But Loyal to Their Own, Chapter 5- The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea by Tabasco

Evafics.org » Action » Tabasco » But Loyal to Their Own

But Loyal to Their Own, Chapter 5- The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
By Tabasco 2 Comments Post Comment	May 11, 2008
Secondary Genre: Crossover	This chapter has received 257 visitors.
Download Archive of Chapter: HTML, ZIP Download Archive of Story: HTML, ZIP Please click only once on the above download links.
Subscribe to Mailing List
Like this story? Think a friend would like it too? Invite your friend to read it! Send an invite!
Vote: You haven't posted a comment.	Current Vote: 0 out of 10 (0 people voted)

« Previous Chapter

Furry Pigeon Productions presents:

But Loyal To Their Own: An Evangelion Elseworlds
By Andrew Lewis

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

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!"
-Lewis Carroll "Alice in Wonderland"

"Conviction is contagious. So is doubt."
Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan, _Mirror Dance_, by Lois McMaster Bujold

Nerv-3
Boston
September 1, 2015
9:00PM Local Time

Samuel Roberts plopped his language textbook on the cafeteria
table and took a long look at the occupant across from him. Teletha
Testarossa frowned at what looked like the field manual for the Glock 17
automatic pistol propped between the table and her lap, outwardly
concentrating on what Sam knew to be a fantastically dull document. To
an outside observer this would have merely been a sign of commendable
diligence on her part, but he hadn't been living and working with this
girl for the past six weeks for nothing.

"Ok, what's wrong?"

"What makes you think anything is?" she answered without looking
up, her left hand twining the tip of her ash blonde braid through her
fingers.

"One, because that's the same manual you've been reading since
yesterday, and you've yet to take more than a couple hours on one.
Two, you haven't turned a page in five minutes. Three, you've -been-
like this off and on for a while. Spill."

"I don't want to talk about it." Tessa replied, a noticeable edge
to her voice.

"Uh huh." Sam considered her before nodding to himself. "Ok, good
to know. I'll remember to mark this week on next month's calendar."

Tessa's fingers twitched on her braid.

That was the reaction he was looking for. "Yep, big red letters
too, saying..."

Tessa glanced up through her bangs. "You're not going to shut up
until I tell you." It wasn't a question.

"Nope."

Tessa sighed and contemplated relocation, but since she had to go
back to her room of their suite -some- time that was a temporary
solution at best. Given the keen interest coming across the table from
her brown-eyed inquisitor, even that respite was doubtful.

"All right," she relented. "Mao's been 'talking' to me about my
performance."

"Oh." Sam's eyes widened with much the same expression had he
felt the tug of a tripwire against his boot. "More than usual?" he
asked, a veteran of more than a few such sessions.

"You could say that." Tessa smirked darkly, and related the gist
of the meeting.

Sam winced. Ouch. Talk about not pulling her punches."

It turned out Tessas normally soft, sweet voice could manage a
fairly credible snarl. And every time I think about it I get she
gestured angrily.

Pissed off all over again? Sam supplied.

Yes! she exclaimed. And whats even worse is that I know
perfectly well shes manipulating me, but its still working!

Dont blame ya. Id be hacked too, Sam scratched at his nose
in thought. Though what the rest has to do with anything is beyond me.
I mean, you may not be Miss America material, but calling you a horse is
a little harsh, he mused to himself.

Tessas indignation dissolved into blank incredulity, before she
dropped her face onto her folded arms, her shoulders twitching spasmodically.

Sam's expression collapsed into horror as the last sentence
replayed itself for his mortification. Nice job, jackass! Whats next,
stomping on kittens?!' Tessa, Im so sorry. That was stupid, and if Id
thought for half a second Id... he was cut off by her muted laughter,
before she raised herself back upright and wiped her eyes.

No, relax. Im ok. Only -you- would think... she cut herself
off. 'Of all the ways to comfort someone! Not Miss America material!
Youll pay for -that- later, pal.

She chuckled again, for a very different reason, and continued.
Mao wasnt calling me ugly, she was quoting an old story. It basically
goes that a prisoner was brought before the Persian emperor to be
sentenced. The emperor gave him the choice between an immediate
beheading, or he would have one year to teach a horse to sing. If the
prisoner failed, hed be executed in some vile way, Ive forgotten how.
If successful, hed be set free. The prisoner agreed at once. On the way
to the stables, the guard asked him why he accepted so fast, he couldnt
think it was possible. The prisoner replied Yes, but in a year the
emperor might die, or I might die, or perhaps the horse will sing.'
I ran across it when I was learning Farsi." Tessa shook her head in
remembered wonder. "Absolute power must corrupt in more ways than
morally, some of those guys had no business outside a psych ward."

She went silent for a moment, her gaze far away, before giving
a little shake and continuing "Anyway, its a hobby."

"Huh. Not my first choice, but hey." Sam shrugged, letting out
a secret breath of relief that the danger had passed.

"And long range gunnery is a perfectly normal pursuit." Tessa
countered archly.

"What? A lot of boys learn to shoot before they learn to multiply
back home. And most of us that do get our first buck before we leave
elementary school." He shrugged again. "Of course as far as Mom knows
I've never fired on anything but paper targets. Helps her sleep better
at night, I suppose."

Tessa quirked a grin. "Shame on you. Anyway, Mom put together a
degree in languages over the years while Dad was at sea. She said it
helped her pass the time." 'Among other things.' Tessa added to herself
with well worn bitterness "My brother studies them too, so I guess it runs
in the family."

She sat quietly and considered her table mate once he'd returned to
his reading. In spite of his blunder, she did feel a little better.
Sam wasn't one to sweat the small stuff. 'Or a lot of the -big- stuff,'
honesty compelled her to add. If he agreed she had a right to be angry,
she wasn't likely to be overreacting.

But one part of that first rebuke from Mao had stood out. "You
haven't figured out how to use your talents to effect." She'd turned
that statement over in her mind any number of times and was no further
along than when she started. Maybe another perspective was in order...

"I need an honest opinion."

Sam cringed slightly. "Ok, that I can do."

Tessa forbore comment. "What are my strengths as a pilot?"

Sam groaned. "Are you -sure- you wouldn't rather ask me if your
plugsuit makes you look fat?"

"Are you saying it does?" Tessa replied with an innocent smile that
stopped at her eyes.

"I'm not -quite- as dumb as I look. But ok, as a -pilot-" he
paused for thought. "You're hands down the smartest person I've 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 suppressed
the bitterness of someone who couldn't even program a TV. "And language
skills are always a handy thing for a soldier," he finished after another
pause.

'Well, that qualifies me to -repair- an Eva...' Tessa thought. It
wasn't lost on her that no physical qualities were mentioned. Not that
that was a surprise, she knew perfectly well athletic prowess wasn't
going to be on anyone's list of her best qualities.

Sam observed her gloomy expression and bit his lip in frustration.
'I knew this was a bad idea. I don't have any business fixing a crisis
of faith, there's a reason I keep my mouth shut at funerals!'
Unfortunately, he was all there was. "And..." he continued, after a
quick recitation of Shepard's Prayer, "I've never seen you quit." At her
skeptical look, he half-desperately added, "You've always given everything
you've got, not matter how crazy the job was."

"I'm sure thick-headedness counts as a major plus," Tessa replied
sarcastically.

"Depends on if it accomplishes anything. And come on, what kind of
man lets a girl do something he refuses to do himself?"

"Now what exactly does..." Tessa began irately

"Let me try that again," Sam sighed, cursing himself. "When I
see you out there fighting tooth and nail to get through, it feels
criminal to give anything less," he took a breath to steel himself to
finish "almost like a betrayal."

Tessa stared narrowly at him for a long moment. "That may be the
sweetest thing you've said to me. What have you done with Sam, and are
you sure he can't escape?"

"Hey!" Sam protested. "I've said nice things before!"

Tessa continued to stare.

"Once or twice. I think?" he amended hopefully

'What -am- I going to do with you?' she shook her head and finally
relented. "Yes, you have." Tessa agreed with a crooked smile. "All right.
So I'm a smart, stubborn, nerd who can bore and confuse in an array of
tongues. I guess I'll just have to go with what I've got."

Nerv-4
Karamay
September 2, 2015
12:15PM Local Time

Nami Lin stood on her toes and tried to scan the tables in the
crowded cafeteria for her partner. 'He'd -better- have waited for me.'
she fumed after a long moment, before finally spying him at a small table
near the east wall.

"There you are." Nami's smile belied 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. "Have you seen what the cat dragged in?" he asked once
she was seated.

Nami chuckled. "If you mean the remains of our Eva, yeah. I saw
it when Ayanami and the rest got back. You're behind the curve!" she
needled.

"Oh, so did I. I meant how it looks -now-" Han clarified.
"I'd say the modular armor proved its worth."

Nami nodded agreement. Unlike the prototypes, the production
model Evas were designed with combat requirements in mind. In contrast
to Eva-01, which while equipped with combat rated armor and structure was
more systems testbed than war machine, the newer Evas mounted their
protection in thousands of octagonal and semi-octagonal blocks two
thirds of a meter thick. Repairing external damage was a matter of simply
replacing the damaged blocks with identical ones from storage, and
reapplying the ablative resin coating over the area.

"They sure didn't waste any time. They had the actual battle damage
fixed in under an hour." Nami agreed. "I heard all of the autocannon ammo
feeds work now, too."

"Good to know, though I still think they underestimated a bit on how
much firepower we'd need," Han 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."

Nami nodded absently. "Speaking hypothetically, if you knew you
were being lied to in a little thing, would you trust someone about
something more important?" she asked after a moment. At Han's wary
expression, she amended hastily, "Oh, nothing about us. I'm talking
about a Nerv thing."

Han relaxed. "Oh. Well, I wouldn't quit believing them completely,
but I would certainly be a lot more careful."

"That's what I thought too." Nami leaned forward somewhat and
appeared to be toying with the straw in her cup. "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, one of the clerks left his terminal for a coffee
break. When I glanced at his screen, I saw something interesting. You
know we all have profiles in the Nerv system, right?"

"Sure, what about it?"

"Well, this clerk must have been browsing the server they're on
for some reason, because I saw the actual files, not the data screen
we get. Soryu-Langley's and Ayanami's 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 frowned in thought. "Interesting. There are 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..."

"That would change the local creation date, but not the date stamp
on the file," Han replied. "No, that file was created when it says
it was. 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 in 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 might be every bit as effective in combat as the other two, but
he doesn't -move- like they do. Not as smoothly, even with a better
sync score than Ayanami."

"I don't move like you do in an Eva, and we have the same
experience," Han pointed out. "Who's to say he would move like someone
else?"

"I had two years of gymnastics before I had to leave my old school,"
Nami replied bitterly. "I move better than you because some of that
carries over. Ikari should have the same training that Ayanami got if
he really is her partner, but he doesn't -show- it," she shrugged
helplessly. "What does that leave?"

"Not much," Han sighed after a moment. "It's not proof, though."

"No, but it's damned suspicious. And that's what I was getting at
before. I suspect we're getting lied to, or at least -not- getting the
whole story. So now what?"

"I can't think of much we can do, except keep our eyes open. I
think the real question is if we let on we know," Han frowned. "I'm
personally in favor of not."

Nami's eyes widened in surprise. "Why not? 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-" Nami corrected.

Nerv-3
Boston
September 5, 2015
8:45AM Local Time

"Eva-03, flank left and prepare to engage." Rei's flat voice
commanded over the roar of an incoming HVM volley. Han, in Eva-06,
wasn't stinting his fire support as he steadily burned through the
sixty rockets his machine carried.

"On the way," Tessa responded while moving Eva-03 in a crouch,
careful to keep under the height of the row of apartment blocks she was
using for cover.

----------

Easing slowly around a foothill, Asuka spied Eva-03 about eight
hundred meters ahead and to the right, practically in plain sight.

"Too easy," she grinned, and drew her pistol from its shoulder
hardpoint. "Just ease forward a little more and..." Then it hit her.
It was quiet. Too quiet. "Eva-06, status." Nothing but an almost
inaudible hiss. "Fei, respond," Again, nothing. 'Creeeepy. But that
bastard Steuben probably simulated a comm failure to keep me from winning
so easily. Too bad it won't work,' she smirked smugly. Easing forward
to her firing position, she noted Eva-03 was still banging away with its
Type 17 battle rifle, a larger caliber and slower firing cousin to the
Type 14 her partner carried, 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 gathered 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, Asuka
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.

Ayanami was no slouch in a melee, even Asuka would admit as much,
but this was the kind of fight that Eva-02 was built for and she'd
trained for. It was only a matter of time.

----------

Melissa Mao tipped a mental hat in respect to Pilot Ayanami,
as Eva-00 gave ground before her foe. Rei had to know she was
outclassed, and the damage her machine was taking only proved the point.
However, every second she bought allowed her partner that much more time
to work around into a position to support her.

In fact...

-----------

Asuka's missile launch alarms screamed a warning, jerking her away
from the image of Eva-00 reeling before her, 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- to be kidding me!" she exclaimed as yet another
volley appeared, from a completely different direction. Spying Eva-00
advancing on her, progressive knife in hand, she made a snap decision.
Springing to meet her arch-foe, Asuka closed the distance, aiming to
force Testarossa into aborting her launch for fear of hitting her
teammate. Not that such a thing would stop -Asuka- of course, but...

----------

Tessa snarled frustration. The Maverick guided missiles she'd
launched were 'fire and forget' weapons. Once their infrared cameras
had been locked onto a target, each missile was supposed to home in on it
independent of any external help. And so they were.

"Eva-00, pull back! You're way too close!"

Rei didn't bother responding to the obvious, and continued to
maneuver to prevent Eva-02 from leaving the kill zone. Seconds later, it
no longer mattered. The earth's shaking unbalanced even the Eva's
substantial mass momentarily, the effect much like holding a string of
firecrackers to one ear while a freight train rumbled past.

Tessa raised up from the crouch she'd dropped into instinctively to
allowed 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. Somehow, they'd managed to at least
partially evade all three salvos.

Rei's Eva stood shakily with its right arm missing and what had to
be major armor damage to that shoulder, as well as a shoulder hardpoint
bent crazily from a very near miss. Asuka fared somewhat better, a
hardpoint missing completely and a series of nasty gouges down the chest
and continuing onto the abdominal armor, indicating she hadn't -quite-
twisted away from a few.

"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 moved in a crimson blur to plant 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'd so suddenly found herself alone.

----------

Asuka sized up her remaining opposition, and smiled. To her credit,
Eva-03 was already moving to take cover in a small cluster of buildings
to the east. It wouldn't be enough. Asuka's evaluation of Teletha
Testarossa thus far summed up as 'barely competent.' That she had a grasp
of tactics was obvious, but she was 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. As it is this is just clubbing baby
seals."

Ensuring she was making the random course and speed changes that
minimized the chances of a hit, Asuka darted forwards to the forlorn
office building she saw standing at the edge of the clear area Eva-03
had selected as her fire zone. 120mm rounds streaked past at one and a
half kilometers per second with the characteristic snap-crack of
projectiles traveling faster than sound, none close enough to be
particularly worrisome. Her alarms wailed again as her Eva's sensors
detected the heat of another missile launch.

"Ha!" Asuka 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, given the student's starting point the results had been
impressive by any possible standard. But hitting a moving target from
three quarters of a kilometer away was simply 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 towards her
foe, sporting two 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 F 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 frowned in confusion. The idea of using the remaining
missiles while she could made sense, but as soon as Asuka had made cover
Tessa should've cut the guidance links and run for it. At least that
way she could've opened the range back up. As it is the moment those
missiles hit somewhere Asuka was going to leap out from her bolt hole,
and once she was in among those buildings there was going to be precious
little Tessa 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 Mavericks were
each armed with a 140 kilo shipkiller warhead. 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.

The first struck at the hip joint, shoving the Eva sideways like a
blow from a Titan. The second was a clean miss caused by that 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,
and smashed 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 behind her 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." Chief 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, and a red and white head and torso painfully teetered
into view opposite of the gaping wound caused by her errant missile like
a falling oak, slamming to the ground with a 'thump' she could feel
through the soles of her feet.

"Ok. By the Book," she murmured, taking aim with her battle rifle.
'Center the target.'

'Wait for the tone,' she reminded herself once the pipper settled.

'Squeeze the trigger.'

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, and stared out across the oily waters of the city
harbor, uncharacteristically lost in thought.

"Not much use against an Angel, but still impressive, isn't it?"
A familiar voice commented behind her.

"Hey, Kaji!" Asuka perked up somewhat at his arrival. "Say again?"

Ryoji waved a hand out in the direction she'd been staring. "Our
esteemed escorts."

Waiting outside the harbor mouth 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. "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."

"Its not so bad as all that..." Kaji demurred, trailing off as a
crewman walked past on some vital errand before they cast off to join
the fleet. "...but I agree 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. He carefully ignored his charge's adoring
gaze and asked, "So, ready for your big debut?" knowing it was all but a
rhetorical question.

"You'd better believe it." Asuka 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"//

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 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 sternward.

"Finally, I thought I'd never get out of here." Asuka complained.

Ryoji merely allowed himself a private smile, and neglected to
comment on the wistful expression she wore as she stared at her homeland
passing behind them. 'Enjoy it while you can, kiddo,' he thought as he
leaned on the railing beside her, knowing the truth of 'you can never go
home again.'

Nerv-3
Boston
September 9, 2015
8:00PM Local Time

"Alright, let's take it from the top." Melissa sighed and rubbed
her eyes with one hand.

"Yes, ma'am. Resetting." Tessa resignedly confirmed. If she'd
been in any danger of getting a swelled head from her recent victory,
her instructor had swiftly defused it with a scathing running commentary
on the replay involving such choice phrases as 'incoming fire has the
right of way' and 'God watches over Children and fools.'

"The three times daily sim runs with it set on 'You Will Not
Survive' helped," 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 fourth time they'd
run this sim, and things were not improving. Much as she hated to admit
it, pilot error was probably not the issue here. The sensor suite fitted
to the American 'Trebuchet' Evas was identical to that fitted to the US
Navy's next generation missile destroyers. Combining four phased array
radars capable of outputting six megawatts each with a laser radar or
'lidar' for high resolution imaging, it was more than capable of tracking
targets the size of a baseball all the way to low 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 served by a crew of four
who did nothing but monitor and synthesize the still enormous flow of data.

"Penny for 'em, Chief?" Melissa asked the stocky dark-skinned man at
the console.

"I think the lab coat brigade should've checked with an adult before
they added another shiny toy," Cramer replied disgustedly.

Melissa grunted a laugh. "Fair enough, but we're stuck with it,"
she reminded him. On the main 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 forwards and pointed at the screen. "This is what
I'm talking about. Her Aegis system -has- to know about that bogey
closing in from her four o'clock, but she's so wrapped up in dealing with
these jackasses she won't know a thing about it until the AT field warning
goes off."

"So can't we widen the parameters on the automatic alert program?
Maybe set the range limit farther out?"

"No, that only makes the problem worse. We had to set it short
because a system that powerful detects -everything.- We're dealing
with information overload as it is."

"There's always -that- idea..." Cramer 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. 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 entailed, that
gave both the NCOs and the local Nerv techs hives.

Cramer snorted. "Yeah, I can just see it. An angel's approaching,
and then a thunderstorm rolls in and blocks the connection."

"Don't even joke," Melissa 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 without bothering
to hide her relief. "That reminds me, how'd Roberts do?"

"Not any better. He got a piece of one of the Gojiras all four
times and killed one once, but Tentacle Boy reamed him twice. In the
other one of the terrible two took him before their bro could interfere."

That didn't surprise Melissa in the least. Of the pair, Tessa was
far and away the better at multi-tasking. Sam probably locked onto one
of them and tried to beat the hell out of it, and against multiple
opponents that was a bad mistake.

"Looks like we were right after all. Go ahead and run up a baseline
for each of them and call it a night."

"Can do," Cramer agreed emphatically

----------

The mood that greeted Melissa when she entered the small anteroom
outside the showers was tense. Tessa was staring at the floor and
drooping in exhaustion, but still managing to radiate a quiet belligerence.
Sam had had the benefit of a short rest while Tessa went through her
paces. For that reason, the signs of fatigue were less severe, and it
showed in the obvious effort it took for him to keep his mouth shut.

"As I'm sure you guessed, this last scenario wasn't supposed to
be survivable," Melissa began in a much softer voice than her usual
parade ground harangue. "In fact, the scoring system is set up so that
killing single opponent counts as a passing grade. I'm not sure I agree
with that, but there it is. Now, a final quiz. Who can tell me why I ran
you both through the wringer tonight?"

Tessa raised her head. "To make sure we knew we weren't ten feet
tall and bulletproof when we got to Japan. It worked, by the way."

"Glad to hear it," Melissa replied crisply, and meant it. "And yeah,
that's a part of the reason. Roberts, care to try your luck?"

Sam shook his head. "That would've been my guess too, ma'am."

"Let me put it this way. Let's say you face something like this,
one fine day. Outnumbered, outgunned, no chance of winning. Do you
fight?"

Tessa responded immediately. "Not unless there's something worth
losing a pilot or Eva behind me."

"Fair enough."

"No," Sam agreed, once Melissa looked to him for his answer.
"I don't believe in suicide missions."

"Good answers, you're both a credit to your teacher," Melissa
nodded in satisfaction. "Now, here's the lesson. Heroes happen when
somebody fucks up. Had you checked your maps you'd have seen this,"
Melissa brought up a file on her tablet computer and turned it so they
could see.

Sam moaned in disgust. "So instead of hopping around in the open
like a jackrabbit we could've been hunkered down in that valley?!"

"With covered flanks and a nice flat plain at the mouth," Tessa
stared at the contour map of the area. "It would've been like a shooting
gallery."

"Yep. These sims are probably the best training tools I've ever
heard of, but they do tend to make you subconsciously limit yourselves.
I've seen it in the others too, all of you tend to stay right near the area
you start in, like 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'd 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. Now for something completely different. This evening
also proved that you'd have to be a professional 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 a bit. Grab some sack time, I've got
something to show you in the morning."

----------

'Something' was what had become of a spare display and a surplus
entry plug. The simulator's 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 a second seat with a forty-five centimeter display
in front of it.

"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. I can't see how it
couldn't be."

Neither pilot was offended. After getting screamed at and run
ragged fourteen hours a day every day, they'd long ago realized that
Melissa wasn't -actually- a sadistic bitch from Hell. She was, however,
bound and determined to give them the best preparation she possibly could
for what they would face. If hurt feelings were the price to pay, then so
be it.

Melissa pointed a thumb at the front seat. "Roberts, you'll start
out in the gunner's seat. Testarossa, you'll take the pilot's. After a
couple runs, we'll switch. Move," she commanded, turning towards
the control room.

UNS Fearless
1200 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, short black hair blowing in the breeze generated
by the ship's passage. Sipping 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, he surveyed his command. Spread before him was a
large minority of the UN Pacific Fleet's firepower, though his entire
force numbered less than a dozen 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 destroyer
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 the manila 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 seems its
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's 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 sole 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. "Find out what Osprey's best speed is, and if they'll
need assistance. And contact Sydney and request N2 authorization," he
finished calmly.

He swore behind the iron mask of his expression as his aides carried
out his orders. The news of an Angel, and that's what this almost had
to be, striking so far from Japan would hit Pacific Fleet headquarters
like a thunderbolt, and 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 online. Life
support standby. Active sensors to standby. Optical array online.
Second stage connection...set." She reported out loud by sheer force
of habit, continuing her extremely abridged startup checklist.
"Propulsion self-test suspended." She took a deep breath, and
instinctively felt outwards along the traces of her connection
to her steed. "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 was a nightmare of pillars of smoke
rising to the heavens, with the blazing trails of weapons fire mingling
with the flames of burning fuel oil oozing from the wreckage of a once
proud fleet. Even as she watched 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.
In a clear, steady voice she announced, "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 as the massive transport shuddered to a halt as
if it had run aground. Eva-02 was long gone. After leaping from her
doomed ship, she'd 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 I need a bigger boat,' Asuka murmured before spotting the
Angel coming around for another 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 detatched 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 750 tons of metal and mean, deforming the armored surface down over a
meter. 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 was on her lips
as she watched the Angel approach.

"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!"

With that, she deployed a progressive knife from its forearm
sheath, her beloved pistols most likely on the bottom of the Pacific by
now, and set herself to meet the Angel's charge.

----------

Izuo stared in rank disbelief at the monitor reporting the spectacle
unfolding on his flight deck. Though he'd been courteous, if distant, to
his two passengers, within he'd 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'd 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 65cm torpedoes from his submarines
to 152mm shells from the ex-Kirov, now Broadsword. He'd 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 edge 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 stood with its left foot behind the right
and turned ninety degrees to one side, mass centered in a knifefighter'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,
followed by a twist of the hips and torso to place the full power of
its artificial muscles behind her blade to send 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's not enough." Asuka opined as the
remaining ships abruptly ceased maneuvers and opened up with every weapon
that would 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,
as did the waterspouts from the explosions against the Angel. 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, and struck the Angel's core with the force of an
18 wheeler.

Moments later, the ship lurched and rolled once more, forcing the
Eva to its knees.

Tokyo-3
September 11, 2015
9:00AM Local Time

Nami stood with her nose literally pressed against the glass of
the tram car as it circled the geofront walls 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. She turned to Han for his reaction, to
find him sitting stiff as a board on his bench, staring fixedly at the
seat ahead of him.

"Han~!" she complained. "You've got to see this! Come on!" she
took him by the upper arm and tried to drag him to the big Plexiglas
window making up the front of the car.

"No~, no I don't," he argued quite emphatically in the same voice.

She gave up trying to pull someone nearly twice her mass and stepped
back, hands on her hips. "Why not? It's a beautiful view from up here
and..." her gaze sharpened at his suppressed shudder. "You're afraid of
heights," she pronounced with the certainty of Solomon. "But that
can't be, you've climbed a rope and used a drag line plenty of times,
I've seen it," Nami continued in disbelief.

Han's lips tightened in a grimace. "I can keep it under control
most of the time, especially if there's something underneath me," he
admitted slowly. "But yes." 'Here it comes,' he winced inside.
'First she rips a strip off me, then she drops me like a rotten onion.
Well, having a girlfriend was fun while it lasted.'

Nami snorted to herself, Han's thoughts plain on his face. It was
obvious that should she so much as snicker, it would crush him. 'Idiot.
As if a coward would volunteer for this job. He must have been scared out
of his mind for some of the things we went through, but I never would
have known he was more than just a little nervous about screwing up.'
Nami thought in unalloyed admiration. "Well, we can't have -that-," she
held out her hand in invitation. "Come on. I'll be right here."

Han looked up from his study of the seat back in front of him, and
into the gently smiling girl swaying automatically against the motion of
the tram. For a long moment he stared into a pair of chocolate brown
eyes. Finally, he took her hand.

"Ok, but this had better be worth it," he warned her with a
self-mocking smile.

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
unofficial 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." Tessa called, her hand forming
'paper.' She repeated twice more, forming rock the next time and paper
the final one.

"Huh. Well, that's life," 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'd allow herself in front of her charges. "Cute. But not what I
had in mind."

11:30PM Local Time

Sam stared up at the gargantuan form of Eva-03 from the waist level
catwalk in something approaching awe. It was easy to forget while riding
inside one the sheer scale of an Eva, especially since all of the equipment
in Nerv-3 was of matching size. Turning away, he glanced upwards to the
shoulder level bridge leading to the entry plug. Tessa stood in her tan
and white plugsuit talking to the Eva's crew chief, before clambering aboard
the entry plug racked nearby. After taking a final look at the navy blue
mecha, he ambled over to the small elevator at the end of the bridge.

----------

The stars twinkled above Nerv-3, and the glow of Boston's light
pollution was just visible on the horizon. A series of rotating hazard
lights complemented by the mournful wail of a warning siren spoiled the
calm of the night. Seconds later, the massive doors built into the
side of the hill hiding the Nerv facility began to rumble open.

Waiting behind the massive doors was a platform on rails of equal
size, bearing the prone Eva through the gate trailing a thick gray
power cable. Once the assemblage had cleared the gate, a quartet of
hydraulic rams on the platform began to slowly tilt the upper surface
and its cargo perpendicular to the ground.

Tessa scanned her display panel after the thump signaling her
machine was in position. "Confirm platform deployed. Standing by," she
radioed after completing the last few items on the checklist.

"Roger that, Eva-03. You are go for first stage connection."

"Copy. Beginning now." Tessa's right arm reached around to the side
of the 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. Once the center display of the
stock, single seat, plug arrived at the default screen depicting battery
life, a compressed top down view of the surrounding terrain, currently
displaying only the geographic data it had on-board, and power status,
currently blinking 0:00 in red for battery life and that external power
was connected in green. The two flanking displays were still dark,
awaiting her choices in their data. "So far so good," she murmured
"though of course that's what the jumper said as he passed the 10th floor,"
she finished 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," Melissa 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. 'The 3:10 to Yuma is running late,'
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
the large white switch on her control panel with its distinctive red
cover, indicating the Eva's weapons were powered down and unable to fire.
'Nothing in the guns anyway, but we might as well be thorough,' Tessa
quirked a pale imitation of her usual cheerful smile. "Core powering
up in 3..2..1...Second stage complete."

"Copy, Eva-03," A long pause broken only by the low, almost
inaudible hum of the power cable communication line. "We show a green
board here. Initiate final connections."

Tessa very deliberately did not think of a certain previous
post-refit activation, and keyed her microphone to acknowledge the order.
"Confirm go for final connections," she replied. 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. Finally, she
pressed the button flat.

In previous simulator runs, she and the other pilots had experienced
many times the cardinal sensations of synchronizing with an Evangelion.
Transient nausea, disorientation, and a feeling of being somehow
stretched were by now so familiar as to be beneath notice. 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 windowless,
somber room she'd been assigned in the geofront's dormitory 'pending
final quartering arrangements.' One slim hand was tangled in long auburn
hair near the old style interface clip she used to hold it out of her
face.

The other paged through another catalog, purses and handbags this
time, which did its best to distract her from the mix of crushing boredom
and maddening 'jumping out of her skin' itch she'd felt from practically
the moment she'd stepped from Eva-02's entry plug almost a week ago.
Admiral Takaya had been the soul of courtesy as the crippled force limped
the rest of the way to Japan, in spite of her destruction of hundreds of
millions of dollars worth of equipment between dumping half his air group
in the Pacific with her landing, the divots she left in his flight deck,
and the assorted damage she'd done to several of Fearless' escorts. Of
course, saving the -rest- of his fleet in the process of all that hadn't
hurt.

But once she'd 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 she passed them in the
flagship's passageways, never mind she was a civilian and half most of
their ages, and she basked in it like a lizard on a sunny day. But the
feeling was related to the reason she was never without her headband, and
why she'd kept her plugsuit in her closet when it made as much sense to
leave it in the Eva.

She was the Second Child, Pilot of Eva-02.

Everything else, the glow of other's adulation, the adrenaline rush
of launching herself into battle with the foes of humanity, the pride of
being the best there was at a difficult and dangerous job, and a thousand
and one other 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 in part explained why, when Misato knocked on her door,
she all but launched herself at the handle before reining herself in and
proceeding the last meter at an almost bored pace.

"Evening, Misato."

"Heya, Asuka. Ready?"

"Are you kidding? Let me out of here," Asuka snorted as she turned
and locked the door.

"That's the spirit!" Misato chirped. "A nice, friendly..." 'Read:
boozy' Asuka 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 as in a spate of polite chit-chat as the
escalator carried them along, catching up 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 and leaned closer to examine the strips holding the
headlight lens in place, complemented by the strips wrapped around the
driver side mirror and, she saw as Misato unlocked the door, some of the
upholstery.

"It's all the rage in Japan, you see it everywhere," Misato replied
with a sour look.

"Uh huh," Asuka spied the cracks in the door frame not covered
and replied, "What really happened?"

"I -don't- want to talk about it," Misato grumbled as the Alpine
reached the exit ramp. With a wave at the guard in the kiosk, Misato
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 replied with a joyous whoop. "I could never convince Hilde
-this- is how you're supposed to drive!"

Misato laughed over the wind noise 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 found in the back of a cupboard and likely left over
from the last tenant. Of course, springing the idea on him about an
hour ago hadn't helped the situation.

'At least she's paying for all this,' the allowance his contract
granted him was decent, but still. Regardless, he did feel a little
proud of his efforts, even though most of it had consisted of buying
assorted snack foods and beverages and 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, Asuka
Soryu-Langley. 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 usual short black dress.
Her companion was another matter.

The somewhat dated file photo for Asuka Soryu-Langley showed an
auburn haired, mostly Caucasian girl of about twelve, sky blue eyes
focused sternly on the camera, who might have been cute if not for the
intensity of her expression. What greeted him now was a leggy, trim
figured girl his age in a yellow sun dress, hair held back with some sort
of headband that reminded him of nothing so much as a pair of shiny red
horns, with a sardonic smirk at Misato's sideways glare from her previous
comment.

"Ah, here he is," Misato 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 of her
counterpart, from neatly combed hair to sock covered feet, with black
slacks and an unbuttoned dress shirt over green t-shirt in between. All
in all, not much like the case-hardened fighter she'd expected. "Boring,"
she finally decided before she stepped past him into the apartment's
common area.

Shinji turned a somewhat hurt look at Misato, receiving a
sympathetic shrug before following.

----------

"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 behavior. In Germany she'd been better mannered than most
of her classmates at the University, this was definitely new. And
intriguing. 'A little insecure, are we Asuka?' Misato smirked behind
a can of brew she'd retrieved from the kitchen fridge, pretending not to
notice Asuka's none too subtle efforts at ignoring her 'rival,' currently
sitting on the opposite side of the couch nursing a soda of his own.

"Fei and Lin are due soon. Ritsuko, Dr. Akagi, is supposed to
bring Rei if she can pry herself from her desk in time," Misato rolled
her eyes heavenward. "Roberts and Testarossa'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. Looking at the comprehensive selection of
snacks and drinks, the unusual even post-Shinji neatness of the living
room and kitchen, and the new outfit he'd changed into, all without more
than the barest suggestion he 'set things up here' she felt justified in
a little maternal pride.

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 all of the mistakes made in the prototype and
test models. -And- it avoids the 'bells and whistles' approach of the
-other- production models," she bragged to the politely attentive pilot.

"A real pilot's machine, then." Misato supplied, deciding to reenter
the 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'd 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.

And up the soda went. "What! How could he possibly have improved
forty points in that time! That's impossible!" Asuka protested as she
futilely tried to control the fizzing in her sinuses.

"He didn't," Misato replied seriously.

"Then how..."

"He started at forty-one."

----------

Asuka turned to stare incredulously at the quiet boy seated beside
her. 'That's half again my starting score! And he's only been doing
this for two months?! But that must mean...' "Your first mission. It
was also your first time to pilot."

"Yes," Shinji confirmed with a shrug. "I've gotten better."

"That's," Asuka struggled a moment, recalling the footage she'd
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, but given the aggressively competent counterattack he'd
launched right afterwards she'd 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 now."

"I'd say he and Rei have paid their dues, under the circumstances,"
Misato 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.

---------

"For heaven's sake Han. Its a party, not a funeral," Nami
complained not for the first time, eying the small bouquet her boyfriend
carried. "Or a date."

Han maintained a stoic silence and pressed the doorbell. Before
she could make another, admittedly only half serious, complaint the door
slid open to reveal their new lady and mistress.

"Hiya! Oh thank you! I've got a vase perfect for these." Misato
exclaimed on seeing the small bundle of mixed tulips and sprigs of some
small white flower Nami didn't recognize offhand. Taking them from Han,
she turned to lead them inside. Nami stole a glance as they removed their
shoes in the entryway, in hopes of catching any victorious smirk at her
expense. Han, unsurprisingly, was solemn as a judge.

No fool he.

-----------

Shinji caught his first face to face look at his new comrades as
Misato turned away from the door. Nami smiled a greeting once she'd
removed her shoes, and introduced herself and her companion. The boy
was dressed in khaki slacks and a white button down shirt similar to
his, a brown leather belt completing the picture. The girl had,
unusually, though Shinji was unaware of it, chosen a brown knee length
skirt and light blue blouse combo, her ponytail swaying from her turn
to face him.

Shinji responded in kind, not quite sure how to continue the
conversation.

Fortunately, Nami had it covered. "Hey, we're glad to be here.
It's not every day you meet a hero."

"I..."

Nami steamrolled right over Shinji's stammer. "Anyone who even
climbs aboard one of those monsters is already brave, but if doing it
three times to go into combat, with no backup, doesn't qualify you
then I'd like to know what would!" she finished indignantly.

'I forgot to say something. You did a good, brave thing today.'
Shinji shook off the memory of the first real praise he'd gotten in
Tokyo-3 and thought to reply.

Misato beat him to the punch. "Hey, no hogging the guests!" the
lady in question called from the kitchen.

Shinji started, and gave an embarrassed smile. "R-right, come in."

----------

Misato returned to the living room to find the new arrivals seated
together on the second couch and prodding Shinji into a description of
his last mission.

Asuka's eyebrow twitched, a warning sign if Misato had ever seen
one. "Eh, not bad," she allowed.

"But you could've done better," Han supplied the unspoken part of
Asuka's comment.

Asuka shrugged. "Sure. Look at the next time Ayanami went out.
That tin can shouldn't have been able to touch a well-handled Eva, but
look what happened."

Shinji looked mutinous at that remark. "I don't see how you could
have, in an Eva you'd never piloted before, with half its weapons offline,"
he replied quietly.

"I'd start by not standing still in front of God and radar inside
my enemy's effective range!"

"She didn't have much choice," Nami broke in. "We tried it afterwards
in a sim, and neither of us could hit the joint reliably on the move."

"Evas don't seem to be very good gun platforms at a dead run," Han
added dryly.

Misato took advantage of Asuka's annoyed sidelong look at the pair
to head off further discussion. "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, and shrugged.

Shinji nodded in 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 a meter from him, even now beginning the story of her
latest, and first, mission. And of course after that there'd never
seemed to be time.

----------

"So let me make sure I understand." Han asked some time later, in
a neutral voice suspicious to anyone who knew him. "After Ayanami took me
down, you continued to pursue Testarossa."

"Of course," Asuka agreed, frowning at Nami's light touch on his
hand, ceasing only when withdrawing to pick up a drink. "I couldn't afford
to lose contact with her. Besides, she was still engaged, there was
every reason to think you were still in the fight," she continued in
building outrage at the implied criticism.

"Like the total lack of communications?"

"We've had comm failures before!" Asuka snapped at Han.

Misato broke in before he could retort. "That's enough. Everyone
makes mistakes, the trick is not to make the same one twice," she finished
with a significant look at Asuka.

The doorbell chimed in the lull, and Misato's voice carried from
the entryway once she and Shinji had answered.

"Well, well! The prodigal Doctor arrives at last!"

"Some of us actually do something about it when our inbox is
overflowing," a female voice replied in a tone that just had to have an
amused smirk attached. "Hi, Shinji."

"Hello, Doctor Akagi." Shinji continued more shyly, "Hello, Ayanami."
Nami unsuccessfully fought a urchin-like grin at the second greeting, Han
merely raised an eyebrow at her.

"Good evening, Ikari," a soft, flat voice replied, "Major Katsuragi."

"Come in, come in. We have goodies for all." Misato replied
cheerfully over the soft rustle presumably of Shinji taking whatever
outerwear the two women had had.

"And enough beer to float a battleship, I'd imagine." the blonde
replied over one shoulder as she entered the living room, lacking only
her white lab coat from her usual attire of a blue sleeveless zip top and
black skirt. "And speaking of. Welcome to Japan, Asuka."

Asuka replied automatically, locked onto the girl trailing behind
Misato. The bluenette in question was looking around the Major's
apartment in mild curiosity, dressed in what Asuka devoutly hoped to be
a school uniform of some sort, and not a demonstration of utter tone
deafness for anything resembling fashion. Misato handled introductions
again, while Shinji fetched drinks for the new arrivals.

'So, you're the wunderkind they sent instead of me.' 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
wasn't that far behind -06 readiness-wise, and Stuttgart is a -hell-
of a lot closer to Moscow than Tokyo is!'

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.'

Ayanami ignored Asuka's baleful look and took the seat between her
and Ikari, before responding to Han'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 its 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 designed for battle." Ritsuko
answered with a small smile to put her questioner at ease, before 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. 'In more ways than one.' "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 Shinji shiver slightly
at what being an 'excellent heat conductor' had nearly meant for the
girl between them.

"But, that's enough Nerv for a while." Misato announced. "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 old and fond
memories in both blonde and redhead.

"What -I- have in mind is a little game called SongStar," she
continued with an evil cackle, producing a microphone from under the
couch. "Its time to get this party started!"

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Author's Notes

Before the screams of 'Mary Sue!' get too loud, 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. What can I say, truth is stranger than fiction.

Also, many thanks to Himonky for his work in proofreading this
chapter, its a safe bet it wouldn't be nearly as good as it is without
his help.

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 one 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, my other comment is that the theme for Asuka's battle
should really be an instrumental version of "Ride the Lightning" from the
same album, but since that version doesn't seem to exist you get what's
listed below.

Until next time.

Soundtrack
0000- Pat Benatar "Invincible" _Greatest Hits_
0593- Glen Larson & Stu Phillips "Battlestar Galactica theme" _100 Greatest
TV Themes_
0947- Metallica "The Call of Ktulu" _Ride the Lightning_
1276- Sammy Hagar "I Can't Drive 55" _Unboxed_
End- Joe Satriani "Big Bad Moon" _Live in San Francisco_