object. Showers were well and good for getting clean. But they were nothing compared to a good long soak in an almost but not quite blisteringly hot tub, a habit she'd picked up when her father was stationed in Okinawa and held onto ever since. If a better method of stress relief existed, she was certainly unaware of it.

Sighing softly, she missed the rhythmic sound of metal rolling on metal until it was almost upon her. Just as she began to rally her curiosity, a cold, damp something bumped gently against her temple. Blinking in surprise, she turned to find a familiar blue and white logo regarding her from just before her nose. Raising her gaze, her lips curled into a grateful smile.

“Thanks.”

Sam tipped the manual up to uncover his eyes and delivered a boy scout salute in response. “De nada,” he demurred. Laying the document aside, he regarded his fried friend as she carefully cracked the can open, taking in the visibly bloodshot eyes from prolonged LCL exposure and slight but noticeable tremor in her hands as she held the beverage.

Wow, I really did look as bad as I felt, he remarked to himself. Not that -that- was any shock. Heaven knew it was struggle enough just maintaining the concentration needed to manifest the AT field that was an Eva's real protection. Add in all the other competing demands on a pilot's attention, and it took real discipline to hold everything together. Tessa once likened it to trying to juggle while riding a unicycle through an obstacle course, a description he wholeheartedly agreed with.

“So how did it go?” he asked, taking his feet off the table to sit more decorously.

“Wonderfully,” she muttered from behind the can. After taking a sip, she continued, “I managed to get my Eva converted into sashimi God knows how many times, and got about one kill every three runs in the process.”

Sam grimaced in sympathy, and tried not to let his guilty little feeling of relief show. Heaven knew he hadn't set the world on fire with his performance, but he had done better than -that-.

Actually, it was a little surprising. Of the pair, Tessa was far and away the better at multi-tasking. He had tended to lock onto one of them and then try to beat the hell out of it, and against multiple opponents that was a bad mistake. He had gotten his kill -most- of the time, but only at the cost of being completely outflanked -every- time. It hadn't been a pretty sight, and got uglier fast.

“Well, at least we've come too far for them to flunk us now, right?” he suggested hopefully.

Tessa snorted, resting her chin on her crossed arms. “We can hope.” She regarded him for a long moment. “You know, I wonder sometimes. If I'm really cut out for this.” At Sam's raised eyebrows she elaborated, “When I was a little girl, Leonard and I used to compete to see who could solve a differential equation the fastest. Sometimes, he would even let me win.” She stared into space, quiet for a moment. This wasn't the first time she had spoken of her missing brother, but neither was it like the others, a funny anecdote followed by a change of subject. Often as not to his own family stories. He tried to oblige her, relating the times he and Mike had sown chaos through their home, particularly the generally gruesome aftermath that had usually elicited a laugh from her. Now, Sam listened silently, unsure of how to respond.

After the brief pause she continued. “Then, after...well...everything, and the Collins' took me in, I thought everything would sort of go back to normal. Or at least as normal as it could. They were nice people, friends of my parents, and their kids had already left home so there was plenty of room. Of course, I think they knew I wasn't going to be like their other daughters when I took apart their VCR the first weekend I was there," Tessa admitted ruefully.

"Did it work afterwards?" Sam asked in honest curiosity. If nothing else, her stories were usually an education. It paid to remember that behind the pretty face and wide gray eyes was a mind as sharp as a well-honed rapier, and probably just as dangerous under the right circumstances.

"Better than ever. But try telling them that..." she rolled her eyes heavenwards. “So what I was getting at was, if that kind of thing is what I'm best at, if my gift is there so to speak, then what am I doing trying to learn to pilot a fifteen story war machine? And that's why I need an honest opinion. Do I have any business being a Pilot?”

-That- took him aback. They were almost done here, and she had spanked Asuka like a redheaded stepchild just the other day. What in heaven's name brought this on? "Um...well that I can do,” he admitted. Though I don't recommend it, he felt compelled to add to himself. “But are you -sure- you wouldn't rather ask me a less loaded question, say, does your plugsuit makes you look fat, or if I've noticed anything different about your hair?" he suggested, playing for time and praying for a laugh to break the tension. At her level, humorless, almost pleading look, he felt a part of him shrivel. “Or not?”

“Please,” she said quietly.

“Sorry, seriously then.” Sam sighed, but really he had no clue what she was looking for. And God knew -he- had no business trying to soothe broken hearts, or fix a crisis of faith, or whatever it was that was wrong with her. There was a reason he kept his mouth shut at funerals.

Unfortunately, he was all there was.

After a quick recitation of Shepard's Prayer, (1) he took the plunge. "Well, for starters, you're hands down the smartest person I've ever met, and if I didn't know better I'd say you can see a radar beam instead of calculating its path. Computers certainly like you, too.” He paused and shrugged. “Plus, language skills are always a handy thing for a soldier.”

Tessa's eyes narrowed, not buying the deflection for a moment. “None of which answers the question.”

"Ok, in that case, yes.” At her skeptical look, he threw up his hands in frustration. “What the hell do you want me to say? No, you're not fast, or coordinated, or even a very good shot. But you know what? When I see you out there fighting tooth and nail to get through, putting in twice the effort of any of the rest of us in the process, it feels criminal to give anything less. So don't you -dare- go make it all for nothing now!" He took a breath to steel himself to finish, “And that's my answer. Take it or leave it!"

Tessa stared narrowly at him for a long moment. Just as he was certain he had blown it as badly as he feared, she softly spoke. "God help me, but that may be the sweetest thing you've ever said to me. Who are you, what have you done with Sam, and are you sure he can't escape?"

"Hey now!" Sam protested. "I've said nice things before!"

His friend forbore comment.

"Once or twice. I think?" he amended hopefully.

The pilot shook her head in a 'what -am- I going to do with you' sort of way, finally relenting. "Yes, you have.” A bubble of humor rose to the surface, piercing the gloom at last. “Well, if I'm such an inspiration, how can I stop now?" she chuckled.

----------

The mood greeting Melissa when she entered the small conference room immediately set her mental antennae twitching. Tessa was staring at the floor and drooping in exhaustion, but looking oddly relieved about something. Sam had had the benefit of a few hours rest while his partner went through her paces, making the signs of fatigue less severe. But in its place was a peculiar sort of confusion. Like a man from whom a weight had been removed that he hadn't realized he had been carrying.

She made a note to check the room tapes later, there had to be a story here.

"As I'm sure you guessed, this last scenario was not supposed to be survivable," Melissa began in a much softer voice than her usual clipped, unyielding tone. "In fact, the scoring system is set up so that killing a single opponent counts as a passing grade. I'm not sure that I agree with that logic, but there it is. Now, a final quiz. Who can tell me why I ran you both through the wringer tonight?"

Sam raised his gaze to look her in the eye. "To make sure we knew we weren't bulletproof when we got to Japan. It worked, by the way."

"Glad to hear it," Melissa replied crisply. “And good guess, that is one reason. I wanted to make it crystal clear that just because you will be wearing an energy shield and a meter of armor plate into battle, you are -not- invincible. That's -one- of the three things I want you to remember from tonight. Any guesses on two and three?”

The pair shook their heads, still uncertain where she was taking this.

“Fair enough. Here's a hint. Did you notice anything in particular about how the opposing force moved, how they interacted?”

That brought contemplative looks to the trainee's faces. The marine had a suspicion who would get to the answer first, but it wasn't a total certainty, especially as strung-out as the girl looked. Tessa had done a better job of adhering to the tactics they had been taught, and seemed to have a better overall grasp of them to begin with. But, it was one thing to know something intellectually, and another to recognize it in action. Melissa awaited the result with genuine curiosity.

It was a testament to just how close the testing had pushed them to the limit that it took nearly a minute for the light to dawn.

“They were us,” the Tessa breathed.

“Bingo,” Melissa favored her with an approving smile. “A dedicated fire support unit, a dedicated close-combat unit, and a switch-hitter. The support unit covers the two maneuver units, and they in turn make it impossible to counterattack the support. A well-functioning team is one of the deadliest weapons known to man, and now that you've been on the receiving end a few times I hope you remember it. So, that was number two. Anyone care to take a stab at the last?”

“Maybe,” Sam spoke up, to her pleasant surprise. “One thing I noticed is that the map was different this time. Like it was a lot bigger?”

"Good catch. These sims are probably the best training tools I've ever heard of, but they do tend to make you subconsciously limit yourselves when it comes to using the terrain given to you. I've seen it in the others too, all of you tend to stay very near the area you start in, as if there were ropes around it like a boxing ring. Think of this as reality check."

The two soon-to-be-pilots nodded soberly.

Melissa contemplated the teens she had, somehow, over the past weeks managed to shape into something that looked like soldiers if you squinted a bit. The world could be in worse hands, she finally decided.

Much worse.

"Good. And now for something completely different. This evening also proved that you'd have to be a professional concert organist to use Eva-03 to its full potential. So, since we're a little short on those at the moment, we're going to improvise. Grab some sack time, I'll have something to show you in the morning."

----------

'Something' turned out to be what had become of the simulator and a spare display console from a surplus entry plug. The original pilot's seat had been shifted backward by about thirty centimeters and raised by about ten, the electronics module was shifted about that forwards to create just enough room to shoehorn in the second seat and console.

"Looks like a Comanche's cockpit," Sam commented, remembering photos he'd seen of the canceled attack helicopter's setup.

"Exactly. Flying a helicopter in combat is one of the most demanding tasks a pilot can perform. That's why there are always two aboard," Melissa agreed. "Based on your sim records, we've decided to see if both of you together are an improvement over either separately."

She hadn't intended the comment to be insulting, and neither pilot took it as such. After being screamed at and run ragged fourteen hours a day every day, they had long ago realized that Melissa wasn't -actually- a sadistic bitch from Hell. Most of the time. She was, however, bound and determined to give them the best preparation possible for what they would face. If hurt feelings were part of the price that had to be paid, then so be it.

The sergeant major pointed a thumb at the front seat. "Roberts, you'll start out in the weapons operator's seat. Testarossa, you'll take the pilot's. After a couple runs, we'll switch. Move," she commanded, turning towards the control room.

[TabascoOne]

UNS Fearless
500 kilometers west of Guam
September 10, 2015.
1:30PM Local Time

Rear Admiral Izuo Takaya leaned against the rail surrounding the wing of his carrier's flag bridge, forty meters above the white-capped waters of the western Pacific. His short black hair blowing in the breeze generated by the ship's passage, he sipped hot tea from an engraved mug his daughter had bought him for his fiftieth birthday, and which he had refused to part with in the years since. Spread before him was a large minority of the UN Pacific Fleet's firepower, though his entire force numbered only fourteen ships.

Officially, and most of the time in practice, the UN Peace Enforcement Forces functioned more as extremely well-armed and trained police rather than a traditional military. The naval branch was no exception, most of its approximately one hundred vessels were frigate size or smaller, sailing in squadrons of around half a dozen to show the flag and provide a small quick response force should a crisis break out. The Fearless' battlegroup, and its sister formations centered around Terrible and Nike, were the 'muscle' their smaller comrades called upon
when a more measured response had failed.

The admiral's staff kept busy inside the glazed in confines of his domain, familiar with their boss' after lunch ritual. A pair of young lieutenants arranged folders containing the routine, and most likely eye-wateringly dull, briefing concerning proposed changes to fleet maintenance procedures.

Izuo turned at the sound of the hatch opening to the wind swept outside deck. "I trust we're ready to begin, Josef?"

"Yes sir," The Hungarian captain responded as one dark brown eyebrow rose ironically. "Commander Simmons promises we'll all be enthralled for the next hour."

"Coming from him, that's much less than reassuring," Izuo grimaced, knowing well his chief of staff's perhaps excessive enjoyment of his work. "Best be..."

A tremble in the deck plates beneath them stopped him mid-sentence. Seconds later, the scream of tortured metal and 'crump' of a collapsing hull reached them from the outer escort ring surrounding the carrier and its companion transports Othello and Wayfarer. Izuo and his staff stared in mute horror at the grave of the destroyer Hawkwing, before he wrestled his gaze away and barked "Well?! Are you planning to stand here all day?" The others sprang towards their stations like magnetized billiard balls.

After sloshing his mug's contents over the rail, he followed at a more sedate and, hopefully, confidence inducing pace. It seemed it was going to be one of -those- days.

----------

Asuka was spending one of her comparatively rare moments in her cabin aboard Wayfarer when she noticed the first tremor. ASW practice, she surmised, remembering the last fleet exercise pitting the three Kilo-class submarines accompanying the fleet against a squadron of its escorting frigates and destroyers. Again, the eighty-thousand ton freighter trembled, this time enough to swing the light fixture hanging from the deckhead. She lowered the catalog she'd been perusing. Either the UN had taken to putting N2 warheads on its practice torpedoes, or...

She leaped off of her bed and dove for the closet.

----------

"Tempest reports breaches across all decks, abandoning ship," the speakers in the carrier's Combat Information Center reported dispassionately. "Osprey reports heavy damage to aft engineering spaces and is losing speed..."

Izuo tuned out the litany of the destruction of his command, and focused on the illuminated plasma display making up most of the darkened room's largest table. "All ships accelerate to flank speed and maneuver independently, make sure they watch their separations. Jozef, turn us into the wind and get the air group launched," he looked up at his chief of staff. "Carl, find out what Osprey's best speed is, and if they'll need assistance. Then, contact Sydney and request N2 authorization," he finished calmly. The temperature of the room seemed to drop several degrees as he confirmed their worst fear. There was only one enemy whom the N2s had been designed to fight.

He swore behind the iron mask of his expression as his aides moved to carry out his orders. The news of an Angel, and that's what this had to be, striking so far from Japan would hit Pacific Fleet headquarters like a thunderbolt. Worse, that was all but certain to slow any useful response. Napoleon Bonaparte had famously said, 'ask me for anything but time,' and it was as true now as it was in the wars that bore his name.

A sidebar on the screen listing remaining weapons in inventory blinked slowly lower as he waited for his opponent's next move. So did the shorter list of the ships in his care.

----------

"Activating first stage connections," Asuka muttered while her view screens blinked to life and promptly hazed with static from the inactive sensors. "Battery status...nominal. Core offline. Life support online. Active sensors to standby. Optical array online. Second stage connections...set," she reported aloud by sheer force of habit. While she continued her extremely abridged startup checklist, the screens resolved the newly available imagery of the outside world, right now the main hold of the freighter Othello.

"Propulsion self-test suspended." She took a deep breath, and instinctively felt outwards along the traces of her connection to her steed. "Powering up core. Third stage connection in two...one...synchro start," she firmly pressed the green button so marked on her console.

"All right, let's go," she murmured, and Eva-02 rose from its slumber. The scene greeting her once she stood was a nightmare of pillars of smoke rising to the heavens. As she watched, the blazing trails of weapons fire mingled with the flames of burning fuel oil oozing from the wreckage of a once proud fleet. As she watched in horror, the Angel locked onto the Wayfarer, a Harper's Ferry-class transport accompanying Fearless. Streaking in at a speed belying its bulk, the absurdly manta ray-like creature flicked almost casually against the vessel's port side. For a long second, the ship rolled drunkenly, but appeared unharmed. Only then did Asuka notice the steadily widening breach becoming visible from below the waterline. As the ship began to list ever more alarmingly, an ugly blossom of soot streaked fire bloomed from its crippled side.

The point defense missile magazine must have let go, Asuka realized numbly. My God, there was an entire battalion of Marines aboard that ship.

Eva-02's tactical system had automatically tracked the Angel, now it directed her attention to the creature skimming just under the sea surface like some sort of aquatic missile. Right for her.

She commanded her communications system to connect to Fearless. As the familiar anger begin to overpower the shock of the wanton destruction, she announced in a clear, steady voice "Signal to the Flag. Eva-02 online. Launching!"

//Metallica "The Call of Ktulu" _Ride the Lightning_//

The Angel didn't bother with any fancy tricks this time. It simply rammed Othello head on, and the bow of the lightly built transport crumpled like a soda can, the massive transport shuddering to a halt as if it had run aground.

Eva-02 was long gone.

After leaping from her doomed ship, she twisted midair to land on the forecastle of a UN destroyer holding station nearby, smashing its forward 127mm gun to scrap with her armor shod foot.

“I think we need a bigger boat,” Asuka murmured, before spotting the Angel coming around for a pass at her new and precarious perch. She leaped again, this time smashing a frigate's helicopter pad in passing on her way to Fearless. I'm going to look like such an ass if this doesn't work, a detached corner of her mind commented at the top of her ballistic arc, terminating at, she hoped, the flagship's flight deck. "Eva-02 inbound, clear the deck!"

Two bus-sized feet sledgehammered into the carrier's deck backed with 700 tons of metal and mean, deforming the armored surface down over two meters. After a harrowing moment correcting the rolling her landing induced, she returned her attention outside. Her foe had obligingly followed her, and even now was arrowing in under a rooster tail of spray.

Asuka had never been a religious girl, but a psalm sprang to mind while she watched the Angel approach. As she deployed a progressive knife from its forearm sheath, her beloved pistols and axe most likely on the bottom of the Pacific by now, and set herself to meet the Angel's charge, she allowed it to play across her mind.

"Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil. For I drive the biggest, baddest, meanest motherfucker in the whole damn valley!"

----------

Izuo stared in rank disbelief at the monitor reporting the spectacle unfolding on his flight deck, vaguely aware of his staff halting in their duties to follow suit but too deeply shocked to chasten them. Though he had been courteous, if distant, to his two passengers, within he had been bitter at the assignment his fleet had been handed by Sydney. A mere delivery run for a jumped up civilian agency's newest toy. About the best that could be said for it was that he would have plenty of time to work out the rough spots in some of his crews.

Five ships, and hundreds of lives later, he was a believer. His fleet had engaged with everything from 127 mm and 152 mm shells from his frigate's and destroyer's deck guns to 650 mm anti-shipping torpedoes from his submarines.

He would have done as well to throw his coffee mug at it.

And now, it had come for him at last. With the transport destroyed and losses mounting, it was now pointless to continue the engagement. Izuo had been on the verge of ordering the fleet to scatter and clear the area for a nuclear strike when the girl had started her insane hopscotch run to Fearless. Her machine now stood with its left foot behind the right and turned ninety degrees to one side in a knife fighter's stance, gripping its enormous boxcutter-like weapon in its right hand icepick fashion. The monster unerringly homed in, and at the last instant leaped for the Eva like a breaching whale, its massive bulk seeming to impossibly float on the air as its jaws filled with rows of monstrous fangs gaped wide.

Quick as thought, the Eva moved. A single shuffled step to one side and a lightning-fast duck got her below the Angel's trajectory. A twist of the hips and torso to place the full power of its artificial muscles behind her blade followed, sending the monster sailing past trailing a streamer of bluish ichor into the sea off the carrier's port side.

The order was out of Izuo's mouth without conscious thought. "All ships! Time on target, now!"

----------

"Good thinking, Admiral. But it won't be enough," Asuka opined as the
remaining ships abruptly ceased evasive maneuvers and simultaneously opened up with every weapon they could bring to bear, the concentrated firepower of the fleet ripping at the Angel's AT field. Her foe staggered, but still forged ahead at reduced speed. Gravely wounded, but obviously still game for a fight, the Angel passed under the now rather ragged escort ring and reversed course, bearing down on her once more.

Asuka was willing to oblige. Staring intently at her enemy as it closed, she vaguely remembered seeing something very interesting as it rose from the waves. If she was right, there might be a way to end this quickly yet.

The Angel was a quick study. Disdaining attacking the Eva directly, it scorched in just under the surface, intent on disabling Fearless. As the jaws opened once more to slice the warship from stem to stern below the waterline, Asuka saw it. Deep within the inky darkness of its maw, a ruddy glow.

The escort's fire slackened as the range to the flagship dropped. Asuka once more set herself, gauged the range, and threw.

Her left side Type 2 progressive knife sliced through the air, warning light still glowing as it splashed into the sea at a significant fraction of the speed of sound to strike the Angel's core with the force of an freight train.

Moments later, the ship lurched and rolled once more, forcing the Eva to its knees.


700 meters above Nerv HQ
September 11, 2015
9:00AM Local Time

Nami sat with her nose literally pressed against the glass of the tram car as it circled the geofront walls on its journey towards Central Dogma. The morning sun lit the interior of the artificial cavern in brilliant shafts through the light collectors in the mountains, giving an almost ethereal quality to the scene.

Frowning slightly, she shifted her view, wondering if the glare from the huge lake was playing tricks with her eyes. But no, it made no sense, but there it was. “Is that a ship?! What on earth is -that- doing here?” She turned to Han for his reaction, to find him sitting stiff as a board on the bench beside her, staring fixedly at the seat ahead of them.

"Han!" she complained. "What are you doing? You've got to see this! Come on!" she tugged at his sleeve, trying to pull him past her to the window.

"No~, no I don't," he denied quite emphatically, and firmly refused to budge.

She gave up trying to pull someone half again her mass and leaned back, hands on her hips. "Why not? It's a beautiful view from up here and..." Her gaze sharpened, noting the suppressed shudder that accompanied her words.

Something clicked in her mind. "You're afraid of heights," she pronounced, unsure how she knew but as certain as Solomon, the cajoling edge completely gone from her voice. "But...I mean you went through the same things I did. How in the world did you get through the air drop sims!"

Han's complexion paled at the memory. "That was a bad day," he admitted with fairly massive understatement. "But yes, you're right." And here it comes, he braced himself for the onslaught. Which is worse, ridicule as she drops me like a rotten onion, or getting my hide stripped off for not telling her and -then- the onion treatment. I guess I'm about to find out...

Nami regarded him for long moments, shock plain on her face. She vaguely remembered he -had- been a little green around the gills the day they had done their drop testing. And now that she thought about it, several other occasions sprang to mind where he hadn't been quite himself, but she had at the time passed off as indigestion, or bad night's sleep, or any number of things. Never had it entered her mind that she was witnessing a battle of wills against what looked like a fairly nasty phobia.

She could have said all that, and most people would have. But her father had always taught that it was a person's actions that counted in the end. With that in mind, she chose another way.

“Spiders, for the record.” Noting his quizzical look at the non sequitur, she explained. “I can't stand them. My sister dropped a wolf spider on my lap once. It took her and my father half an hour to make me stop crying.”

She half stood to slide past him into the aisle. As he watched in puzzlement, she walked to the front of the tram, unconcerned by the intermittent bumps as it rode over the seams joining one section of track to the next. Once there, she reached up to grasp a handhold just behind the big floor to ceiling Plexiglas sheet making up the front of the vehicle, and turned towards him.

“You probably remember from our employee handbooks that us pilots are supposed to be the 'fearless defenders of humanity against the Angel menace.'” She reached out her other hand in invitation. “Now is as good a time as any to start, don't you think?” she asked, the gently smiling girl swaying automatically against the motion of the tram.

As Han saw his, and sometimes he still had trouble believing this, girlfriend standing against the vibrant green background of the geofront floor, a long delayed realization hit him full in the face.

Smiling in spite of himself, the pilot slowly, gingerly rose to his feet.

“Ok, let's do it.”


Nerv-3
Boston
7:00PM Local Time

Tessa stepped out from the showers, scrubbing her hair with the towel before putting it back into her accustomed braid. Upon dressing back into the t-shirt and exercise shorts that were her and Sam's working uniforms, she proceeded to the small conference room Mao used for their end of the day debriefing.

"Right, now that we're all here, I've got a special announcement for you," Melissa began, privately relishing the swiftly hidden dread on her trainee's faces. "The good news is, Director Walkerton tells me Eva-03 passed its final checks with flying colors this afternoon."

"And the bad news?" Tessa asked after a moment's pause.

"None. The Atlas we were waiting on is due to arrive from Wichita the day after tomorrow, so you two have that morning to pack and be ready to roll by noon. Because we have a bit of time on our hands, though, we're going to go ahead and do Eva-03's activation test later on tonight."

The pair's eyes widened slightly. With an unconscious synchrony born of eight weeks of living in close quarters, the pair turned to each other. "One, two, three, shoot," the girl called, her hand forming 'paper.' After repeating twice more, the verdict was in.

Sam shrugged resignedly. "When do you need me, ma'am?" he asked his bemused training officer.

Melissa's eyes crinkled at the edges, the sole sign of amusement she would allow herself in front of her charges. Sorry kiddo, not this time, she thought. Not that she thought him unequal to the task, but review of the pair's fateful conversation had decided her on a different course. Lack of confidence could be as deadly as too much of it. "Cute. But not what I had in mind."

Confidence was best built by overcoming challenges.

----------

Stars twinkled above Nerv-3, the glow of Boston's light pollution just visible over the horizon. One by one, a series of floodlights blinked on, casting icy pillars of light into the darkness as they illuminated the hillside. A series of rotating amber hazard lights began to spin moments later, announcing that the heavy main door which had remained sealed the past several months would soon be so no longer. A warning siren added its mournful wail in complement to the illuminating devices, succeeding in sending several flocks of ducks flapping into the dark as they sought a place where the calm of the night was not yet spoiled. Seconds later, the massive doors built into the side of the hill hiding the Nerv facility began to rumble open.

Waiting behind the aperture was a platform of equal size, bearing the prone Eva through the gate as it trailed a thick gray power cable. Once the platform cleared the doors, a quartet of hydraulic rams on the platform began to slowly tilt its cargo to a standing position.

Tessa scanned her display panel after the thump signaling her machine was in position. "Confirm platform deployment. Standing by," she radioed after completing the last few items on the checklist.

"Roger that, Eva-03. You are go for first stage connection," Melissa acknowledged from within the complex.

"Copy. Beginning now." The pilot reached around to the side of her seat and closed a knife switch that had previously been interrupting any signals from the plug to the Eva. With that, the cockpit displays sprang to life in a series of test patterns before settling down to the familiar logo of the OS starting up.

The center display of the stock single seat plug soon arrived at the default screen depicting battery life in the upper left corner, currently blinking 0:00 in red for remaining time. Power status, with green indicating external power was connected, did the same in the upper right. The remainder was taken up by a compressed top down view of the surrounding terrain that currently displayed only the geographic data it had onboard.

The two flanking displays were still dark, awaiting her choice of data for them to display. "So far so good, said the jumper said as he fell past the 10th floor," she murmured, repeating one of Melissa's favorite lines. "First stage connection complete. Power connection nominal. Batteries offline," she informed the controllers still within the base, and on the other end of the datalink to Tokyo-3.

"Very well. We confirm all monitors within tolerances. Begin second stage at your discretion," the marine responded, not even a whisper of tension in her voice.

Tessa acknowledged, and tapped the controls bringing up her external sensors, the big wraparound displays on the inner wall of the cockpit flaring through their own test patterns before settling on a crystal clear view of the outside world, a few data tags popping up moments later as the tactical systems identified some of the radio and infrared emissions from stored files. She absently noted the European built airliner climbing from the rebuilt Logan International, its passengers oblivious to the events below them.

"All passive sensors online. Active systems powered up and on standby. Fire control offline. Master arm safe." She double-checked that the large red plastic cover protecting the white toggle switch beneath it was in the down position, indicating the Eva's weapons were powered down and unable to fire. Of course, there was nothing in the guns anyway, but it paid to be thorough. The girl quirked a pale imitation of her usual cheerful smile at the thought. "Second stage complete."

"Copy, Eva-03," A long pause followed, broken only by the low, almost inaudible hum of the power cable communication line. "We show a green board here. Initiate final connections."

Very deliberately -not- thinking of a certain previous post-refit activation, she keyed her microphone to acknowledge the order. "Confirm go for final connections." Closing her eyes, she laid one hand gently on the green button covered by its own shield and took a pair of deep slow breaths, clearing her mind. “Core powering up in 3..2..1...now.” She pressed the button flat.

In previous simulator runs, she and the other pilots had experienced the cardinal sensations of synchronizing with an Evangelion many times. Transient nausea, disorientation, and a feeling of being somehow stretched were by now so familiar as to be beneath notice.

But that only made the -new- ones all the more intense. On the heels of the initial nausea came a rush of a bone-deep warmth, as if she had just stepped into a summer sunbeam from the chilly New England fall. Mixed within the overriding sensation were strains of comfort and safety, flickering across her emotional landscape before vanishing under the overriding theme.

Slowly, she opened her eyes once more, the pinpricks of light sparkling above her greeting her upturned gaze. "Eva-03 here," she radioed after a long, quiet moment. "Synchronization complete."


Nerv HQ
Tokyo-3
September 14, 2015
5:30PM Local Time

Asuka lay on the issue bed wedged into one corner of the somber, windowless room she had been assigned in the geofront's dormitory 'pending final quartering arrangements.' One slim hand lay tangled in her long auburn hair near the old-style interface headband she used to hold it out of her face. The other paged through another catalog. Its selection of purses and handbags did its best to distract her from the mix of crushing boredom and maddening 'jumping out of her skin' itch the pilot had felt practically since the moment she stepped from Eva-02's entry plug.

The aftermath of the action had been a sobering thing to consider. In less than two minutes she had succeeded in dumping half Fearless' air group into the Pacific with her landing, placing several two meter deep divots in its flight deck from the same and the ensuing combat, and causing assorted other damage to several of the carrier's escorts.

Asuka had no intention of calculating the monetary cost of those consequences, but hundreds of millions of euros were surely involved. But in spite of all that, Admiral Takaya had been the soul of courtesy as the crippled task force limped the rest of the way to Japan. Though no doubt saving the -rest- of his fleet in the process hadn't hurt.

However, once she had changed back into 'mufti', she became just another pretty teenage girl in a dress. Not necessarily to the Fearless' crew, many of whom had saluted with real respect when the pilot passed them in the flagship's passageways, never mind she was a civilian and half most of their ages. That had meant a lot to her, and she had basked in the feeling like a lizard on a sunny day. But the incessant, nagging itch had refused to go away in spite of the praise. She knew the reason, how could she not? It was why she was never without her headband, why she had kept her plugsuit in her closet when it made just as much sense to leave it in the Eva.

She was the Second Child, Pilot of Eva-02. And -that- was the one place in the world where she belonged.

The glow of other's adulation. The adrenaline rush of launching herself into battle with the foes of humanity. Pride in being the best in the world at a difficult and dangerous job. A thousand and one feelings all boiled and swirled together in a complex, heady brew, but the kettle that held it all was as simple as its cast-iron counterpart.

Without it, the rest was as nothing.

Which was why Asuka had welcomed any activity, even a mere meet and greet, related to her vocation, and when Major Katsuragi finally knocked on her door it was all she could do not to leap at the handle. Reining herself in at the last moment, she proceeded the last meter at an almost bored pace

"Evening, Misato," she greeted her superior upon opening the door.

"Heya, Asuka. Ready?" the officer questioned brightly.

"Are you kidding? Let me out of here," the girl snorted as she turned
and locked the door.

"That's the spirit!" Misato agreed heartily. "A nice, friendly..." Read: boozy, the pilot mentally substituted, having visited similar events in Germany, "party should be just the thing to get everyone off on the right foot." Misato nodded to herself while they walked to the escalator to the parking garage.

The two women engaged in a spate of polite chit-chat as the escalator carried them along, catching up on the nearly two years they had spent apart since Asuka's graduation and Misato's reassignment until they arrived at Misato's parking spot.

"They let -you- have one of these?" Asuka grinned delightedly at the sight of the Alpine 310 occupying it. "But what's with the duct tape?" Asuka frowned curiously after a moment. She leaned closer to examine the strips holding the headlight lens in place, complemented by those wrapped around the driver side mirror.

"It's all the rage in Japan, you see it everywhere," Misato replied with a sour look.

"Yeah, right." Asuka snorted, spying the cracks in the fiberglass door frame and A-pillar not covered. "What really happened?"

"I -don't- want to talk about it," Misato grumbled as she started the vehicle. Ignoring her passenger's annoyed look, she steered the Alpine up the exit ramp. With a wave at the guard in the kiosk, the major cruised past the striped barrier, turned onto the ring road circling Tokyo-3, and put the pedal to the floor.

//Sammy Hagar "I Can't Drive 55" _Unboxed_//

Asuka complimented the maneuver with a joyous whoop. "That's more like it! I could never convince Hilde -this- is how you're supposed to drive!"

Misato laughed, her hair whipped by the wind from the rolled down windows.

----------

Shinji wished, not for the first time, that his guardian had a wider selection of beverages than 'beer, beer, and Mesozoic-era tea' in stock. The latter he had found in the back of a cupboard, and had to be left over from the last tenant. He had certainly never seen Misato partake of it. Of course, springing the idea on him about an hour ago hadn't helped the situation.

At least she's paying for all this, he thought, desperately seeking a silver lining in the thunderstorm. The allowance his contract granted him was decent, but it would take very few of these to drain it to the last yen. Still, in spite of the conditions he did feel some pride in his efforts. Even though most of it had consisted of buying assorted snack foods and beverages, plus some last minute cleaning.

The distinctive ping of the elevator at the end of the hall announced the first arrivals, most likely Misato and Eva-02's pilot. Fighting the urge to fidget as the sound of footsteps grew outside the door, he listened intently.

"...on in. Shinji's done a nice job with the place," Misato remarked just before the door opened.

"So it's just dirty instead of a pit?" a girl's voice answered her as Shinji rose to greet them in the entryway, unsure whether to flush at the compliment or frown at the response. He rounded the corner to find his roommate in the familiar routine of hanging up her red uniform jacket and beret in the hall closet, leaving her in her the short black dress he had seen many a time.

Her companion was another matter.

Asuka Soryu-Langley's file photo showed an auburn haired, surprisingly caucasian-looking girl with her sky-blue eyes focused sternly on the camera. She might have been cute if not for the intensity of her expression, but it was difficult to tell much more, between the photo being cropped at shoulder level and the poor quality of the image.

The sight greeting him now was a leggy, trim figured girl in a yellow sun dress that flowed intriguingly around her knees as she turned away from Misato, her lips still curled in a sardonic smirk at Misato's sideways glare from her previous comment. The girl's hair was held back with some sort of headband sporting projections that reminded Shinji of nothing so much as a pair of shiny red horns, but that appeared to be the only accessory she permitted herself.

"Ah, here he is," his roommate took the opportunity to change the subject. "Shinji, this is Asuka Soryu-Langley, Eva-02's pilot. Asuka, Shinji Ikari of Eva-01."

Shinji bowed a polite distance. "Pleased to meet you," he greeted her, managing to speak the formal phrase without stammering under her keen gaze.

After a long moment, Asuka finished her examination, from neatly combed hair to sock covered feet, with black slacks and dress shirt worn over a green t-shirt in between. All in all, he didn't much resemble the the case-hardened fighter she had expected. "Looks boring," she finally decided, before stepping past him into the apartment's common area.

Shinji turned a somewhat hurt look at Misato, receiving a sympathetic shrug before they followed.

"When are the rest coming?" Asuka asked as she selected a soda from the cooler and plopped down on the sofa. Misato raised a mental eyebrow at Asuka's cavalier behavior. In Germany she had usually been better mannered than most of her classmates at the university, at least in front of strangers. This was definitely new. And intriguing.

A little insecure, are we? Misato smirked behind the beer she retrieved from the kitchen fridge. She pretended not to notice the girl's none too subtle efforts at ignoring her 'rival,' currently sitting on the opposite side of the couch nursing a tea of his own, as she replied.

"Ritsuko, Dr. Akagi, is supposed to bring Rei, Nami, and Han if she can pry herself from her desk in time." Misato rolled her eyes heavenward. "Sam and Teletha's flight was delayed, so they only got in this morning and might not make it."

Shinji winced in sympathy, twelve time zones worth of jet lag was no joke.

Asuka tipped her can back and nodded.

Misato took the pause in conversation to congratulate herself on her plan's success. She'd had the idea for a meet and greet for the pilots some time ago, but had early on decided to conduct a small experiment. Specifically, testing what would happen if she dropped the idea of a social gathering on Shinji with no notice, and thus no time to work himself into a panic.

Of course, she had had no intention of -really- dropping him into an unfamiliar situation with no backup, he got enough of that at work. Instead, she arranged for Ritsuko to bring in Rei and the Chinese pilots a little later, and brought Asuka out with her as an advance guard. If worst came to worst, her old student would hardly be surprised if the place was a little disheveled, it would hardly be the first time. And with an extra pair of hands to help, anything Shinji missed or forgot could quickly be put right.

Looking at the results, she saw her fears were unfounded. The comprehensive selection of snacks and drinks, unusual even post-Shinji neatness, and new outfit he had changed into, all without more than the barest suggestion he 'set things up here,' indicated that if he had panicked, it had not been for long. Overall, she decided she was justified in a little maternal pride, as she took over the large beanbag, leaving the couch to the teens.

Shinji had apparently scrounged up enough nerve to ask Asuka about her Eva, since she was declaiming its superiority at length. "Of course, it was designed to correct the mistakes made in the prototype and test models. -And- it avoids the 'bells and whistles' approach of the -other- production models.”

"A real pilot's machine, then," Misato suggested, deciding to reenter the rather one-sided conversation. "We'll have to get the others checked out on it," she nonchalantly added, pretending not to notice her target's nostrils flare in anger. Suppressing a smirk, she turned to Shinji. "Which reminds me, how did your latest test go?"

"Good. I came up a point."

"From what?" Asuka asked with studied indifference.

"Sixty-three."

"Decent," Asuka grudgingly allowed, taking a sip from her soda.

"Not half bad for someone who only started about two months ago," Misato agreed wholeheartedly.

Asuka's head snapped around in pure shock, only her excellent reflexes avoiding a spit take or an unintentional cleansing of her sinuses. "What! How could he possibly have improved forty points in that time?! That's impossible," she angrily asserted, obviously suspicious she was about to be the butt of a joke.

"That's true, and he didn't," Misato confirmed.

"Then how..."

"He started at forty-one."

----------

Asuka turned to stare incredulously at the quiet boy seated beside her. That was one third again her starting score, she thought numbly. But that must mean... "Your first mission. It was also your first time to pilot," she pronounced.

"Yes," Shinji confirmed quietly, gaze locked on the couch cushion between them. "I've gotten better," he added defensively.

"That's," Asuka struggled a moment, recalling the footage she had seen. The first thirty seconds or so had been an unmitigated disaster. Eva-01 had stumbled around like a drunkard and got its ass handed to it by the Angel, not to mention wrecking a sizable portion of the city. But given the aggressively competent counterattack the boy next to her had launched right afterwards, she had put it down to control problems in the demonstrably unstable Test type. Though the dog's breakfast he'd made of the second attack made a lot more sense... "Well, at least we've got a -real- pilot on staff from now on."

"I'd say he and Rei have paid their dues, under the circumstances," the elder woman corrected. "But no one is happier than I am to have more minions," she chuckled.

"Empire builder," Asuka muttered.

The doorbell's chime signaled the next arrivals. "Come on, Shinji. Time to play host," Misato nudged him with a foot as she unfolded herself from the beanbag on the floor.

---------

Nami's gaze roved over the buildings passing outside the windows as they turned onto Hanabishi street. Not far ahead, their destination was clearly visible rising above the low-grown neighborhood near the edge of the city. In the quiet interior of the economical compact car Dr. Akagi favored, she was left with plenty of opportunity to admire their surroundings.

What there was to admire. Han had commented quietly to her that the architecture appeared to be more 'Maginot Line' than 'modern metropolis,' an observation she couldn't deny. The driver and front passenger had given no sign they heard, or understood, the mandarin the pilots had spoken in if they had, but her companion had made no further commentary on the city's aesthetics. Which was probably just as well. For her part, Nami found herself unconsciously scanning the sight lines of the city and comparing them against her memories of the multitude of times she had battled there in simulation.

It was an odd feeling, to realize how much difference just over two months had made in her habits. Before, the girl might have gazed upon the same scene and smiled at the way the setting sun dyed the bleak gray concrete in crimson and gold. And she still did. But now she also smiled upon seeing that the nearest building of equivalent height was over a kilometer away, well out of range of all but the most powerful man-portable weapons.

Han looked across the back seat at her, the movement rustling the foil wrapped around the small bouquet of mixed tulips and sprigs of some small white flower Nami didn't recognize offhand he held in his lap. An eyebrow rose in question at her near silent snicker. Shaking her head, she waved him off, and resumed her examination. They pulled into the detached parking garage next door to the complex itself. Nami's eyebrows rose at the doctor's failure to lock the car's doors, before she nodded to herself. What thief in his right mind would try it? The whole building must be wired like a pinball machine, not to mention the permanent security presence that had to be nearby.

Upon crossing the covered sidewalk between the garage and the main building, they boarded the elevators, still in silence. The couple shared a look. If everyone in Nerv was this much fun, she might go mad! The girl smirked a little at the thought, and the next. She hadn't used to be this sarcastic either, Han was obviously a bad influence on her. Still, the trip hadn't exactly been a chucklefest.

In fact, Nami couldn't shake the feeling there was more to the tension present than the awkward circumstances could explain. She didn't -think- she had put a foot wrong badly enough to justify it, and Han had been his usual polite but taciturn self once the greetings had been exchanged. He had only spoken up to ask Ayanami about one of the restaurants they had passed en route, and again upon passing one of the weapons bunkers scattered across the city. Which meant that if it wasn't them, it was the other pair. The realization brought a frown to her naturally sunny expression. Perfect. They barely arrive, and already they get caught in the fallout of someone else's personal mess.

The quartet arrived at the proper floor. As they set off down the hall, the pair fell back from the other two. “Are we having fun yet?” Nami whispered plaintively. Han grinned a moment, returning to the stoic silence he had maintained on the trip thus far as the doctor pressed the doorbell. Moments later, the door slid open to reveal their new lady and mistress.

"Well, well! The prodigal Doctor arrives at last!" the thirty-something woman who answered exclaimed, stepping back to let them in.

"Some of us actually do something about it when our inbox is overflowing," the target rejoined as she moved past, shedding her shoes in the tiled entryway while Ayanami followed behind.

The hostess loftily ignored the jibe, and turned to her remaining guests. “Oh, thank you! I've got a spot perfect for these,” she exclaimed, noticing the small bundle Han presented to her. Taking the flowers from Han, she turned to lead them inside.

Turning to each other in relief, the thought flickered between them without the need for speech. Finally, someone with personality!

----------

"Hello, Shinji."

"Hello, Doctor Akagi." Shinji continued more shyly, "Hello, Ayanami."

"Good evening, Ikari," the girl replied in her usual tone. "Major Katsuragi."

"Come in, come in! We have goodies for all," Misato replied cheerfully over the soft rustle of Shinji taking the guest's outerwear.

"And enough beer to float a battleship, I would imagine," the blonde replied over one shoulder as she entered the living room, as she handed off the white lab coat she hadn't bothered to change out of. "And speaking of. Welcome to Japan, Asuka," Ritsuko continued, her voice slightly muffled by the intervening wall.

At that point, Shinji got his first good look at his new comrades. The girl, Nami Lin, he thought her name was, smiled a greeting once she removed her shoes, introducing herself and her companion. The boy, Han Fei, was dressed in khaki slacks and white button down shirt similar to his own, a pair of brown leather dress shoes completing the picture. The girl had, unusually for her though Shinji was unaware of it, chosen a brown knee length skirt and light blue blouse for the evening, her hair put up in a ponytail that swayed gently behind her as she stepped out of the entryway.

Shinji halted after responding to the introductions in kind, not quite sure how to continue the conversation.

Fortunately, Nami had it covered. "We are happy to be here,” she continued in somewhat stilted and heavily accented Japanese. “It is not every day that one meets a hero."

"I..."

Nami steamrolled right over his objection. "Anyone willing to climb aboard one of our monsters is already brave. If doing so three times, to go into combat with no backup, does not qualify you then -I- would like to know what would!" she finished indignantly.

A memory from his first night in Tokyo-3 replayed itself in his mind. Of himself lying fitfully on an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room, while the memories of the previous few hours battered their way out of the box he had forcibly stuffed them into. Of one of the few, precious times when someone, anyone, had offered a few simple, sincere words of kindness for a job well done. He shook off the reverie and began to frame a reply.

But Misato beat him to the punch. "Hey, no hogging the guests!" the lady in question called from inside.

Shinji started, and gave an embarrassed smile. "R-right, come in."

---------

Asuka's gaze locked onto the girl trailing behind Dr. Akagi the moment she entered the room. Watching her precise, unhurried gait while Misato handled introductions again and her roommate fetched drinks for the new arrivals. Pondering.

So, you're the wunderkind they sent instead of me, she mused while the bluenette in question glanced around the Major's apartment in mild curiosity. Dressed in the what redhead devoutly hoped to be a school uniform, and not a demonstration of utter tone deafness for anything resembling fashion, Ayanami selected the spot recently vacated by Shinji. The change in occupant was not an improvement.

Ikari had been bad enough, but at least she could console herself with the knowledge that the first two Evas weren't capable of handling her. But Eva-02
hadn't been -that- far behind -06 readiness-wise, and Stuttgart is a -hell- of a lot closer to Moscow than Tokyo! That thought alone was enough to raise her blood pressure, but it didn't end there, oh no.

The effusive praise Ayanami had gotten afterwards had only soured a bad situation further. -She- could've hit the damned cannon and then peeled open that mech like a lobster! Instead, she got to hear about not only the deadly Third Child, but -also- the First's 'coolheaded response to a perilous situation' and
'commendable refusal to endanger innocent lives.' Asuka snorted. As if those pilots and commandos hadn't known what they were getting into when they signed up.

The doctor and their commander continued chatting like the old friends they apparently were, speaking low as they dragged in a pair of chairs from the kitchen for themselves.

Ayanami ignored Asuka's baleful glare, remaining in her seat while Shinji took a spot on the floor. Instead, she chose to respond to Shinji's question about Eva-00's readiness.

"Commander Mardukas believes it would be worthwhile to upgrade Eva-00 to combat standards, given it is already in the process of being repaired. Though given the additional mass of its skeleton, he was not optimistic about the resulting performance." The decision to use readily available and cheaper, though heavier, materials in the prototype seemed to have bitten them once again.

"Better some Eva than no Eva, I guess," Misato sighed. "But if nothing else we'll be at nearly full strength once it's ready."

"Why is it taking so long to fix? -01 and -06 were both a lot faster than that," Nami asked, coloring slightly once she realized how the question could be taken.

"Part of it is that Eva-00 was never intended for battle," Ritsuko answered with a small smile to put her questioner at ease. She shot Misato the look of a craftswoman watching another misuse -her- tools. "So it isn't designed with any 'plug and play' abilities the way the others are. Eva-01 does have them because it was the testbed for most of the essential systems of the production models." Ritsuko continued, anticipating her follow up question. "Also, steel is an excellent heat conductor, unlike the production grade armor. Much of the musculature was damaged as a result, and that takes time to repair."

The new pilots nodded understanding. Asuka saw Ikari shiver slightly at what being an 'excellent heat conductor' had nearly meant for the girl beside her. Combined with the practically loquacious answer to his question, in comparison to Ayanami's trademark terseness, and the boy's position on the same side of the sofa could almost make her suspect...

Misato took advantage of the pause to interject. "Speaking of, your qualifiers will be this Wednesday afternoon. You'll hear more tomorrow at the official orientation."

"What are we being tested on?"

"Pretty much like you'd expect. Marksmanship, basic maneuvering, some melee." Misato grinned wickedly. "But that's just the warm-up. Afterwards, you have the Challenge Course." At their curious/worried looks, she continued with relish. "It's a something we cooked up as a kind of final exam, sort of a cross between an obstacle course and a shooting house, to test everything you're supposed to have learned before you came. I hope you studied," she finished with a low chuckle.

"We were going to run you through just as a baseline reading about six weeks ago, but..." Misato answered Shinji's questioning look, too quietly for the others to catch.

Shinji nodded understanding. The Fourth Angel. After that he'd been pulled out of class for nearly two weeks for a crash course in Eva piloting, often being given 'special' attention by the very girl sitting not two meters from him. Who was even now beginning the story of her latest, and first, mission. And of course after that there had never seemed to be time.

"But, that's enough Nerv for a while," Misato announced in a louder voice. "We'll all be sick to death of it soon anyway." At the unspoken question in her listener's expressions, she smirked in a way that awoke mingled terror and anticipation in both blonde and redhead.

"What -I- have in mind is a little game," she continued with an evil cackle, producing a microphone from under the couch. "Its time to get this party started!"

-----------------------------------------------------------
Author's Notes

(1) 'Lord, please don't let me fuck this up.' Reportedly said by Alan Shepard prior to his spaceflight aboard Freedom 7.

I'd like to state for the record that Tessa's missile trick was taken directly from life. David Morris in _Storm on the Horizon_ describes an incident during the first Gulf War in which a Saudi missile gunner engaged and destroyed an
Iraqi tank by curve-balling his missile past several palm trees and around
a street corner to attack it from the rear. What can I say? Truth is stranger than fiction.

I'll also say it will be hot day in Antarctica before any warship in one of my stories is named 'Over the Rainbow,' never mind a fleet flagship. To cover this grave breach of sanity on Gainax's part, I borrowed from another of my favorite sci-fi series. All of the ships listed by name in this chapter, excepting Othello, are ones Honor Harrington served on at one time or another.

Finally, many thanks to Himonky for his work in proofreading this chapter, it's a safe bet it wouldn't be nearly as good without his help.

[TabascoOne]

Come on guys. I don't want to whine, but 1300 views with nary a comment? I promise I don't bite, even if you say I'm wasting everyone's time.

Chapter 6: Learn and Live

The wingman is absolutely indispensable...[He] knows what his responsibilities are, and knows what mine are. Wars are not won by individuals. They're won by teams.
— Lt. Col. Francis S. "Gabby" Gabreski, USAF, 28 victories in WWII and 6.5 in Korea.

Rule #6: If violence wasn't your last resort, you failed to resort to enough of it.
- "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates" _Schlock Mercenary_


Tokyo-3 geofront
September 14, 2015
8:00AM Local Time

Misato stood in the foyer of Nerv's apartment complex, savoring the coolness the underground structure retained in spite of the surface's summer heat. The group training sessions seemed to be facilitating what she began Saturday, giving the kids a chance to bond. Even Rei had participated in the 'shop talk' parts, and observed the rest with at least mild interest.

Unfortunately, the Major's cynical streak insisted on reminded her, dealing with the devil you knew about generally meant one you didn't was sneaking up on you. Probably half of a small unit leader's job is personality management, Misato reflected as the first of the pilots arrived from upstairs. That was a lesson she'd had hammered into her by superiors who understood the point, and perhaps even more so by the somewhat smaller number who didn't. Right now, the ringmaster of this circus suspected balancing the personalities in this crew would test the Buddha.

"Morning, Asuka."

Case in point. Asuka was much as she remembered: brilliant, opinionated, aggressive, and proud. All excellent qualities, but her 'it's not bragging if you're really that good' attitude had already rubbed some of the other pilots the wrong way. Additionally, the older woman would had to have been blind to miss the auburn haired pilot's jealousy not only of Shinji's accomplishments, but also Rei's. No doubt the other pilots had taken notice of that as well.

"Morning, Major," Asuka greeted sleepily, dressed in the white and blue ensemble of her school uniform. She looked all set for her first day of classes, and -that- particular line item on the agenda had almost started a one girl riot.

To be fair, the idea of a girl with a biology degree retaking middle school sounded a little nuts. But, sadly for one thoroughly overqualified Child, the school was the best place they had for after action stress relief. It seemed to have helped Shinji, anyway. Misato had no intention of telling them so, but 'don't flunk' was all she really expected scholastically. More than that was pure fantasy, given the slapdash language instruction the newer non-Japanese pilots had gotten.

"Better find some coffee, you've got quite a day ahead," Misato smiled sympathetically at her once and current protege. Asuka had always had a 'love to hate' relationship with mornings, even as one of her students in Munich.

Asuka's face scrunched in disgust. "Blech. Not on your life." She folded her arms and started tapping her foot. "What are they doing, necking? We've got places to be!"

Misato frowned in response to the catty remark. Not so much at the thought of 'extracurricular activities' which, unless the other pilots were quiet as the grave, would've been noticed, but at the reminder of the less obvious devil she'd been contemplating.

The quiet scrape of tennis shoes on the concrete steps a moment later signaled the approach of the next arrivals. Superficially, the two could be a contrast study. Even-tempered, tactful, and possessed of a dry and sarcastic wit, Han reminded the officer far too much of Ritsuko for her peace of mind. Nami, on the other hand, was a fifty kilo fireball in a forty kilo frame. 'Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!' defined her general approach, followed closely by 'leap before you look.'

Heh, I can relate, Misato chuckled to herself as they arrived.

Which was why she understood what had utterly baffled their trainer, how the two had managed to stay together past the first week. It was simple, they needed each other. And that added yet another complication to a situation already as convoluted as a noodle platter. The one thing she and Nerv absolutely could -not- afford was to allow any internal divisions between the pilots to cement.

No matter how cute they were, there was no way to keep them together once the rotation was set up.

Understandably, neither Roberts nor Testarossa had managed to come Saturday, so Misato hadn't had a chance to observe them under natural conditions. Fortunately, there were no reports of anything beyond a fairly close friendship, which should vastly simplify everyone's life. As it was, she was seriously considering detailing Sgt. Jun-kyu from his usual job of securing the apartment complex for help keeping tabs on her suddenly expanded tribe.

"Well, hell," the harried commander sighed softly. "If it was easy anyone could do it."

----------

It said something about how far she'd come in improving her coordination, Tessa reflected ruefully, that Sam no longer felt the need keep a hand free anytime they used a staircase. If her frighteningly inept first attempts at controlling an Eva simulation hadn't clued him in to her lack of motor skills, the first time he'd had to make a grab for her after a near tumble down a flight of stairs had -certainly- driven the point home.

“I don't care if my braid -was- the only handhold he could get, it hurt!” she fumed, unconsciously running a hand down its ash blonde length. Her remembered annoyance was broken by an impish grin, recalling his claim that next time he would -let- her go down the stairs 'ass over teakettle', in response to her fear and embarrassment fueled tirade immediately afterward. Promptly followed by the appearance of a gym mat at the bottom of those stairs the next morning. It seemed like so long ago.

The low hum of the Nerv van's electric motor filled the interior with white noise, inducing an occasional yawn from its passengers. Nami was paying her seatmate, Asuka, no attention whatsoever, much more interested in getting the best view of the city that would be their new home.

From her seat behind and between the two, Tessa could see that while the German girl was returning the favor of benign neglect for now, an increasingly nettled expression suggested she would shortly be overwhelmed by the need to refocus attention on her.

"There's no way we can get to the geofront in time to repel an attack if school is this far away," Asuka complained to Misato. Tessa settled the bet she had made with herself with an inner smirk.

Misato replied without turning to face her questioner. "We'll keep half of you on base at a time and switch out periodically, but we're still working out a schedule that will be fair for everyone. For the time being you'll stay at school during the day and come in on weekday evenings." Only then did she turned to sweep her gaze over the passenger cabin. "Understood?"

The pilots nodded, however grudgingly from some. Tessa turned away from the scene. Shinji, Rei, and their guards had already arrived at the school, there being no reason to drive them to the geofront, pick up the new arrivals, and drive all the way back. Han had sat beside her and continued their discussion from yesterday on tips for integrating into the Japanese school system. As the only one of the group with direct experience she'd been, God help them all, the expert, the negativity of her experiences notwithstanding. Sam, for his part, had sprawled on the last row of seats and lapsed into uncharacteristically gloomy silence. Tessa
felt a stab of pity for her friend. She had gotten used to changing schools and losing friends long ago, as a result of her father's Navy career. He, on the other hand, had kept the same companions from early elementary school, and leaving them behind had hurt him deeply.

And, of course, the dumb jerk wouldn't say anything except 'I'm fine' and laugh it off, or change the subject with all the grace of an intoxicated water buffalo.

The van braked to a stop, terminating her considerations. Their destination, North Tokyo-3 Municipal Junior High, was a nondescript two story structure. Built in several wings connected by open air walkways, several well-tended trees peeked over the retaining wall, matched by manicured patches of grass amid the sidewalks and bike racks.

She fell in with the rest of the new arrivals behind Misato as the Major led the way onto the school grounds. Upon arriving at the Principal's office, the secretary duly signed them in, issued their school laptops, and delivered a quick and obviously well-worn welcome speech before ushering the group right back out.

And all in under ten minutes, that's what Tessa called -efficiency-.

"Ok then," Misato addressed them once they assembled outside the office. "Your printouts have the details, but in short you're in class 2-A with Shinji, Rei, Sousuke and Mana, so there'll be some familiar faces. Just follow their lead."

"All of us?" Sam asked after catching her attention.

"Of course, surely you didn't think we'd throw you in at the deep end?"

"Well..."

"We're not -that- cruel, now go on, have fun!" Misato departed with a cheerful wave.

Asuka directed a venomous glare at their CO's retreating back. Only after Misato had rounded a corner did she turn to the others, snapping "Let's get this over with."

----------

Kaname Chidori sighed, twisting one strand of her dark shoulder length hair through her fingers. The classroom buzzed with its usual morning chat sessions. Aida and Suzuhara were both over by Ikari's desk, Toji illustrating a tale with expansive arm gestures while the other boys chuckled. Meanwhile, the class president was splitting her attention between listening to the gossip Kongo and Izuma were sharing and scanning the classroom for troublemakers. Her eyes lingered on Kaname's before moving on.

Kaname frowned to herself. She wasn't deaf to the reputation she'd acquired over the year since her arrival. And, in her more introspective moments, she admitted there was a lot of truth to the tag 'prettiest girl you would never date.'

Though born in Japan, she had spent most of her life in the reclaimed New York City, where her father worked in the UN branch office. The upside of this was she spoke English like a native. The downside was she had the -mindset- of a native. With a vocabulary to match. Perhaps inevitably, she'd had considerable trouble from her new classmates due to her rusty manners. Not to mention her pronounced tendency to speak her mind with minimal delicacy.

"To hell with them," Kaname muttered. On days like this she was almost glad to live alone, it meant no one was around to ruin a really good sulk. A swell in the chatter around her pulled her attention back into the real world.

"New students?" the...high spirited girl asked the short haired brunette, Chikuma, next to her.

"Yeah, five of them, transferring in all at once."

"Hmmm." Kaname ran a finger across her desk in thought. Given the last few 'transfer students' they'd gotten...

----------

Five agitated teenagers waited outside a classroom door. While the amounts varied, the feelings present did not, running the gamut from the 'butterfly effect' from meeting new people, to frustration at orders to remain inconspicuous in a class that had already more than met its mysterious transfer student quota, to the hopeful curiosity of making a fresh start.

Or venting frustration at the whole process.

"Why are we even here?" Asuka muttered. "Some of us at least are trained professionals with better uses for our time. There are three Evas to be tested, and a dozen weapons and add-on modules to check out on. Hell, we still don't even know where we live yet!"

Nami traded a glance with the boy beside her, the gist of the message being: You deal with her, I'm no good at pouring oil on the waters.

"They probably want us out of their hair so everything will be ready when we go in this afternoon," Han suggested to the fuming redhead.

He received only an indistinct grumble in reply, but the prospect of future Nerv-related activities seemed to have defused the tempestuous pilot.

"Nice job," Nami whispered to him.

Han remained facing straight ahead, but an eye swiveled to catch hers. "Mm hm. I've had lots of practice lately," he agreed in a suspiciously neutral tone. He got some odd looks from the others at his sudden yelp, but his target's look of outraged chagrin was well worth it.

The teacher's voice silencing the classroom noises coming through the door came as a relief. "Before we begin today's lesson, we will be welcoming several new arrivals, who will be joining us for the remainder of the year. All of them are from overseas, so please bear with...” Han tuned out at that point. “I'm with Langley, let's get on...” he began quietly, when an exclamation silenced the introductory remarks to echo across the room.

"They're EVA PILOTS?!"

The young pilot closed his eyes in psychic pain. Meanwhile, Sam turned an intriguing shade of puce trying not to exercise the...extensive...vocabulary he and Tessa been exposed to by Sgt. Major Mao.

"I -thought- things were going too smoothly," he heard Tessa mutter. "SNAFU?" she queried Sam once he returned from his happy place, using the ancient shorthand for 'Situation Normal: All Fucked Up.'

"SNAFU," he agreed with a long-suffering sigh, echoing Han's own sentiment.

In contrast, Asuka's mood had improved markedly. True, she was still stuck in daycare, but at least she could talk about her -real- job now. Not ideal, but a nice consolation prize. When the teacher finally restored order and signaled them to enter before further mishap could occur, her triumphant smile led the way.


Nerv HQ
Same Time

Deep below and kilometers away, an angry tapping echoed through the steel lined corridors. Striding ahead on a three part mission, Misato Katsuragi loosely held a manila folder just emptied of the design briefs it once held, her ostensible excuse for dropping in on R&D.

Part one had been accomplished a few minutes ago. Ritsuko had been non-committal about the data, but agreed to look into it further. Part two was a rousing success. The imported, hazelnut flavored coffee she shamelessly helped herself to worked its magic far more swiftly and gracefully than the freeze-dried pretender Ops brewed. Leaving the newly added part three, whose objective was currently approaching the turn towards the vending machines down two levels from the CIC.

The target's destination was indeed the vending machines. The Major slowed and ghosted along behind.

----------

Ryoji Kaji was rummaging in his pocket for change, preparing to negotiate with the charming, read antiquated, coffee machine before him.

"And just what the hell are -you- doing here?" a familiar, venomous voice inquired from behind.

Delivering funds of unimaginable value to a man of dubious ethics, the carefully buried whimsical streak of Ryoji's personality suggested. "Just making a quick pit stop, Katsuragi. Nice to see you too, by the way," was his saner reply.

Misato was unmoved by the flippancy. "Try again."

"Well, I -was- here to deliver Asuka and Eva-02," he replied lightly.

Misato's cold, hostile expression thawed immediately. "Ah! Excellent, you're on your way to the airport. So sorry to keep you then, have a lovely flight, and..."

"But..." the syllable froze her rapid-fire goodbye in its tracks. "I've gotten tired of Germany, so I'm planning to transfer here for a while."

A lesser man would've laughed at the way the forced politeness was -sucked- from Misato's demeanor. Fortunately for his health, he restricted himself to a wry smirk. In truth, he'd been fairly happy in Nerv-Germany. But, duty called, and as usual it did so 'collect'.

It could be said that Project E was fairly low profile in the same way that a stealth bomber was fairly difficult to spot. Until recently Nerv itself had been 'famous', inaccurate as the term was, more for developing the 7th generation bioelectronic supercomputer architecture than for their forays into exotic materials and robotics.

That changed with dramatic debut of their real project. The Evangelion's unveiling had thrown the governments of the major powers into near panic. Marching orders had gone out, and every intelligence agency worthy of the name focused its attention on the previously little known organization. And overnight Ryoji Kaji had gone from relatively minor agent in the Japanese Ministry of the Interior to one who's dispatches were read by the Prime Minister himself. With the wartime shift in Nerv's center of gravity to Tokyo-3, it only made sense to move Ryoji as well. Transferring his recently acquired guardianship of the Second Child was as plausible a reason to do so as any to -get- here. However, changing assignments on a -permanent- basis without attracting excess suspicion would require something more.

"So what do you say to a few drinks now that the old crew's back together? Ritsuko's game, can we expect you too?"

Misato's lips thinned to a hard, white line. Though nearly a head shorter than he, she still managed a respectable looming presence as she replied "Kaji, you can take your offer, wad it up into a little ball, and shove it up your ass. Goodbye."

Ryoji tracked her, ample, retreating figure until she passed out of sight, before leaning against the cold tile wall. Sighing while running a hand through his disordered hair, he remarked philosophically,

"Well, you have to start somewhere."


North Municipal Junior High
12:26PM Local Time

Kaname tapped impatiently at the side of her laptop as she watched the clock creep through the final, agonizingly slow minutes between them and lunch's brief freedom. The math teacher was finishing up his lecture on binomials, and students were beginning to put their computers into standby for the break.

From her seat in the back third of the classroom, she could see some of the new arrivals scattered through the room.

The first foreigner to introduce herself, Soryu-Langley, had seemed as serenely unconcerned by the lustful stares from the boys as she had the jealous glares from a solid majority of the girls on entering the room. Matching auburn hair and blue eyes to a shapely figure, she could have walked off the pages of a boy's manga. Flamboyant and outgoing, the foreign beauty had shown confidence and panache fielding questions directed at her, including the inevitable 'are you single?' Right now she was busily typing on her computer, though judging by the increase in other student's typing during breaks in hers, she was communicating, not note taking.

Roberts looked a little like a deer in the headlights as the lesson concluded, Kaname noted without surprise. She'd felt the same when she moved to a new country with only a little of the language. From his and the two Chinese pilot's introductions, she guessed they could conduct simple conversations, but that was about it. Concentrated classwork was probably overwhelming, but at least they had native and/or fluent speakers to help them along.

The other American, Testarossa, had settled right in. Though the pilot was closer to cute than sexy in Kaname's opinion, but her silvery hair and gray eyes made her as exotic as the other western girl. One of the two new pilots fluent in Japanese, she had made a decent first impression, answering the questions she could with friendliness and apparent honesty and politely refusing those she couldn't.

'The odd couple,' as Kaname found herself calling the Chinese pilots, had seemed good-natured and, as far as she could tell, honestly committed to helping defend them. Which was commendable, given the bad blood between their two countries. Kaname liked to keep an eye on the news, and recent incidents between the People's Liberation Army Navy and the Maritime Self-Defense Force had been well publicized. No shots had been fired, but many analysts were convinced it was only a matter of time...

Shaking off the gloomy thought, she returned to the here and now. I predict several rashes of love letters in the near future, Kaname decided with mixed resignation and amusement. Ayanami's arrival had triggered one, and so had her's. It was practically a tradition by now.

Finally, the bell rang for lunch, prompting Horaki to dismiss them. As Kaname rummaged in her bag, she heard Fei muttering from behind her in an odd flavor of English. Probably working on last period's assignment, but still...

"Would you stop it?" she asked testily in the same language.

"What?" Han looked up in confusion. "Oh, sorry, have I been talking out loud?"

"Yes," Kaname snapped, facing forwards again.

"I believe I have understanding of why you are here and not there." Kaname jumped, twisting back around in time to see Nami jerk her head in the direction of the crowd surrounding Asuka and the smaller knot around the Americans. The pilot sat in the desk across from them and handed Fei his lunch. "Now then," she continued in near-comically formal Japanese that under other circumstances would have clashed hilariously with her pugnacious expression, "are you an outcast by choice or do you merely have a bad personality?"

Kaname's cheeks flushed in rage. "Excuse me! Who the -hell- are you to say that!" She snorted derisively. "It's not like you're swimming in admirers yourselves!"

"Our countries have nearly come to war twice since we were born. I would be astonished if there were not a connection there." Han shrugged, unconcerned. "Conversing with the Big Bad Wolf is not a popular pastime."

"But we were talking about -your- problems," Nami interjected, smoothly taking the lead again. This conversation was beginning to remind Kaname of watching a tennis match, crick in the neck included.

"And what exactly makes them any of your business?" Kaname snarled, turning away again.

"Nothing." Nami started packing up the few items removed from her box. "Come on, Shinji mentioned the roof was nice this time of day," she spoke to Han as he followed suit.

Kaname closed her eyes, grinding her teeth in frustration. Mostly at herself. This could have been a replay of any of a dozen incidents since she'd arrived at this damned school. And every time, she'd driven away anyone who'd shown the slightest interest in her.

At first, she had told herself that even if her father had washed his hands of her, she still had her sister, Ayame. What could Kaname need from others, people who would only offer the same lack of understanding cloaked in false sympathy she had grown so sick of? Later, as the initial searing loss had faded, and the scars began to form, the still wounded girl decided she didn't need anyone else anyway. She could stand on her own feet and make her own path, rules be damned!

And now what was it?

I'm sick of this, Kaname admitted at last. Sick of my only conversation longer than two sentences happening three times a week like clockwork when I call Ayame. Sick of my only company on a Friday night being my pet hamster. And most of all, I'm sick of the only people who even remotely care about me living fifteen thousand kilometers away. She relaxed the fist she'd clenched under her desk and spoke.

"Wait." She turned to face the departing pilots. "Look, I'm sorry. I'm not used to strangers asking, rudely," pride forced her to add, "about my problems, but that's no excuse to take it out on you. Please accept my apologies."

Han nodded. "Gladly. Though we still intend to go upstairs, you are welcome to join us."

----------

Shinji leaned back against the railing surrounding the rooftop and savored the breeze. To either side of him Kensuke and Toji did the same, the former unwrapping his lunch from home and the latter doing the same to his own purchased from the cafeteria.

"This sucks!" Kensuke lamented to the uncaring heavens. "Is it not enough to have beauties like Misato, and Rei, -and- a tomboy hottie like Mana? Must he now he get three more?! Is this justice, I ask you?!"

Shinji, with great difficulty, suppressed the desire to strangle his friend. "I told you, it's not like that. And besides, only two of them are 'available' anyway."

Toji frowned thoughtfully. "Huh. Well that makes sense, those two do go together."

"Yeah, I guess," Shinji sighed the sigh of the unhappily single.

"Hey, cheer up. That Chinese girl looks like fun, if you need a break from your other girls," Toji grinned, a gleam of mischief in his eyes at seeing Shinji's hands twitch.

And -another- fantasy strangling, this was becoming a habit... "Wait. What?"

"Those two Americans. They're together, right." Toji answered offhandedly, taking a bite from his tray.

"Um, no..." Shinji replied slowly.

"No way, they totally are!"

"No, they're not."

"How do you know?" Toji paused, noticing the other boys' expressions. "Ok, stupid question. Still."

"They said so."

"Both of them?" Kensuke asked hopefully.

"Yes," Shinji answered with a sidelong look.

"Sweet!"

"And another unhealthy obsession begins," Toji narrated with the voice of experience.

Kensuke cheerfully ignored the jab, and was about to probe further when the stairwell door opened to admit three more students. For a split second his gleeful expression froze before turning deathly pale, his lunchbox slipping from nerveless fingers.

Mercifully refraining comment on his friend's hurried attempts to separate his lunch from his wardrobe, Shinji noticed another girl accompanying his fellow pilots.

Nami greeted them with a wave. "Hello, Shinji. May we join you?"

"Ok," Shinji replied hesitantly, glancing at his friends.

"Great, I'm starving. Chidori wanted to escape too, so we granted asylum."

"Fine by me," Toji agreed, Kensuke refusing comment.

The new arrivals sat facing the boys, arranged into a sort of flattened circle as they set about the serious business of Lunch.

----------

Kaname listened to the group with growing surprise. Aida's reaction to her arrival aside, the boys seemed to take her presence in stride, picking up where they'd left off. And that was what made it so strange. Ikari was always so quiet during class, participating only if the teacher specifically called on him and all other times staring fixedly at his computer or desk. It was a bit of a shock to see him talking halfway naturally.

I wonder if Ayanami is the same way? she mused. It would make sense. They have a lot bigger things to worry about, so it's probably hard to focus on something like school.

"That's interesting, what kind of things do you like to take pictures of?" she heard Han ask Kensuke.

Kaname smiled dangerously.

--/

Spring, 2014

Kensuke wandered through a small park towards home, backpack slung over his shoulders, battered but serviceable digital camera in hand. So engrossed was he with the contents of its small screen that the first time his name was called he continued on, oblivious.

"Hey, I know you heard me!"

"Huh?" he turned to find one of the objects of his previous contemplation standing a few meters behind him wearing a softball uniform. A duffel bag containing her equipment was slung over one shoulder, freeing her clenched fists to be placed firmly on her hips. "Oh, hi Chidori. Um, did you need something?"

Her annoyed scowl dissolving into a small smile now that she had his attention, Kaname sauntered towards him, big brown eyes locked on his. "As a matter of fact, Ken~suke,” she replied in a throaty voice that had no business coming from a thirteen year old. “There -is- something you can do for me."

"Eeeh," his throat clamped down, choking out his response as she glided closer with a wide smile. Kaname ran a hand through her hair, brushing it back. His eyes involuntarily locked onto the slender fingers as they slowly traced down her neck, crossing above her collarbone to slowly circle the rim around her uniform's top button. There had to be something to say in a situation like this, but stammering nonsense was all that seemed to fall from his lips as she closed the distance between with graceful, swaying strides.

Neatly distracting him right up until a size six sneaker caught him in the solar plexus.

Doubled over and whooping for breath, the boy gave no resistance to his assailant's appropriation of his camera. "Now," Kaname began in a granite-hard tone as Kensuke's head craned up towards his attacker, her demeanor completely devoid of its previous warmth. "Let's start over. You're the son of a bitch who likes taking pictures of girls from hiding. And..." she paused to withdraw her softball bat from the bag she left lying at her feet. "I'm the girl who's going to teach you a lesson. This is for the locker room." She raised the bat above her head and brought it down upon the hapless camera with a mighty swing. "This is for the pool..."

--/

Kensuke unconsciously dragged his camera closer to him. "Military stuff, mostly. I was down in Yokosuka when Fearless visited."

Kaname's smile softened, becoming one of amusement rather than a reminder she had not forgotten. And, she was pleased to see, neither had he.

Han nodded. "A hobby, or a preparation for future times?"

Kensuke frowned in thought. "Maybe both," he answered after a moment. "I used to think it was too early to worry about that kind of thing, but now..."

The pilots nodded. Priorities change.

"And you, Suzuhara? Besides sports, anyway." Nami quirked a smile at the tracksuit-clad boy.

"Not as much, anymore." Toji frowned at the concrete. "My sister's been in the hospital, and with Dad and Granddad working so much I'm all she's got."

"Oh," Nami replied quietly. "What happened?"

Toji shrugged. "The war. But, if Shinji apologizes about it one more time I'm gonna have to smack him," he continued without looking at the pilot in question, knowing the guilt-ridden expression he'd find.

"Again," Kensuke added in a stage whisper.

Kaname's eyebrows climbed, she hadn't heard this one before. "Well you can't leave it there."

"Yes, I'm curious too," Han agreed coolly, Nami nodding as well.

Toji searched the small group for support, finding none in either new pilots' patient attention or friends' 'you brought this on yourself' shrugs. "Fine. Well, it was just after Shinji got here..."

The door squeaked open once more, halting the exposition while another arrival made her way over.

----------

"Ah, finally made it? But where's Roberts?" Nami asked.

Tessa smiled a greeting as she sat, the others budging aside to open a space. "It did take some doing. Sam is bravely holding the rearguard," she informed them gravely. She just hoped he kept his wits about him. The last thing anyone needed was for some harpy to sink her claws in him right off the bat. The predatory smiles on two girls in particular had nearly sent chills down the young pilot's spine, and she was -anything- but the target.

"Then may his sacrifice never be forgotten," Nami intoned, the formal phrase at odds with the grin adorning her features.

Giggling at the thought of Sam's 'sacrifice' under the circumstances, she dropped her mock-serious mein. "I doubt he'll let us," she agreed before turning to Kaname. "I don't think we've met."

"This is Kaname Chidori," Han began by way of introduction. "She wasn't interested in the feeding frenzy downstairs either, so we invited her up."

Tessa bowed politely from her seated position. "Pleased to meet you."

"Me too." Kaname returned it, and held out a hand. "I spent some time in the States," she explained at Tessa's raised eyebrow.

“Oh? Where about?”

“New York City. My father works at the UN office there, ever since they moved the UN headquarters out to Tokyo-2.”

Tessa brightened. “I've been there, about five years ago. It's amazing what they've done getting the Outer Boroughs running again.”

“Yeah, you know the city is back on its feet when the new Coney Island is going full blast. I miss the Ben and Jerry's stand there, though.” Kaname agreed wistfully.

The blonde sighed. “Mmmm. Now there's something I've missed the last three months.”

“There's a great place here in town, just before you get to the downtown station,” Kaname suggested. “It's even got a set of tables under the awning out front if you want to eat outside.”

Nami perked up, interjecting herself into the conversation. “I could go for that, what are we doing tonight?”

The boys shared a look as the conversation moved into less male-friendly territory. "Right. Not that I don't like ice cream," Kensuke began. "But I was talking to Gord, the owner of the video arcade we go to," he explained for Han's benefit "the other day, and he says he's got some new additions coming in later this week."

Toji grinned knowingly. "He say what they were?"

"Of course not, he was as cagey as usual, but my sources tell me our long awaited sequel is one of them."

"Ah ha, that is good news. So take a look on say...Thursday? Nothing's due then, and we have a math test Wednesday."

"Sounds good." Kensuke nodded "Shinji, Han, interested?"

Shinji frowned. "I might be able to, if my qualifier finishes in time. Roberts is scheduled first, then Ayanami. I'm next after her."

"Qualifier? Aren't you already pilots?" Toji asked with a confused look. "Er, I mean..."

"Shinji is, yes. He and Rei undergoing it for solidarity's sake," Han explained, waving off his apology. "For the rest of us, it is a final exam before they trust us completely. I am last, so I will not be able to attend."

"Hm, that's a shame. Well, good luck," Kensuke encouraged them both, obviously filing away this bit of trivia.

----------

"You looked like you were having a good time," Mana commented in English over the rumble of the tram.

"Yeah, I particularly liked being left to the sharks when -someone- got bored,” he growled. His ash blonde target declined to respond, so he continued to Mana, “But yeah, when I knew what the hell they were saying." Sam grimaced. "If they'd told me to take a flanking position and lay down enfilading fire I'd have been fine, but as it was I was guessing on about every tenth word."

"Don't sweat it, they understand. Just ask them to slow down, or ask what the word means.” She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively. “If you play your cards right, you might even get one of them to offer you 'private lessons.' Just let big sister Mana check them out first, I'll look out for you.”

Sam burst out laughing, causing the other passengers to turn and stare for a moment, and him to miss Shinji's unrestrained shudder. "Yeah, and there's a pig on final approach to Runway 013. Tell me another one," he said more quietly.

"We'll see." Mana shrugged and dropped the subject. For her part, she thought he was being overly modest, but nerves might be playing a part in that. He was right about the language problem though. Some genius had probably decided that the pilots just needed to be able to understand orders, not recite poetry, and planned the curriculum accordingly. The Japanese school system had other ideas.

It would sort itself out. Part of having her and Sousuke around was for that very thing, after all.

-----

“Time to go, people. Let's at least look professional,” Sgt. Jun-kyu called from the entryway.

Mana emerged from the bathroom, knowing perfectly well whom that had been directed at, adjusting the cuffs on the dark green cargo pants and button up fatigue shirt that made up her utility uniform. First impressions mattered after all.

“I'm ready, I'm ready.”

The trio exited their apartment, the two men leading the way. Mana decided the sergeant had made the right call on this one, noting the effect her two team members presented. Dress uniforms would've been overkill for this, but it was important that they be taken seriously right from the start. Looking the part was the first step to that.

Major Katsuragi greeted them on arrival next door, acting in her professional persona for the evening. It was always a little unnerving to see how adeptly the major could compartmentalize her life like that, switching between cheerful den mother/big sister and professional soldier in the blink of an eye, without letting one or the other leak through.

Upon leading them inside and making introductions on both sides, Misato disappeared into the kitchen for drinks. The petty officer took the opportunity to scrutinize each of the newcomers, feeling them do the same to her as the two groups sized each other up. Her first impression was that there was going to be trouble.

The current pilots had acquiesced with good grace to having minders around, even if Shinji had had suspicions about their, especially her, motivations. That wasn't going to be the case here, she suspected. The five reacted to the news with varying degrees of acceptance, but none looked particularly thrilled at the idea.

“Well, no one said it would be easy,” Mana reminded herself. It was worthwhile to at least try and make friends, not only for its own sake, but also because it greatly simplified her job. But if it didn't happen, it didn't. She would get it done anyway, like it or not.

“Go ahead and take a seat, everyone. Drinks?” her commander asked.

“Thank you, ma'am,” she nodded taking a tea after Yan selected water and Sousuke followed suit. Turning to the group of only somewhat younger teens, she felt a moment's apprehension.

Piece of cake, right?

----------

In the end, that first meeting two days ago had been a success. The pilots had been massively reassured after Misato informed them that they wouldn't be followed around by uniformed security officers day and night, and that she and Sousuke had been working to blend into their class for weeks now. They would have been much -less- pleased had anyone mentioned the level of success a certain corporal was having in that area, but that was something for later.

After that, the atmosphere had begun to thaw, especially after Shinji reported they were good at staying out of the way, most of the time. By the end it was pretty relaxed.

For her part, she had decided the duty shouldn't be too painful. Mana admitted it, she was a born meddler. Shinji had been a project for her since she arrived, and now Rei as well. But while it was cute to watch that pair inch each other out of their shells, and in spite of the process' acceleration since Rei's mission to Russia, it was like waiting for grass to grow. At least the new additions didn't suffer -that- flaw, which should make hanging around them a lot more fun.

In fact, the various pair's interactions were starting to remind Mana of her old SAR crew more than anything. Keita and Lee had traded barbs with her as often as she'd whipped their asses playing whatever fighting game they loaded into the squadron's game console. But she had never wondered, not once, whether they would be there for her in the storm. The pilots might not play as rough as she and her old friends, but they were no less devoted.

No, this didn't look bad at all.

The tram slowed to a stop outside the geofront entrance, prompting the pilots and Nerv personnel to stand and collect belongings as the doors opened. After trading goodbyes with the pilots, and flipping the Section Two man at the gate an ironic salute as the doors closed, Mana leaned back in her seat with a groan of relief, sharing a look of exhausted understanding with Sousuke.

The rotation assignments couldn't come soon enough. Watching over seven targets was for the damned birds.


Nerv HQ
September 16, 2015
4:45 PM Local Time

Richard Mardukas was a busy man. The sudden influx of three more Evas to certify, plus their accessory equipment, was a major job in itself. The addition of the rebuild job on Eva-00 was enough to have them all running ragged. So it was with very poor humor that he responded to the diffident call for his attention.

Tessa fidgeted under his stony glare. "Major Katsuragi's compliments, and may she inquire when your department will be ready for the test runs?" the pilot asked, taking refuge in the formal phrasing Misato had provided.

"Was the Major unfamiliar with the concept of a telephone?" he suggested, his icily controlled voice carving through the background din.

"She said you weren't answering it."

"I don't suppose it occurred to her there was a reason for that, after the fifth call," he snarled quietly. Apparently the pilot overheard, since her eyes widened noticeably as she stared off over his left shoulder.

Reminding himself firmly not to flay the messenger, he controlled his tone and answered "Tell Major Katsuragi we will be ready as soon as we can. And that I'll call her when that is," he added after a moment.

As Tessa turned to relay the message, Richard frowned slightly to himself as he gazed after her for a few moments, a thought tickling persistently at the back of his mind. Finally, he shook his head and resumed barking orders to his teams.

----------

Sam idled outside the geofront exit, waiting for a tram going his way. Dressed in his street clothes, he looked much like any other junior high age boy on his way home. He had ignored the tram car rolling to a stop before him once he realized it was on the wrong line, but the voice calling from down the platform pulled his attention back.

"Hello," Sam greeted the advancing pair. "I remember you, Aida," he leveled an annoyed look at Kensuke. "But I am so sorry, I have forgotten your name." He shrugged apologetically.

"Nah, don't sweat it. I'm Toji Suzuhara. We thought you'd all be done by now, though."

Sam rolled his eyes heavenward. "So did we. There was a breakdown on the mag-lev line out to the training grounds, so we are all behind. I was just released."

"Aw man. We were going to hit the arcade before they closed," Toji complained. "Kensuke here's been whining about trying out the new game they got in for a week."

"What game?"

"The new Dead or Alive. It's supposed to be a lot more 'realistic' than the last one," Kensuke grinned conspiratorially.

Not being a fighting game fan, Sam missed the significance completely. "Shinji is not scheduled to leave for another two hours, so you would do as well go on ahead."

Kensuke sighed in frustration. After a moment, he gave Sam a speculative look. "We could use another player..."

"I do not play many of those games..." he warned them.

"No problem. They've got all kinds: racing, pachinko, even a set of pods for simulators," Kensuke enthused.

"Sounds like fun, then." Sam pulled his phone from his pocket and started punching numbers. "Command prefers to know where we are, so..." he paused as the call connected, and traded a few sentences with the other end. After a moment he agreed and thumbed the disconnect button. "Green light. I must be at the Major's by the time the others finish."

"Awesome. Onwards!" Kensuke led off at a march to the stop for downtown.

"Is he always this way?" the pilot murmured to Toji.

"Only when there's a new weapon to photograph, or game to play, or person to interrogate," the teenaged athlete failed to reassure him. "He's a good guy, though." As they caught up to Kensuke, he stepped back from the tram door he had been holding open and joined them.

"So..." Kensuke began, tripping off Sam's mental alarms. Busy rehearsing polite ways to say that anything his questioner wanted to know was probably classified higher than God, he was caught short by "where are you from, exactly?"

"So sorry, I can't...oh. Oklahoma. Oklahoma City, in fact."

Kensuke grinned at the verbal bobble. "Shinji already warned us." He shook his head in resigned amusement. "As if anyone with decent optics and a copy of Jane's can't guess what armament and sensors the Evas carry. And besides, we've seen the inside already."

The pilot frowned, then brightened in understanding. "Ah! You are those...two,” he substituted quickly, “But I thought each Eva was brought in late at night with escorts."

"That's what light amplifiers and telescopes are for," the amateur spy pointed out. Leaving Sam no time to contemplate the ramifications of that admission, Kensuke continued "So what's it like there?"

"Flat. Very, very flat." Sam responded after a moment, only a little bit flippantly. "It is somewhat disconcerting here, as though I am...trapped, I suppose?" he asked uncertainly, the few hundred word vocabulary they had time to learn not quite up to the challenge. "At home I can see all the way to the horizon, here I can see only a few kilometers."

"Huh, that's...kinda weird." Toji scratched at an eyebrow as he considered. "I'd guess it would get boring after a while, though."

Sam snorted agreement. "You have much better scenery here."

The tram arrived, the trio exited to find themselves on a moderately crowded shopping street, lined with glass fronted stores and a cafe of some sort on the corner, the sidewalks thronging with people window shopping or simply enjoying the last good weather before the rains came towards the end of summer.

"More people than I expected," Sam observed.

Kensuke shrugged philosophically. "This is pretty slow, really. Back before the war there would've been twice this many. Same with school." His expression lightened. "Anyway, we're close. Come on."

He led them along the street to the next intersection and hung a left for a few more meters before coming to a stop. Before them was a glass fronted space wedged between an ice cream shop and a hardware store, big red Roman letters and kanji announcing the name to be Gamer's Edge.

They stepped through the glass doors separating the cool interior from the outdoors into a clean but crowded room, ranked arcade cabinets and intently concentrating players and spectators filling the space to claustrophobic levels. Pressing slowly but determinately through the crowd, they at last reached the new additions.

"Damn it, I knew we should've gotten here earlier!" Kensuke complained over the crowd noise. The game in question was packed five deep with watchers and potential players. Two scantily clad fighters under the control of a pair of twenty-something men were beating each other senseless on the screen facing them.

"No go on that one, it'll be an hour at least before we get to it." Toji opined. "How about the racer?"

"Ahhh, perhaps." Sam raised up on his toes to see over the crowd. "If that one is an hour then this one is twenty minutes."

"The sims it is then," Kensuke pronounced. "Sam, do you want to sit this out? You're probably sick of these things."

The pilot responded with a lopsided grin. "So long as no one mentions an AT field, I am golden."

Following the other's lead, he quickly settled himself in the padded seat of a pod, and slid it forward on the rail to stop within the shell. He found himself surrounded on three sides by a series of displays to give a 270 degree view of the world.

"No wonder Kensuke thought I'd want out, this is downright eerie." Shaking off the feeling, Sam punched a likely looking button labeled both in katakana, which he understood after a fashion, and kanji, which he certainly didn't. Using a switch on the panel to scroll through the game selections, he soon came upon one that stopped him cold.

Oh, boy. If y'all let me do this... "Would this be acceptable?" he asked over the intercom allowing communication between pods.

"Mmm...ok. I'm game," Toji's voice responded scratchily, briefly breaking the sensation of being in a pre-synchronization entry plug.

"Fine with me," Kensuke agreed.

Mentally shrugging, Sam scrolled through the available aircraft.

Huh. No Army models at all. Well, I can slum a bit. The fighters available to navies of the mid-20th century tended to have poorer performance than their land-based brethren, in spite of identical powerplants. The sheer daily abuse navy aircraft took from slamming into aircraft carrier decks, in what were for all practical purposes controlled crashes, required much a stronger and heavier structure.

One of the rare exceptions to the rule was the Japanese A6M5 'Zero' which Toji had picked. Kensuke must have been feeling adventurous, since he'd selected the naval version of the 'Spitfire' of Battle of Britain fame.

Locking in his own selection, Sam settled himself in his seat one more time, took the controls in hand, and raised his eyes from the display simulating his instrument panel to the world outside. The F6F-3 'Hellcat' had dominated the Pacific in its day.

It was time to demonstrate why.

[TabascoOne]

That night found Sousuke on duty once again. Major Katsuragi had, perhaps foolishly, stated that they were welcome to invite friends over for the after-qualifications party she'd laid on. Probably she had expected Toji and Kensuke to show, but it was mostly an excuse for he and Mana to attend without suspicion.

Instead, in addition to those expected, Asuka had brought the class president, Hikari Horaki, and Nami and Tessa seemed to have jointly brought Kaname Chidori. He had no idea who'd invited the ponytailed man over there with Doctor Akagi. Whoever the thirtyish guest was, he was doing an outstanding job at ruining the Major's mood.

"So anyway, I'm turning to chase after Sam, and I hear this voice -screaming- 'Where'd he go! Where is he! Where is... Get him off me! Get him off me!'" Suzuhara's laughter carrying above the background noise. "I thought he'd taken a six year old in there with him or somethin' it was so high pitched."

"Brave Captain Kensuke got some of his own back?" Chidori needled from the other end of the straggling group of teenagers on the floor of Misato's living room. Unlike the class president, whom Soryu-Langley had invited with the explicit purpose of 'guaranteeing she had someone interesting to talk to', he was unaware of the rationale of inviting Chidori. Incidentally, he noticed the redhead and after a quick survey, most of the pilots had dispensed with the monogrammed baseball cap they had received earlier that evening after belatedly completing their qualifications.

The corporal couldn't blame them, at first glance it was a little silly. If they had an actual uniform besides their plugsuits, it would have made a useful accessory, but he couldn't imagine another use for it. But, underneath the strictly practical, it was important. Something similar had been done upon completing his basic and advanced training, and he even then had recognized it as a kind of rite of passage. He hoped they understood it as well.

And least they had dropped the idea of having each hat match their Eva's color scheme. Blue and white like Eva-00 or -03 wouldn't be bad, or green and gold like Eva-06. But red and yellow was simply eyewatering, and purple and green didn't bear thinking on. Instead, they had gotten a practical, solid black hat with their name across the back above the adjustment strap in silver, and in front a Nerv leaf with their Eva model name above and the Nerv motto below, also in silver.

"Ha ha," Kensuke sourly replied over his shoulder. "My traitorous -former- friend here forgot to mention he didn't do any better."

"Eh, not my kind of game," Toji shrugged without concern. "I made up
for it on the racer. Which reminds me, you can't shift gears to save your life, Roberts."

“That would be because back home we use CVTs, like sane people. Hold the tach in the power band and let the computer do the work.”

“Real men do it by hand,” Suzuhara rejoined smugly, causing several nearby participants to snort explosively for some reason.

“Real men use anything which works!” Roberts snapped back, to peals of laughter from Mana and Nami. “And -what- is so funny?!”

“Repeat that, and think about it for a minute,” the guard suggested. Sousuke gave a quizzical look as the two facepalmed in unison, the partially assembled grill stand before them temporarily forgotten. He hadn't seen a problem with what they said...

"Is this a party or not?!" Aida demanded, attempting to come to the rescue as he addressed the frustrated pilots in charge of assembling the grill. "Let's get moving!"

"If you wish this grill assembled at some point tonight, then get over here and help," Nami snapped at the would-be foreman. "What language were these instructions translated from, Kurdish!?" she groaned, repeating for their edification the phrase 'Please inserting to be orifice, Tab B and rotate vigorously.'

Asuka marched with over with Hikari in tow, snatching a set of pages from Kensuke's hand after a quick look, aborting their attempt to compare the Japanese copy of the plans against the Mandarin in hope of enlightenment. "You idiots! They mean the tab on the heater coil, not the rheostat!"

“If you actually look at the part, you would know there is -not- a 'tab B' on the coil!" Nami snarled back, her patience worn out from putzing with a five minute job for over half an hour.

"She's right, there isn't," Kensuke agreed, holding the part in question.

"Wait a minute..." the frustrated redhead trailed off. "Aida you...words -fail- me!" Asuka shrieked in outrage. "These aren't even the plans for this model! Where the hell did you buy this, a flea market? Are you sure you're not the Fourth Stooge?!”

"It's what came in the box!" Kensuke protested indignantly. He took the plans back and matched the labels up. "See, GE Model 183!"

Asuka leaned forward, peering into the boy's eyes for a long moment. "Which was manufactured in July of 2012," she stated in a flat, dangerous voice.

"I guess. The guy at the used appliances store said it was about three years old, so sure," Kensuke agreed, tilting his head quizzically. "Why?"

Asuka inhaled a slow, measured breath. "Because the instructions were printed in TWO THOUSAND EIGHT! You think there might've been a -few- design changes between those two dates?!" the irate German rattled the yellowed plans in the speechless boy's face.

As one might expect, things went downhill from there.


Nerv HQ
September 19, 2015
10:00AM Local Time

Misato's foot tapped to an unconscious beat as she waited in Cage 4 for her subordinates to arrive. Behind the professional mask her expression had become, the gears turned in the officer's mind concerning the latest developments. Finally, she nodded to herself and relaxed slightly.

One by one they trickled in, taking gratifyingly little time. All were in weekend wear of different kinds, excepting Rei's ever present uniform, which was entirely appropriate. Her instructions regarding a recall order had been simple, "Get here as fast as you can. If you're in the shower, grab a towel and come here in it."

"As you may have guessed, Skywatch has detected the latest Angel just inside lunar orbit," Misato began, silently thanking the gods this had been the case.

The assumption that the orbital radar and AT field detector arrays would be sufficient warning had been just one more casualty of the sixth, as yet codename-less, Angel's attack. She had already seen draft proposals for stepped up terrestrial monitoring, and suspected they were only the tip of the iceberg.

Misato frowned in annoyance. "Unfortunately, this one seems to be smarter than its predecessors. As of now, the Magi are giving a seventy percent chance of a touchdown outside Japan, most probably Central or South America based on its orbital path. Given we need to cover both HQ and the potential landing zone, we have no choice but to split our force. Since we still lack team assignments, this time, and -only- this time," she emphasized, sternly meeting the pilots' eyes in turn, "you're going to help me choose." Major Katsuragi nodded at their surprised expressions. "You heard correctly. Given the expedition will be operating without the level of support we enjoy here in Japan, our job will be that much more difficult. I completely understand if anyone would rather remain behind under the circumstances."

She waited a moment for further comment, and announced in a clear, carrying voice, "Anyone willing to accompany the expeditionary force, please raise your hand."

As though the scene had been choreographed, a cluster of hands instantly rose in unison. The Ops director nodded, apparently satisfied. Then, slowly, a predatory grin manifested itself like a shark rising from the deep.

"Excellent. Congratulations, Pilot Ikari, Pilot Fei. In honor of your being the -only- two people in the room with enough common sense not to volunteer for extra danger, you are hereby chosen. Grab a toothbrush and meet me here in twenty minutes."


Somewhere over the Pacific Ocean
4:00PM Tokyo Standard Time

Han's eye crept above the edge of Patrick O'Brian's 'The Far Side of the World' at the first snore.

The first few hours of the flight hadn't been bad. The pilot had been considerably less than thrilled to share his flight with a elderly superior that, he thought, was certain to be boring beyond words. Particularly given the alternative company available. He'd promised to be faithful, not blind after all. But, it turned out the old professor had a passable grasp of Mandarin, and a fund of funny stories from his teaching days to tell in it.

It made a decent consolation prize, Han had decided.

But ever since the Deputy Director had drifted off, as they'd gotten closer to the end of the journey, Han had more and more trouble keeping interest in a story that always hooked him no matter what. He felt possessed by a sort of jittery, nervous energy that had him wanting to pace the small cabin, run a systems check on Eva-06, anything to distract him for a few moments.

Making an irritated sound, the young soldier rummaged in his bag, emerging with the earplugs he'd brought just in case and quickly inserted them. That done, he resettled himself in the seat and tried to return to the world of His Majesty's Ship Surprise and her battle against Bonapartist tyranny.

----------

Shinji twitched at the tap on his shoulder, but didn't awaken. Misato didn't press the matter further. If the poor kid was wrung out enough to sleep without even a set of earplugs, it would be a crime to wake him just for conversation.

Blowing a breath between pursed lips, his commander leaned back in her seat. Around her their gigantic flying wing-style transport, appropriately nicknamed 'Atlas', sped towards their destination.

Amongst the other changes Second Impact had wrought, the downfall of the American manned space program was perhaps not so important. With its primary launch site in Florida inundated, and far more pressing needs closer to home, it had appeared that NASA's days were over.

And so they would have been, except in 2002 a young Boeing engineer made a startling realization. While their bat-winged 797 heavy lift/jumbo jet airliner prototype was unmarketable in its current state, with comparatively minor changes there was a role it -could- perform. As a mothership for launching satellite or spacecraft carrying rockets.

-Big- rockets.

Five years and many a dire prediction later, the first Atlas rolled off the Wichita, Kansas assembly line, as they continued to today.

Nerv's, or more accurately the UN's, examples were strange even by the standards of that odd breed. Eyebrows had certainly been raised when reinforced landing gear for rough field operations, afterburners, and fully encrypted satellite communications gear were mentioned on the requirements sheet! But the customer is always right...

"Major, the support aircraft got off on schedule. ETA on the Angel is unchanged," Lieutenant Hyuuga announced from behind the controls, as befitted Nerv's senior transport pilot. Lieutenant Aoba filled the same role in November Papa 402, carrying Eva-06.

Misato thanked him automatically, her mind occupied in mulling over the news. Though reassuring, the announcement wasn't unexpected. Twenty-two hours until the fun started.

Sweeping her gaze across the cabin again, her eyes stopped on Shinji's bookbag.

He won't mind, she rationalized, and deftly plucked the music player from the outside pocket. She hadn't seen an SDAT since she was a little girl, and couldn't imagine where her roommate had found it. Smiling slightly, his guardian fitted the earbuds in and pressed play.


Hutchins Naval Air Station
Panama Territory
September 20, 2015
10:00AM Local Time

Though the light show of the Angel's atmospheric entry was visible even in broad daylight, ironically those most intimately concerned with its consequences never saw it 'live'. Shut up in their entry plugs, systems on standby, the Eva pilots were blind to the outside world as their transports awakened within their hangars. Kozo Fuyutski was closeted with a succession of understandably rattled officials from nearby nations, soothing ruffled feathers as best he could. And Misato again rode the lead transport, watching the Angel's progress on her laptop.

"APU start," Makoto announced over the intercom.

Lieutenant Moriso, their copilot, confirmed the command, a low whine muffled by the intervening structure starting from the aircraft's tail.

"I show green for auxiliary power. Purging umbilical." Moriso's bass voice reported crisply.

A ground crewman dragged the heavy power cable away from the aircraft. Meanwhile, another team removed the wheel chocks preventing the craft from rolling on its small forest of landing gear. Finally the crew chief signaled all clear to Makoto.

//Joe Satriani “Overdriver”//

"Umbilical clear. Brakes set. Main engine start."

"Starting One and Eight," the copilot responded. Outside the craft, the keening wail of massive turbines spinning up reverberated through the open ended structure. Climbing towards an almost inaudibly high shriek, igniters sparked the mixture of air and jet fuel, instantly dropping their pitch to a bone-shaking bellow.

Makoto announced the next pair to start, to a further increase in noise, and the next. Misato was certain that her eardrums were about to meet in the middle of her head. She knew she should've snagged one of those big sound damping helmets when she had the chance!

"Three and Six." A moment later, "Four and Five. Confirm eight burning. We are clear to taxi."

The noise level dropped markedly once the aircraft left the giant echo chamber of its hangar. Misato sighed in heartfelt relief as she returned to her map display tracking the Angel's descent. Ignoring the various lurches and halts, she nodded to herself.

"So far, so good. An ocean splashdown seems to be a running theme for these guys. Fuyutski should be warning the Colombians we're coming, so right now it's hurry up and wait."

The plane lurched to a stop at the end of the runway, pausing for a final systems check. Misato approved, never mind the same check had been run hourly since dawn.

A brief announcement by Makoto preceded the obvious. The engines wound up from an idling snarl to a full-throated roar. Its exhaust nozzles dilating wide enough to swallow a small car, the craft surged forward under the thrust of eight of the largest jet engines ever built.

A sudden kick announced the pilot had lit the afterburners. Not in haste to be aloft, but a necessity to get an aircraft weighing as much as a decent sized warship airborne within a reasonable length of runway. The markers whipped by with ever increasing speed outside the windows, the thumps of the tires crossing the runway seams becoming more frequent by the second. A short hop followed by a bounding leap skyward announced they'd succeeded, the small window next to Misato granted a view of the remnants of Panama as they banked towards their destination.

If the rise in sea levels had one advantage, it was the erasure of one of the classic choke points of world commerce, the Panama Canal. Now better thought of as the Panama Strait, the entire area was wholly owned by the United Nations.

And makes up its major revenue stream, Misato added mentally. Below her were a small horde of large and small freighters plying the waters of the strait. A naval officer like Commander Mardukas would probably have a better grasp of the economics of the situation. Still, even a grunt like her could tell that a tiny cut of the cargo value of each of those ships in usage fees added up to serious coin in a hurry.

Feeling the plane level off, Misato unstrapped and allowed herself a glorious stretch, letting joints stiffened from hours waiting in her seat pop and snap. Much refreshed, the Major paused at the door to the cockpit to confer with Hyuuga, and then headed aft to the cargo bay. Within a void that could have comfortably held a small airliner, Eva-01 lay braced in a spider's web of restraints. Upon scaling the ladder to the entry plug socket, she picked up the ground crew phone latched behind a well-marked panel.

"Shinji, we're about fifty minutes out. How are you doing in there?" His look of utter betrayal when she announced his assignment had sapped much of Misato's satisfaction at finding a way to soften the blow for the others. Unfortunately, this was a case of Major Katsuragi's needs outweighing those of Misato herself.

"I'm fine," a subdued voice replied.

"Well if you need a stretch or bathroom break, now is your chance." Misato pointed out. Once they began their descent to terrain-following flight, keeping the local geography between them and their foe, moving around unrestrained would be an invitation to a concussion.

"It's ok, Misato," the boy insisted quietly.

Misato sighed at the resignation in his voice, and what saddened her was that she'd do it again. Ritsuko had been right all along, damn her. All things have a price. Shinji was a willing combatant now, but he was also more than just another subordinate. He deserved better than this. "No, it isn't. I could just as easily have brought Rei or Asuka for this, and we both know it." Silence answered her, but the truth was obvious. "Do you know why I didn't?" she pressed after a moment.

"No," he answered, recrimination in his voice.

"Because of him." She angled her head outside, knowing he couldn't see her, but somehow also knowing he'd understand anyway. "Rei and Asuka have been pilots since they could walk. It's been years since they were first closed up inside a giant metal tube and plugged into an experimental war machine. You, on the other hand, still remember what it's like to be scared every time you climb aboard. So I decided that if I was going to bring along someone to shepherd a new pilot, it would be one I trust to do the job right."

Misato waited for his reply, but as she was about to replace the handset, Shinji spoke two words that lifted the weight from her shoulders.

"I'll try."


Colombia
10:55AM Local Time

Han fidgeted nervously in the entry plug of Eva-06. Lt. Aoba's litany of time to drop and altitude corrections competed for his attention with the sickening lurches and leaps the terrain-following autopilot commanded the transport to make.

Stifling a soft groan and controlling his breathing as he'd been taught, Han pushed the nausea back into its corner and focused on his more important if less immediate problems. While the Evas were certified for air delivery, apparently no one realized that neither of the selected pilots had ever done an air drop for real. In fact, the -only- pilot to proof test the system was on the other side of the world. Somehow, it struck him as a bit late to call up Rei and ask for pointers.

"Coming up on initial point. Turning to final heading, reducing speed to two-zero-zero knots."

"Here we go. Shinji, you'd better be right." His fellow pilot had obviously been new to the whole pre-battle pep talk thing. But the central point, that even Ikari got so scared his hands shook on the controls, was reassuring all the same.

A few seconds later a glowing crack outlined each of the huge doors making up the floor of the bay appeared below him. As they popped out and slid sideways along the transport's belly, a series of ridge lines looming terrifyingly close before dropping vertiginously into the valleys between.

"Stand by for drop. Good luck, Eva-06."

Tightly acknowledging the message, he waited as the countdown clock ticked down the last few seconds. A muted bang announced the release of the restraints, and gravity took over.

----------

Two hours later, Shinji watched the Caribbean's waves lap against the beach far below him. It really was a pretty place, it was a shame they were going to make such a mess of it.

Around him rose the jungle shrouded foothills of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta Mountains. Like him ensconced behind one of them, Eva-06 was barely visible, both Evas sporting the add-on batteries that made the operation possible in the first place. Though granting only an additional fifteen minutes of operating time, laid like a trail of breadcrumbs they would allow the Evas to reach the airport where their transports waited.

"We've confirmed the Angel has steadied down on its final course. It will make landfall about three kilometers to your north. Move to point Charlie and set up, we're expecting company within the hour."

Acknowledging the message, he made an irritated noise and hoisted his rocket launcher. Shinji waited for Eva-06 to collect its rifle before setting off to their new position. The path they followed would have been impassible for anything much smaller or less agile than an Eva, but their twenty meter strides converted most of the obstacles into nuisances. Thus they were able to arrive with plenty of time to spare, for what good it did.

While a crew of bulldozers and combat engineers borrowed from the Colombian Army got to work digging, Shinji surveyed their new position.

He was less than pleased.

Though the Third Child lacked anything like the tactical training and experience of his commander or the other two veteran pilots, anyone could see that the floodplain they'd relocated to was much less suited to defense.

"Misato was right. You can never assume the enemy is stupid, just take advantage if it turns out he is." Speaking of his CO, it looked like the command post had finished relocating as well. She could've much more easily rigged a set of remote cameras to cover the new location, but Shinji appreciated the gesture.

"ETA on the target?" Han asked in a flat, tightly controlled voice.

"Soon. The Navy lost track in the shallows, but it was still heading this way." Obviously the work crews had gotten the news, the bulldozers were pulling out as fast as their treads could carry them across the marshy ground. A single beep and glowing red arrow announced his AT field detector was tracking a new source, bearing almost straight ahead.

//Tesla “Into the Now” _Into the Now_//

And there it was. A plume of water half the height of an Eva approached at a speed a jet boat could've been proud of. Shinji hefted his rocket launcher and waited, heart thumping in that familiar way. The Angel finally ran out of deep water and rose majestically from the waves, granting their first good look at the invader. Generally humanoid in shape, excepting the lack of a head, the Angel was so round shouldered it was almost hunchbacked. It also definitely possessed the best paint job to date by far, white and green. The red glow of its core, visible on its central chest, added an effect Shinji suspected would be creepy as hell in the dark.

"Wait for it..." Misato warned. The Angel was still far enough out it might successfully reach deep water if it retreated, and then they'd never catch it. "Let it commit a little more." A long pause as distance devouring strides brought it well past the water's edge, and then "Eva-06, open fire!"

Han did so with gusto. A swarm of its onboard hyper velocity missiles shrieked out six times faster than sound, followed by a stream of tungsten darts not much slower, reaching out for the invader. The results were horrific, chunks of Angel flesh -splashed- away from the impacts, the creature staggering under the onslaught as it turned to reply.

By pre-arranged plan, he ceased fire and cut his AT field, rolling out of the ditch a swarm of bulldozers, ably assisted by a series of demolition charges, had gouged for cover. The Angel returned fire, narrowly missing Eva-06 with an energy discharge that boiled the water standing in puddles around the field as it passed. Turning even further to keep Eva-06 in its sights, the Angel all but turned its back on Shinji.

"Steady..." Misato reminded him, the moment stretching out. "NOW! Take him!"

Eva-01 rose from its own shallow hole, sighted through the wafting steam, and fired in a single motion. Three M-26 rockets sped towards their target's unsuspecting back, the Angel barely beginning to realize the true danger. The fireballs masked the scene to a degree, but there was no hiding the severed upper chunk cartwheeling end over end before flopping unceremoniously to earth many meters away.

"Good shooting, Eva-01!"

"How can you tell?" the pilot responded, a little disgusted by the splatter-fest.

Misato chuckled, and turned her attention to the other pilot. "And excellent work from our bait as well."

"I try to please, ma'am," Han replied in turn, his voice betraying the barest hint of shakiness as his Eva picked itself up. What Misato's next remark would've been remained a mystery, preempted by the two masses of Angel tissue giving a great roiling shiver.

“...the hell?” she wasn't alone in wondering. A membrane of some sort had formed over the two lumps containing the majority of the Angel's mass. The seething beneath it quickly increased, the membrane actually stretching in places from the forces within it. Misato shook herself from watching the spectacle. Keying her microphone, the Major was about to order the pilots to open fire when the membranes ruptured.

Standing in place of the original were now two copies, perhaps three quarters the height, and by her eyeball judgment about half the mass. Both had a slimmer, sleeker look than the original, and coloration that had, oddly enough in this already surreal situation, changed to orange and cream for one and red and cream on the other.

The two pilots wasted no time in engaging once more, but the difference was night and day. The single angel had been slow, almost hesitant in its movements, nothing like the aggressiveness and precision its progeny displayed.

Shinji expended his last rocket on the nearest Angel and discarded the empty launch tube, drawing his pistols from their shoulder hardpoints. The Angel made no attempt to dodge, and the projectile plowed into its target head on, wreathing it in smoke and flame. Charging through the other side, the Angel was much the worse for wear, its left arm hung practically by a thread from the ruin of its shoulder. Before Misato's horrified eyes, the flesh knit and flowed like hot wax around the injury, sealing it and restoring function to the limb in a mere handful of seconds. Han was doing no better, his status display indicated he'd exhausted his missiles and his rifle was almost empty as well.

Her head snapped around to Aoba, manning the communications panel. "Call in the bombers, now!"

The lieutenant hurried to comply, the low, urgent tone at odds with the battle cacophony that had to be audible to the receiver.

Twenty kilometers away, a pair of French-built Super Entedard light bombers waited. Flying a lazy oval pattern out of sight of the battle, the dart-like aircraft abruptly turned and streaked towards the conflict.

Upon arriving above a point distinguished only by the symbol marking it on the pilots' displays, the two bombers nosed up, climbing at a precisely specified angle. The single fat green bomb fixed to each of their centerline bomb racks released in unison, continuing on a ballistic arc as the launching aircraft terminated the loop and scooted away at top speed.

Far below, the two Evas frantically trying to hold off their tormentors backpedaled furiously, their pistols' muzzle flashes strobing in rapid fire as they sought to disengage. The Angels were having none of it, pursuing the Evas with frightening speed.

"Major..." Hyuuga questioned. The displayed circles, estimated blast radii from the bombs homing on the Angel, still significantly overlapped the mechs' positions.

Misato swore venomously. "Both of you, get down, now!"

The Evas complied with a haste borne of desperation. Moments later, the sun was joined by two sisters in the sky.


5:00PM Local Time

"At least the Deputy Director is around when they ask about redrawing the map," Ritsuko teased over the satellite link.

Misato glowered sourly at the camera perched on the lid of her laptop. "Yeah, thanks for that." The craters left by the pair of N2 bombs had been impressive, but implying the national map of Colombia needed a redo was a little harsh. Though you wouldn't know it by the way those fishermen reacted. She'd -never- been so happy to be ignorant of Spanish.

"When are you going to resume the attack?" the doctor asked more seriously.

"Not yet. The last thing we need is to wake those bastards up before we're ready." The Angel halves, for convenience's sake designated Alpha and Beta, were content for the moment to repair the damage inflicted by the air strike. And they were going to finish much sooner than Misato would like. By Ritsuko's best estimate the Angels would be fully repaired within seven hours, far too little time to fly in reinforcements.

"Speaking of our friends, we've found something interesting."

"Oh?"

"Definitely. Here, I'm uploading a set of thermal images from the battle." Accepting download of the promised images, upon opening them Misato saw they each showed half of the angel, one from Eva-01's sensors and the other from Eva-06's. "This one of Beta is just after that rocket hit. Notice the increased temperature around the wound. Now, take a look at this one of Alpha, taken at exactly the same time."

The similarities were obvious. "So it's doing...what? Siphoning energy from each half to power faster repairs?"

"Most probably. Given how synchronous they act in other ways, I wouldn't be at all surprised."

Misato nodded to herself as she turned over the possibilities. "Thank you. You might have given me an idea."

"I can do one better. Here." Another download box popped up.

Again accepting the transfer, she opened the file and began scanning the contents. Consisting of a single plain text file, it began by listing known capabilities of the latest Angel, moved into basically the analysis she and Ritsuko had just performed, and..."Oh, Ritsuko. If you weren't too curvy for me I'd marry you," Misato breathed, all but rubbing her hands together in glee. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

Ritsuko chuckled indulgently. "Not I. Someone else will have to take that bullet."

Misato stuck out her tongue at the camera. "Who then?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you. Good luck, Major."

----------

A short walk brought Misato from her cubicle in the command van to their temporary camp. The Evas bore mute testimony to the nearness of disaster, their paint blistered, ablative coatings scorched and in places burned through. They now crouched behind a nearby rise, out of direct line of sight from the rapidly regenerating Angels.

Misato found her pilots seated in the shadows of their Evas, Shinji with his earbuds in and Han paging through his book. Both of them looked considerably better than they had a few hours ago. Han had excused himself once he'd reached the ground and hadn't been seen for almost ten minutes. Shinji's previous experience had let him deal with the aftereffects a little more gracefully, but no one handles an up close and personal encounter with an N2 blast 'well'.

If a case of the shakes is the worst either of them has at the end of this, I'll be turning cartwheels, Misato decided upon reaching them.

"Major," Han stood and greeted her once he noticed her approach, Shinji following suit.

"Dr. Akagi completed analysis of the data we've gathered so far. I suggest you get yourselves something hot to eat and sleep if you can, I'll want you at the command post in two hours."


11:30PM

Shinji waited impatiently inside Eva-01 as the last minutes ticked down. Misato's assurance aside, the guilt of letting her down had refused to abate even in the face of cold logic. Exhaling slowly, he took his hands off the control sticks to avoid an accident. All it would take was one nervous twitch...

The crew ferried in aboard the Leviathan that followed them from Tokyo-3 had worked wonders in the time available. Reapplying the ablative outer layer of their machine's protection, trucking in fresh battery packs, reloading weapons, the camp had been a veritable beehive as Misato's latest brainstorm was transformed into reality. During that time, he and Han reviewed a 3-d map of the area with the Major until they almost didn't need the cockpit displays. Ironically, they were planning to practically retrace their route in getting here, which should help in luring the Angels into better terrain.

Misato had called the basic principle a 'Parthian shot.' The idea was to attack in turns, like they had before, but with the important difference that they were only trying to keep the Angel following them into an area of their choosing. Then, and only then, would they turn the tables.

"I hope she's right again. It makes sense nothing good for the Angel's energy sharing could come from putting a bunch of solid rock between them, and maintaining their coordination will be a lot tougher in the mountains than a flat plain. But the past three months have been one long demo of Murphy's Law."

//Martin O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori "Halo Theme" _Halo OST_ //

The timer blinked down to zero, and Shinji's finger tightened around the trigger, sending a burst of 105mm sabot rounds howling into the night. In the false color image of the Eva's thermal imager, he traced the projectiles' fiery path.

The response was not slow in coming.

---------

Misato forced herself to radiate the calm confidence her staff needed to see, as she gazed through the low light scope at the unfolding battle.

But it was -so- hard.

Leaders lead, that was the core of her training. As an enlisted tanker so long ago, later a new minted lieutenant graduated from OCS, and later still as a captain teaching there, she knew that was the minimum a UN soldier could expect. Through the years she'd dozens of superior officers in action, some brilliant and some barely competent, but the defining feature of them all was that they ordered no risk they were unwilling to share.

And yet now, she couldn't. The best Misato could do was make a token gesture by moving her command post, and the knowledge of her helplessness bit deep. Right now the fate of the world hung not on her, but on the skill and courage of two battle-weary teenage boys.

Who, so far, were performing exactly as she hoped. Taking turns firing on the Angel halves, they forced them to follow or risk leaving an undefeated enemy to their rear. As the Evas withdrew along their respective routes, her worst fear, that the Angels would rush them, didn't seem to be coming true. Wisely, they appeared unwilling to get themselves in too deep too quickly.

"Well done, Eva-06! Move back another two hundred meters and do it again," she encouraged after a particularly well placed shot split the Beta's core down the middle. Even as she watched, the wound began to close, but if she wasn't mistaken... "Maya, how are we doing?"

"Regeneration rate is down eleven percent. It's working!" the technician excitedly confirmed.

Misato nodded, though the tech certainly couldn't see her from a console in Tokyo-3. "So far, so good, pilots, their regeneration is slowing. Eva-06, maintain course. Eva-01, enter the ravine at your four o'clock..."

----------

"...And continue suppressing fire. Draw Alpha in as far as you can."

That won't be hard, Shinji snorted to himself. His target had been -delighted- to follow him wherever he went, which didn't show spectacular judgment on its part.

Of course, this Angel didn't -need- much finesse. Every shot was like firing into raw dough, the wounds just flowed back together. The only clue he'd had any effect at all was about a metric ton of Angel matter splattered along the length of his retreat path as some of its mass was blasted completely away. 'One ton down, six hundred odd to go...' he thought with mingled nervousness and frustration.

Pausing to change clips in his rifle, Shinji imported the camera view covering the bend concealing him. He thanked whatever gods may be that this Angel was more like his first opponent than the latter two. The only reason this plan had any hope of working was this monster's lack of flight ability. The tight quarters minimized Alpha's agility advantage, while knowledge of the terrain and a string of ammunition dumps meant Shinji could control when and how he engaged. Misato had done her best to stack the deck as much in her pilots' favor as humanly possible, now it was up to them to make sure her effort wasn't in vain.

Leapfrogging backwards once more as Alpha charged up its primary weapons and blasted a chunk out of his cover, Eva-01 was about to reach the end of the line. Not too far to behind him was a relatively open, though forested, clearing that would greatly enhance the Angel's freedom of action. Unfortunately the Angel knew it as well as Shinji, and aggressively pressed forward to hasten their arrival.

Until, as it was gathering itself for a leap, it stopped. Some critical combination of damage, distance, and obstruction had finally been reached, and the link that bound the halves into a single whole was severed in the blink of an eye. Uncertainly, hesitantly, Alpha rose from its crouch as if dazed and took a single shuffled step back.

And another.

And another. Some instinct whispered to the boy warrior that this was no trick, the signs were too clear, too well meshed, to be a deception.

And so even as his commander began to give the order, Eva-01 sprang to the attack. Emptying his rifle into the foe, Shinji then filled his hands with a progressive knife and a pistol. Using the one to blast gaping holes in the bewildered angel and tie up whatever local resources it had on hand, the other readied the killing blow. Angling the prog knife in an underhand stab, he zig-zaged as he closed, a trick learned from Asuka the hard way. Sideslipping a last desperate blast from the Angel's beam cannon, the knife went home, and the world went white.

----------

"****Ev*****repeat****" the static hissed in and out as electromagnetic interference from the self-destructing Angel blanketed the spectrum. Han had salvoed his remaining HVMs into the Angel's core at the climax of his comrade's knife charge, the simultaneous destruction of the two cores seeming to have been the trigger for the suicidal act. Shinji was becoming a little too fond of that tactic for Misato's liking, she'd have to reinforce the virtues of ranged combat at some point. After dealing with an R&D section crestfallen from finding out that samples would be extremely skimpy from this expedition.

"****come in***jor Katsuragi." the static finally cleared as enough debris settled for a communication laser to get through to the satellites overhead.

"Katsuragi here," Misato breathed a sigh of relief. "Status report, please."

"Eva-01, moderate to major armor damage, nothing internal. I'm mobile."

"Eva-06, moderate external, and I lost a chunk from my left arm."

"Ok, we'll get that patched before we leave," she answered over the outburst of cheers from the onlookers. Shaking her head in wonder, she continued "I'm not sure I believe it, but I think we finally had an op go according to plan."


Tokyo-3 geofront
September 21, 2015
2:30AM Local Time

Nami tiptoed down the hall of the pilot's dormitory, ever aware of the paper-thin walls separating the rooms from the hall she traveled. Technically, there was no reason she couldn't be out right now. But while she believed asking forgiveness was easier than asking permission, it was easier still not to need forgiveness in the first place.

Arriving at her destination, she paused a moment. It had only been a few minutes since she had been awakened by the unmistakable sounds of someone entering the room in front of her. He was -probably- still awake, but...

Nami gave several rapid, quiet taps at the door. Cocking an ear, she waited. No response.

Taptaptaptaptap. Nothing.

Just as she was about to give up until morning, a creak of bedsprings and shuffling noises came from behind the door. The latch clicked, the door opening soundlessly to reveal the room's dim interior.

If a handsome vision had been what Nami was expecting, she would've been sorely disappointed. Her boyfriend slouched against the doorframe in rumpled boxers and a t-shirt probably recycled from the dirty clothes pile, his hair standing in tufts. Reddened, squinting eyes threatened to slide closed at any moment, his expression promising swift vengeance on the perpetrator of his awakening.

It had to be said, he'd seen better days.

"Hey. Sorry to wake you, I thought you'd still be up," the diminutive pilot whispered.

Han's glower continued a few more seconds, softening as his brain began to catch up to current events. "I wasn't asleep yet, come in." He stifled a yawn and batted at the switch panel a few seconds before finally getting the lights on. Peering a little around him, she felt a spurt of guilt at the sight of the duffel bag dropped unceremoniously at the entrance, an arrow-straight trail of discarded clothing leading directly to the rumpled bed.

"No, no. I'll be quick. Since someone obviously had better things to do than come tell me he's back in town." Ignoring the groan threatening to break her annoyed girlfriend act, but she held firm to continue grimly, "And there's only -one- punishment that fits the crime."

As his expression slid into 'Are kidding me?!' territory, Nami took a step closer, locked onto her target, and sprang. "Can...ummph!" his protest was summarily cut off by the swift and through immobilization of his mouth. Relaxing into the warmth of his embrace as Han began to return the kiss, she glowed within at the knowledge he was safe once more. Standing on her tiptoes, arms wrapped around her partner's neck, she held it for a few more seconds before gently breaking away, her hands sliding down to a more reachable height on his chest.

"And don't let it happen again," she mock-warned him softly, a finger poking into his chest to drive the point home. Smiling at his startled but pleased look, she whispered,

"Welcome back."

[drakensis]

Good story, I shall recommend it.

[Vehrec]

You know, I could have sworn I reviewed this. It's a nice concept overall, but it's getting to the point where EVA rehashes and crossovers leave me unimpressed. And the extra crossovers are not entirely welcome. I don't hate them, but it's rather like opening your door to discover a relative you don't exactly like 100%. On the other hand, the characters are pretty good, and I like your choice in music.

[TabascoOne]

@drakensis
Thanks, I appreciate it.

@Vehrec
That's fair, I knew going in it wasn't the most original possible idea. One of the problems, I think, with working with a series as picked over as Eva is that it's so hard to do something new. Hence, why I went with a crossover I hadn't run into before. Of course, as you say, that has its own problems.

I'm glad the characters are working out, for my money that's just about the most important part of a story. At one point I had compiled a master list of all the songs I use. It made an awesome gym playlist.

[Mycroft]

Registered to say that I find the characters the best part of the story. It's a pleasure reading it - please continue!

[TabascoOne]

And now for the next bit.

Many thanks to everyone who responded, I worry the thread has turned into an echo chamber when nobody says anything for a while. We'll just pass over whether that sounds needy or not, and begin.

-------------

A solitary sunbeam peeked through the curtains shielding the room against the outside glare. Traveling slowly across the floor, it illuminated first a sheaf of stapled papers bearing a distinctive letterhead, before arriving in turn at an overturned plate surrounded by a small scattering of crumbs, a drained and discarded can of bargain basement beer, and a crumpled black miniskirt. Moment by moment, it crept closer to the object at the center of the debris field.

Inching up the mound of blue plaid bedding, the beam eventually came to rest on the bridge of a delicate, familiar nose. A second passed, and said feature wrinkled, twitching away in subconscious reflex. The beam wandered on, at the mercy of the law of refraction and...

SCREEE!

The lump twitched spasmodically at the raucous intrusion. A moment passed, and silence returned to the dwelling. A slight movement might have indicated a sigh of relaxation.

SCREEE!

The outright spasm in response was accompanied by an eyelid becoming visible in the gap beneath the edge of the blanket. It slowly ratcheted open to reveal a gleaming, bloodshot brown eye that swiveled to find the digital clock balanced precariously on a tiny empty corner of the desk against one wall.

SCREEE!

The eyelid barely quivered at the renewed onslaught, only an indistinct mutter greeting the noise. Sounds of shifting and rustling came from the lump. Another burst of the racket finally prompted constructive action.

“Goddammit all,” Misato Katsuragi growled, throwing the blanket aside in a single convulsive heave.


Chapter 7- Moving On

I am who I choose to be. I always have been what I chose...though not always what I pleased.
—Miles Naismith Vorkosigan, _Memory_, by Lois McMaster Bujold


Tokyo-3
September 23, 2015
6:00 AM Local Time

“Ok, up a little. Little more...hold it right there.” A moment later the accursed noise resonated through the apartment as Misato stepped through the open front door.

The apartment next door to hers, like all but one of the others on this floor and the one below, had been vacant for some time in spite of the complex's good location and relative newness. While the major wasn't privy to the details, the hand of Section Two was obviously at work in this. This was soon to change, by the end of the day the local population would double. As would her workload, no doubt.

The front entry was filled with shoes of various types and sizes scattered across the linoleum flooring. Careful to step over them, her stocking feet padded quietly down the hall to the corner, drawing closer to the sound of entirely too much energy for this early in the morning.

She rounded the corner to find her charges busy cleaning up the remains of the previous night. The...get together for lack of a better word, calling it a party would imply a degree of planning, had run much longer than anyone had intended. By the time anyone noticed the hour, it was well past midnight and no one had been enthusiastic about returning to the geofront dormitory.

Instead, Nami Lin had suggested they just make the current arrangement permanent, since they were moving in the next day anyway. The obvious merit of the idea was quickly realized, and an expedition organized to descend upon the nearest convenience store for essentials. The rest had set about improvising bedding for everyone, and Misato had left matters in Kirishima and Sagara's hands.

“Morning, ma'am...” Tessa trailed off, seeing the evident displeasure on her superior's face.

“Good morning. Wh-” she began before the sound resumed, now obviously coming from the bathroom. “Never mind, carry on,” she bade the group as she strode towards the source of her irritation.

----------

Mana Kirishima pressed firmly on the electric drill as the bit stubbornly chewed through the tile covering the tub area. In between the ear splitting screeches emanating from the device, she heard the sounds of the others readying the apartment for the movers due to arrive in an hour.

“Ok, that should do it,” she decided, wiping the freshly drilled hole with a damp rag. “Hand me the cover plate and Phillips head,” she directed, tucking the rag in the back pocket of her khaki shorts.

Sam placed the desired hardware into her waiting hand. “How did you get into this anyway?” he asked.

“What, Roberts? Odd interest for a girl?” she asked archly, placing the drill bit in her teeth before clamping the screwdriver bit into the chuck.

“Odd for a sailor. Or at least one who isn't a mechanic,” Sam admitted.

“You'd be surprised,” the petty officer admonished, the bit describing a neat arc as she spoke around it. “But anyway, I share an apartment on shore with a chief petty officer over on the Imperious. She's big into this kind of stuff, and everyone needs a hobby,” Mana shrugged.

Sam returned a quizzical look as she worked. “A what?”

Mana grinned back as she reloaded the drill bit for the next set of holes. “I know, right? Navy ranks make no sense. It's kind of like a company sergeant in the army.”

“I see. Ready for the next set?”

“No,” a new voice answered from the doorway. Its owner leaned against the door frame, arms crossed under her breasts and a strongly disapproving frown on her face. “I'm all for initiative in my subordinates, but there are limits.”

“Ah...good morning, ma'am,” the suddenly unsettled girl began. Her superior had changed into her duty outfit before coming over, maybe that was a good sign...“Did we wake you?”

“Yes, but that's the least of your problems. What you should be telling me is why you're drilling holes in a perfectly good wall that none of us actually own.”

Showtime. Now to see if asking forgiveness really was easier...“There isn't very much to say, Major. After we were over here yesterday, I started thinking. With Testarossa, Soryu-Langley, and Lin all living here, three girls plus one bathroom is asking for trouble. It's not too bad, since the bath is split off so one person can use the tub while another uses the sink, but adding a shower curtain and a bracket for a sprayer would still let them cycle through a little faster.”

Misato nodded agreement at the end of the justification. “In the future, I'll expect to be warned before you start any home improvement projects. Remember, we only lease these places from Nerv, and everything is in -my- name.”

“Yes ma'am, of course,” they agreed readily.

“Good. I'll be in the office for the morning, but you have my direct line,” she paused until they confirmed they did, “and if I'm away just page me. I should be back by 1:00, until then Sgt. Jun-kyu is in charge. Any questions?”

Confirming there were none, the pair shared a glance as she left. “See, told you so,” the girl chided her co-conspirator. “Now let's get the bar mounted and see if everything works.”


10:00 AM

“No.”

Tessa looked up from unwrapping a small stack of framed pictures at hearing the flat denial. Nami stood in the doorway to the hall, holding one of the brightly embroidered pillows they bought yesterday. Facing her was their other roommate, a moderately large box on the floor at her feet.

“I don't think you understood me. I said...”

“And I heard.” The diminutive Chinese girl turned to her, her long ponytail swishing as it rubbed against its owner's white tank top and dark green cargo pants as she moved. While ignoring the flash of outrage at being preempted flickering across her adversary's already disapproving expression, she asked, “Did I say that correctly? I mean to clearly refuse.”

“That's what 'no' means,” Tessa admitted, unsure what exactly she had just stumbled into.

“Oh very good, I was afraid I was not clear.” Nami turned back to the doorway. “Then I fail to see what is the problem,” she continued ungrammatically though emphatically.

The flames of anger licked higher in Asuka's eyes, but she replied almost casually, “I have the most stuff. This is the biggest room. That is the problem.”

“Oh, I see. That is a problem,” Nami agreed equitably. “But not my problem.”

This looked like a good time to step in. “Nami, that's going too far.” Tessa lay the photos aside and joined the pair. “We shouldn't...”

“Shouldn't what? Refuse to let the...the princess here have her way?” she shook her head in quick, decisive denial. “No. Until Major Katsuragi says different, we stay.”

“Still, we can...”

“Apparently you forgot that -I'm- one of the team leaders.” The tone of Asuka's reply might have cut steel with the emotional heat it contained. “That means that what I say goes!”

That did it.

Sweet reason went right out the window. Without consciously considering it, the ash blonde strode two steps stand beside her roommate. “I was about to suggest you and one of us split this room, but we can forget about that -right- now,” she snapped, forestalling Nami's impending explosion. “Instead, you are going to take that box, put it in the second bedroom, and follow it with the rest.” Gray eyes met blue unflinchingly. “Or else we'll see just how long you keep that title when Katsuragi finds out how you've been using it.”

An angry breath hissed between Asuka's teeth clenched in fury, looking for a moment as if she was readying a scathing response. It never came, perhaps the explicit reminder being enough to avert further escalation. After a small eternity, she grabbed the box off the floor and stormed across the apartment. Once she was out of earshot, Nami spoke in a low voice. “I thought you were supposed to be the reasonable one.”

Tessa released the breath she was holding. Turning back inside the room, she muttered, “Don't remind me. I think I just used up an entire week's worth of stupid.”


12:14 PM

"Last batch," a voice gasped.

Shinji looked up from hooking up the TV to see Han Fei stagger in, weighted down with a stack of three large boxes.

"I am going to kill Nami for this. 'Oh, those are just some shirts and a comforter,'" the exhausted pilot mimicked in a falsetto voice, unceremoniously dumping his burden on the floor of the living room. "If so, somebody should check their lead content!" he opined, returning to his new home next door to begin his own unpacking.

Shinji quirked a small grin at the foreigner's antics, turning back to hooking up the entertainment system. Rooming and team assignments had finally come through after yesterday's Nerv visit. To Shinji's relief, he was continuing to stay with Misato, but with some changes. One of which he made before coming over here to help.

Try as they might, there just wasn't any way to shoehorn two people's worth of stuff into Misato's spare room. Judging by the 200V power outlets and plumbing hookups, the building architects had probably intended it as a laundry room. And that's what it might have been, had she ever bothered to buy a washer and dryer. Unsurprisingly, it was totally unsuited to its new role.

Not that they had been unwilling to try.

---/

"Ok, back it up." Sam finally conceded their latest failure to fit one of the bunk bed's support frames into the cramped space. "So much for that idea."

"Should we disassemble some of the parts?" Han suggested.

"We would still hit that damned built in shelf when we put them back. Even so, we have to get the dresser in there too."

Han grunted frustrated understanding. "...What if we leave the bed and just try to move that in?" he suggested after a moment, pointing at the dresser. "That will at least tell us how much room we are truly working with." Sam nodded, and the two began shuffling the newly purchased furniture in.

The front door's distinctive whir distracted Shinji from the latest stage of the drama. Yan Jun-kyu, having returned with another load of boxes for Shinji to sort. Leaning on the two wheel dolly while resting a booted foot on the axle, he studied the proceedings.

"Still no luck?" asked the sergeant, his BDU pants and tan t-shirt damp from the morning's labors.

Shinji shook his head.

"I was afraid of that." Yan's usual good humored expression creased into a thoughtful frown. "I'd be willing to take them, but we're in even worse shape. With our extra gear, all three of us are bunking together as it is."

The young pilot frowned at the box in his hands. He -really- hadn't wanted to do this, but... "We'll work something out," he assured the marine.

Shinji pointed the him at the stack earmarked for the girl's apartment, and picked his way through to the conflict zone. "How is it going?"

"We have decided we can have either the dresser and sleep on it, or the bed and store our clothes under it," Han reported without humor. That was probably optimistic, to be honest. With the rest of two people's worth belongings crammed in, it would take a gymnast to navigate the remaining space.

"You can use my room, I'll move in here."

Sam's eyebrows rose at the unexpected offer. "Are you sure? I mean we're grateful, but we would hate to evict you."

Shinji shrugged. "I'll be fine. I can fit everything in here, and you can't.”

---/

What choice had there been?

The last connector for the cable box plugged into the back of the TV, and a quick press of the power button confirmed the pilot hadn't done anything wrong enough to cause unexpected fireworks. A little channel surfing brought an old sitcom on the screen.

"Lunch is here! And for heaven's sake find something else to watch," Yan scolded him from the small counter where he deposited the takeout.

"I thought this was your one of your favorite shows?" Shinji looked back at him while fiddling with the left speaker.

"And look how I turned out," the Korean sergeant agreed, grinning at the skeptical teenager.

Shinji still looked unconvinced when the official residents of the apartment arrived.

"Hmm. What have we got?" Nami peered hopefully into the paper bags, Tessa and Asuka following behind.

Yan removed the bag from under the inquisitive pilots' noses. "Be patient and you can find out. Do we have any drinks?" he asked Shinji.

"Um...if there aren't any in the fridge, then no," the pilot answered after a moment's thought.

"We can raid Misato's," the resident redhead suggested practically. "There has to be something besides beer stashed -somewhere-."

"Probably so," the marine agreed. "See if you can find some. Shinji, go help her, and tell the boys to knock off for a while."

----------

The elevator doors were wholly undeserving of such a display of nonverbal firepower. Life went on, and Misato's was no exception. In addition to the routine paper pushing that came with her current job, she had commitments to the UN as well, which swallowed even more of her time. Such as the requirement for annual physicals and performance qualifications. The disgruntled Major had managed to escape the doctors' clutches thus far by pleading overwork, but that excuse had finally run out of steam.

To be fair, Dr. Leming was as professional and competent a physician as anyone could ask for. But, she shared a regrettable tendency with most of her profession, giving her patients the unvarnished truth whether they wanted it or not.

"Well, Major, the news is -mostly- good," the doctor had begun. "Your blood pressure is 109/68, which is excellent, and your blood lipid and chemistry panels are clean across the board," she paused to turn the page on her clipboard, letting the moment linger before letting the other shoe drop. "I notice you've picked up a couple kilos since last year." Unconcerned with Misato's flinch, she continued. "And your liver enzymes -are- at the high end of normal." The doctor's dusky features set themselves in stern reproach, while narrowed dark eyes regarded her wayward patient. "I'll give you the short version. You're thirty, and more to the point you are not a kid anymore. Going out late on weekends, eating what you want, missing sleep, you can get away with all that when you're twenty, but at this point..."

The doctor had gone on in the same vein, and Misato now had a set of pamphlets detailing helpful hints on changing her lifestyle stuffed in one pocket of her uniform jacket.

"Tell me we'll live out the year, and then we can talk about cutting back on my saturated fats," the ops director snorted, ceasing her attempt to burn holes in the the steel doors with her gaze alone. The elevator dinged to announce its arrival, and she strode towards her apartment with residual annoyance still marring her expression.

She was pleased to see the enormous pile of boxes the shipping company left behind had shrunk markedly since this morning. The movers had apparently dumped all the pilots' belongings into a single shipping container and brought it over in one go, which meant someone had to sort the mess before anything could return to its rightful owners.

"Hello! Anyone here?" she called on entering.

"Back here, ma'am!" a heavily accented male voice responded. Following the staccato clicks of a socket wrench further into her home brought her to its newest arrivals. Han was holding a bed rail steady while his comrade twirled the tool, quickly tightening the bolt home.

"Coming along nicely, I see," Misato complimented them. A pyramidal stack of boxes beside the desk indicated they'd successfully found their share, and the bunk bed's frame was mostly complete. The pair were currently bolting on the upper rails, and the mattress supports were already assembled and ready for installation. "I'm surprised Shinji was willing to take on a roommate though."

"Actually, he traded us, ma'am," Sam corrected uncomfortably, knowing how the situation could look. "He said since we could not fit, and he could, it was for the best.”

That was unfortunate. Not because Misato expected a different result, she engineered it after all, but because she dislocated someone whom she had come to care about more than was probably wise... "Good enough. Is he next door now?"

"Yes, ma'am. He is helping the girls set up," the blond pilot agreed. "They..."

The sound of the front door opening interrupted him, a pair of familiar voices coming from the front hall. "You get the drinks, I'll get the dorks," the female voice commanded.

"I thought that was your job, and there's half a dozen bottles here," an annoyed male voice argued.

"Deal with it!"

The other two boys traded a speaking look before turning to face the door as the last speaker arrived to collect them.

"Come on, Jun-kyu brought lunch and then you're going to help. We've still got half the boxes to go in there!" Asuka informed them in the tone of an empress directing her vassals.

"That's hardly their fault," Misato lightly commented from her position beside the sliding door, completely missed by the single minded redhead.

"Gah!" the previously brash girl whipped around to face the unexpected speaker. "Are you trying give me a heart attack!" she gasped.

"Situational awareness, Asuka," her superior chided. Upon seeing the chagrined pilot flush in embarrassed understanding, she turned to the boys displaying carefully neutral expressions. "Let's see about helping Shinji out."

As the two boys followed the temporarily less vocal girl out of the room, Misato took a last look around her two new roommates' room before following behind. Shinji's relief at the arrival of reinforcements was worth a smile, and with the load he'd been grimly trying to jury rig into a manageable bundle safely redistributed, they decamped for next door.

As the pilots gratefully left off the chore of unpacking and reassembling their possessions, Misato surveyed her motley crew. Ritsuko's comment about forming herself a harem notwithstanding, placing the boys in with her was the surest way to keep an eye on them. Equally important, it would also give Shinji some company other than her and Penpen.

That said, the major was a realist. She knew full well that completely restraining the urges of a group of healthy, active, capable teenagers was akin to stopping the tide with a bucket. Not to mention she wasn't comfortable taking 'in loco parentis' to those lengths anyway. So long as no breaches of good order and discipline occurred, Misato was cheerfully willing turn a blind eye to the pilots' private lives. Heaven knew they deserved -something- in return for sacrificing their childhoods to be humanity's paladins.

“Ok, there were twelve spring rolls in this box when I handed it around, now there's one. Who cheated?” Not that they looked like anything of the sort at the moment...

“Someone tries to protest too much,” Nami suggested, grave nods of agreement accompanying her statement from Tessa and Sam.

“Covering the tracks. Clever, but we see past your tricks!” the blond agreed, pointing his chopsticks in firm accusation. “Unforgivable!”

Misato let the squabble run its course, Mana furiously denying any wrongdoing while her hecklers pressed the attack. She noticed Shinji sitting silently, picking through the store bought pickled vegetables and taking no part in the mayhem. She had toyed with giving him one of the battlegroups now forming up. But, as much as it pained her to admit it, putting Shinji in anything resembling a command position was an invitation to disaster, most experienced pilot or not. With the last two attacks conclusively demonstrating that the Angels were no longer content to walk into the deathtrap constructed for them known as Tokyo-3, long distance deployments were likely to be the rule rather than the exception from here on. That placed an even higher premium on everyone's leadership and planning abilities, and his simply weren't up to snuff.

Leaving her other veteran pilots. As different as two girls could be, and possessing all the vices of their undeniable virtues.

Rei was unflappable under pressure and consistently carried out her orders to the letter. And also distressingly unfamiliar with the concept of initiative. That was actually the larger of Misato's worries, it was much easier to rein in an over-aggressive leader than prod a more timid one into action. The major selected supporting pilots with that in mind, and hopefully Robert's and Lin's more assertive style would embolden Rei without overwhelming her. But in the end, it wasn't as nicely interlocking a team as Misato would like.

Asuka, meanwhile, took the ideal of the best defense being a good offense to heart. But because she was often a fire-eater in Misato's own image, there was a need to restrain her without provoking her. Her remaining three pilots were explicitly chosen with that in mind. Even better, Asuka and Shinji were neatly balanced as short range combatants by Fei and Testarossa for supporting fire.

She had Lt. Hyuuga planning a set of shakedown exercises to test her choices. But one of her ulterior motives in giving everyone a day off to move in was to see them in action under a small amount of stress while the three members of the guard detail observed their reactions.

“That's enough children,” she interrupted from her perch on the bar. “For the record, I took two. Rank has its privileges. But since you seem to have so much extra energy now, I think it's time to get back to work.”

----------

Later that night, after only a couple of the inevitable trips to the store to replace a forgotten something that seemed innocuous but turned out to be absolutely essential, work was at last complete. The apartments' new residents could finally spend their first night in their permanent homes.

With no school or testing scheduled the next day, Han and Sam elected to stay up. Ikari and Major Katsuragi had bidden them goodnight about an hour before, but neither felt particularly sleepy just yet, continuing to shoot the breeze for a while longer.

"...we moved to Shanghai when I was about eight. I liked it, there was always something new going on. Especially since the city was rebuilding at the same time. When we got there, several companies were just setting up for operations in Malaysia, so it made a convenient base."

Sam nodded, taking a sip from his glass of juice. "OKC was supposed to be like that after Impact, according to Gramps. We were living in Denver at the time, and I was too little to remember anyway. Not so much from damage as all the refugees moving inland."

Han watched a bead of condensation slide down the glass, a small frown forming as the conversation lapsed into silence. Now that the initial rushing and scurrying from arriving in a new place, meeting new people, and moving into a new home was mostly complete, he finally had a chance to stop and think for the first time in over a week.

Looking back, it had already been quite a ride, and the 'fun' was just beginning. After all, his very first mission as an Eva pilot was included in that time as well. He had never had anything but respect for the first two pilots, their achievements spoke for themselves. But, when the transports were winging their way home from Colombia, Han had realized he hadn't really understood.

To look at them, the two Japanese pilots were probably the least prepossessing heroes imaginable. Rei was cute in a peculiar sort of way, but her blank indifference to anyone around her was offputting. Shinji was no better, a spindly, withdrawn boy who seemed to be giving puberty a miss for the time being. And unless he was missing something, there wasn't any sort of mystic, powerful chemistry at work between them to make the pair somehow greater than the sum of its parts.

But time after time, they had gone forth to fight monsters.

Maybe I still don't understand, the boy decided. In a way it was comforting, to know that it didn't take rock hard abs and a kung fu grip to save the world. It would just be nice to know what -was- needed. Emerging from his considerations, he noted Sam idly doodling in the condensation on the table, the mannerism reminding him of Nami for a fleeting instant. The memory brought with it a conversation they had shortly after Rei dropped off her borrowed Eva on returning from Russia, a time that shouldn't seem nearly so far away.

“I can't speak for you, but I think it is getting stuffy in here. How about we take some fresh air?” Han suggested.

“Sounds good.” The taller boy stood and hesitated, caught off guard that his companion made for the front door instead of the balcony. Shrugging, he followed, not bothering with shoes as they slid the door aside and stepped onto the cool concrete of the breezeway.

“Much better,” Han remarked as they began to walk. Realistically, there shouldn't be any monitoring equipment inside a Nerv officer's home, especially one as highly ranked as Major Katsuragi. That said, it didn't hurt anything to be careful, and it was a nice night. The pilot shrugged minutely. He wasn't a professional spy for heaven's sake. “I've been thinking,” he began.

“Too much of that is bad for your health,” Sam opined, quirking a small smile for the smaller joke.

“True, but so is too little,” Han rejoined, to a wince from his companion. Apparently that wasn't a charge he was unfamiliar with. Good to know. “What do you know about Ikari and Ayanami?”

“Besides what's in their files? Not much,” the blond answered cagily, eyes shifting over questioningly. “Why?”

What was the line? Moment for truth? Something like that, anyway. “Because, I...we I should say since Nami and I agree, don't think its accurate.”

“How so?”

Han's mental antennae quirked. There hadn't been nearly enough surprise in that answer. “His date of enrollment in the program doesn't match with the electronic datestamps on his files. The first is ten years ago, the second is from July this year.”

Sam frowned to himself, head cocked to one side as if straining to pick up a whisper.

“Problem?”

“No. Sorry, thought I heard something. How did you find out?”

“That would be a story in itself. In short, Nami was in the data center and managed to pull up the file directory on one of the terminals.”

The blond's jaw sagged. “Bullshit.”

Han shook his head.

“You honestly want me to believe that she walked into a secure area, got access to parts of the system none of us have ever seen, and left without anyone stopping her?!” Sam exclaimed incredulously. “Like we say at home, 'I was born at night, but not last night!'”

“She acquired access to the data center by befriending one of the typists who works there, and using a great deal more charm that I suspected her of being able to,” the Chinese pilot informed him with icy courtesy. The pair halted in the hallway. “She then found a pretext to use the terminal of another nearby clerk who she noticed left his station without logging off the network. Afterwards, she returned to her friend's station and spent the rest of her time there until she was called away for training.” Han continued in a tone that might have made a glacier shiver. “In summary, yes. That is exactly what I desire you to believe.”

The taller pilot frowned, meeting the implicit challenge in the stare accompanying the explanation. Silence stretched between them, but at last he nodded. “All right.” He resumed walking, Han following suit. “Though I think your girl is insane.”

Han chuckled, the tension of the moment dissipating. “I never disputed that. You do not sound very surprised, if you do not mind my saying so.”

“No,” Sam sighed, “not a total surprise. Though we wondered if someone was playing games with the numbers. Like if Ikari had been off duty for a long time before getting brought back in. But are you serious, they just tossed him into a plug and hoped for the best?!”

“Maybe not exactly, he could easily have been here a short time before being loaded into the system,” Han admitted.

“Not several months,” his roommate corrected. “Which is the minimum they would need if we are anything like normal.” He tapped a fist against the fire extinguisher case as they passed, the door giving an unsatisfying rattle. “And it makes no difference anyway. The other thing you were going to say is 'if they can screw him, they can screw us all', right?” he asked, unconsciously slipping into English.

Han nodded, the intent clear in spite of the foreign language. “I want to like Major Katsuragi, certainly I wish to trust her. But if she allowed this to happen...”

“Or ordered it,” Sam interjected grimly.

“Or ordered it,” the shorter boy agreed. “Then that becomes impossible.”

His statement was greeted by a snort of amused agreement.

The two boys rounded the last corner before their apartment, more informed and less happy than when they started. A metaphor for life, or just his...

The thought trailed off at seeing his roommate's frustrated gaze lock onto the entrance to the girl's apartment. In the first casual sweep of the scene it was easy to miss in the shadow cast from the ceiling lights, but a closer look showed the door was partially open. That was odd, he was sure it was closed when they left. As Sam turned back to him, Han's puzzled visage was met by the look of someone who just remembered he left his wallet in a car on its way to the crusher.

"Ohshitnotagain!" the American pivoted on one foot and bolted for the stairs, leaving his compatriot in rapidly dawning bewilderment. Han, being a sane creature, pressed the button for the elevator rather than tearing downstairs like a bat out of hell. He arrived at the ground floor only a few seconds behind the racing pilot, who had just hit the crash bars for the front doors at a good clip, skidding to a halt while scanning the street outside. Apparently finding what he was looking for, Sam set off at a fast jog, his shoulders slumped in relief as Han pushed the door open again. Perhaps fifty meters away, the cause of the panic finally became clear.

A female figure clad in an oversized white dress shirt padded slowly down the sidewalk, hair glowing silvery as she passed under a streetlight. The disheveled American jogged up, gently laying a hand on the girl's shoulder as he spoke too quietly to hear. Tessa seemed to respond, as Han neared the pair he caught the tail end of a mumble that judging by Sam's expression made no great sense to him either. With that, she simultaneously stepped forward and hugged him. The blond boy was regarding this development with mixed bemusement and confusion as his roommate trotted up.

“Hey, wake up,” he prompted, to no effect. “My feet hurt. I want to go home, let go.” No surprise there, after charging down that many flights of stairs barefoot. “Come on, please?” he pleaded, prodding her shoulder just above the collarbone with a finger.

Turning a quizzical look on the huggee, Han finally asked, "Right. What exactly is going on here?"

Sam rolled his eyes heavenward, accepting the inevitable. While trying to transfer the limpet-like girl into a piggyback position for transport home, he explained. "It was the first or second night of training, and I was sound asleep when some asshole with an assault rifle jerked me out of bed at about three am and started stuffing me underneath it. Meanwhile, three of his armed to the teeth friends were taking up positions in the hallway as the alert sirens started going off, just to make things more interesting." He indicated his payload with a jerk of his head as he continued, "It turns out Sleeping Beauty here sleepwalked out of her room, and it was almost forty minutes later they found her curled up in a simulator cockpit. Sound asleep no less, the sirens didn't even make her twitch," the annoyed pilot grumbled. "I could have wrung her neck. Anyway, she only did it that one night, I had almost forgotten until we saw the door left open."

Taking a few strides ahead to appear to be 'walking point', Han allowed the grin he'd valiantly suppressed through the explanation to show at last. The fact that Sam was even bothering to carry the now sleeping girl instead of continuing to try to wake her put the lie to most of the annoyance in his voice, never mind the spike of horror on his face as he realized what happened. “I see,” he responded, which was about the most he would trust himself to say. From behind him, muttered imprecations periodically floated on the still air, a few nearly breaking Han's stern resolve not to laugh and make his comrade's embarrassment complete.

“...handcuff you to the bed and to -hell- with what it looks like,” Sam mumbled as the trio passed through the street door. A short elevator ride brought them back to their floor, the beast of burden shifting uncomfortably as he tried to resettle Tessa's weight. Their rapid exit must have awakened Nami, since she was waiting on the doorstep, blinking owlishly in a blue nightgown with her long hair loose around her shoulders as they approached. Han put a finger to his lips as they entered her apartment and made their way to the bedroom the two girls shared. Once Sam had placed his burden back where she belonged and rearranged the covers, they exited quietly to the kitchen.

"-What- is..." the diminutive pilot began.

Sam pointed at Han. "That would be your cue, I've had -enough- fun for one day. Good night all," the tallest pilot interrupted, and made his way out.

Nami turned to him with an arched eyebrow. "This I've -got- to hear."

[TabascoOne]

September 24, 2015
8:30AM Local Time

His class, Sousuke decided, was a madhouse. His lips twisted into a frown as he watched his classmates cluster around whichever pilot they thought most likely to divulge a tidbit of information. The pilots were catching the worst of the hunger for inside news, but he and PO Kirishima had received a fair amount due to their known association with them.

The first three actions of what was increasingly, if unimaginatively, being called the Angel War had occurred in notoriously tight lipped Tokyo-3. Video footage did exist, but the tight control of data traffic in and out of the citadel made distribution problematic at best. The Dveskya incident really shouldn't count, Eva involvement or not, though no one seemed bothered by that. Only the vaguest rumors surrounded the affair, not surprising since it had deliberately taken place in an empty portion of the Russian steppe. And more importantly, the participants all had -very- good reason to keep the matter quiet. The immediately previous attack had taken place in the middle of the Pacific, within a carrier battlegroup which only recently arrived in Australia for repairs.

The end result was an information vacuum, and when an opportunity to fill it arose the chance had been taken with a vengeance.

News of the latest attack had been restricted to the upper levels of the various involved governments for as long as possible 'to avoid panic.' In spite of that, by the time the Angel streaked across the tropical sky precautionary plans to evacuate large portions of the South American Pacific and Caribbean coasts had been activated and mostly completed. Colombian air and naval forces had also secured an exclusion zone around the splashdown site, in spite of some wags' opinion that anyone -that- eager for a Darwin award should be encouraged, not impeded.

But, as always, it was the ground situation that was the most complex. The quarantined areas were in some of the most rugged country the nation had to offer, making it difficult bordering on impossible to flush out anyone who was truly determined to stay. Scores of professional and amateur camera (mostly) men had camped out on the ridge lines, and no one was surprised that the Colombian Army failed to evict them all.

The class knew from prior experience that pumping Ikari for information was a lost cause. But, with a new potential source available... Predictably, Aida had led the charge.

“Were there any new weapons?” asked the bespectacled inquisitor.

“Classified information.”

Unsuccessfully.

“What was it like to have the Angel splitting in two like that, did any of the others do anything like it?”

“Classified information,” the target deadpanned. The rest of the curious had formed a ring around the pair, leaving a clear space just large enough for the pilot and questioner to sit at two adjacent desks. Sousuke risked a glance at the remaining pilots, polling their responses. Ayanami did not appear to be paying attention to the affair, while Ikari looked more relieved than anything. The others seemed to be treating it as a game, looking on with varying degrees of amusement.

“Then why did Major Katsuragi have you separate the second time, was one of you supposed to break away and go help the other?”

The pilot returned the predictable response, this time his neutral tone beginning to hint of boredom.

Kensuke threw his hands in the air in frustration. “Fine, what flavor of soup did they give you!?”

This time a smirk broke through Han's reserve as he replied, “Classified information.”

Aida, nonplussed but still determined, wheedled "Oh come on! The videos are all over the net! All I'm asking is for you to give just a sliver, a -smidge- of commentary from your perspective as a Pilot. To explain to everyone who watched what was happening from the inside! Is that so much to ask?" he finished in a wounded voice.

That was a mistake.

The scrape of a chair being shoved back underlined the sudden quiet as everyone realized Aida had gone one step too far. The previous amusement at two acquaintances light-heartedly dueling fled from the demeanor of the pilots. Nami loomed over her desk, her chair pushed back as she began to rise to her full, though extremely modest, height. Sousuke reached into a pocket, preparing for the worst, when another voice harshly interjected.

"And show all your little freaky friends you have an inside source," Asuka snarled with breathtaking contempt in every word. "Can it, this falls under 'need to know.' Guess what, you don't!" Turning on the rest of the curiosity seekers, she added in a louder voice "And that goes for the rest of you! You want to know what happened? Fine! We won. There you go!"

Muttered protests met her proclamation, but the sight of the class president's disapproving glare caused the knot to finally begin to break up. Replacing the flashbang grenade in his pants pocket, Sousuke relaxed into his normal vigilance.

"Man, this sucks. I'm lucky enough to live here, in the middle of the action, but do I learn anything..." Aida grumbled louder than he probably intended.

Kirishima's eyes rolled heavenward. "Yeah, its a real shame they won't bust security regulations just to satisfy your hardware fetish, isn't it?" she snarkily agreed, causing a ripple of embarrassed laughter to sweep through the room.

The teacher bustled in the door, the familiar routine breaking the tension permanently as Horaki called the class to order.

And another day in the Tokyo-3 school system began.

----------

The school roof was well liked by many people, Kaname among them. It offered an excellent view of the surrounding area, especially given the small rise the school was situated on. It also was relatively private, which was convenient for a multitude of reasons. Finally, the lack of large buildings nearby gave it an unobstructed breeze.

Unfortunately, she was learning these were only a few of the location's attractions.

"From here we can be under continuous observation from any counter-sniper teams, and have a readily defensible position." Sousuke pointed to the three tallest buildings within about one kilometer of the school. "There, there, there. Any one of those places can look down into any other possible position. I would be particularly sure to take and hold the one to the east with a significant force, as it has a direct line of sight on our classroom," the solemn young man pronounced.

He Ikari's crew had been going on like this for several minutes, the morning's unpleasantness apparently put aside in favor of discussing mayhem. Kaname's patience, never generous to begin with, was wafer thin. It was all useless posturing as far as she was concerned. Excepting the occasional attack by gargantuan enemies from beyond the stars, Tokyo-3 was a peaceful place. There just wasn't any reason to plot firing arcs and try to predict possible ambush zones like it was some sort of Asian Mogadishu.

Brown eyes apparently intent on watching the sun's rays glimmer off the series of solar collectors towering above the mountains surrounding the city, the exasperated girl surreptitiously watched them. The contrast couldn't be more marked. Where Aida was animated, excitedly sketching on a notepad as he spoke rapid fire, Sagara watched and listened with an almost Ayanami-like detachment. It was downright unnatural. Kaname had thought from the beginning that there was a lot of history buried under the the teacher's antiseptic explanation that he had grown up in a 'conflict zone' when he first joined her class. But it had never been more evident. Certainly something unusual in his past allowed him to dispassionately discuss the merits of a given intersection as a choke point the way most boys would ponder a geometry assignment.

Turning away from her unpleasant musing, Kaname directed her attention to the rest of the roof's occupants. Suzuhara and Ikari had taken much the same approach Kaname had, leaving the military maniacs to their own devices while waiting for the rest of the regulars to arrive.

There was one new addition, though it was an open question just how Ayanami had been coaxed into joining them. Of course, she was seated against the rail a couple meters away, reading a book that contained entirely too many diagrams for Kaname's taste, but here she was nonetheless.

"What are you reading?" the schoolgirl asked. The pilot hadn't spoken since she arrived, but it didn't seem right to ignore her.

Rei replied without raising her gaze from the page. "Principles of Microbiology."

"O...k." That would explain why Kaname hadn't been sure it was in Japanese... "Sort of a hobby?"

"I find it interesting. It may be useful one day," the senior pilot added as an afterthought.

Now they were getting somewhere. "I see, do you want to be a doctor?"

This time Rei did look up, the tensed muscles of her jaw briefly outlined beneath the skin, before her expression smoothed. "Not in the least."

Or not. Kaname decided to call it a day.

----------

Tessa followed Nami up the stairs, holding the paper box containing a sweet roll and seaweed salad she just acquired from the cafeteria at considerable danger to life and limb from the packed crowd around the serving tables. The press surrounding the counter couldn't possibly have included the entire school population, but it certainly seemed that way. While the two had waited, they chatted briefly as the mood took them, and other times just people watched. Clearly, her roommate had been waiting for the opportune moment.

"You're joking. And it isn't funny."

"Oh no. It was a good thing the boys decided to stay up late, or else the Major would have gotten a call about ten minutes later asking if she knew where her Children were."

The blonde dropped her face into her free hand, the picture of abject embarrassment. "Please tell me you three are the only ones who know about this," her muffled voice pleaded.

"Well...so far."

A gray eye peeked past her fingers. "What does that mean?" she asked suspiciously.

Nami grinned. "Come on now! The possibilities for this are endless. And that doesn't even begin to cover how someone could rearrange things. 'Couldn't separate you from him with a prybar,' 'he threatened to handcuff you to the bed so he could get some sleep.' I can go on."

Tessa pursed her lips, her glare bouncing off her roommate's good cheer without even scuffing the paint. "Ice cream for your silence, mercenary?"

"You say that like you aren't one too. Done, but only if I get the orange sherbet this time."

That...was actually true from the right perspective. The actual wording on their contracts was 'civilian contractor' but that was semantics, nothing more. The legal fiction was needed because the minimum age of enlistment for the UN was sixteen, itself a policy that had netted them bad press in the past. If word got out they were recruiting even younger, the reaction would be catastrophic. “You realize that's the cheapest, nastiest flavor they have, right?” she rejoined.

The Chinese girl shrugged it off with an insouciant flair. “Lucky for you, I happen to be a cheap date. Just like the one you wish had come to get you, I hear,” she teased. Sobering, Nami continued, “They were worried last night.”

Tessa fought a renewed wave of embarrassment. As nice as it was to have trust proven justified, still... She nodded agreement to the request. “I know, I'll talk to them.”

Smiling slightly as she arrived at the roof, the pilot scanned the scene awaiting her. Kaname's 'help me' expression was priceless. Taking pity on the girl, the pair took a seat next to her. Rei looked up from her book momentarily at the new arrivals to acknowledge their greeting, before returning to her reading.

"Don't tell me they're still at it," the ash blonde nodded at the ongoing tactical seminar.

"Are you kidding? Those two have barely slowed down to eat. By now they've probably got plans for wiring the whole city to blow," the exasperated girl groaned. "I never thought I would meet someone even more nuts than Aida, but that's what I get for optimism."

Privately, Tessa was willing to admit Sagara probably -was- taking it a bit far, but perversely it only aided his cover. If everyone thought he was just another harmless weirdo, they were a lot less likely to notice the times he wasn't, after all. Or at least that's what she told herself, it was a lot more reassuring than the possibility the good corporal really was that far gone.

Shaking her head, she replied "He's had a rough time, from what I heard. It'll probably take longer than a couple months to get used to not waking up in the morning wondering if an IED or sniper will kill him before bedtime."

Her friend's expression tightened in chagrin at the reminder, but only for a moment. "Yeah, there is that. Anyway, I'm assuming you heard the latest news?"

"About?"

"The trip, of course! That's all half the class has been talking about all day!" Kaname exclaimed. "They've moved up the final sign in date, you need to pick partners and which tour you want by tomorrow morning. I know all the pilots will be grouped together, but if we all pick the same tour that won't matter much. I've got the brochure if you want to look," the girl offered as she rummaged in a skirt pocket.

Tessa frowned down at her inoffensive meal. "Oh. Don't worry about it, we're not going." Under other circumstances, she might've chuckled at the unthinking way the girl automatically assumed the newly formed cluster would stay together. As little as two weeks ago Kaname would've professed total indifference to her group assignment, and truth be known many of her classmates probably dreaded the 'opportunity' to share her company. Renowned as she was for a millimeter long fuse on a temper that even some of the faculty hesitated to tangle with, her more positive qualities tended to be overshadowed.

"WHAT?!" Kaname all but shrieked. The school roof, popular as it was, held several similar groups of students and was more than large enough to accommodate them with enough room for conversational privacy. Ordinarily.

The weight of the score or so pairs of eyes that immediately focused on her in the wake of her outburst lowered the volume of her response, but not much. "Why?"

"There is too much risk of an Angel showing up while we play tourist. So..." Nami spread her hands in summation.

The brown eyed girl looked upon them in silence for a moment, sympathy in her gaze. "Huh. I wondered, you know. Watching Ikari and Ayanami, I could guess it isn't like TV. You know, with vacation episodes in between the adventures.”

“And cute, useless sidekicks who always seem to save the day just when things look worst,” Tessa chuckled, remembering similar shows from her childhood. Her braid swung slightly as she shook her head. "It's not a bed of roses, but somebody has to do the job." She quirked a lopsided smile at her questioner. "Oh well. Dad always said if you can't take a joke, don't join the service."

----------

Sousuke spared a glance at the round of soft laughter from the three girls sitting nearby. It was a normal scene, superficially. A group of carefree teenagers enjoying a well earned break from classwork, its like could be found anywhere. And one completely outside his experience.

Kirishima's and Jun-kyu's suspicions aside, he was not 'socially tone deaf.' He was familiar with, and even enjoyed, the barracks room banter and camaraderie of his time in the UN forces. There were even friends in his previous units he remained in contact with, though they were few and far between.

It was just that the library of responses he had learned so well was completely inappropriate for his current assignment.

And the relearning could be going better.

---/

"Pilot Lin, what exactly are you doing?"

In response a small hand reached out, grabbed Sousuke's wrist, and tugged him behind the row of bleachers lining the school softball field.

"Taking a break," the girl had replied. That was fairly logical, the corporal decided. The classroom had been alive with rumors about the previous day's action against the latest invader, in spite of the Nerv expedition not even having returned from South America. Inevitably, the pilots had been a lightning rod for the excitement.

"If you believe privacy will be a problem, I can..."

"No!" she exclaimed in horror, something in his voice causing visions of daisy-chained riot gas canisters and mass casualties to dance before her eyes. "This will pass, it's not worth increasing hospital admissions. No matter how tempting that sounds right now," she continued in a darker tone.

"Very well." Reaching into a pocket, Sousuke produced a protein bar and proceeded to unwrap it, positioning himself to maximize his visual coverage of their position's approaches.

"Do you have another of those?" Nami asked after a moment.

"No, sorry. Here," he broke off the end he was holding and handed it across.

"Are you sure? That's not much to begin with."

Sousuke returned to his watch. "I've survived on less."

Shrugging, Nami took the proffered piece with thanks and leaned back on a bleacher support, contemplating her benefactor. Frowning while she took a bite from the bar, she took on a considering air while it valiantly tried to suck out her fillings.

"How long have you been a Marine?" she asked after swallowing.

"Nearly three years," Sousuke answered, gray eyes still focused outwards.

Nami's eyebrows rose. "And you're a corporal? Wow."

"I had prior experience."



Kandahar Province
Afghanistan
Four years ago

Snow glistened in the early dawn light. A randomly sized assortment of boulders scoured by the gusting wind littered the steeply sloped mountainside, patches of whiteness marking depressions in the barren land. A shadow moved behind one of the middle sized stones. Closer examination revealed a scrawny figure wrapped in a much patched, dust brown cloak clutching a battered AK-74 to his chest. Behind him, the rough laughter of his band of mujahadeen carried on the wind as they doused their fire and began covering the traces of their presence.

The boy suppressed a twitch as a large hairy hand descended on his shoulder with a thump. "So Kashim, you survived another night after all!" the owner softly chuckled.

"Yes, no thanks to your snoring. I'm sure anyone in the valley could have found us."

Rajif gave a good-natured laugh at the jibe. "God willing we'll survive the next. The Tiger wants to see you before you rack out."

Nodding, Kashim left his overwatch position and walked with automatic care through the rock field separating the position from the main encampment within a system of caves in the ridge nearby. The boy's gray eyes swept the ground and the ridgeline above in a ceaseless cycle as automatic as breathing, and learned nearly as young.

As an orphan from a young age, marked by his Japanese features, the boy's life should have been at best nasty, brutish, and short. So far, by a combination of more luck than anyone deserved and a full measure of ruthless skill, he'd beaten those odds.

A very large part of that luck was embodied in the man he going to see. After several years best left forgotten in the alleys of shantytowns and occasional larger city a much younger boy, his age lost and name a half-forgotten memory, had stolen one time too many. The men who apprehended him had taken a dim view of his evening's entertainment, and one of the souvenirs of their displeasure still decorated his face to this day. Dragged bleeding and dazed before their leader, he had expected at best the usual punishment for theft, amputation of one's hand.

He was sorely disappointed. The Tiger of Bakakshan, as his men called him, was a ruthless, dangerous man. Born with the name Hajid, he earned his nom de guerre during the last stages of the Soviet occupation. A veteran of the multi-sided scramble for power in the aftermath, the Tiger had gone underground once the Taliban became the clear victors. He reappeared when they too fell to the endless bouts of clan warfare that characterized Afghani politics, and now led a successful guerrilla campaign against both the remnants of the old regime, and the latest foreigners trying their hand at keeping the peace.

Fortunately, the guerrilla leader was also a compassionate man, when it suited his purposes. Deciding that justice had been satisfied by the previous treatment, the Tiger gave the miscreant a chance to make his transgressions right. Upon enlisting the boy newly renamed Kashim into his band, he had joined a few other children near his age, working mostly as couriers, scouts, and minefield clearing teams.

That was nearly six years ago. It had been a hard life, as the collection of scars he'd received since bore out. But it was a life, and that was more than he would've had under almost any other circumstances.

"Ah, Kashim," Hajid greeted warmly once the young fighter entered the small chamber branching off of the main space, used mainly as a planning area. It's sole furnishings consisted of a study metal table and an assortment of maps, as well as a functional though rarely used computer and satellite uplink. "Well done yesterday, you more than justified my confidence in you. Though of course I expected no less," he added admonishingly. They had arranged to ambush a rival band the previous night. The boy had led a small group of young sappers to lay boobytraps before baiting the enemy in. It had been his first independent command, and as neat a piece of work as anyone could ask for. "We recovered orders from one of the bodies, sending them further on to the border to join a force mobilizing there."

Kashim's neutral expression brightened at the obvious implications.

Hajid smiled nastily. "Exactly. But, I want you and Kalali to make sure. Move out tonight, I will expect your usual proficiency."

That had been the last Kashim had seen of them. That night, he and his companion had slipped out as planned and made a thorough reconnaissance of the area surrounding the enemy stronghold over the next two days. As promised, it was guarded by only a skeleton force.

At first light they returned, and found out why. His leader had been a tactician beyond compare, and his subordinates hardened in countless skirmishes. But against poison gas it had amounted to nothing. The few bloodstains marring the ground appeared to be executions of those inconsiderate enough not to die immediately. The corpses themselves had been unceremoniously piled in one of the side caves, before a dose of napalm made identifying individuals a job for a forensics team.

The pair were, so far as they knew, the only ones away.

The rest of that day was a haze. The child soldier vaguely recalled hitching a ride to Kandahar city, which must have taken until at least early evening, but in between was a frustrating blank. Much later, he found out his group had been caught in a sweep and clear operation, launched in cooperation with a Pakistani military enraged by constant border raids from groups like his.

It would've been easy to find another band of mujaheddin to join, perhaps one operating closer to the border where he might exact a measure of revenge. Kalali, ever the cynic, had chosen that road.

"Life has only three certainties," he quoted as they sat against a crumbling brick wall on the edge of town, building a fire to cook supper. "This, this, and this," the young warrior had continued, touching his rifle, his knife, and his heart. "Yaqueb knew his shit, what can I say. And we both know what he would do right now." Kalali leaned forward, meeting Kashim's eyes intently. "We can make them pay," the older boy declared in a hard voice. "There are a dozen bands, at least, we could join. They're always looking for help, and we've more experience than half these sheepfuckers already." His eyes gleamed with a predatory light Kashim knew was reflected in his own. "What do you say we put it to use?"

They agreed to survey the scene before making a decision. If nothing else, Kandahar was a logical place for other survivors to rendezvous, putting out feelers for them was a worthwhile, if probably hopeless, task. Kashim had cached his rifle and other gear and elected to check on Hamidallah first. An unassuming Afghani merchant who sold electronics, small appliances, and metalworking services, he had assisted the Tiger on previous occasions, and it was possible the shopkeeper had heard something through the grapevine and was willing to pass it along.

Turning down the crooked street leading to the small establishment, Kashim was quick to notice the crowd further along. In this city, that could only be one of two things: a fight, or...

The teen eeled his way through the crowd until he could get a good view, but his eyes only confirmed what his heart already knew. The series of bullet holes stitched across the door's lockplate, and the glass still scattered across, and embedded in, the cracked pavement told the tale.

Grimly turning away from the scene, a stony expression hiding any clue to his
inner despair, the boy noticed a bearded man standing nearby. Tall and well built, graying hair pulled back in a ponytail from his craggy, weatherbeaten face, he stood solemnly watching a small group of gunmen belonging to whoever controlled the neighborhood this week desultorily move the crowd along.

"It appears we have the same problem," the man observed in decent Farsi.

The boy turned to look at him out of the corner of his eye. "Why?"

"I intended to speak to him this morning, and you appear to need to speak to him even more urgently."

Kashim took the opportunity to update his initial impression. Blue eyes and an unmistakably European facial shape belied the tanned and grit roughened skin suggesting a middle aged native. This, combined with subtleties of stance and the momentary flashes of angularity visible through the cloak similar to, though in much better repair than, his own suggested a foreign peacekeeper maintaining a low profile.

"Not anymore," Kashim responded, suddenly missing the comforting weight of his rifle.

"Indeed," the man nodded, turning back to the damaged storefront. "Hamidallah was an honest man. He deserved better."

Curious in spite of himself, the boy asked "You knew him?"

"A little, not much. We did business." There was a slight emphasis on the last word that Kashim wasn't deaf to. "I imagine you came for the same business." The man's eyes hardened in the space of a blink, revealing the soldier beneath for the space of a heartbeat. "There's no need for that," the voice of iron commanded, all pretense of being an ordinary shopper sublimating away.

Kashim jumped, the hand he'd unconsciously clamped around the hilt of his knife springing open.

"Better. There's been more than enough murder done, here and elsewhere."

Kashim turned away. "And what of it?"

"Using chemical weapons for any purpose sets a dangerous precedent. I won't pretend to grieve for your comrades, but I do want to see that it doesn't happen again. Your presence here, now, means you know something. We would like to know it too, if you're willing to tell us." The soldier's eyes locked onto his own. "Neither I nor anyone will stop you if you walk away.” He paused, allowing his words to hang between them. “But, any chance you have of getting vengeance, real vengeance instead of just piling up bodies, will leave with you."

Kashim returned the gaze, turning the proposal over in his mind. His first impulse was to tell the old man to go to hell, and then march off to see how Kalali had fared.

But.

The chance of getting some of his own back, even at third hand, was powerful, powerful draw. And with the blood of his friends still fresh in his memory, he would make a deal with Shaitan himself if that's what it took.

And so, ever so slowly, he nodded.

"Then follow me."

---/

The Russian then-Major Kalinin had known exactly which buttons to push on the lost, grieving child soldier. Sousuke might have resented that, if he'd realized it at the time. But with the benefit of hindsight, he knew the foreign officer had probably saved the now-corporal's life.

He'd certainly given him a new one...

"Sagara?" a tentative voice inquired through the veil of memory. The gentle touch on his arm triggered reflexes in crisis mode from the trip into the past, only a last second override turned the bonecrushing grab and wristlock into a harmless, though firm grip.

"Yes, Pilot Lin?" he inquired without inflection.

The pilot slowly withdrew her hand, startled at the speed with which the marine had moved But also showing something else, a response that was becoming all too familiar during his time here. He had felt it in his own eyes, when looking upon the wolves of his birthplace.

The wary regard given to a predator.

"Sorry. You seemed far away for a moment." She stepped back, not taking her eyes from him. “I should go, hopefully the vultures have found something else to pick over.”

"Of course. It's not a problem," he agreed, as he led the way.


Nerv HQ
September 24, 2015
8:00PM Local Time

Asuka released as slow breath through pursed lips, her arms folded in a posture of restrained impatience while waiting for the show to start. The week thus far hadn't been anything to write home about, all things considered. Classes she could ace in her sleep, testing she'd -done- half asleep, roommates she could barely stand, the list went on. The German frowned. Quite impressive it was too, especially for a 14 year old. Irritating as they might be, she hat to grant the two girls occupying her apartment a modicum of respect for having the guts to tell her to shove it.

But all of those were annoyances, in the larger scheme of things. The real sting was something else entirely.

There was no longer any doubt, she had been replaced. Asuka had been the then Captain's top student, of course, two years ago during her stint in university. And while they had never quite been friends, there had been a relationship beyond mere teacher and student there. Of all the people outside Nerv, Asuka had felt most comfortable with the by turns coolly professional and cheerfully irreverent armor officer. And of all her tutors and professors, Misato was the only one whom the barely teenaged pilot had missed once she shook the dust of the outside world off her shoes and returned to Nerv.

Asuka's irritation lessened at the reminder of better days. Intriguing as the coursework for her biochemistry degree had been at times, the real meat of her education had been the officer candidate course then-Captain Katsuragi had overseen. The classes that delved into her true vocation, .

But that was then. The new favorite stood next to her by the back wall. She glanced over, registering with contemptuous disbelief the placid, shy demeanor he radiated as he watched the preparations on the surface projected on the main screen.

“No way,” Asuka thought, not for the first time since the two met face to face. “It has to be a scam. It's just not possible for someone that...wimpy to be the pilot who had faced the Angels head on and left them as twisted wreckage.” The slightly taller pilot felt a tingle go down her spine, and knew damned well it wasn't one of the good kind. Every combat instructor Asuka ever had, Misato included, said that killing at arm's reach was the hardest kind to do. The natural instinct was to try to place as much range between yourself and your target as possible, to use physical distance to create a psychological one. The video of the climaxes to the first two attacks had been eye opening enough at the time, but the more she considered, the more it looked like Ikari actually -preferred- to take his opponents at knife range. That much was fair, the redhead herself was prone to the same, though she liked a nice battleaxe. But what crystallized her realization was the after action review of the latest mission, specifically the part after the Angel's link dissolved. Under the same circumstances, Asuka would have attempted to systematically cripple the the Angel, then moved in and taking the core apart.

Not Shinji. He had actually dropped his rifle after shooting it dry and charged like some kind of modern day berserker, miraculously avoided getting fried by the Angel's particle beam, and stabbed it. Buried his knife to the hilt, in fact, none of which was the mark of a nervous, shy, withdrawn personality! The only two scenarios that made any sense at all were that either her fellow pilot was hiding something, or he was one step away from kicking off a chainsaw-wielding massacre through Central Dogma.

Discreetly checking the potential maniac's posture and expression every few seconds in hope of getting enough advance warning to matter, she turned towards the main display. What brought them here on a perfectly good weekend was Doctor Akagi having been intrigued enough by data delivered from Boston earlier in the month to order further investigation. It was best not to think that she -so- could be at Hikari's by now. Well, to be fair, the concept about to be tested did interest her professionally, almost as much as it did the Doctor eagerly awaiting results. By its very nature, the Eva's control systems were tailored to each pilot by a hardware abstraction layer unique to each of them. It could be thought of as similar to a driver program for a piece of computer hardware. And as expected from the analogy, a program for one pilot should be useless for another.

Yet in Boston's last simulator tests, involving using a pilot and gunner/sensor operator in the same plug, there had been traces of another signal underlying the primary pilot's, no matter which of the pair held that position. The team there had noted it, but dismissed it as noise, similar to when Ikari's two classmates had invaded his Eva during the Fourth Angel's, Shamshel's, attack.

Dr. Akagi disagreed, and did so convincingly enough to justify the cost of this test. Eva-03 now crouched at the start point, its fingertips brushing the ground as it waited like a sprinter in the starting blocks.

"I shouldn't be surprised someone would try this. Since the Amis only have one brain between them, it makes sense to stick them both in a cockpit to see what happens.”

"Were you speaking, Pilot Soryu?" That cool, toneless voice could only belong to one person.

"Not to you, First," Asuka growled, unaware she'd spoken aloud.

Nodding silently, the taciturn pilot returned to watching the main monitor, showing Eva-03 arriving on the surface.

"We'll run this just like before, Eva-03," their commander reminded them. "You have ninety seconds to complete the course. Scoring will be based on accuracy, number of hits taken, and time to completion. The course is -not- completed until all targets are destroyed. Begin at your discretion."

Two affirmative responses answered her. Asuka was just close enough to hear Misato whisper to the mousy lieutenant whose name the redhead hadn't yet bothered to learn. "Set it up for a two Eva team. This will either work or it won't, and I'd hate for them to get bored," the Major added with a wicked gleam in her eye.

A 90 second timer appeared in the upper right hand corner of the display, a green blinking tag below it announcing the parameters were accepted and set. The lieutenant nodded once to her superior, confirming the special part of her instructions.

Asuka grinned fiercely. Maybe she owed Misato an apology after all...

Without warning, the Eva darted forward towards the first checkpoint. This, as Asuka knew, was simply a warm-up involving a pistol and a series of pop-up targets. The machine skidded to a stop and snatched up the waiting weapon, smoothly pivoting to bring it to bear.

That was when the first of Misato's 'surprises' went into effect. In 'battlegroup' mode, it was expected that one Eva would be the shooter and the other would cover them.

"Oooh, penalty!" Asuka whispered, feeling a distinct wave of schadenfreude. A concealed target began spitting beams of coherent light at the unsuspecting Eva, a series of shots strobing harmlessly against the armor in the few seconds the astonished team needed to locate and silence the laser emitter. The next challenges involved the assault rifle and rocket launcher in much the same format. The now prepared Americans did significantly better on these tests, seeming to fall into a rhythm as they progressed.

"There we go," satisfaction tinged Ritsuko's observation. "There is definitely a second control signal present, and if anything it's amplifying the primary. -Very- interesting," she trailed off, absorbed in the display. Asuka agreed, spurious signals should be -degrading- the interface quality, not enhancing it. That was one of the purposes of using the plugsuits in the first place, to provide an electrically insulating barrier over the entire body.

The preliminaries taken care of, the real test was set to begin. The free fire zone was an extension of the previous stages, with automated targets and weapons platforms, but also incorporated additional elements. Candidates were given a loaded assault rifle and an objective to reach at the far end. How they went about getting there by navigating the obstacles, placed as both cover and hindrance, was entirely up to them. As before they would be graded based on hits taken and accuracy, but not time elapsed as long as they completed it within the overall exercise time limit.

Eva-03 arrived at the start position, grabbed the rifle on the move with over fifty seconds left on the clock, and entered the final stage at a dead run.

//Oakenfold "Ready, Steady, Go" _Bunkka_ //

All hell broke loose.

Unmanned aircraft the size of a conference table winged towards them in several detachments a dozen strong, looking like nothing so much as oversized moths converging on a lightbulb. Slung under their bellies were a pair of practice anti-tank missiles, even now eagerly seeking the coded emissions of their parent craft's guidance lasers.

"Multiple inbound contacts! Avenger to point defense mode!" someone, probably Testarossa but it was hard to tell by the sharp, strained voice, announced. The muzzle of the seven barreled Gatling gun poking just out of Eva-03's 'mouth' shifted slightly, reminding the watching pilot of a cat twitching its whiskers, and a pure hard flame shot forth. Spitting sixty 30mm rounds per second into the airspace ahead of them, the aptly named weapon created a spear of fire from its muzzle blast that wavered as it tracked the motion of the gunner's pupils. Absurdly flower-shaped explosions bloomed in the afternoon sky as the shells found their mark, but not, Asuka was impressed to see, from the missiles.

"Clever," Misato complemented the pair, echoing Asuka's grudging nod of approval. It would've been easy to fixate on the swarm of missiles advancing like a tidal wave. But the drones guiding them were much easier to hit, and there were only half as many.

Missiles deprived of their commands began to wander off course from the violently maneuvering Eva, the warhead-less projectiles disintegrating to shrapnel and flame on impact with the ground. It was a testament to their skill that only thirteen of the thirty-six drones survived until their missiles impacted, but Eva-03 still sustained eleven hits in spite of Robert's desperate footwork. Meanwhile, under cover of the aerial attack, concealed gun positions began unmasking and added their fire to the tempest. 105 mm fire from the assault rifle in the Eva's armor clad hands spat forth in staccato bursts even as the last of the dust and debris from the first wave hung in the still air.

As the intensity of the action outside ratcheted higher, so did the anticipation of those watching. The initial runs of the new pilots had been slightly stiff, the movements of their machines lacking the smoothness and surety the more experienced pilots possessed.

Not now. Eva-03 existed at the center of a whirlwind of destruction growing ever more intense as it advanced, spitting smoke and flame in two or sometimes three directions as one of its Maverick guided missiles was added to the maelstrom surrounding the embattled machine. It was, as Major Katsuragi was later to say, one of those rare, transcendent moments when you see someone really get down and kick ass.

With the Eva sweeping across the field in leaps from cover to cover, the intervals just long enough to erase another target, the end was soon in sight. Eva-03 had gone to ground, the last targets had unmasked, and the final cycle began when...

*click*

Disaster. Asuka didn't have to check the Eva's stores screen echoed in a secondary window to know its on-board weapons were empty, and with its rifle dry the situation was hopeless. The three remaining targets were fiendishly well positioned, any attempt to blitz them would be met with a withering crossfire, certain to exact a crippling toll on their score.

The counter spun down, perhaps a trio of seconds flitting by as the machine remained motionless. Suddenly, the Eva dropped its useless rifle, hesitated a moment, and made a suicidal leap directly into the firing arcs of the lasers already swiveling to track the soaring mech.

Which promptly failed to fire.

Stunned silence filled the command deck. On screen, Eva-03 recovered from the jump, and calmly jogged across the finish line to stop the clock.

It was the younger Ikari who was first to ask the obvious question.

"I don't know," Lt. Hyuuga replied in consternation. "The last guns read their targets as hit, but..." the flustered technician's explanation slithered to a halt as his commander took control of a remote camera and zoomed in on a supposedly destroyed target.

It was, unquestionably, an ex-target. Burned in half in fact, as though it had been the victim of a blowtorch-wielding giant.

Smiling as if her suspicions were confirmed, Misato nodded to herself and the mystification of the others, and keyed her microphone.

----------

"Well done, Pilots. You'll both be pleased to know you beat your own previous scores by a healthy margin," the Major's voice congratulated the teens. Her upbeat and apparently pleased tone continued as she remarked casually, "However, using your lidar array to burn down the last targets could be considered cheating.”

"I would respectfully submit that you never said we couldn't, ma'am," Tessa replied from the front seat while Sam muttered, fortunately on the intercom and not the general band, that it was equally unfair to give them more targets than they had bullets as he guided them back to the mag-lev stop.

"True enough," the amused Major granted. "Once you've changed there will be a debriefing in conference room four. Out."

Tessa released a great sigh of relief as the channel beeped closed. Sam echoed it wholeheartedly. The gunner stretched and looked over her shoulder at him, her usually business-like expression when aboard an Eva giving way to an impish grin at getting to turn the tables on their keepers, just this once.

"Good thinking back there. I was about to start throwing rocks," he admitted as they boarded the tram sled.

"That would've been my next idea," the ash blonde conceded with a chuckle. "I -never- thought I would be glad I took apart microwaves at a formative age instead of playing softball like everyone else."

Sam snerked, having heard the story she referred to. "You never did say what your dad told the landlord about the scorch mark on his garage wall."

"Marks, actually," she corrected, grimacing in embarrassment. "I think he wound up just repainting the whole garage..."


Nerv HQ
September 26, 2015
8:15 AM Local Time

Gendo Ikari strode unhurriedly through the lower levels of Central Dogma. Black uniform crisply laundered and razor creased, expression set in the distant, cool mask that was his trademark, the Director of Nerv had maintained the image of the icy taskmaster so well and so long that the vast majority of his subordinates could conceive of him no other way.

The woman he'd come to see was among the select few who knew better. Ritsuko Akagi sat hunched over in a swivel chair, intermittently paging through screenfuls of data. Intent on her work as always, she never noticed his approach until the light tickling sensation from the back of his hand brushing lightly down her neck interrupted her. A flicker of amusement at the Doctor's shiver at his touch crossed his well-controlled features as she turned in her chair to face him.

"Director," she greeted him cordially, always obedient to the forms while on duty.

"Doctor," he returned, for similar reasons. "I understand you have something for me?"

"I do," she agreed, enthusiasm creeping into her tone as she began to discuss a subject dear to her. "I've finished analysis of our last test run, and compared it against all the previous scenarios both simulated and live..."

Gendo followed the doctor's monologue as she brought up several windows on the larger screen making up the conference room's wall. Ordinarily, a printed summary delivered to him in his office would be more than satisfactory, however the chief scientist insisted the data needed to be displayed in a multimedia format. As a set of animated graphs twitched and updated on the master screen, the director was forced to admit Ritsuko may have been correct.

To Commander Mardukas and his maintenance teams in Logistics, the components central to the Eva's function, the neural interfaces and TAROS, more commonly called the core, the pilot interfaced with were essentially 'black boxes.' Input A produced Output B, and Power feed C required a voltage and amperage of X and Y respectively. The internal logic was completely unknown to them, nor did it need to be for them to do their jobs. Ritsuko, and her predecessors, knew better. As did Director Ikari, to the degree his less scientific background allowed him.

The neurohelmets worn by Eva pilots were little more than extraordinarily sensitive electroencephalograph sensors, connected wirelessly to a preprocessor that routed the data to the appropriate destination. So far, so good. Direct neural output was simple, people take EEGs all the time. The input side of the equation was...not.

The human central nervous system is expensive both in construction time and upkeep, exquisitely refined by millions of years of natural selection to perform its usual tasks with speed and precision. Unneeded capabilities that carried a significant cost were ruthlessly pruned away in the next generation, as those who possessed them failed to thrive against those who did not. Accepting sensory input from forty meter tall biomechanoids, and acting as a remote processor for spacetime warping energy field generators, is not a high priority for the average hunter-gatherer.

So it came as no surprise that subjects found themselves completely unable to control the first test rigs. Those who tried too hard had met with...unpleasant results. Fortunately, the same organ that generated the bottleneck also provided the solution. Because of its immense cost and complexity, human brain development is comparatively slow, generally not complete until the early twenties. Prior to this point, it is much more malleable, hence why a language learned as a child can be spoken like a native, while one learned as an adult is almost always accented. The same was true of an Eva. Pilots could become 'fluent' in its operation provided they started young enough. Empiric evidence suggested the optimal tradeoff was in the late childhood to early teen years, a window constrained on the one hand by an individual's ability to learn and on the other by the solidifying of neural pathways with age.

So much they had learned from dealing with single pilots.

"As you see, synchronization seems to increase at the square root of the signal strength. The extra pilot only grants a forty-one percent increase in the base sync rate. My suspicion is that adding a third would only net an additional thirty percent."

"Well past the point of diminishing returns," Gendo noted.

"Yes. Frankly, it's questionable if loading two is worthwhile. The Trebuchets have an unusually heavy pilot workload according to Boston, the increase in combat capability may be as much a result of lessening that as the added control sensitivity. Not to mention the boost only held for the latter part of the test, less than a minute in total."

Gendo grunted understanding, studying the wall mounted display. By nature a decisive man, he rendered his verdict within moments. "Very well. The investment is minimal, and we would be foolish to let an opportunity pass. Begin screening the Children for possible compatibilities, for the moment we will forgo activation of the second tier candidates. Pending results, we will leave battlegroup assignments as Katsuragi has suggested. Was there anything else, Doctor?"

Ritsuko looked down at her clipboard, uncharacteristically ill at ease. "Yes. There is one other thing." She opened an audio file and spoke again as the sound of gunfire and the heavy thumps of an Eva's footfalls filled the room. "This is a recording of the last minute of the test from the plug audio recorders."

Gendo listened for a few seconds as the file played, his expression unreadable as he sought what Ritsuko meant by this.

As it continued to play, the blonde pushed the reading glasses she customarily wore while working up her forehead as she rubbed the bridge of her nose in exasperation. "According to the pilots' own testimony they were in constant communication throughout the exercise, and particularly in this segment." Ritsuko readjusted her eyewear and met the the Director's eyes. "Sir, I listened to the take from this microphone, as well as that from the pilot's throat mikes, four times. For a thirty-seven second stretch, they exchange no verbal message of any kind."

The Director returned her challenging stare with a bland regard only slightly tinged with disbelief. "Intriguing. Your conclusions?"

"The extra sync channel must interact with the pilots' consciousness somehow in order for the commands to match, perhaps that input is being interpreted as speech. But I have no idea how to even test that hypothesis."

"I see." After a moment, he repeated himself, still considering. "Very well, I'll expect a preliminary report at your earliest convenience. Will this evening suffice?"

Ritsuko smiled at the veiled hint. "Thank you, Director. I appreciate your patience."

Gendo took his leave at that point, leaving the Doctor to tidy up her presentation and return to her duties. As he made his way back to his office, he reflected on a lesson taught to him by his father a lifetime ago, 'Take care of your tools, and your tools will take care of you.' It was one of the few worth remembering from that particular source, but a fine lesson as long as one remembered the corollary.

When a tool did fail, be sure to have another ready to hand.


Nerv HQ
September 27, 2015
7:30PM Local Time

The next evening, a deeply frustrated young man clad in a pair of orange and black swim trunks stomped into Nerv's pool room looking as though he'd had a close encounter with a bucketful of fresh lemons. "If I had known this would happen I would -so- have blown that demo," he grumbled, dropping into a chair.

Beside him, Shinji smiled sympathetically while he studied for the Physics test on Monday. He knew the testing schedule well enough to guess the problem. "You had trouble with Asuka."

"I had trouble with Asuka. It is also safe to say Asuka had trouble with me. Fortunately, if we were paired together the Angel would -probably- not butcher us like veal. It would be too busy laughing!"

A chuckle escaped the younger Ikari, as he continued to scroll through the textbook displayed on his laptop. For his part, his sessions with Nami and Rei had gone moderately and very well, respectively. Since his turn with Asuka was still to come, however, he couldn't properly commiserate.

"At least it's over. I'm due to go with Han and then Tessa before her."

"Good luck then," Sam replied as he rose. Frowning upon finally noticing Shinji's attire, he asked "Not planning to swim?"

Shinji looked away in embarrassment. "No, I never learned how. Go ahead, though. I need to get back in a few minutes anyway."

Sam shrugged in a 'suit yourself' sort of way and turned to enter the pool when a confidently striding and newly attired Second Child entered from the locker room. Shinji's cheeks felt as though they had burst into flame as he jerked his eyes away with blinding speed.

Asuka halted before the boys, displaying the red and white striped glory of her latest purchase.

"Ta-da!" she proclaimed. Her bright expression immediately slipped as Shinji continued to stare at his laptop as though the secrets of the Illuminati were decrypting on its screen, further still at Sam's “Oh, its you,” as he hopped in and began stroking for the other end.

The scantily clad girl sniffed disdain in the swimmer's direction. "Hmph. Well, I suppose that's all a girl should expect from him. If he can't even get to first base with someone like Testarossa after living with her for two months, he's either even -more- spineless than you or playing for the other team."

"I heard that," her target growled from the deep end of the pool.

"It would've been wasted if you hadn't," Asuka smirked. "What are you working on that's so interesting anyway?" she demanded, sidling closer to Shinji.

"The last physics assignment. Since everyone will be gone I figured I should get it done now."

"Yeah, I'd heard such good things about Okinawa too..." she sighed, the disappointed girl briefly peeking through the disinterested and maniacally self-confident surface.

"Duty calls, I guess," Shinji shrugged. The softening of his fellow pilot's demeanor puzzled him, but the moment passed and the dominant persona reasserted itself before he could explore further.

"Duty can leave a message," the fiery girl snapped back as though the earlier vulnerability had never been. She snorted magnificently. "Duty is just what other people want from you. If you let -that- control your actions, you might as well dye your hair blue and buy a set of colored contacts."

The Third Child flushed at the contempt in her voice. As he struggled to get a coherent response past his indignation, another voice piped up from behind them. "Leaving the Evas unmanned and the city unguarded. I can't imagine why the Major rejected -that- plan,” the swimmer remarked as he cruised past.

Eyes narrowing, Asuka snarled back, "Did I ask for your opinion? What's wrong, you didn't have the guts to ogle me where I could see you?” she sniped over her shoulder. Shinji, trying his level best to avoid doing just that, could sympathize... “Now where were we before -something- interrupted us?" she demanded, dismissing the intrusion.

Thinking quickly, Shinji indicated the computer screen. "Umm...this physics problem, I think.”

"Oh, that," she waved a hand in airy disdain. "Here, big G is the gravitational constant, it describes the base attraction value. Small g is the local gravitational field, we're not dealing with it here. So you use..."

-----------------------------------

And there we have it. The gang's all here, the board is set, and the pieces are moving.

[Vehrec]

In-cockpit telepathy? Well, I wonder if Rei's good or bad at that.

[TabascoOne]

All in good time. But first, something completely different.

Down Range- I

Of all my accomplishments I may have achieved during the war, I am proudest of the fact that I never lost a wingman.
- Colonel Erich 'Bubi' Hartmann, Luftwaffe, world's leading ace, 352 kills in WWII

Think where man's glory most begins and ends
And say my glory was I had such friends
-William Butler Yeats

All characters gratuitously pilfered.


Mt. Asama
Japan
October 9, 2015
10:13AM Local Time

I can relate to that, Asuka Soryu-Langley decided, watching the roiling pool of magma bubble and steam below her.

The heavily insulated cables connecting the retrieval probe to the surface slid steadily into the molten rock as the robot descended into the bowels of the Earth. It was all very exciting to think about, the first mission to retrieve a dormant Angel. Dr. Akagi had been all but drooling at the chance to take one apart without it having previously been -blown- apart for her.

But all -she- was doing was waiting around on the surface in case disaster struck, trying to stay alert in the meantime. Never had the adage 'a soldier's life is 50% hard work, 49% total boredom, and 1% pure terror' made more sense to her than while waiting for the 'bot to do its thing.

Finally, the cable halted, the litany of depth and temperature checks ceasing as the real work began.

----------

Misato smiled a bit after sparing a glance at the screen depicting the three Evas waiting near the lip of the crater. The expressionless mask of Eva-02 still managed to radiate its pilot's frustrated boredom to a remarkable degree.

She could sympathize.

The most delicate stage of the operation was about to begin, the actual capture. Control of a probe at the end of a kilometer long tether was harder than it looked, and it already looked damned difficult from where the major was sitting. A quartet of ceramic impellers dotted its outside surface, each unit on a gimballed mounting. Brief pulses from each unit turned the vehicle onto the right course, pushing it gently along the pre-plotted trajectory.

The craft's pilot sat at a console to Misato's right, the man's lean, pale face fixed with concentration on his video feed in the now silent room. Fingers plied the joysticks with a delicate, finicky touch, inching the craft closer to their goal. Claws spread wide, the probe halted relative to the Angel. Then, after a final pause, the appendages snapped shut.

The ops director let out a relieved sigh as the target remained dormant, the babble of status checks resuming. 'If only -we- could do it that way,' she mused, regarding the operator now leaning back in his seat, letting the tension of the moment drain away.

The cable reeled back in smoothly, the probe clutching the specimen in its grasp for the few minutes it took to bring them to the surface. The stepped up planetary monitoring instituted after the the sixth angel, Gaghiel, was paying off today. The expanded network of sensors looking for AT field distortions had been getting strange readings in this area for nearly a week, but hadn't been able to pinpoint the source. It -had-, however, been able to localize the initial readings enough for a manual search, and now they finally hit paydirt.

The probe surfaced, looking rather like a gigantic spider with its prey. The long articulated claws sprouting from the spherical body were wrapped tightly around the mottled, ovoid shaped angel, the array of cables protruding from the other end completing the image.

"Huh. Lockheed does good work," Misato chuckled to herself. The probe had been re-purposed from a planned mission to explore the solar corona, originally an armored sensor package to be dropped by an orbiting relay satellite. There had been some concern about it handling the pressure of the magma at that depth, but no one had worried about the heat! And it certainly beat risking a multi-billion dollar vehicle, and its all but irreplaceable crew.

The crane lowered the joined probe and Angel onto an unmanned flatbed truck for for transport to Matsushiro. The probe disengaged each arm in turn as a heavy Kevlar strap was cinched tight, once all were in place the robot was lifted clear.

"Ok pilots, take positions and let's be on our way."

----------

"About damned time," Asuka grunted. Not that she was just aching to go back to Tokyo-3 and the adventures awaiting her there, but still.

Eva-03 peeled off to take the outer perimeter position, 800 meters behind the truck, Fei in the pilot seat and Testarossa in the gunner's as per the never to be sufficiently damned compatibility testing. In spite of further acquaintance, she didn't have much to say about the pair. Han struck her as a little bland, true, but he didn't argue with her and didn't irritate her, so who was she to complain? Teletha, Tessa as she understandably encouraged everyone to call her, had the same practical, responsible outlook that Asuka respected in her new friend Hikari. If it hadn't been for Tessa joining with Nami to defy her during the move in, she could see herself liking her. But such is life.

Eva-01 halted 400 meters out at the 8 o'clock position, Ikari the Invincible in command. Asuka snorted. Several weeks hadn't done much to refute her initial impressions, he was still the withdrawn, awkward, uncertain little boy she'd met during her first visit to Misato's apartment. On the plus side, there was also no sign of the screaming berserker that occasionally came out to play. Asuka wasn't sure if she was disappointed by that or not, but...

"Eva-01, what are you doing?!" Misato barked over the command circuit. "Return to..."

"Huh?" Asuka turned towards the Eva in question, just in time to see it bearing down on her like a runaway freight train, the earth beneath her feet jumping in time with its pounding sprint.

A corner of the girl's mind yammered hysterically she should never have turned her back on him in the last fractions of a second before impact, even her reflexes barely beginning to respond. "Shinji, you-" she got out before the bone-rattling collision of the armored titans drove the breath from her lungs.

Asuka reflexively groped for the knife sheathed on her forearm while the glowering faceplate of Eva-01 filled her vision, its momentum bearing them both to the ground in a crash of metal that reverberated in her cockpit for a small eternity as the moment stretched. Finally, she got the prog knife unsheathed, the impact jarring the partially drawn weapon loose.

A scream of rage building in her lungs, the Second Child activated the knife and was about to drive it right through Eva-01's backplate when a shadow eclipsed the bright blue sky above her. A strange crescent shaped object, spinning like a boomerang, hissed through her field of view almost too fast to see were time moving as it should. As it was, Asuka was able to catch the way the fall sun glinted off the obsidian-like surface as it passed. A flash in her peripheral vision caused her to turn her head, just in time to see the first salvo of missiles arc away from Eva-03 on plumes of fire. The first quartet was scarcely clear of the maneuvering mecha when the second was on its way, followed by the third and fourth. All four salvos arced away independently to confuse potential point defenses, then converged to attack from multiple directions.

Tessa must be running them manually, Asuka observed with a strange detachment, recognizing the tactic from previous experience. It worked as well on the Angel as it had on her, the flatbed disintegrated under the pounding of several tons of high explosive over the space of a couple seconds.

The second shaking of the earth kickstarted time back to normal, Asuka's perspective forcibly snapping back to reality. "GET! OFF!" she snarled, heaving Eva-01 aside with minimal finesse. Rolling to her feet, she scanned the scene. If she looked hard, she -might- find a piece of the trailer carrying the Angel larger than a dinner plate, but the redhead wouldn't bet any money on it. The dust and assorted debris was still raining down from the cataclysm, blanking her optical sensors, but the synthetic aperture radar told the tale well enough. The details were obscured by the relatively low resolution image, but the overall shape, echoing something aquatic in origin with a set of claw like appendages on each side, was clear enough. Like many of the Angels, it had no visible means of propulsion, but that wasn't an issue right now. The saturation strike from Eva-03 had done its job, the creature was motionless on the ground, stunned or genuinely crippled it was impossible to say. Asuka unlimbered her axe.

Only one way to find out. Sucker punch -her- would it!

"Eva-02, moving in,' she informed the command team. “Eva-01 and -03 can stand by to support. I'll see what I can see," Asuka commanded in a quick, confident voice that held nothing of the shock she'd felt mere moments before.

“Copy, Eva-02. Eva-03, close to five hundred meters. Eva-01 hold position.” Misato directed. “Reviewing damage assessment now, looks like eleven clean hits. Proceed with caution, it may have another of those blades available.”

"Eva-03, advancing," Han replied.

"Eva-01, understood," Shinji agreed, standing his machine back up and sidling away from her to clear his field of fire.

Without further comment, Asuka moved ahead, careful not to block either of her comrade's line of sight. The view was slowly beginning to clear, but not enough to consider going to optical yet.

"Eva-02, I'm getting movement in the target. I think its trying to get its propulsion back online," Tessa warned her. Asuka hadn't noticed that, but no surprise there. The bleeding edge sensor suite Eva-03 mounted could probably count every scratch on the Angel's hide, even in these conditions.

"Understood," she replied. She was way inside the range it had struck at her the first time, so what was it doing? If all it took to kill it was that missile strike, it would be the weakest Angel on record...

"-03, are you getting anything else?"

"No. To be honest it's creeping me out, you're almost on top of the thing," Tessa admitted.

Up close, the Angel resembled nothing so much as an Eva-sized lamprey with arms, due to the long, sinuous main body and tentacle rimmed mouth. The skin looked smooth at first glance, but on closer examination was covered with uncountable numbers of overlapping black tooth-like projections which faded to a dark gray at the roots, almost like a shark's skin. No glaringly obvious external damage was visible, but that much high explosive must have left horrific internal shock injuries even if the armor wasn't breached.

"Power sur-" Asuka heard, and her enemy moved. A claw lashed out, missing her by a whisker. Wounded and cornered it might've been, but not out, not yet. "That trick only works once, asshole!" she screamed while bringing the axe around in a looping swipe. The blade was little use against the refractory hide, but that's what the spike balancing the weapon was for.

The enormous kinetic energy of the blow, concentrated further by the tiny area at the point, pierced the the armor with ease to carry further into the Angel's side and cripple the arm joint. The monster tried to pivot and attack with the other arm, but the Second Child was ready for that, wrenching the weapon free to block the swing with the axe's shaft before leaping back out of reach.

The missiles were hardly precision weapons, but two of the ship-killers must have struck in nearly the same place. A rent in the beast's hide about a third of the way down from the head cracked open to reveal bluish flesh beneath as it thrashed around to bring its other weapons to bear.

That was all she needed. Reversing the axe again to bring the heavy blade into action, Asuka darted forward while staying on the Angel's crippled side. A mighty swing brought the glowing progressive blade down on the injury, the axe biting deep with a scream like an overloaded buzz saw.

The pilot gasped for breath against the suddenly too thick LCL, hanging onto her weapon for dear life as her enemy thrashed desperately around the heavy blade which had carved halfway through its body. 'Where the hell is the core on this thing?!' she demanded.

'Towards the head, right between those two white projections,' Misato supplied. “Try to get clear. It's crippled now, we'll kill it at range.”

Asuka shook her head violently, only partially due to the random thrashing her Eva was undergoing. “If I back off it'll try to skewer me again. I'll take care of it.” Somehow, she added to herself. At the end of the next arc she released her hopelessly stuck axe, landing a short distance away. Eva-01 opened fire, followed a moment later by Eva-03, the 105mm sabot rounds skipping off the Angel's deceptively tough skin in a shower of orange and blue sparks.

We have got to get better rifles, she noted not for the first time. The 105 was a decent anti-tank round, but it was just outclassed here. It had the intended effect, though. The angel tried to cover its wounded side from the onslaught, bringing its head closer to where Asuka needed it to be. Surprisingly quick thinking from Shinji. The wuss could pull his weight in a fight, she would give him that.

Another obsidian blade lanced out from the dying Angel, Eva-01 unceremoniously diving for the ground as it hissed overhead, but she didn't really need its support anymore. The twin pylons on her Eva's shoulders split open down their length, each revealing the muzzles of a trio of disturbingly large cannons. The weapons pivoted forward, latched into battery with a satisfying 'thunk', and belched flame and thunder.

Six 406mm shells traversed the 100 meter space separating her from her target in less than a third of a second. Their low velocity relative to the rifles made them short ranged, and poorly suited to smashing through armor with kinetic energy alone. But that was what the half-ton shaped charges they carried were for.

Another round of explosions rocked the area, even Eva-02 was buffeted noticeably by the blast. When the smoke cleared once more, a gutted ruin greeted the observers. The core had been emphatically destroyed, along with a sizable portion of the rest of the head. Combined with the the other injuries they inflicted, the remains of the Angel were indeed a sad sight to behold.

The sudden release of the tension left the pilot lightheaded, a bubble of hilarity breaking free as she looked on.

Dr. Akagi is going to be -so- pissed.


Nerv HQ
October 10, 2015
7:45AM Local Time

Misato Katsuragi had wrestled with the strength of a Titan against an implacable, unyielding foe. But to no avail. Vanquished at last, she surrendered to the yawn clamoring for release.

Oblivious, the staffer at the front of the room droned on with her dust dry recitation, "So as you can see, as a percentage of our total budget for this fiscal year ending in February, solvents and lubricants will comprise 0.11%..." That was about all the Major could take. Only a deeply twisted individual could enjoy that kind of petty bean counting, and she was certainly not one of them. Even the gaze of the Logistics Director, Commander Richard Mardukas, looked beaten down behind the wire rimmed glasses he favored.

That is a very bad sign, Misato decided. Thank heaven for small mercies, the report on consumables use should be wrapping up soon, but when the department head most involved looked like he was in imminent danger of passing out, she felt a lot less guilty.

In fairness, Mardukas had every reason to feel wrung out. Between more than tripling his section's maintenance workload with the addition of the new Evas; overseeing range operation as Ops certified the pilots; supporting two deployments outside Tokyo-3 each involving several Evas, dozens of technicians, and the largest transport aircraft on the planet; and finally cobbling together the new test plugs for Ritsuko's latest brainstorm; the commander had been working sixteen hour days seven days a week all month to coordinate the madness.

That load added up fast, and it was moments like this when Misato privately thanked the Architect that she had that level of support to work with, however much she tended to take it for granted. Making a mental note to pursue that line of thought later, she unobtrusively stretched legs that were dangerously close to cramping. Speaking of taking things for granted...

The Major allowed no trace of the irritation of her next thoughts to cross her face, but the look she stole at her friend revealed no surprises. Predictably, most of the R&D staff had looked like someone had canceled Christmas when news of the latest mission's outcome broke, a feeling Misato could entirely sympathize with. It was a major setback to lose the opportunity to study an intact Angel specimen, and the less-than-intact substitute she and her pilots had provided instead had not been an acceptable trade to the majority of them. So a little frustration was completely justifiable, even if she was going to smack some of the louder grumblers on the wrist in the interests of avoiding any additional inter-departmental feuds.

But Ritsuko...Ritsuko had been a surprise. She had shared her subordinates' attitudes to be sure. But the doctor had also gone well beyond most of them. The doctor had stopped short of outright saying that a lost Eva was an acceptable price for an intact specimen, but the implication had hung there between them unspoken. And that was an attitude Misato simply could not endorse.

Hardware was replaceable, and ultimately so were personnel, no commander was blind to that. But the cardinal rules were that those losses were first meaningful, and second minimized. The first you might argue, if having that sample would bring about some breakthrough in their understanding of the enemy. But minimal? A third of the force she committed to the operation, twenty percent of her total available assets? Assets that it would take months to replace, if ever?

Ritsuko had accepted that in the end, but her parting shot had been the one that struck deepest.

Misato would don her Major Katsuragi persona at work, and it could be no other way. But at the end of the day she wasn't dealing with a group of professional soldiers she could trust to do their jobs with minimal interference from on high, with backup from a support structure of experienced noncoms who honestly could do their jobs better if she -didn't- nose around too much. If nothing else, Shinji had taught her that much. So Misato had taken up the slack, made herself act as that support system. But like the impulsive decision to bring Shinji into her home, it had led to unintended consequences.

The more time she spent with her pilots; living together, working together, generally becoming a part of each other's worlds, the more the essential separation between leader and led dissolved away. And that was what made Ritsuko's final accusation so damning. What if Ritsuko was right, and her attachments were blinding her to necessity?

It was a damning indictment, and one Misato could not reject outright. And if there were some truth in it, then sometime soon she had to draw a line in the sand.


5:15PM

//Loverboy "Workin' for the Weekend" _Get Lucky_//

Tessa scrubbed the towel through her ash blonde mane as she exited the shower. The elation of victory in her first mission had begun to fade, leaving a sort of weary satisfaction in its wake. Major Katsuragi had praised them for performing well in their team's first action together, and for her part the little blonde was surprised how the actions she learned in uncountable drills had flowed effortlessly when the situation soured.

An image of the Angel's first strike against Eva-02, completely out of the blue, played itself before her mind's eye as she dressed. Had Shinji not realized something was awry and acted immediately, that flying scythe would have decapitated the hapless Eva with practically no warning. And -that- might have been the end for a certain redhead, no one had the least idea what an injury of that magnitude would do to a fully synced pilot. Tessa had suspected Asuka was badly mistaken about the Third Child, now she was certain of it.

Which about exhausted the good news. Sam had passed along Han's evidence, and the conclusions they drew from it. Try as she might, she couldn't disagree with any of them. Apparently Asuka had known as well, saying as much when Tessa approached her about the situation, and had been equally appalled when she found out, which spoke well of her.

But, there was one point that Sam brought up when they were talking the problem over that Tessa had yet to adequately explain. If they knew the Angels were coming back some time, why hadn't Nerv been knocking on their doors a year ago, back when the production models were first approved for construction? It made sense that as a small, pilot (no pun intended) project, that there would only be two pilots and the test machines, but once full production was authorized they should have pulled in everyone who could conceivably even -twitch- an Eva for testing and further training.

It all stank, frankly. For the first time in her short life, she found herself actually hoping for incompetence on someone's part. It would be frightening, not to mention criminal, that anyone in such an important role could mess up so badly, but it would make sense. The alternative...she didn't want to think about that. That way led to madness, or at least clinical paranoia. No matter what Sagara said, she wasn't prepared to live as if everyone was out to get her just yet.

Han was waiting outside the locker rooms when Tessa emerged.

"Major Katsuragi wants you, me, and Nami back to finish up familiarization on Eva-06," the boy informed her without preamble.

"And you couldn't have told me this -before- I showered?" Tessa complained to the hapless messenger.

"Sorry, by the time I caught up..." he shrugged helplessly. "We're just doing control familiarization, so the plugs will be running dry. Besides, it is not like we have plans."

Tessa frowned in annoyance, but there wasn't much to say to that. Falling into step with her comrade, they retraced their steps from the Eva cages.

Thus far, she had decided she liked him, overall. Her first impression had been he was shy, but that hadn't turned out to be the case. Granted, Han was quiet, but when he did speak up he always had an opinion, and many times a well thought out one. It just seemed that, for whatever reason, he preferred to keep them to himself.

"For me, maybe," she answered after a moment. "I thought you would be delighted to spend more time with Nami."

"Oh I am, that part is -almost- worth getting shot at," Han agreed with a quick shake of his head, "but with everything going on I haven't said two words to her since I got back." Around them, the proportion of technicians to regular staff increased as they penetrated further into the complex. Upon opening the last hatch, built like one of the watertight doors Tessa had once seen on her father's subMarine, the reason for Nerv's existence was revealed to their sight.

The five active Evangelions were braced along the walls on either side of a long central catwalk at their shoulder level. Directly below, but blocked from view by the solid steel flooring, was another at roughly their waist, fifteen meters down. In the time since the battle, the cage crews had done their work with customary efficiency, the minor dents and flaked paint long since repaired and burnished to a faultless gleam. As always, a little tingle ran down Tessa's spine as she entered the cavernous space, perhaps a side effect of the concentration of raw power within the room.

“You too?” he asked, returning his girlfriend's impatient wave from the shoulder of the green and white trimmed giant as they advanced. “I had wondered if it was just me. No matter how many times I see them, the feeling never seems to go away.”

"I hope not," Tessa admitted, "I surely hope not."

----------

Rei Ayanami waited with her usual patience at the tram line stop serving the geofront surface. Above her, the rain drummed on the corrugated steel roof while the leaden sky continued its deluge.

A sigh from her left brought her attention back from outside. Her fellow travelers waiting for the tram stood or slouched in silence as well, the melancholy weather seeming to dampen their moods along with the streets. With the alert over, the on duty battlegroup would remain in the geofront for the rest of the week until their appointed changeover time, when she and her teammates would take over. Until then, they were officially normal junior high students again, though by whose definition she was unsure.

A tram rumbled to a stop before them, but not the one they needed. Rei was about to return to her brown study when the boy beside her straightened and turned to look further down the platform. About a head taller than her own admittedly modest height, he had the advantage in catching sight of the new arrival. But not too much of one, a few seconds time revealed their classmate Kaname Chidori through the crowd.

"Evening, Chidori," Mana Kirishima greeted the girl as she entered the small group.

"Hey all. Where's Nami?" the new arrival asked after a quick inventory.

"Running the others through a check ride on her Eva," Sam explained. "It'll be a while, so there's no point in waiting here. You might as well..." Rei's phone trilled, interrupting him.

"Yes? We are here, ma'am...Understood." She tapped the disconnect button and turned back to the others. "We must wait a moment, the Major is sending Pilot Soryu-Langley along on an errand," she informed the group.

Sam frowned at the news, but continued where he left off, "Anyway, if you would rather go on ahead, -I- wouldn't blame you."

"Is that a hint to get lost?" the girl replied archly.

"Ah..." Sam stalled, taken aback by the accusation. "Well no, but since we're waiting..."

"And what exactly would I do until the rest of you got there to unlock the door, sit on the front porch like a lost puppy?" Kaname inquired coolly.

"Uh. There is that," the pilot admitted, obviously not having thought that far ahead.

"As often as you're over, I'm surprised they haven't issued you a key and been done with it," Mana pointed out. Rei had to concede some truth in that. For all her claims of being a 'space' type of person, Chidori did spend an inordinate amount of time socializing at the other pilots' residence.

"Heheh," the girl in question laughed nervously.

----------

Kaname fought down her embarrassment at the accuracy of the charge. She may have inherited her looks from her mother, but she was her father's daughter in every other way that counted. That most likely had a lot to do with their current estrangement, but was also neither here nor there. Though it did made the current situation all the stranger.

Somehow, almost without her notice, that first trip to the pilots' home had become a ritual of sorts over the past weeks. Go home to change after school, arrive around dinner time, stay until 10 o'clock or so, and either be driven home by Major Katsuragi or Sergeant Jun-kyu or, if time got away from them, stay for the night. Back in New York, Kaname had had her share of friends before her life turned upside down, her Type A personality actually being an asset at the time. But even though she'd visited them at home, or gone to the movies, or whatever, there had never been the need to spend so much time with them. It was a mystery...

"What are you talking about?" a new female voice questioned.

Kaname started, not realizing she'd spoken aloud. "What?"

"Where's the mystery? Misato wants her spare blouse and, since I've already done the Eva cross training, I get to go retrieve it like a good little minion. End of story," Asuka opined. "Unless you mean why she can't send one of them," she nodded at the boys, "and save me the trip."

"Probably afraid they'll sell off her underwear to the highest bidder. What do you figure, 3000 yen each to start?" Mana suggested, prudently moving out of arm's reach as the now-complete group headed for the platform.

Sousuke flushed intriguingly at the accusation, though with as much time as he spent around Mana he should be used to it by now. Sam was quicker off the mark. "Assassinate our character a little louder, why don't you?" he growled at the snickering girl. "I don't think they heard you in Gora! Besides,” he leaned closer to his accuser, 'they're worth at least five!” he finished in a stage whisper.

Kaname grinned at the byplay, resigning herself to an unpleasant future few minutes as she turned back to the clouds above. On the other hand, what was life without a few unknowns to liven things up?

----------

"Ok, so the center VDU displays status, the map, and detailed error codes, Shinji summarized from beside Eva-06's pilot's seat.

“Right, they said back home that the test type's main viewscreen tends to get cluttered with that stuff, so they moved it to a secondary display. I don't know if it is true, but...” she halted at Shinji's nod.

“It can be. Usually when you least want it to,” he agreed quietly.

“What kind of CEP can we expect?” Tessa asked next.

Nami frowned in thought. "Depends. The 57mms are old, old Soviet pattern antiaircraft guns originally, so they tend to be better at 'wall of lead' than pinpoint accuracy. Still, they're pretty good at the ranges we'll be using them, Rei was able to hit an Eva size elbow joint from about a kilometer away. On the other hand, the HVMs are nearly unmissable."

"Unmissable?" Han asked with a raised eyebrow from where he and Shinji crouched on the other side as they alternated walking their teammates through the startup checklist and high points of the manual. "If that is a word, I don't think it means what you think it means."

"Hush, you. Anyway, in..." The master alarms began to wail, sending the cage crews scrambling. The four pilots shared a look of confusion for one long instant, and bolted for their machines.