Thousand Shinji (NGE crossover)

[Sidewinder]

Since you're apparently determined to continue with the "Shinji awakens from a coma to learn he's lost months worth of memories" storyline, can you explain this line?

Gone is the confident if creepy and unhygienic Nurgle worshipper, replaced by the quiet, broken, repressed doll he had first met. The brilliance of her soul was covered up again, and her unimaginative school uniform had returned.

Why is Rei VII NOT a Nurgle worshipper? Did Asuka devour the part of Rei's soul that housed self-confidence and faith in a higher power?

[Academia Nut]

Now that would be spoiling, don't you think?

All will be revealed in good time. Unfortunately currently I have homework ing quantum mechanics, nanotechnology, and preparation for a nuclear scintillation lab to do, plus I should probably whip up a dungeon for my D&D friends for Friday, so... maybe something on Sunday.

[Setzer]

I figured it was because her soul has been divided among so many bodies so quickly. Rei's like a drink that's been watered down so many times there's hardly any alcohol left. Probably an unforeseen side effect of making sure her personality carried over to a new body.

[KlavoHunter]

Why is Rei VII NOT a Nurgle worshipper? Did Asuka devour the part of Rei's soul that housed self-confidence and faith in a higher power?

I believe that she still is - she's just being subtle and keeping it hidden.

[Darth Fanboy]

Why is Rei VII NOT a Nurgle worshipper? Did Asuka devour the part of Rei's soul that housed self-confidence and faith in a higher power?

I believe that she still is - she's just being subtle and keeping it hidden.

Or maybe she's converted to Slaneesh because she's become that much lustier for Shinji? That's kind of my guess, especially after the talk she had with Misato. Especially if she wants Shinji above all else and she thinks her diseased body was going to melt him if they ever did it.

[Academia Nut]

So it's a little later than expected, I got busy okay? I would like to thank Chris for betaing this chapter for me. Hopefully you will all agree that the extra time taken has helped improve the final product.

Enjoy.

---

Consciousness was slow to return, the first question to arise being 'Why was I unconscious in the first place?’

His eyes fluttering open to see an unfamiliar ceiling, Shinji feels the rough texture of the hospital sheets first before he notices the sticky coldness of the sensor pads across his body and the uncomfortable pressure of the IV line in the crook of his arm. He also notes the abrasive coarseness of the straps about his wrists, ankles, and across his thighs and chest.

Thus Shinji’s second question was “Why am I strapped down in a hospital bed?”

“It is because they were afraid that you were contaminated by an Angel,” Rei says softly.

Jerking his head to the side, Shinji looked at Rei, but it is not Rei. Gone is the confident if creepy and unhygienic Nurgle worshipper, replaced by the quiet, broken, repressed doll he had first met. The brilliance of her soul was covered up again, and her unimaginative school uniform had returned.

Narrowing his eyes, Shinji says, “You’re not Rei.”

Peeking out the slightest tendril of psychic energy, Rei signals to him I will endeavour to explain what has happened.

“I am Rei, things have merely changed. You have been out of the loop for the past two months, ever since the fight with the Fourteenth Angel,” Rei informs him.

“Fourteenth Angel? I don’t even remember the Twelfth!” Shinji exclaims.

“This was… not unexpected,” Rei reports. “You have spent the past month in a coma, nearly a vegetative state in fact, your brain activity almost nonexistent. Some memory loss was possible. What was the last thing you remembered?”

Trying to gather up the fragments of his mind, Shinji winces in pain at how badly scrambled everything is. His mind was everything to him. Finally he dredges up the most recent seeming memory and asks, “A party?”

Frowning, Rei says, “Ah, yes. It is unsurprising that the break occurs there. There is good reason for that.”

“What reason?” Shinji asks groggily as his mind fights to reclaim what was lost.

“That was the night Asuka killed Rei IV in a fit of rage. Things sort of degenerated from there,” Rei says quietly.

“WHAT?” Shinji cries out, now desperately trying to remember that happening.

“It was really my own fault, and I apologize again for what happened,” Rei tells him.

“I mean you dying!” Shinji cries out.

“Oh. Yes. You wouldn’t remember the next part. I can die and be resurrected. I am Rei VII,” Rei explains.

Shinji goggles at her at that statement.

“Things have gone downhill considerably,” Rei says with a small shrug.

“Tell me,” Shinji says.

Clearing her throat, Rei says, “Our story starts with a wedding. Captain Katsuragi was invited to one, and you decided to have a little party behind her back while she was away for the night. I am not quite sure why you were trying to do this but…”

A little piece of his memory falling into place, Shinji says, “I was trying to bring Toji, Hikari, and Kensuke deeper into the fold, hopefully begin training them to use their inherent powers. I was also trying to get Toji at least to second base with Hikari.”

A sudden, crushing wall of guilt descended upon Shinji. He had been moving the two together since the beginning so that he could have a greater degree of control over the two psykers later, using their relationship as leverage against them. He could only remember screaming and crying, so he presumed this had ended badly; badly enough that he could feel guilty about his actions. He was somewhat surprised the human race was still intact… although technically he had yet to see anyone but Rei so it was still a distinct possibility.

Of course, the fact that he was restrained in a hospital bed was already proof enough that the proverbial waste treatment plant had exploded next to the industrial fan factory.

“Ah… yes… that would explain a few of your later actions,” Rei says, a heavy weight settling on to her, although the effect was rather subtle given her currently near emotionless state. Whatever she had done had clearly been worse.

Sighing, Rei says, “I feel that an explanation is in order. As I said earlier, I am Rei VII. I am, and always have been, an artificial being, genetically engineered to pilot the Evas. Before her untimely demise, Dr. Akagi…”

“Ritsuko is dead?” Shinji asks, the surprises still piling up. He didn’t even have a memory fragment of that one.

“Yes. It happened while you were asleep. Do you want me to tell this story in any sort of order at all? Because it is all rather complex,” Rei asked him in an almost chiding tone.

Shaking his head, Shinji said, “I apologize, please continue.”

Rei resumed, “As I was saying, Dr. Akagi would download my memories periodically for upload into a new body should I die. After you explained to me about my abilities, I discovered a way to transfer not just memories but my entire soul from body to body. Unfortunately each transfer generated a unique individual, and the soul did not always fit properly.”

Shinji closed his eyes in strain at this news. “Rei… that sounds like you were trying to possess each new body in turn. My daemonology is fairly weak, but considering the secrets we share you should have told me if you were having problems.”

A light blush lit up Rei’s alabaster cheeks and she bowed her head in shame before saying, “There is… well… a reason why I didn’t tell you. It has to do with the origins of my DNA…”

Shinji’s mind, altered by contact with the Warp and the Eva into something that was no longer wholly human, very quickly put the pieces together and he said, “You’re part Angel, aren’t you? That’s nothing to worry about.”

Nodding, Rei elaborates, “Half, but it is the other half that made me stay my tongue. Shinji-san… I’m a partial clone of your mother.”

“Oh,” Shinji replied. That little bit of shrapnel embedded in his mind twisted violently, and he knew that in the time away he had figured out the secret that had been plaguing him for months, but now ironically he had forgotten what it was that he had remembered.

“Yes… since we first met you have… instinctively felt a familial attraction to me, a subconscious realization that I am what could best be thought of as your ‘sister’ in such terms,” Rei says.

Telekinetically undoing his restraints just so Shinji can hold his face in his hands in exasperation, Shinji says, “I can see where this is going. Fuck… caught in a love triangle between a Khornate berserker and my Nurgle sister.”

“It was… messy to say the least. By Rei IV, the last version of me you remember, I was quite unstable, previous incarnations manifesting as voices in my head. My soul was only loosely attached to my body. I…” Rei pauses to collect her thoughts before continuing, “You awoke me to a whole new world of emotions, but you were not receptive to me in the ways that I wanted you to be. I began to despair, your brotherly love insufficient for me. I wanted to unleash the gifts of Nurgle upon the whole world, I wanted to kill Asuka-san to be with you, I wanted to sleep with Asuka…”

Interrupting and holding up his hands, Shinji says, “Whoa there! Time out. Say that last bit again.”

“Umm… well, you see, I was insanely jealous of Asuka-san, so much so that I actually began to desire her too. I eventually set upon the compromise of wanting a threesome with you two. I unfortunately did not know how to initiate something like that,” Rei explained.

Shinji goes to open his mouth to say something contrite, but a memory violently dislodged from the muck of his subconscious at that point and rocketed to the surface of his mind with all the subtlety of an iceberg flipping over.



“How do you do it man?” Toji asks enviously as Asuka saunters away after French kissing Shinji right in front of his friends.

Smirking while he rearranged his expensive clothing and wiped the lipstick off his face, Shinji says, “Confidence my friend, confidence.”

“Yeah, well, to risk injury with a bitch like that requires confidence or insanity, but where do you get either?” Toji asks.

Chuckling, Shinji shakes his head and says, “That’s my girlfriend you’re talking about there.”

Instinctively flinching away from a strike that never came, and never would come, Toji calmed down and says, “Sorry man.”

Snickering at the way his friend instinctively understood the power dynamic without him ever actually raising a hand against him, Shinji says, “She actually prides herself on being a bitch now, although she prefers to concentrate on the Angels these days. She’s itching for another close range fight; the last few have all been trying to avoid melee combat.”

“Ha! Yeah, I don’t blame them,” Toji says sarcastically.

“In any case, you were asking a question before. ‘ Where do I get my confidence and/or insanity?’ Well, those are both pretty easy. I know who I am and what I can do; questions most teenagers, and far too many adults, can’t answer. I am beyond angst and the existential crises that cripple the confidence of so many,” Shinji states.

“Okay, how do you know that then?” Toji asks insistently.

Grinning, Shinji says, “Because I learned to fake confidence long enough to explore my world and figure it out instead of hiding away in my room, afraid of the outside world.”

“How do you fake confidence?” Toji inquires incredulously.

“It is quite tricky because fake confidence quite quickly becomes real confidence. If you can bury your fears and just strike out, you can look quite confident, and because people can’t read your mind, they will assume that you truly are confident. And when you find that your fears aren’t as correct as you assumed, then you find your faked confidence becoming real,” Shinji explains.

“I… guess I see,” Toji says slowly.

Chuckling, Shinji says, “While I don’t recommend you try it, it is completely possible to go up to a complete stranger, say ‘Nice shoes, wanna fuck?’ and get laid. It’s all in the presentation really and of course making sure that you proposition to the right person at the right time.”

Boggling at this declaration, Toji asks, “You-you-you…”

Rolling his eyes, Shinji says, “Of course not. I’m not interested in a woman I can pick up that easily, there has to be some challenge to the courtship. That said, if you were to go up to Hikari-san and say, ‘Nice hair, want to go make-out?’ I bet you could pull it off. Of course, you absolutely can’t stutter, have your body stiff as a board, or let your eyes wander. You just go up to her all easy and casual-like, look her in the eyes, and ask.”

“I…” Toji begins.

“Who are you Toji? Weak, knobbly kneed dork who can’t talk to the girl he has confessed to liking and received an equal confession back, or suave, cool guy?” Shinji asks casually.

“Uh…” Toji says before getting up and walking away in a funk, mulling things over.

“Think he’ll try it?” Kensuke asks idly.

“Yup,” Shinji says.

“Think it will work?” Kensuke asks.

“Not a hope in hell,” Shinji says with a smirk.


Wincing at the sudden rush of memories, Shinji glared at Rei and tells her, “If there was one thing I thought I had taught you, it was that you should have had the confidence to come up to me and ask, ‘Hey Shinji, think you can convince Asuka to go for a threesome?’”

Sighing in embarrassment, Rei says, “I was not exactly thinking clearly at the time. Instead I went to Misato for advice.”

Groaning, Shinji says, “While she is quite knowledgeable about sex, I don’t think she is the type to intentionally get involved in a threesome.”

“No. She cautioned me about mixing sex and alcohol for just such reasons, but I took that as advice on how to start up a threesome rather than as a warning,” Rei says.

“Fuck… fuck… fuck! Okay, this is why my memory starts to get all full of holes, isn’t it?” Shinji says.

“You react… poorly to alcohol,” Rei says in a sheepish tone.

Clutch his head in his hands in extreme exasperation, Shinji asks, “Considering the fact that alcohol has no interest for me, would you care to explain how this happened?”

“Well… before the party I began practicing with the gifts of Nurgle to figure out how to cause rapid fermentation of sugars in vivo,” Rei explains.

“You brewed the alcohol inside us?” Shinji asks incredulously.

“Only the first bit to impair your faculties enough to get you to break into the beer… and then the sake… by the time the vodka was flowing everyone was quite wasted,” Rei clarifies.

Mulling this over for a moment, Shinji says, “I can understand why I would respond poorly to alcohol… but Asuka… oh fuck! How much did you give her to get her drunk?”

“We were doing shots of grain alcohol before I felt she was sufficiently intoxicated to make my move,” Rei states.

“Did it occur to you that perhaps because it took copious amounts of alcohol to knock her out that she might recover faster than normal?” Shinji asks.

“The thought passed through my head, along with a chunk of my skull, when Asuka began to express her distaste for my actions,” Rei notes.


It was 2 AM and half the party-goers were passed out. Kensuke was sitting on one of the couches, drooling heavily down his shirt, while Toji and Hikari had collapsed on the floor while making out, Hikari’s shirt half pulled off her head. That would be interesting come morning.

Asuka on the other hand was still conscious but giggling idiotically at the naughty action Rei had initiated, too drunk to fully realize what was going on as they stripped down the mostly incapacitated Shinji, who lay sprawled out on the bed. The only one who was in any way clear headed, if you discounted the voices in her head, was Rei, her body processing the alcohol as readily as any other toxin.

Rei unfortunately discovered a minor flaw in her plan that she should have anticipated. While Shinji was an absolute lightweight, he was still quite intoxicated, which meant that he was quite impaired in the areas of Rei’s interest.

“He’s drunk,” Rei notes unhappily while looking over Shinji.

“Sho am I,” Asuka points out.

“It is rather hard to have a threesome when one of the three is incapable of acting,” Rei points out.

“You jusht got to… got to… warm him up, thatsh all,” Asuka says. Smiling, she kneels down before the semi-comatose Shinji and says, “Check out… check out this new thing we tried the… the other day.”

While Rei watched with rapt fascination, Asuka went to work. Drunken, sloppy, and clumsy work, but despite that Rei was still insanely jealous of Asuka for this. She was also extremely aroused and glad that she had already stripped down.

After a few minutes, Asuka paused and said, “Shtill not quite enough… here… you… you… you take over. I need a glassh of water.”

“Very well,” Rei said while taking Asuka’s place. As Asuka got up to leave, Rei ran a hand over Asuka’s bare skin and marvelled at just how warm the red head’s skin was. In fact, it could even be considered feverishly hot.

Shivering, Asuka says, “You’re cold Rei… you… you should warm up shome.”

Smiling, Rei leans in and kisses Asuka on the lips, enjoying the electric jolt of Asuka recoiling in surprise before she leans in drunkenly, giggling at the whole affair. Rei then says, “I intend to make things a great deal hotter.”

“Good… I’ll be back…” Asuka says, giggling at the way she let her German accent slip in for the last phrase, before she gets up and totters out of the room.

A few minutes later and Asuka returned, clutching her head and wincing, “Why does my head hurt?”

Rei did not answer, occupied as she was in getting Shinji ready for the main event.

There was a pause where only the sounds of breathing and Rei’s wet work before Asuka screams out, “What are you doing?”

It was at that point that Rei paused in horror as she realized that Asuka’s speech had shifted from “drunken and somewhat coherent” to “partially lucid but missing the past few minutes of memory and wondering why someone was sucking off her boyfriend”.

Rei never got a chance to explain as Asuka dug her fingers into Rei’s flesh, shattering a clavicle between her fingers and then hauling Rei violently into the air, tossing her against a wall where Rei bounced off, more bones broken.

Staggering to get up as her abilities regenerated the damage, Rei tried to summon forth something to stop Asuka, but she was distracted as Asuka’s shapely fist hit her hard enough to implode a chunk of skull and send pieces of bone ricocheting about Rei’s brain. Rei saw stars, her supernatural toughness keeping her from being killed by even such a brutal strike. Rei wondered if perhaps this had been a bad idea.

Then Asuka began to dig her fingers into Rei’s neck. The brute strength to accomplish such a feat made Rei realize that Khorne had been blessing Asuka just as much as Nurgle had blessed her. Fingers punctured Rei’s carotid artery and bright red blood began to spurt all over the crazed berserker.

Rei considered activating the various dread plagues that resided within her cells to take out Asuka, but with Shinji currently incapacitated, he would surely be consumed in the virulent outbreak. As her body automatically siphoned away energy that could have been used to combat Asuka to regenerate the lost blood, Rei realized that she needed to learn a great deal more about her abilities. In particular, she needed something somewhat less destructive than a world ending plague for these sorts of situations.

Rei died a full minute after Asuka punctured her neck, the entire room covered in red gore from the practically limitless supply of blood available to Rei. Rei died when Asuka got tired of thrashing her and simply pulled until Rei’s vertebrae separated and her head came clear of her body.

Stark naked, covered head to toe in a thick layer of blood, Asuka roared in victory. Still somewhat intoxicated and high from victory, Asuka immediate went back to a confused and barely responsive Shinji to finish what had been started.


“Oh fucking Tzeentch, how did we clean that mess up?” Shinji asked in disgust, horror, and exasperation.

“After retrieving a fresh body I used my abilities to quickly decompose my mortal remains, except for the head as something was blocking me there, and then I snuck out. Fortunately for all of you by the time Misato-san returned she was also quite intoxicated and you had time to clean things up before she noticed. In the short term, the consequences were not as bad as they could be, it was the long term where everything went to hell,” Rei explained.

“I’m guessing Rei V did not share Rei IV’s infatuations,” Shinji asks.

“No,” Rei stated. “At that point I was quite furious with the both of you, and our teamwork and coordination dropped accordingly. My ability to control Unit 00 also began to take a steep dive. The problem though was that Asuka found her first time rather unsatisfactory, and killing me, or at least thinking that she had dreamed killing me, gave her new drive and vigour.”

Frowning, Shinji groaned, “Now I’m really regretting not remembering things.”

“She became quite… demanding,” Rei says, pausing to pick her words carefully. “Most scandalously was the time when she had sex with you in the girl’s change room in NERV while I was on the other side of a bank of lockers, just to piss me off. Your condom expenses went through the roof I am to understand.”

“Fucking brilliant, I screw Asuka’s brains out repeatedly and I can’t remember a gods-damned thing,” Shinji griped.

“I do not think you want to remember,” Rei says. “Your father had recovered from some of the damage done by your actions. I do not know what happened when you fought the Twelfth Angel, but it involved you being trapped in a multi-dimensional psychic battle for several hours with Asuka and your Evas. During that time, when everyone was distracted, your father had your apartment laced with monitoring equipment.

“When you got back, instead of sweeping for bugs like you usually do, you and Asuka had celebratory sex,” Rei tells him without blinking.

“Fuck. Fuck! Fuck!” Shinji swore, cursing his own stupidity. Rei was right, that party had definitely been the start of a growing disaster.

“That was your problem,” Rei says flatly, obviously not having lost her quickened sense of humour in whatever transformation had taken place.

“He used that against me, I just know it. That old bastard knew that I was too slippery, too canny to attack directly, so he hit me in my blind spot: Asuka,” Shinji growled.

“You are correct. Shortly after the attack of the Twelfth Angel, there was an incident in America. An experimental engine for Unit 04 nearly went critical, and if it weren’t for a last second shut down the Eva, the production facility, and a nearby town would have simply ceased to exist. The media got word of this, and the public panicked. The Americans wanted the Evas out of their country. They had both units shipped over here,” Rei tells him.

Another memory began to surface, of screaming and crying and a deep feeling of guilt and shame. A dark black Evangelion dominated the mental landscape.

“In transit, another Angel struck, infecting Unit 03. Upon initial activation, it took over and destroyed the testing facility outside Tokyo-3. It disabled the still inactive Unit 04, critically wounding the pilot, before it began to advance on the city. We were scrambled, but I was practically useless, unable to concentrate upon the mission because of my jealousy and loathing of Asuka. Upon initial contact I was quickly disabled,” Rei tells him.

Fitting together several fragments of memory, Shinji says, “I refused to kill the Angel outright like my father ordered. I knew that the pilot was a psyker and thus useful in the long term, and I wanted to recover him. I also knew that Toji had been selected as a pilot because he confided in me his fears.”

“Asuka, following your lead, followed suit. Your father shrugged and deactivated your Eva remotely before activating the Dummy Plug system in Unit 02,” Rei says.


Shinji screamed in impotent rage as he tugged at the controls of his deactivated Eva, trying to force it to come back to life, but it lacked motive power and special blocks he had not heard about had been installed to prevent the activation of the Eva in this sort of situation. If he really tried, he could probably force open the blocks and force energy to flow, but he did not know what exactly the consequences of something like that would be. It would probably involve something unpleasant happening to him personally, and certainly a lot of unwanted questions to be asked afterwards.

So he could just watch as Unit 02 brought its chain-axe down into the poorly armoured flesh of Unit 03. It had not received the upgrades of the ones in Tokyo-3 yet, and despite the Angel’s upgrades, it was insufficient to withstand a berserker Unit 02 in full L-Type Equipment wielding the most advanced weaponry available to man. Asuka screamed in horror and fury at this abuse of her Eva, forced to watch up close as Unit 03 was hacked into bloody pieces.

Gendo did not power the Eva down until all that was left was a steaming corpse, the entry plug hacked to pieces by the chain-axe. The corpse of the pilot was almost too mangled to tell its identity.

Shinji’s heart broke in two as Asuka’s shrill screaming filled the air.

Hikari’s head rolled out of the remains.


Shinji clutched his fists together until they drew blood, forced to relive the horrors of that day again by this cruel amnesia. The furious tears rolled freely.

“Now I remember… I found out from Toji, what was left of him after he was left a quadriplegic by Unit 03 and nearly catatonic by Hikari’s death, that the only reason she accepted the position was because they had Toji… and Toji accepted because they were offering better treatment for his little sister,” Shinji says bitterly.

Now he felt the weight of the guilt he had felt earlier truly come crashing down on him. His fucking bastard of a father had used him, had played him like a fiddle. If he hadn’t been so distracted by Asuka, maybe he would have realized that he was being ensnared by his own schemes. Worst of all was the fact that Hikari, Asuka’s best friend, would have never been in that damn Eva if not for Shinji’s manipulations of Hikari and Toji’s emotions.

Snarling, Shinji said, “There had to have been a reckoning after something like that.”

Hanging her head in shame, Rei says, “There was a complication… me. In my fury with you two I had fallen back on Commander Ikari as a source of comfort and strength. If you moved against him without me at your side…”

“It would end with the extinction of the human race. Right… fuck. So I had to convince you first,” Shinji said.

“Yes. You sought proof that Gendo had known that Unit 03 was infected before activation, that he specifically placed Hikari-san with that Eva so that she would be killed by Asuka-san, just to hurt her to hurt you,” Rei explained.

“I left town to find out what was going on…” Shinji stated dully, seeing where this was going.

“…and an Angel attacked,” Rei finished for him. “It was the worst one yet, extraordinarily powerful. It went through Tokyo-3’s defences like butter, blew through eighteen layers of the city’s armour with a single shot, and shrugged off concentrated fire from the positron rifle like rain. It then blew up the rifle with a single shot, incidentally disabling Unit 00.”

Rei then smiled slightly, “Then it met Asuka-san. She fell, but not before she gave the Angel hell. She shoved a melta up against its core and fired at point blank range. The Angel survived with barely a scratch. But she kept hitting it with everything she had. She actually managed to take off one of its arms before it brought her down. You were quite incredibly pissed when you finally managed to get back to NERV.

Her smile broadening, Rei tells him, “In fact, you even gave a little speech over the radio while powering up your Eva. It went, ‘Alright motherfucker, you’ve invaded my city, beaten the fuck out of two of three of the girls I cherish most in this world, and now you’re making me play the Big Damn Hero with this last minute entrance. I hate playing the Big Damn Hero.’ What happened next I highly doubt you would remember.”

Thinking about it, Shinji shakes his head and says, “I don’t have a clue what happened.”

Nodding, Rei says, “You essentially merged with your Eva to squeeze every ounce of power out of it. You forced it to evolve and adapt in new and strange ways. You grew an S2 engine from scratch so that you could keep fighting. Your Eva began to breathe fire, multicoloured fire. You telekinetically threw the Angel back to the surface, through the armour, and not the part it had already shot. You elbowed it in the face and collapsed its skull with a single blow. You snapped its back over your knee. You threw it through a building and then crucified its corpse on the wreckage. You strangled it with its own intestines. Then you ripped out its core and punted it into low earth orbit, where it detonated.”

Taking this all in, Shinji shrugs and says, “Sounds like something I would do under the circumstances. I take it when you say ‘merged’ you mean…”

“You were rendered down into LCL and absorbed into your Eva. It took us a month to get you out of there… it was a bad month. Rei V, feeling incredibly guilty at how her actions had lead up to this event, hung herself. Asuka began to lose her mind. She became more a bitch than usual. She was hurting badly, lashing out at everything and everyone around her. They even put her on a suicide watch when they found out she was cutting herself,” Rei explains.

“Cutting? That doesn’t… oh wait… I know what she was doing. Blood sacrifice to Khorne in an attempt to get me back. If she couldn’t get it from her enemies, then she would get it from herself. Khorne cares not from where the blood flows. She probably didn’t even feel the blade,” Shinji notes.

“Quite,” Rei said in understanding. “It all looked well once we got you out of Unit 01… unfortunately we soon discovered that you were in fact in a coma. We had retrieved your body, but your mind seemed to be elsewhere. Asuka nearly killed one of the guards to your room she was so grief stricken to see you like that. It took fifteen guards and three tranquilizer darts to bring her down.

Shinji winced in pain as the piece of shrapnel twisted again, and he also felt like he was on the edge of some great truth.

Bn’alhaf’zvim’x’qazszlfg’amq’extzin’tchi’a’lkipjuwo’zyrxd’rtpa…

Impossible syllables, properly pronounceable only by a seven-dimensional tongue with two different voice boxes, danced in Shinji’s mind for a moment before his inability to properly comprehend them caused the entire sequence to collapse.

Shaking it off, he turns to Rei and asks, “What happened between then and now?”

“There were two more Angel attacks. Asuka-san handled the Fifteenth Angel and I handled the Sixteenth. Both were as messy as the Fourteenth, but in different ways. The Fifteenth was a difficult, unconventional battle, while the Sixteenth was perhaps the synthesis of the most effective tactics so far. Rei VI was immolated in that battle.”

“What happened?” Shinji asks.

“The Angel was essentially nothing but a giant energy whip, one of the more successful weapons used against us. Conventional weapons did nothing against it, not even a point blank melta blast. After doing considerable damage, it then attempted to merge with my Eva,” Rei says before letting a feral grin escape from her suppressed face.

“Big mistake, for by Rei VI, I had a bit better control over my own mind, but I was also further fragmented. Still, when the Angel invaded, it discovered that it couldn’t get back out because I was counter-invading with multiple minds. It sent cancerous feelers all throughout my body causing tiny squealing faces to erupt from my flesh. I sent worse things back at it. We were locked in battle for several minutes until finally it went suicidal and detonated. Unfortunately as it was inside my Eva when it exploded, the entry plug was incinerated, leaving behind only bones,” Rei explains.

“Which brings us to Rei VII, you,” Shinji states.

“Yes. With Unit 00 now so heavily damaged that it was no longer properly functional, Commander Ikari decided that I would be brought back with my memories from before I met you, to keep me docile and compliant to his will. I still retained everything I learned through my knowledge of soul transference, but I decided to play along. I also decided to stop using my powers, as they were causing my condition to become worse, and with Major Katsuragi in lock-up and…” Rei explained before being interrupted.

“Wait! Misato-san is under arrest?” Shinji asks frantically.

“Under suspicion of murder, although that is just a formality since everyone knows she did it. Shortly before the Fifteenth Angel showed up, Ryoji-san was found dead in the depths of NERV, a single gunshot wound to the head. Katsuragi-san, who began dating him again the same night Rei IV died, was distraught. You were in a coma, Asuka-san was exhibiting self-destructive behaviour, and her whole world seemed to be crumbling. Nothing was going right for her.

“Her story is that Dr. Akagi…” Rei began.

“Misato killed Ritsuko?” Shinji cried out incredulously.

“That is the leading theory,” Rei said. “Katsuragi-san’s own confession was that Akagi-san began viciously taunting her about the implosion of her ‘family’, and how it had parallels to the past. Fed up with Akagi-san’s words, Katsuragi-san struck her across the jaw. Lieutenant Ibuki moved to defend Akagi-san but was also struck in turn. At this point the story becomes a bit more complicated. Katsuragi-san claims that at that point Akagi-san drew a gun on her and acted in self defence, but Ibuki-san claims that it was Katsuragi-san who drew the gun, while the surveillance footage was inconclusive and the sequence of events could have gone either way as the weapon was drawn in the middle of a struggle between the two. Since it was never actually fired we don’t know who could have been holding it, and because it was non-standard, non-registered and in the struggle both their prints appeared on it, we don’t know who owned it.

“What happened next is not debated. Katsuragi-san is a decorated military officer, while Akagi-san was a scientist. Akagi-san was stabbed in the left lung by a letter opener grabbed as an impromptu weapon in the struggle. This wound was, while not instantly fatal, would have resulted in death without immediate medical attention, something impossible to get quickly enough in that situation. At this point Katsuragi-san claims temporary insanity for her following actions.

Pausing to clear her throat quietly, Rei says, “Seeing her best friend bleeding out from a fatal wound she inflicted, Katsuragi-san began screaming incoherently, saying that ‘she doesn’t know pain’ while repeatedly punching and stabbing, either to inflict as much suffering as possible before Akagi-san’s death or in some sort of insane attempt to speed the process. Either way, when it was all over Katsuragi-san was left in a semi-catatonic state, only answering questions asked of her but not initiating any actions, and Akagi-san had suffered thirty-seven stab wounds and five broken bones, three-quarters of her injuries sustained post-mortem.”

Somehow, the cold, clinical way that Rei described the events after the fact was far more terrifying than actually seeing it. Everything was already said and done; there was nothing Shinji could do to help his friends because he had been asleep.

He had been asleep because he had been merged with the Eva.

He had merged with the Eva because he had to fight tooth and nail against the Fourteenth Angel.

He had to fight tooth and nail with the Fourteenth Angel because he arrived late to the fight after it had already incapacitated his friends.

He arrived late to the fight because he left to gather evidence on his father and SEELE to prove to Rei that it was their fault in the Thirteenth Angel fiasco.

He had to prove Gendo’s guilt to Rei because Asuka had killed a previous incarnation, causing her to distrust them.

The Thirteenth Angel disaster was so bad because Shinji had been distracted by having sex with Asuka with a frequency that would make light blush, and had not noticed his father’s plans for revenge.

Asuka was having sex with him because she had gained enough confidence from her relationship with him and Khorne to get over her own fears. Killing Rei because she wanted to have sex with him had helped too.

The Thirteenth Angel disaster was so bad because Asuka’s best friend was in the entry plug when Asuka, forced by the Dummy Plug system, put a chain-axe through Unit 03 repeatedly.

Asuka’s best friend was in Unit 03 because her boyfriend was in Unit 04. Shinji had arranged for the two of them to get together so he could control them better.

Rei had wanted to have sex with Shinji because he had taught her how to express herself emotionally, but her allegiance to Nurgle made it hard for him to train her properly, and it drove her insane. And not the good kind of insane either.

The pilot of Unit 04 had been there because his sister had been injured in the battle where Shinji had made his Eva go berserk.

…

Everything tied back to Shinji’s own scheming. He had been snared in a web of his own making. The phrase ‘hoisted by his own petard’ didn’t even begin to cover this sort of thing.

He violently threw up, not that there was much in his stomach after two months of not eating through his mouth. Rei just watched quietly until it was all over.

Looking at her, Shinji says, “I appear to be in a hell of my own making. Everything is wrong, and it is my fault.”

“No, Commander Ikari is also largely to blame,” Rei points out.

Considering this fact, Shinji growls and says, “I should have dealt with him sooner instead of waiting for him to make a move first. He will be reckoned with, but all of this is surely my fault. You are a mess, Misato is under arrest for killing her friend, Kaji is dead, Ritsuko is dead, Gendo is still running free and Asuka…”

Shinji pauses for a moment before looking at Rei and saying coldly and savagely, “Rei… you skipped over the fight with the Fifteenth Angel. What the fuck happened to Asuka?”

A blank expression on her face, Rei says softly, “I wanted you to be in the right emotional state first…”

Rei found her throat between Shinji’s fingers and he said, “Rei… if you don’t want to have to move up to version 8.0, cut the fucking bullshit and tell me what happened.”

Looking at him fearfully, Rei nods for him to release her throat and after a small cough, she says, “The Fifteenth Angel used a psychic, mental attack on her. The results were ugly, and she has been in a coma ever since, her mind nearly shattered under the strain of the attack.”

“Take me to her,” Shinji hissed.

[Darth Fanboy]

Shit!

I sense a reckoning brewing!

[KlavoHunter]

Seems Shinji isn't the all-powerful Tzeenchian sorcerer he likes to think he is, if he can be so easily distracted from his own plots from a bit of Khornate poontang.

I find it less likely than in the original NGE timeline that the Fifteenth Angel could mindfuck Asuka - after all, one of the gifts of Khorne is reduced vulnerability to psykers.

I wonder when Khnemu will make his re-appearance? I wonder if Shinji knows that bringing him back is even an option, now that his own psyker abilities have grown, and he has Rei and Asuka (Well, just Rei right now) to also help fuel him...

[LadyTevar]

Oh my... it did go to hell, didn't it.

[Darth Fanboy]

I find it less likely than in the original NGE timeline that the Fifteenth Angel could mindfuck Asuka - after all, one of the gifts of Khorne is reduced vulnerability to psykers.

Well she may still yet recover. Just because she got attacked doesn't mean she's going to be as messed up as she was in the OTL.

[Academia Nut]

Oh man did I kick over a hornet's nest over on Fanfiction. Those who were not aware that something like this was going to happen were pissed about my time skipping schennanigans. I'm pretty sure one guy even unsubscribed over this chapter.

Their loss though, because I can assure you that I'm not done with the flashbacks. Three of the five Angel fights that were skipped will be covered in much greater detail and the Unit 03 incident will also recieve much more fleshing out. I've been planning this mind screw for quite a while now, and trust me when I say that there is much more going on here than just this chapter shows.

I'm getting ready for something that will hopefully make you all shit bricks, as the idiom goes.

[Darth Fanboy]

Well you got a good gauge of how people were going to react from your preview post on here. But now that I see the fruits of your efforts i'm going to say that I like how this is being handeled. My primary concern was that, by covering those fights in a flashback, you would lose some of the drama of the story. But the way you executed it, I have more questions than I do answers and I really really want to see what's going to happen to Asuka.

In fact, we're going to find out along WITH Shinji what has actually happened to her, and in a sense it adds to the impact of the moment, which is the exact opposite of what I think some of us were worried about.

[LadyTevar]

Now, all we need is Chris to get "Once More With Feeling" updated, so we can see HIS version of the story.

[Academia Nut]

Indeed. Incidentally, I really think I'm going to need Chris again for editting on this next part because the impulse to go "Fuck you!" to all of my critics is really strong. Man... now I know a fraction of how poor Anno felt. Ah well. With any luck the next chapter should be up in a few days.

Of course, with Chris betaing for me, I am honour bound to offer my services to help improve his writing. This is of course in no way a Machiavellian ploy to get to see the next chapters of OMWF or Derelict before everyone else. The fact that I'm pretty sure he asked me to beta for him first will of course prove my innocence.

[FA Xerrik]

Yowch. So at this point things are almost as far down the hole as in the OTL. On the other hand, Shinji must have had an Epic-level battle with the 14th Angel from your brief description, can't wait to see that scene fleshed out. One nitpicky question:

Lieutenant Ibuki moved to defend Katsuragi-san but was also struck in turn.

Should that read Ikagi-san? Or did Misato hit her own would-be ally by accident in her condition?

[Academia Nut]

The former, I think that was simply one of those cases where everything kind of got tangled in my head and I shifted it after it was written from the correct structure to an incorrect one.

[Academia Nut]

The beta for the next chapter has been sent to Chris to have a looksee. With any luck I'll be able to post it within the next 24 hours for your reading pleasure. Many questions will be answered. Many more will be raised.

[Sidewinder]

The flashback was better written than I expected. By the way, was the Lance of Longinus still used to kill Arael, or did Asuka manage to launch a psychic counterattack and kill the Angel?

And is Rei still loyal to Nurgle, or is she now worshipping Chaos Undivided? Has Slaanesh decided to grant her gifts?

[KlavoHunter]

I'm still pretty sure she's a Nurgle devotee - she's just hiding it from Gendo, pretending to be his good little servant.

[Chris OFarrell]

The beta for the next chapter has been sent to Chris to have a looksee. With any luck I'll be able to post it within the next 24 hours for your reading pleasure. Many questions will be answered. Many more will be raised.

I just got back home and checked da inbox and there it was.

Daammnnnnnn! is about all the comes to mind.
Of course it helped for some reason that during the...major event, I was playing the Matrix Reloaded soundtrank with 'Chateau' coming on just as everything started

Hope to have this back to Academia in a few hours.

[Academia Nut]

Sweet... of course, due to timezones, this means that it will be a bit longer until the rest of you get to see what happens. Then again, since it is currently the Ninth Layer of Hell outside (go go -50C with windchill) I may just bunker down tomorrow.

And speaking of interesting music synchronity, today when I found Stuart's latest Armageddon???? update I happened to have just fired up Rotersand's "Exterminate annihilate destroy". I forget what I was playing musically when I wrote the scene in question though. I think "Forces" from the Berserk OST was involved at some point though.

[FA Xerrik]

Oh Chris you tease now we have to wait for God knows how long for what is apparently the most Epic of battles. Woe unto us...

[Academia Nut]

Asuka was on a ventilator and a feeding tube, hooked up to various IV drips pumping her system full of various chemicals, while a whole battery of machines monitored her vital signs. She was also quite heavily restrained, enormous metal shackles and bars over her body to keep her down in the event she woke up angry.

Shinji wanted to rush in there and do everything he could for her, to tell her that it was alright, that he was back, that she didn’t have to hurt anymore. He resisted that impulse though. Everything was screwed up because he had lost sight of the big picture. If he wanted to truly help Asuka, he would have to think this out.

Still, looking at her through the observation window, Shinji couldn’t help but curl his fists in anger at this situation. Where had the laughter gone? Where had their meaningless, joyful play gone? Where had the cheeky banter between him, Asuka, and Rei gone?

Oh, wait, now he remembered. The Bastard Brigade of Gendo and SEELE were forcing them to fight this war with the Angels for them because they were too weak. Shinji could appreciate a good scheme like any follower of Tzeentch, but there were times to move the pawns and times to move the king. So far neither Gendo nor SEELE had done anything braver than castle. Tzeentch, they were probably still blaming one another over that Special Forces incident, not a clue what had happened. They were mewling kittens who thought they understood what power meant. They would not, however, survive any direct attacks, trusting their pawns and cat’s-paws to take the brunt of any counters by their enemies. Shinji’s growing resolve on the other hand showed that he would not fold up and die when something like this happened to him.

Rei was messed up, her powers having overwhelmed her psyche. But she would recover, and with time and more attention from Shinji, learn to master her powers.

Misato was in lock-up, half insane from having killed her best friend in a fit of rage while her family crumbled about her. But she was not yet dead, and there had yet to be a prison constructed that could keep out someone with telekinesis.

Asuka was in a coma, her mind attacked by the full power of an Angel. The battle must have been truly epic to have broken through her Khorne granted mental barriers and caused this much damage. But her soul was not destroyed, Shinji could feel it broken and wounded, but still intact. The urge to rush to her and begin the mending process nearly overwhelmed him again, but she was safe for now and it would be imprudent to take the risk at the moment.

Tzeentch was the god of hope. So long as there was still breath in his body, there was still hope. Hell, he had probably technically been dead for a month and mostly brain dead for another month, and yet here he was.

The time for schemes was passing. The time for war was approaching.

There would be no survivors on the opposing side.

SEELE? Their flayed hides would become a new decoration for Unit 01.

Gendo? Shinji would take immense pleasure in torturing his father until he was a blubbering pile of flesh devoid of any traits recognizable as human. While this was technically already true of the fucking bastard, Shinji’s way would involve far more blood and screaming to get there.

Gendo’s patsy Fuyutsuki? On him Shinji would test the limits of his telekinesis, see if he could actually crush the mass of a human into neutronium. He doubted it, but it would be interesting to try. Death would probably be instantaneous, a trifling consideration for the fact that Gendo’s lackey wasn’t as much of an ass as his father.

Anyone else who got in his way? Their deaths would be as slow and brutal as Shinji had the time for.

But for now, Shinji would secure his flanks. At this point, he only had two major points of weakness: the incapacitated Asuka and Misato. If anyone actually wanted to hurt him, the only thing they could do to cause lasting damage would be to kill either of those two. This was to say that Gendo had the perfect hostages. Since busting Misato out of jail would be the equivalent of an open declaration of war, such a move would have to come after he healed Asuka.

Healing the psychic damage would require all of his attention, leaving him vulnerable. He needed a guardian to watch over him while he did his work. Rei would work if he asked her to, but why settle for one guardian when he could have four?

Reluctantly and with great sorrow and bitterness, Shinji turned away from the observation window and said to Rei, “I have things I must do.”

Find Gendo, find him as the doll obedient to him I knew when we first met. Get close to him, find out his plans and FUCK THEM UP. Let Nurgle’s rot into all of his schemes and befoul them. Do as much damage as you can possibly get away with.

Rei made no sound or expression, simply staring on until Shinji had left, at which point she walked away, smiling on the inside.

It took Shinji a good ten minutes of walking through the halls of NERV to figure out what had changed in his absence. When he had first arrived NERV had been a sombre, almost morbidly serious place. Life with Gendo as commander had bred into them a sense that the world was coming to an end and that they would be the first ones to pay for any screw up. But under Shinji’s subtle influences he had brought hope to the place. With his insane stunts, demands for better, and the ability to quickly recover from what most people would consider disasters, he had inspired a feeling of hope in the entire base.

He had never noticed it until he saw how it had been ruthlessly stamped out in his absence.

In fact, it troubled him greatly how much had gone unnoticed by him. He prided himself on his powers of observation, critical to proper plotting and scheming, but in retrospect, despite his increasing powers he had had a fog over him for quite a while. It was more than just being distracted by teenage hormones. The time missing from his memory from before he was rendered out of action by the Fourteenth Angel bothered him greatly. So many things had happened then that seemed out of character for him.

Like how he could have been so stupid as to have not noticed -or anticipated- Rei’s problems or Gendo moving against him. He should have been smarter than that.

He strongly suspected some form of outside interference, but as far as he knew there was only one kind of influence that could fuck him over that badly. His mind leapt back to a prayer he said on the eve of the final battle with Ramiel and he felt a chill run up and down his spine.

Perhaps he hadn’t been caught in a web of his own making, but a web so much larger than himself he could not even see it, let alone comprehend it. He wasn’t sure which option was more terrifying. He would only be able to determine which scenario was correct once he had his memory back so that he could look at things with the clarity of hindsight.

This was probably the biggest reason why that month of memory had disappeared on him. Either he was so ashamed of his fuck up he was subconsciously repressing the memories, or whatever outside influence had caused this was keeping him in the dark. And it was infuriating.

Leaving Central Dogma behind, Shinji discovered the devastation to the Geofront for the first time. There were huge craters within the Geofront, presumably from the fight with the Fourteenth Angel, and the underground forests had all been burned to the ground. Sections were dark and in shadow while others were chaotic plays of light, some of the mirrors to bring sunlight from the surface damaged and broken. Worst of all though was the Tokyo-3 metropolis above, several of the buildings listing dangerously, while two or three had actually fallen out of their brackets. Two enormous holes had been punched in the artificial sky above, one molten and bending down, while the other was jagged and sharp, punching upwards.

Looking down at the road, he also noted the fact that he was standing in a size 400 boot print, the Nike swoosh clearly visible in the centre.

The only thing that had taken damage and been adequately repaired was Central Dogma itself, the rest seemed to have been left simply out of apathy. It took him a half hour to find a train to the surface that was still operable, and then another half hour just for it to arrive, twenty minutes late too.

The ride up was slow and torturous, the train slow and nearly empty due to the damage to the city. Shinji could only spend that time thinking, trying to reconstruct his memory, and getting an increasingly better view of the damage to the Geofront. Memories of the quick, pleasantly easy trips he had taken before were now only that, memories.

Exiting the gloomy, Stygian darkness of the lightless tunnel to the surface, Shinji got his first look at the damage to the surface. Buildings were knocked down or simply nonexistent, rubble lined every street, only shoved out of the way to free up the main roads. There was, in fact, a small lake in the centre of the remains of the city, the landscape so chewed up by the fighting that the local topography had been radically altered.

Getting off the devastated transit system as close to the house as he could, Shinji found that he still had a long trek back to the apartment. The streets were eerily empty of people, especially for a formerly bustling metropolitan area like Tokyo-3. It seemed that all non-essential personnel had evacuated, leaving behind only the handful of people who lived in the military barracks or in the Geofront where the damage was far less severe.

He wondered for a moment why all this damage had yet to be repaired, in comparison to the normally quick and efficient reconstruction Tokyo-3 normally had. Oh, the lake was probably a bit of a problem and rather recent too, but the damage from two months ago should have been at least patched over. Then he noted the second hole punched in the armour, the one travelling upwards, was right in the middle of the industrial sector. It looked like Shinji had completely annihilated Tokyo-3’s capacity to repair itself without outside help.

Whoops.

Arriving at the apartment building an hour later, Shinji looked up at the sky and frowned. It was already getting rather late in the day, and he doubted the trains to the Geofront would run much longer considering the damage. It looked like he would have to spend the night.

Climbing the stairs, because the elevator was no longer working, Shinji arrived at the apartment and realized after a few seconds that he no longer had the key on him. Shrugging, he unlocked it telekinetically and walked inside… to see the debris from the emotional wreckage Misato and Asuka had suffered.

The pigsty he had discovered upon his initial arrival was nothing compared to this. Even back then, Misato made the occasional effort to bag her garbage, to do some chores on an infrequent basis. It seemed that somewhere along the line, she had simply stopped caring, and Asuka had done nothing to fix the situation.

The piles of garbage were geological in their thickness and significance. At the bottom were the empty beer cans and instant noodle containers, but as he moved up the liquor got harder and the food cheaper and nastier. He felt like an archaeologist, but instead of sifting through the remains of a long vanished civilization, these were the stages of the implosion of a human being.

He began to pick everything up before pausing to consider the point of it all. He shook the feeling off though. He would not descend into apathy and despair; that was Nurgle’s shtick. Even if it was futile, even if he never came here again, he would clean up this place, for it was still his home.

With the main living area sanitized and cleaned a few hours later, Shinji stopped at the doors to the rooms, wondering what he would find on the other side. Ultimately, he left Misato and Asuka’s rooms alone. Those places were surely either their own private havens, or own private hells, and it was not his place to intrude upon them, not yet, not without them at his side.

So instead he entered his own room, flashlight in hand now that he no longer had the sun to light his way in this powerless place.

After blinking a few times to absorb it all, he was suddenly glad he had not intruded upon the sanctity of either of his housemates’ rooms. Crudely carved into the walls a la ‘The Shining’ were endless repetitions of the phrases “Come back!” and “I need you!” in three different languages. The bed was a complete wasteland, Asuka apparently having clung to the last traces of his presence as desperately as possible.

Creepy did not begin to cover it.

Sighing, Shinji just shook his head and gathered up his things. Obviously he had not done enough to help Asuka with her problems before being incapacitated and she had slid back into her dependent state. Just one more thing he would have to deal with

Settling down on one of the couches in the living room, Shinji relaxes and thinks about what he will have to do tomorrow.

First, perform psychic surgery on Asuka, pulling her back together. Kill anyone who stood in his way.

Second, bust Misato out of jail and try to fix her issues. Kill anyone who stood in his way.

Third, kill Gendo and Fuyutsuki. Use Misato’s expertise to assume control of NERV. Kill anyone who stood in his way.

Fourth, find and hunt down SEELE. Kill anyone who stood in his way.

Fifth, wrap up this whole Angel business, playing out the end game. There was only one left anyway.

Shinji’s eyes, which had been drooping up to that point, snapped open in shock. How do I know that there is only one Angel left?

From the depths of his mind more of that mysterious, unpronounceable language drifted up, telling him things he did not yet understand.

Zf’patz’intchix’krew’v’tzint’chiah’qbuy…

And yet… in those alien syllables, there was some glimmer of meaning, of comprehension. He now knew in his bones that this was the endgame. There was but one Angel left, the war almost over. Gendo and SEELE would soon be obsolete…

Fuck! Why was I so distracted these past months? As soon as I learned of SEELE I should have moved more strongly against them, learned more about their plans and capabilities. They’re all greedy bastards; they can’t be doing this simply out of enlightened self interest, there has to be something they want once this war is over.

What do they want anyway? Power obviously, for that was all people like that ever wanted, but to what end? What could they get out of this? Aside from their own survival, what purpose was there to their actions… damn it, I should have hunted one of the bastards down and ripped the information out of him.

Shinji then considered what he wanted once this war was over, once he had his father’s face flayed off and stapled to his personal memoirs. He had power, love, and family, or at least the pieces of such things at the moment. He still easily had another 75 years to live, if not longer with his expanded powers of the Warp. There was so much he could do.

Eh… he would wipe out everyone who had opposed him so far and then think about conquering the world/galaxy/etc. He would definitely have to see how this world related to the home of his mentor. Maybe if he got back there he could make a play for ascension to daemonhood. Would probably take a couple of centuries, but he was still young, he still had plenty of time to figure things out.

Ah well, those were all schemes for later. Despite having slept for two months, he was still quite tired and tomorrow was a big day. Things to do, places to be, people to kill…


Shinji awoke before the rising of the sun, knowing what he would need to do today. Today would be a day of blood. Fuck, the media and historians would probably give it some overly grandiose name, like the Day of Thunder.

Yes… yes, a name like that would be fitting. There would be much electricity and many explosions before this day ended.

The apartment quiet and empty, Shinji quickly ate and washed up before beginning his final preparations. Thankfully the water was still running, if cold, apparently unaffected by the loss of power.

First he began with a long prayer session to Tzeentch, pleading for strength and offering much slaughter in return. The heads of Gendo and SEELE, pretenders to the throne of scheming and plotting, would surely make a fitting tribute to the god of such things.

Once that was done, Shinji rose from his shrine and began dressing himself for the day ahead. Gone were the cheap clothes he had recovered from the hospital ward, replaced by a very special wardrobe he had had custom tailored for him in secret and then hidden away. Fortunately it seemed that Gendo’s snoops had not discovered the package.

From the outside it looked almost as if Shinji was wearing a set of black robes, but in truth that was merely an illusion for his clothes did not impede his motions nearly as much as robes might. Their purpose was to conceal what lay beneath, namely the custom designed armour, costing a little over twenty million yen to incorporate the most advanced technology money could buy. Polymers most people had never heard about and involved the best materials technology know to man with such buzzwords as “nanotechnology”, “non-Newtonian fluids”, “dilatant” and “pseudoplastics”. It was all very bleeding edge stuff, still mostly experimental, but the upside was that Shinji could take anything up to -but not including- a 20mm autocannon shell to the chest and have a greater than 50/50 chance of surviving, while retaining almost all of his mobility.

Armoured in this way, he then armed himself with his staff and strapped a special bandolier to his chest to carry the four canopic jars that held his servants. He now had all of his weapons bar his Eva, which was to say that he could conquer the entire city single handed instead of simply taking over the planet by dint of the fact that nothing could touch him in his Eva. And despite this level of firepower, he looked vaguely like a member of some peaceful order of clergymen.

Shinji did so love deceptions.

He had but one thing he wanted to do before he left. Climbing the stairs, he arrived upon the roof of the apartment and looked around. As he had suspected, Horus was still waiting for him, far more loyal than his namesake. The bird immediately fluttered over to Shinji’s shoulder and alighted there.

Stroking the raptor’s head, Shinji looked it in the eye. “Sorry about the absence, I just came up to tell you that today everything changes. You may never see me again, or you may get your choice of hunting grounds and breeding partners in the future. Only time will tell really. You may however, wish to vacate the area as I’m not sure how bad the fireworks will be, and I’m sure you’ve been distressed by everything that has been happening so far.”

Somehow the wild animal understood Shinji and flew off, making for some place as far from Tokyo-3 as possible. Mainland China perhaps.

Just as Shinji was about to turn to leave, an old bulldog slumped over to him. It took him a moment to piece things together, but he realized that this must have been one of the creatures drawn to Asuka. As the saying went; always be wary of scarred old men, because the only thing you knew of them was that they were survivors. This dog was clearly a survivor, probably some victim of abuse, perhaps a fighter in illegal gambling operations before fleeing into the streets.

Wary of the creature, Shinji still addressed it and said, “Well then, I suppose you should know that today I go to aid your mistress, and when we return, your loyalty shall surely be rewarded as well.”

The old dog just ‘harrumphed’ and went off to lie down again. Apparently the old gladiator was unimpressed with the young sorcerer.

Leaving the apartment behind, Shinji began his trek back to NERV in the predawn light. Looking over the schedules at the train station, he found that the nearest reliable line was still further away, and if he wanted to get to NERV before noon he would have to use that line instead of waiting around all day for a train to show up closer.

Furthering his trek into the dawn, Shinji paused at the edge of the new lake created by the devastation of the fights with the Angels and wondered at the futility of it all. For all they had advanced, for all they had evolved, even with the Evas progressively losing Pilots, the Angels still kept losing this war, and they only had one shot left at this.

Did they even realize how fucked they were?

Shinji’s reverie of the thought was interrupted by the sound of humming. Looking to the side, Shinji notes a young man sitting casually on a ruined statue of an angel, observing the rising of the sun. With ashen grey hair, red eyes, and a youthful appearance, he appeared as a more upbeat, male version of Rei.

“Hello,” Shinji said.

“Hello Ikari Shinji-san,” the boy replied warmly.

“I see my reputation precedes me. I am afraid that you thus have me at a disadvantage, for I know not your name,” Shinji said.

Smiling broadly, the young man tells him, “My name is Nagisa Kaworu, Ikari-san. I am the Sixth Child.”

“Please, call me Shinji, Nagisa-san,” Shinji answered smoothly.

“Only if you will call me Kaworu,” Kaworu said.

“Very well,” Shinji said with a slight nod. “I must say though, that your presence here is… unusual, no?”

“Oh, the fact that they called up a new Pilot when the last battle left NERV without any Pilots, although your awakening is indeed fortuitous, is strange?” Kaworu asked lightly.

“No, I mean that you seemed overly happy in the face of this devastation, humming a song even,” Shinji pointed out, although his voice is non-accusatory.

Smiling, Kaworu answered, “Songs are good. Singing brings us joy. It is the highest point in the culture that Lilims have created.”

Chuckling, Shinji asked, “Oh really?”

Frowning slightly, Kaworu asked, “You do not appreciate song?”

“Hardly. I simply do not think it the high point of culture, merely a manifestation of the high point,” Shinji explained.

Grinning, Kaworu turns his head to the side in a lopsided manner and asked, “Oh, do tell.”

“The high point of any culture is its survival,” Shinji said.

“I would think that would be the base,” Kaworu pointed out.

“Then your thinking is woefully linear. At what point of a mountain do you differentiate from the ‘base’ and the ‘apex’ when it is all one whole? Music that lifts the soul will further the survival of a culture, but it can only appear when the culture itself ensures survival. The greatest pieces of music were all composed before Second Impact because we were not riding the edge of survival, and thus we had the time and resources to spare to such beautiful creations. But now that the wounds are healing, that the war with the Angels is reaching its conclusion, the songs are coming back out. They are proclaiming that we will not be bowed, that we have survived, that we will survive,” Shinji elaborated.

“A curious analysis Shinji-kun. What makes you think that the war with the Angels is coming to an end?” Kaworu asked.

“Because there is but one left,” Shinji stated boldly.

“Oh? And how could you possibly know that?” Kaworu inquired.

Mulling the question for a moment, Shinji replied, “Fighting the Angels has awoken within me new instincts, new insights, and I simply feel it in my bones that they have but one move left to play in this twisted game. One last, desperate move.”

Glancing about the wreckage of Tokyo-3, Kaworu asked, “You call this desperate?”

Grinning, Shinji replied, “Of course.”

A somewhat smug, condescending look crosses Kaworu’s face and he asked, “And if all of that was to lure you into a false sense of superiority?”

Snorting derisively, Shinji said, “Then the Angels are all idiots granted power beyond their station, blind, mewling things that have intruded upon a nest of serpents, not understanding their own inevitable doom.”

“A nest of serpents? Quite the negative appraisal of all Lilim, don’t you think?” Kaworu asked.

“Hardly. The serpent taught us everything we needed to kill Angels, and the venom of snakes can handily slay seemingly mightier creatures such as elephants or bears. For all their size and power, the Angels have fallen to us just as the tiger falls to the cobra,” Shinji stated smugly.

Hopping off the statue to confront Shinji, Kaworu glares at him condescendingly and asked, “I had heard that you were intelligent and wise beyond your years, but to underestimate your enemies so is as foolish as-”

Cutting him off, Shinji finished, “-to use the word ‘Lilim’ to refer to humanity. Honestly, how much has SEELE sheltered you from reality if such basic things are beyond you?”

Blinking, Kaworu stuttered for a second, trying to perceive the turn this conversation had unexpectedly taken, as his universe changed in an instant.

Sneering cruelly, Shinji advanced, smoothly taking a step closer. “Do not even pretend to think that you are like me Angel, parading about in such a stolen form. You are as your brothers, blind, stupid, and most of all weak. You cannot even comprehend your own power, and thus you cannot use it. In the war between brains and brawn… well, let us just say that there is a reason sword swinging nutcases are less common in the age of cruise missiles. Not that brute force does not have its place-”

Before Kaworu had time to respond, Shinji’s staff lanced out in a vicious strike that would have decapitated the Angel with blunt force trauma if not for the AT-field that popped into existence between the two of them.

Withdrawing his staff, Shinji noted analytically, “So you do have an AT-field.”

“Yes, or at least, that is what you Lilim call this thing. This is the light of my soul, a sacred territory in which no one may intrude. Aren't you Lilim even aware yet, that your so-called AT field is merely that wall that encloses every mind that exists?” Kaworu asked angrily, furious at this unexpected evolution of events.

Cocking his head to the side, Shinji said, “That may be the light of your soul, but this is the sound of a supersonic I-beam.”

Kaworu probably could have dealt with the momentum transfer of the impact if he had been prepared, but the shock of Shinji telekinetically accelerating a piece of broken building to Mach 2 in just under five metres of space caused him to forget to anchor his AT-field properly.

Nagisa Kaworu ricocheted from the surface of the lake twice before he stabilized his tumble, unhurt but stunned and confounded by this unheard of demonstration of power. Rising out of the perturbed water, Kaworu watched in surprise as Shinji levitated out over the lake to follow him.

“What have you Lilim stolen now?” Kaworu spat out.

Sneering contemptuously, Shinji said, “Nothing Tabris, we, unlike you Angels, have merely been learning. Much we have taught ourselves, but there are others willing to impart their knowledge. The Evas we built from what we learned from the Angels. I on the other hand learned from a completely different source, one best suited to the killing of creatures such as you.”

“What?” Kaworu stuttered incredulously.

“Daemons,” Shinji hissed in a pleased tone. “If the choice is between the extinction of the Angels and the hell of daemons, I choose hell. So long as I still can act, no matter the circumstances, there is still hope, still things I can change. Hell is not so bad. Besides, they teach so many interesting things, like your true name for example.”

Once more Kaworu snapped up his AT-field, this time making sure to anchor it properly, as a rain of improbably massive and fast missiles rained down on his position. The lake steamed and bubbled as steel liquefied on impact, the steam rising up to the floating Shinji where it crystallized around him and feel back as snow.

Lashing out with his own power, Kaworu shoves Shinji back, launching him towards the still standing remains of downtown Tokyo-3. Taking flight to dodge the remaining barrage of missiles, Kaworu follows Shinji, intent on both killing this aberration and finding out how he came to do such things.

There were no such things as demons!

Standing smugly on one of the abandoned skyscrapers, Shinji taunts, “Is that the best you can do? Because we can keep this up all day, just countering each other, getting nowhere fast. Though, I’m sure that if this fight goes on long enough someone will notice, even after I turned off all the cameras, and send someone up here. At that point I will use the distraction to go get Unit 01 and repeat what I did to Zeruel to you.”

“Your arrogance shall be your undoing, I am quite capable of attack,” Kaworu spat.

Down below a small café exploded, hundreds of knives rising up to the level of their confrontation, embedded in Kaworu’s AT-field.

“As expected from someone who wants to take over the world,” Shinji noted dryly before throwing up his arms to block the bits of the barrage that got through his telekinetic barriers. Several knives stabbed into his arms, legs, and chest, but once it was all done he simply shook them off, none of the bladed weapons having penetrated his armour down to his skin.

“You were prepared for this fight I see,” Kaworu notes sarcastically.

“No, I prepared for a far more important one. You are merely an annoying side quest in the grand scheme of things, a trifling thing that needs to be dealt with, like a splinter beneath a nail,” Shinji stated dismissively before hurling the cutlery back at Kaworu hard enough for them to disintegrate. He then flicks a finger and rips the top of a building off and throws it at Kaworu from behind.

Another AT-field appeared between Kaworu and the incoming collision, the impact reducing the suddenly mobilized top floor into a pile of rubble.

“Your defences are impressive,” Shinji concedes.

“As are your offences. But they are no match for me, and how much longer will your armour hold out? How much longer until blood is drawn?” Kaworu asked.

“Why would I tell you mission critical information like that?” Shinji asked in a sing-song voice before throwing another supersonic I-beam at Kaworu.

“I guess it will have to be a surprise then,” Kaworu sneered, throwing more debris at Shinji.

They continued like that for several more minutes, hurling tonnes of debris and insults at one another, neither side really doing anything but forcing the battle to hop from building to building as they destroyed everything around them. It soon became clear though that Kaworu was getting stronger while Shinji’s strength began to wane, many of his projectiles failing to break the sound barrier.

Finally, something had to give, namely the floor beneath Shinji. The roof and top two floors of a building imploding as a steamroller was dropped right on top of him, Shinji tumbled down into the debris, disappearing into a cloud of pulverized concrete.

Floating down into the wreckage, Kaworu taunted, “You have been keeping to the rooftops when I know you can levitate, indicating that your strength is limited, and you cannot in fact ‘keep this up all day’. Your death is inevitable you know.”

Rising from the rubble, not a speck of dust on his clothing, Shinji still brushes himself off to show his contempt before saying, “Death is always inevitable, it is merely the time and place that are in doubt.”

“Says the frail Lilim. I will continue forever,” Kaworu boasts.

Raising an eyebrow, Shinji smiled, “No, no you won’t. Your corpse however, will make a fine declaration of war to SEELE.”

“And you called me stupid? In case you haven’t noticed, you are losing,” Kaworu growled.

“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m missing the jars that were strapped to my chest a moment ago,” Shinji mocked.

“So?” Kaworu asked just before there was the sound of blowing sand.

“So unlike you, I know how to deceive my enemies,” Shinji said as his servants open fire.

Drawing his AT-field in about himself closely to ward off the unexpected fire from the giant armoured brutes, Kaworu can only scream, “What are you?”

I am as far beyond you as humans are beyond the apes. Incidentally, you are pouring all of your power into physical defences and completely neglecting any sort of mental barriers.

Shinji’s astral construct cut through Kaworu’s almost nonexistent defences like butter with its initial strike, causing the Angel to collapse to the ground in agony, his capacity to levitate cut off as he refocused his energies, and as a segment of his mind was simply erased. The second attack however bounced off his strengthened shields.

“This… is… impossible!” Kaworu screamed.

Raising a hand casually to Kaworu, the boy struggling under the simultaneous physical attacks from the Rubric Marines and the mental attack, Shinji then said, “Chaos is all things.”

Violet-white lighting leaps from his finger tips and exploded across Kaworu’s AT-field, coruscating up and down hungrily, greedily searching for any crack in the defences. The field wavered for just a moment under the assault, but it was enough to let in a flicker of soul crushing energy. Kaworu screamed in agony as his body was cooked from within before a telekinetic thrust hurled him through a wall and to the ground below.

His body and mind in searing pain, Kaworu struggled to rise from the crater where he landed, but found his legs broken. Levitating gently to the ground, his servants returned to their jars and the jars returned to his bandolier, Shinji looks down at the final Angel with contempt in his eyes. “This is the end for your race. Think of it as returning the sentiment for what you tried to do to mine.”

“Now… now I see what you meant about music… you… you Lilim truly are survivors,” Kaworu said pathetically.

“A pity you only learned this at the end. And now young Angel… you die,” Shinji stated before pouring lightning into the body of the Seventeenth Angel. Kaworu’s body was seized in a spastic seizure as electricity danced across his flesh, twitching his muscles while cooking them. His hair caught fire, quickly burning away. The fluid in his eyeballs boiled over, causing them to explode. His jaw shut around his tongue, biting it off.

When Shinji paused over this charred and smoking body, he noticed the Angel was trying to regenerate so he poured on another blast, this time not stopping until the fat boiled out of the body and caught fire, consuming the boy in unholy candle flames while bits of lung bubbling out of his mouth.

When the smoke cleared and the twitching stopped, there was only a pathetic, twisted, blackened corpse left. Shinji took no chances, telekinetically ripping the head off and then stringing the rest upside-down off a protruding girder from a partially ruined building, using the intestines as the rope.

As a final touch, Shinji melted the words, “You’re next” into a nearby concrete wall.

He kept the head. It would make a wonderful gift for Asuka.

Speaking of which, he was late for his appointment. The lock-down he had initiated in NERV once he noticed the Angel would be problematic, but it had been necessary to keep nosey busybodies out of his business with the Seventeenth Angel.

Making his way quietly down to Central Dogma, seemingly oblivious to the state of panic caused by the mysterious happenings on the surface, Shinji watched in amusement as everyone streams past him, completely oblivious to the duffel bag he was carrying. None recognized him, his mind clouding their perceptions so that he would not be bothered with trifling things like being deployed to kill the Angel he had already decapitated.

Arriving a good two hours after his fight with Tabris at the location he had intended to arrive at significantly earlier, Shinji waltzed right into Asuka’s room without impedance, the guards too occupied with their sudden bouts of explosive diarrhoea to question him. He considered killing them, but that would be rather obvious and Gendo still had a hostage.

Setting up a small shrine and surrounding himself with the canopic jars, energized to spring to life should any threat present itself, Shinji began his meditation. The fight with Kaworu had taken a great of his strength, but he still had enough for what needed to be done.

It would simply take longer.

Okay Asuka, time to rebuild your mind. Time to relive these lost months and repair the damage they have done.

[Sidewinder]

Badass. By the way, do you think the NGE Solar System is a copy of the WH40K Solar System, created by the Old Ones for an unknown purpose? (See here-- and please leave comments.)

I expect Kaoru's experiences to influence the behavior of his clones, i.e., the Mass Production Evangelions' dummy plugs. Or are clones of Rei being used instead?

[Sidewinder]

Supporting my idea that NGE Earth is a copy of WH40K Earth, created by the Old Ones for reasons known only to them:

The First Ancestral Race is never mentioned in the series, but are described in the Classified Information files of the spin off video game Neon Genesis Evangelion 2. The First Ancestral Race (Japanese: Dai'ichi Shiso Minzoku, 第一始祖民族) are the ancient god-like progenitor aliens who created Adam and Lilith, and thus, ultimately the creators of both the humans and the Angels. Billions of years ago, this race seeded life throughout the galaxy by sending Seeds of Life to many planets (their motivation is unknown). Seeds of Life called White Moons contained Adam-like creatures, who gave rise to Angel life forms on the planets they landed on. Seeds of Life called Black Moons contained Lilith-like creatures, who started what we would consider normal terrestrial life, which evolved into human-like life forms. A Black Moon and a White Moon were never meant to land on the same planet, and thus Angels and humans were never meant to co-exist. Originally, the White Moon containing Adam landed on Earth. However, the Black Moon containing Lilith accidentally (and violently) collided into Earth, an event known as First Impact which created Earth's Moon. These aliens also created the Lance of Longinus, which was sent along with Adam and Lilith as a means of controlling them. While none of this is ever mentioned in the series, the "Moons" of Adam and Lilith can be seen in that the White Moon of Adam in Antarctica, and the Black Moon of Lilith under Tokyo-3, which are both described as "clearly artificial", as well as being "nearly identical".

Sounds familiar, doesn't it?